The Tagus, grandest river in Spain, and golden as old father Tiber himself, plunged through his narrow gorge a hundred feet below the arch of stone, and on either hand stood up the sun-baked cliffs, Toledo seated on their summit, crowned with towers, like an empress upon her throne. Far beneath, in the swirl of yellow water were Moorish mills, white with age, grinding corn for their new masters.
As we passed across the bridge at a foot-pace between strings of tasselled and jingling mules, little grey donkeys loaded with pigskins of wine, brown jugs of olive oil, or bags of meal, and charming children who offered us roses for a _perrilla_, we had our last sight of the cathedral spires. The voice of a young girl, washing white and blue clothing in a trough of running water, sped us upon our journey. Her head was bound in a scarlet handkerchief; and smiling at us while she pounded the linen, she sang a strange song, half chant, with that wild Eastern lilt which has been handed down from the Moors to the sons and daughters of Spain.
“She’s improvising a _copla!_” exclaimed Pilar. “Listen; it’s for you, brother Cristóbal.”
So I listened, and heard that my eyes though dark as starless skies, could blaze as the sun with love, and that the blessing of a poor girl who had none to care for her, was upon the rich girl who held the treasure of my heart.
“You must blow her a kiss to pay for the song,” Pilar said. “Don’t you know that? But then, you haven’t been in Spain long—except in your thoughts. That’s expected; just as a girl must politely kiss her hand to a bull-fighter if he kisses his to her; for if she doesn’t, she puts the evil-eye upon him; and like as not he’s gored the next time he goes into the arena. Oh, I love the _coplas_! And wasn’t that woman singing in good Spanish? Even the common people speak well here, for Valladolid and Toledo Spanish is the best in Spain.”
I looked back and kissed my hand to the girl, who would have been insulted had I thrown money; and lifting my eyes once more to the towering city, I saw a mediæval background such as old masters love to give their pictures.
The landscape was wild, and unchanged to all appearance from the days when the Crescent and the Cross battled for supremacy on those stony hills and in those savage gorges. Once again, I felt myself a crude anachronism, in my automobile, nor did the impression leave me when Toledo was hidden round a corner; nor when we flashed past ancient Eastern _norias_, slowly turned by sleepy horses or indignant donkeys; nor with glimpses of sentinel watch-towers, or ruined castles—such “castles in Spain” as Don Pedro promised to the Black Prince’s soldiers—and seldom gave if they were worth giving.
Now, our business was to hark back to the king’s highway between Madrid and Seville—that road on which Dick thriftily planned his quick service of automobiles for passengers and market gardeners; but to-day there was none of that excitement of the chase to which we were accustomed. I was depressed despite the good omen of the goats, and an encounter with a mule who had four white feet—a sign of some extraordinary piece of luck, according to Pilar’s Dream-Book. The gently undulating, olive-silvered country, with its occasional far-off hamlets and fine church spires did not interest me, and I was not as thankful as I should have been for the good road.
At last we had left the zone of brown cities and sombre hued villages, and come into the zone of dazzling white habitations, which meant that we were nearing the southern land, loved by the sun. The huge, semi-fortified, high-walled farmhouses standing in lonely spaces were white as great shells floating solitary on seas of waving green. The close-grouped knots of cottages huddled together for mutual protection might have been cut from blocks of marble; and their tenants were vivid creatures, burning like tropical flowers against the dazzling white of their rough walls.
Never for ten minutes was the landscape the same. From olive plantations we rushed into a bleak country of savage hills, where windmills planted upon rocks beckoned with slowly moving arms; so down into flowery valleys with a thread of silver river tangled in the grasses near a long white road. And always the horizon was broken with tumbled mountains, purple, gold, and rose, swimming in a sea of light and changing colour.
“Soon we’ll be in Cervantes’ country,” said the Cherub; “and good country it is—for sport. I come myself sometimes with friends, after wild boar; and there are plenty of rabbits to be had when there’s nothing better.”
“Don’t speak of rabbits,” said Dick. “It makes me hungry to think of them; and as nobody has said anything about lunching, and we’re having such a good run, I haven’t liked to mention it. Still, there’s that Andaluz ham and goodness knows how many other things wasting their sweetness—”
The Cherub shook his head. “We mustn’t stop here. It will be better to wait till we come to another road-mender’s house. We’re sure to pass one before long. Then we’ll pull up, and the women will bring us water, or anything we want.”
“I believe what you’re really thinking of, is brigands!” exclaimed Pilar.
“Well,” smiled the Cherub, “maybe something of the sort was in my mind; though you need have no fear, my Pilarcita.”
“As if I would—a soldier’s daughter!” sneered Pilarcita. “I wish we would meet the Seven Men of Ecija, or El Vivillo himself—if they haven’t caught him yet. It would be fun.”
“No fun with you among us, child,” the Cherub said. “The chivalrous bandoleros of the past exist in these days only in story books and ballads. Vivillo is a villainous brute, and a little farther south we’ll find no one on the road who’ll care to speak his name. They’ll call him Señor Coso. As for the Seven Men of Ecija, one says that they’re disbanded long ago, yet there’s a rumour that they still exist; and by the way, Don Ramón, for generations that famous band of seven brigands has had a connection—at least in old wives’ gossip—with the Dukes of Carmona.”
“How’s that?” I inquired, interested; for though I had heard many things about that house, I had not heard the story at which Colonel O’Donnel hinted.
“I wonder you don’t know!” said he. “Why, the tale runs that, more than a hundred years ago, the baby heir of the Carmonas was ailing. If they lost him, the title would go to another branch of the family; but the Duchess had died within a few days of his birth, and no foster-mother could be found to give the child health. Then the Duke caused it to be known far and near that, if any woman could save his boy, she should have a pension for life, enough to keep her in comfort with all her family; and that her daughter and her daughter’s daughter should, if she chose to make the contract, be foster-mothers of future Dukes of Carmona. In answer to this proclamation came a woman of Ecija, the town of the brigands; a Juno of a creature. She nursed the ailing heir back to health, and when the child had become devoted to her, the secret leaked out that she was the married sister of the terrible priest who led the brigand band. But she was not sent away for that reason. Instead, the Duke used his influence successfully to obtain a pardon for her husband, the priest’s brother-in-law, when he was taken red-handed for robbery and murder between Carmona and Seville; and in gratitude for this the man promised that his sons and sons’ sons should be always at the disposal of the ducal house. For the rest, the story goes that more than once in the last century this promise has been exacted and fulfilled in secret.”
“I wouldn’t put it past the present Carmona to have a nest of bandits up his sleeve,” said Dick. “It’s a pretty black sleeve, if some of the things one hears are true. But here’s a road-mender’s cottage. What about halting, and cocking snooks at El Vivillo?”
“It will do very well,” replied the Cherub. “If worst came to worst, we could make a good defence from inside.”
“Honestly, aren’t you pulling our legs about the brigands?” asked Dick, half-scornful and half-amused, as we slowed down.
“No,” said the Cherub. “I’m not joking, if that’s what you mean; for we are on the borders of the _bandido_ country now. It will be years before brigandage is stamped out in Spain; and you must have read of the trouble there’s been lately. Not that I think there’s much chance of an encounter, but it’s well to be prepared; for if a band of men jump at you with carbines to their shoulders, there’s no getting out revolvers.”
“H’m!” muttered Dick. “I suppose you know what you’re talking about; but I wouldn’t mind betting that these people would laugh if we asked, ’What about brigands?’”
“All right; let us ask,” said the Cherub calmly.
By this time the car had stopped close to a tiny white box of a house set a few yards back from the road, with a strip of grass for a lawn; and an old man, evidently an ex-soldier, with a plump wife and a pretty daughter were coming out. We interchanged various compliments; said that, with the kind permission of his honour, the road-mender, we would lunch near his house; were told that the house and everyone as well as everything in it, was at our worship’s disposal; and finally the Cherub murmured a question as to whether any _bandidos_ had been seen lately.