(1/3) Go Saddle the Sea (9 page)

It was plain that they had not expected to be disturbed by any other person, up on this lonely height, for they gazed at me with astonishment as I on my mule came clip-clopping down the road, and when I reached a point midway between them, they both came down to accost me.

In spite of their brigand-like cloaks, they seemed to be
caballeros;
the younger was handsome, with flashing black eyes and a white ruffle to his shirt. The hair and beard of the elder was somewhat grizzled. Both faces were alert and weather-beaten; they might be soldiers, I thought, or anyway used to living out of doors.

"
Ola,
boy, what are you doing here?" demanded the older man.

I replied civilly that I was traveling toward Oviedo.

"Hmm—he speaks well," remarked the younger man. "Not the country oaf you would think him from
his clothes." His brows flew up as he surveyed me, and I thought that
he
looked like a young king hawk. He added, "Shall we ask him to see fair play?"

"If you wish," replied the other, shrugging. "He can drop the kerchief."

Seeing my puzzled look, they gave me to understand that their reason for repairing to this high, silent spot was because they intended to fight a duel, and dueling was frowned on by the authorities of Oviedo.

"The cause of our dispute need not concern you," the younger man said haughtily.

I said I had no wish to pry into their affairs and, if they wished it, would continue on my way and forget that I had ever seen them.

A glance passed between them at this. I read it as: Can we trust him? But there was more to it than that, as I would soon learn.

"No; you can be of use to us," said the older man. "You shall stand here with this kerchief while we measure out thirty paces."

They began doing so, very seriously. At first, in my alarm, I had wondered if all this could be merely a scheme for shooting
me,
but I soon understood that such was not the case.

"When they had established their positions on the sloping valley floor and marked the spot, each with a white stone, one of them called out, "A moment!" and came striding back to me.

"If by chance I should be killed," he said to me a little breathlessly—it was the elder of the two, the
grizzle-bearded man—"I should be greatly obliged if you could have this note delivered to my stepdaughter who is a novice at the Convent of the Esclavitud in Santander. It relates to some property of her mother's which will come to her at my death."

He handed me a scrap of paper. I was on the point of telling him that I had no intention of going anywhere near Santander—but you can hardly refuse such a request, made at such a moment. And I supposed that I could find means to have the note dispatched without visiting the place myself.

It fills me with wonder, now, looking back, to think how much depended on this slight-seeming occurrence. My whole future life, indeed.

I pocketed the paper and the grizzle-bearded man, having thanked me, returned to his position. I glanced toward the younger man—in case he had a like request to make; but with a haughty lift of the head he intimated that he had no wish to delay further. So I bade them see to their priming and then asked if they were ready. Upon their answering yes, I dropped the kerchief, and both pistols went off together with a sharp echoing crack.

My eyes flew from one to the other. For a brief moment I hoped that neither had been hit, for they stood still and upright—but then the younger one turned slightly, as if he heard a noise behind him; his knees began to bend; then he slid to the ground, where he lay motionless.

It was not grief I felt, exactly, for his youth and
handsomeness, but a kind of awe at this terribly sudden change, which had taken him away forever.

"
Vaya!
" said the older man, having walked over to examine him. "He is dead; we can do nothing more for him. You may go on your way."

"And leave him
there?
I looked to where his black-clad body lay among the flowers.

"Oh, the hawks will soon pick him clean," the other man answered calmly. "Two days, and he will be white bones. We saw enough of
that
when Soult was chasing Moore over the mountains."

Observing that I was troubled, however, he added, "Don't concern your mind over it, boy. He knew what he was about when we began. If
I
had lost, I would not have complained."

"I suppose not, señor; but then, you would have been dead!"

At that he grinned, and, taking a flask of
aguardiente
from his horse's saddlebag, offered it to me. On my declining, he drank from it himself and returned it to its place. It seemed to me that he was in a strange state of mind—elated, hopeful, amazed, excited.

I said, "Señor, since you have survived the duel, you will not now wish this note delivered. I will give it you back."

But to that, after thinking, he replied, "No, for the dangers ahead of me are as great as any that I have come through. The
gente de reputación
will be on my trail like bloodhounds. I will add a line, saying that if
she hears no more of me after two months, she is to assume that I am dead."

This he did and then, looking up, seeing, I daresay, my look of curiosity, he smiled and said, "You wonder what this is all about, I daresay?"

"It is none of my business, señor."

But of course I did wonder. Who could help it? And he, made talkative by his victory perhaps, or the drink, lit a
cigarrillo
and explained, "There were ten of us, you see, who knew the whereabouts of the treasure."

"
Treasure?
"

"One of the ten was
there,
that snowy night, and barely escaped with his life. But then, later, he became drunk—drink is a terrible hazard, boy—and he let out the secret to the other nine men who were with him in the wineshop. Fool, sot, idiot that he was!"

Despite the matter-of-fact way in which he brought this out, I found something very frightening about it; perhaps the source of my fear lay in his strange composure. I said faintly, "Are you sure you should be telling me about this, señor?"

"Oh, it is all long ago now. Have you not heard that when Baird and Fraser were retreating with the English forces from Villafranca to La Corufia, with General Soult hard on their heels, they were obliged to toss twenty-five thousand pounds' worth of gold dollars down a mountainside, because their baggage oxen had all died and they had no means of dragging it with them?"

Dumb, I shook my head. Vaguely I remembered hearing from Bob how, when General Moore had to run from the French across half northern Spain, his army suffered from terrible losses of men and matériel—but all this was a long time ago, 1809, the year I was born; surely whatever lay on that snowy mountainside had long since been discovered and taken away?

"Not so," said the bearded man. "Somebody who was
there
—he saw it stowed in a safe place. Aha! He kept his wits, while everybody else was running and screaming and shouting that the French were half a mile away. He thought he might be able to get back one day. But then the fool had to get drunk and blab it all out to nine others. So what then? He makes a plan. Twenty-five thousand is fine pickings for
one,
but what use among ten? A bare two thousand apiece. So, 'Let us ten split into five pairs,' says he, 'each pair fight, the winners fight one another, until there's but one left. And
he
scoops the pool.' This was agreed—we fought—something told me that I should survive—and I was right.
I'm
the one that's left!"

"
Ay de mi!
" I murmured faintly. There seemed something so terrifyingly cold-blooded about this scheme—whereby nine men should die in order for
one
to succeed—that I could hardly believe it. But yet the duel I had just witnessed did convince me. This bright-eyed, brisk-spoken man in front of me, smoking his
cigarrillo
-in quick puffs, must indeed be the winner of the murderous contest.

What would he do with his twenty-five thousand pounds' worth of gold dollars? I wondered. Supposing the gold was still there. Supposing he found it.

Then a thing occurred to me.

"Señor, you seem to know much about Baird and Fraser's forces—"

"Yes, boy?" he said, dragging on his
cigarrillo
so hard that it made him cough.

"Perhaps you were with them yourself?" At his nod, I asked, "Did you ever come across a Captain Brooke?"

"No, I do not remember the name," he said, to my great disappointment. "But why do you ask?"

"He was my father."

"Hey?" he said, coughing again. "So you are English?" He spoke in that tongue and I also replied in it.

"Yes, sir. But my mother was Spanish."

"Ah, I see. Plenty of that kind about. Well, well! So you're half a Johnny Anglais. When I first laid eyes on you I wondered where you got that yellow hair!"

He puffed again, coughed again, and said abruptly, "You look like a decent lad. I've taken a fancy to you." And he added, in a mutter, half to himself, "As well leave you the cash as poor little Anunciata, mewed up in her convent. Would you care to bear me company through the mountains? Help me dig out the treasure?"

At his words I was seized by a queer excitement—half avarice, half dread. Who was this strange man? I asked myself. And if I went with him—if we should
chance to find the treasure—in whose existence I did not really believe—what would he do to me
then?
Would he make me fight him for it?

I did not know what to make of him.

I said carefully, still in English, "No, I thank you, señor. It is kind of you to make the offer to me—but I go to the sea, and then to England, to seek my father's family. I go northeast, not southwest."

He answered, rather slowly and heavily, "Going to England, are you? Lucky, lucky young devil!"

He seemed to speak with such a strange bitterness that I inquired, curiosity overcoming my fear of him, "You too are English, señor? But you do not go back there?"

"Can't, curse it," he said. "I was in Baird's division, you see; slipped my leash on the way from Astorga; rompé'd off before Johnny Crapaud caught up—and there was one or two unpaid accounts back at home, where I was a nighthawk by trade—if ever I was to show my face in England, they'd hang me up from Tyburn Tree. Otherwise, Lord love ye, I'd ha' been home long agone. As it is—well, it's been a long haul, but now I'm on my way. With twenty-five thousand gold 'uns in my knapsack, I should be able to find a snug little crib somewhere in Spain."

"Why did it take you so long"—I could not help wondering—"to go after the treasure?"

He coughed, and winked. "Ah, well, d'ye see, boy, the
gente de reputación
were interested—where there's
gold, the vultures gather. We had to lay a long, slow trail.—You're
sure
you won't join me?"

I shook my head and he said, sighing, "Well, I won't say I don't wish I was going your way. Whereabouts are you bound for?"

"That I do not really know, señor. All I know is that my fathers name was Captain Felix Brooke—as mine is, too. I shall just have to ask my way."

He looked doubtful at this, but seeing that I was resolved, said, "Eh, well—good luck in your search—if you won't come with me."

"And good luck to you, too, señor," I said politely.

He winked, coughed, and went for his horse; threw a leg over it, then turned to say, "You might as well take poor Manolos nag; I've no use for it in the mountains where I'm going. You can sell it for a good sum in Oviedo; its from Andalusia, there's no better breed in Spain."

Indeed it was a beautiful horse: dark brown, with a small intelligent head, fiery eyes, a broad chest, straight legs, and fine shoulders.

"Very well," I said—there was no sense in leaving the poor beast in these mountain uplands, where it might die of cold and hunger, or, more likely, be pursued and brought down by wolves.

He sat on his steed watching as I caught the horse and then mounted my own mule. Waving his hand, he was about to depart, when I bethought me of something, and called to him, "Señor?"

"Well?"

"Have you heard of a thing—I do not know if it is a house or a ship or a place in England—its name is the Rose and Ring-Dove?"

"Why, yes," he said at once. "I've heard of it—who hasn't? It's a tavern—a famous inn. I never was there myself, but I've heard of it. It's as famous as the Mitre at Oxford or the Boar's Head in Eastcheap."

"Where is it, senor?"

"Why, at Bath—is that where your folk live? Ah, you don't know. Well, Bath is a fine town. I hope you find them."

"And I hope you find your treasure, señor."

But I felt sure in my heart that he would not. He would perish in those savage mountains, between here and Los Nogales. I felt certain of it.

But he, riding up the valley without looking back, again waved a carefree hand; while I, leading the Andalusian horse, turned my mule's head north toward Oviedo. Once or twice I glanced back, at the tiny black spot, which was the dead man, lying in that great curved field of lavender flowers; and I said a silent prayer for him. But I gave up looking back, for great birds had begun to hover over the spot where he lay.

I wondered about him as I rode on: whether he, too, had a daughter in a convent somewhere, or a
novia
—for he seemed quite young—who would go on hoping for his return and wondering why he did not come. Then I reflected that I had by some means
to dispatch the other man's letter to the Convent of the Esclavitud at Santander, which I knew lay well to the east of where I was going. Well—I thought—I would take the letter as far as I was going, and then find means to send it on from there.

After several hours, always descending, the road came within sight of Oviedo, which is a very ancient town. It is situated between two mountains, one of them high, rugged, and covered with snow. The other is of a gender shape, and its sides are all planted with vines. The tall tower of the cathedral may be seen from miles away.

I entered through a crumbling gateway in the high town wall; as rain was falling in torrents, and it was now dusk, I did not loiter to admire the streets, but asked the way to an inexpensive
posada,
and was directed to a very old-looking building where I found accommodation for myself and the two beasts.