Thus they travelled on through the luminous night. The roads were neither worse nor better than they are to-day in Spain--than they were in England in the Middle Ages--and their way lay over the hill ranges that lie between the watersheds of the Tagus and the Guadiana. At times they pa.s.sed through well-tended valleys, where corn and olives and vines seemed to grow on the same soil, but for the greater part of the night they ascended and descended the upper slopes, where herds of goats, half awakened as they slept in a ring about their guardian, looked at them with startled eyes. The shepherds and goatherds, who, like those of old, lay cloaked upon the ground, and tended their flocks by night, did not trouble to raise their heads.

Concha alone slept, for the General had a thousand thoughts that kept him awake and bright-eyed, while Estella knew from her father's manner and restlessness that these were no small events that now stirred Spain, and seemed to close men's mouths, so that near friends distrusted one another, and brother was divided against brother. Indeed, others were on the road that night, and hors.e.m.e.n pa.s.sed the heavy carriage from time to time.

In the early morning a change of horses was effected at a large inn near the summit of a pa.s.s above Malagon, and here an orderly, who seemed to recognise the General, was climbing into the saddle as the Vincentes quitted their carriage and pa.s.sed into the common room of the venta for a hasty cup of coffee.

'It is the Queen's courier,' said the innkeeper grandly, 'who takes the road before her Majesty in order to secure horses.'

'Ah,' said the General, breaking his bread and dropping it into his cup. 'Is that so? The Queen Regent, you mean?'

'Queen or Queen Regent, she requires four horses this evening, Excellency--that is all my concern.'

'True, my friend; true. That is well said. And the horses will be forthcoming, no doubt.'

'They will be forthcoming,' said the man. 'And the Excellency's carriage is ready.'

In the early morning light they drove on, now descending towards the great valley of the Guadiana, and at midday, as Vincente had foreseen, gained a sight of the ancient city of Ciudad Real lying amid trees below them. Ciudad Real is less interesting than its name, and there is little that is royal about its dirty streets and ill-kept houses. No one gave great heed to the travelling-carriage, for this is a great centre where travellers journeying east or west, north or south, must needs pause for a change of horses. At the inn there were vacant rooms, and that hasty welcome accorded to the traveller at wayside houses where none stay longer than they can help.

'No,' said the landlord, in answer to the General's query. 'We are not busy, though we expect a lady who will pa.s.s the hour of the siesta here and then proceed northward.'

CHAPTER XXVI. WOMANCRAFT.

'Il est rare que la tete des rois soit faite a la mesure de leur couronne.'

In the best room of the inn where Vincente and his tired companions sought a few hours' rest there sat alone, and in thought, a woman of middle age. Somewhat stout, she yet had that air which arouses the attention without being worthy of the name of beauty. This lady had doubtless swayed men's hearts by a word or a glance, for she still carried herself with a.s.surance, and a hundred little details of her dress would have told another woman that she still desired to please. She wore a white mantilla.

The hour of the siesta was over, and after the great heat of the day a cool air was swinging down on the bosom of the river to the parched lowlands. It stirred the leaves of a climbing heliotrope which encircled the open windows, and wafted into the ill-furnished room a scent of stable-yard and dust.

The lady, sitting with her chin resting in the palm of her small white hand, seemed to have lately roused herself from sleep, and now had the expectant air of one who awaits a carriage and is about to set out on a long journey. Her eyes were dark and tired-looking, and their expression was not that of a good woman. A sensual man is usually weak, but women are different; and this face, with its faded complexion and tired eyes, this woman of the majestic presence and beautiful hands, was both strong and sensual. This, in a word, was a Queen who never forgot that she was a woman. As it was said of the Princess Christina, so it has been spoken of the Queen, that many had killed themselves for hopeless love of her. For this was the most dangerous of the world's creatures--a royal coquette. Such would our own Queen Bess have been had not G.o.d, for the good of England, given her a plain face and an ungainly form. For surely the devil is in it when a woman can command both love and men.

Queen Christina, since the death of a husband who was years older than herself (and, as some say, before that historic event), had played a woman's game with that skill which men only half recognise, and had played it with the additional incentive that behind her insatiable vanity lay the heavier stake of a crown.

She was not the first to turn the strong current of man's pa.s.sion to her own deliberate gain--nay, ninety-nine out of a hundred women do it. But the majority only play for a suburban villa and a few hundred pounds a year; Queen Christina of Spain handled her cards for a throne and the continuance of an ill-starred dynasty.

As she sat in the hotel chamber in Ciudad Real--that forlornest of royal cities--her face wore the pettish look of one who, having pa.s.sed through great events, having tasted of great pa.s.sions and moved amid the machinery of life and death, finds the ordinary routine of existence intolerably irksome. Many faces wear such a look in this country; every second beautiful face in London has it.

And these women--heaven help them--find the morning hours dull, because every afternoon has not its great event and every evening the excitement of a social function.

The Queen was travelling incognita, and that fact alone robbed her progress of a sense of excitement. She had to do without the shout of the mult.i.tude--the pa.s.sing admiration of the man in the street.

She knew that she was yet many hours removed from Madrid, where she had admirers, and the next best possession--enemies. Ciudad Real was intolerably dull and provincial. A servant knocked at the door.

'General Vincente, your Majesty, craves the favour of a moment.'

'Ah!' exclaimed the Queen, the light returning to her eyes, a faint colour flushing her cheek. 'In five minutes I will receive him.'

And there is no need to say how the Queen spent those minutes.

'Your Majesty,' said the General, bending over her hand, which he touched with his lips, 'I have news of the greatest importance.'

The suggestion of a scornful smile flickered for a moment in the royal eyes. It was surely news enough for any man that she was a woman--beautiful still--possessing still that intangible and fatal gift of pleasing. The woman slowly faded from her eyes as they rested on the great soldier's face, and the Queen it was who, with a gracious gesture, bade him be seated. But the General remained standing. He alone perhaps of all the men who had to deal with her- -of all those military puppets with whom she played her royal game-- had never crossed that vague boundary which many had overstepped to their own inevitable undoing.

'It concerns your Majesty's life,' said Vincente bluntly, and calm in the certainty of his own theory that good blood, whether it flow in the veins of man or woman, a.s.suredly carries a high courage.

'Ah!' said the Queen Regent, whose humour still inclined towards those affairs which interested her before the affairs of State.

'But with men such as you about me, my dear General, what need I fear?'

'Treachery, Madame,' he answered, with his sudden smile and a bow.

'Treachery.'

She frowned. When a Queen stoops to dalliance a subject must not be too practical.

'Ah! What is it that concerns my life? Another plot?' she inquired shortly.

'Another plot, but one of greater importance than those that exist in the republican cafes of every town in your Majesty's kingdom.

This is a widespread conspiracy, and I fear that many powerful persons are concerned in it; but that, your Majesty, is not my department nor concern.'

'What is your concern, General?' she asked, looking at him over her fan.

'To save your Majesty's life to-night.'

'To-night!' she echoed, her coquetry gone.

'To-night.'

'But how and where?'

'a.s.sa.s.sination, Madame, in Toledo. You are three hours late in your journey. But all Toledo will be astir awaiting you, though it be till dawn.'

The Queen Regent closed her fan slowly. She was, as the rapid events of her reign and regency have proved, one of those women who rise to the occasion.

'Then one must act at once,' she said.

The General bowed.

'What have you done?' she asked.

'I have sent to Madrid for a regiment that I know; they are as my own children. I have killed so many of them that the remainder love me. I have travelled from Toledo to meet your Majesty on the road, or here.'

'And what means have you of preventing this thing?'

'I have brought the means with me, Madame.'

'Troops?' asked the Queen doubtfully, knowing where the canker-worm lay hidden.

'A woman and a priest, Madame.'

'And--'