<SPAN name="XIII">
</SPAN>
<p class="chapter">
XIII</p>
<p class="head">
"GENTLEMEN, A MAN!"</p>
<p>Dolores had hurried upstairs, where she well knew there was a tiny attic in the rambling old building which acted as an excellent whispering gallery. Every word spoken in the larger room below could be heard from this vantage. She was no sooner secreted there than she heard the voice of the Duke.</p>
<p>"You received my telegram sent to San Fernandez?"</p>
<p>"Yes, Excellency. Antonio brought it over with the mail-bags."</p>
<p>"What about the Prince?"</p>
<p>"Ah, Excellency ... why ask? The same news as before. This stupid Vardos has been taking food to the castle every day, but he is too frightened to venture into the miserable old pile of stones. It is most droll, your Excellency."</p>
<p>"Well then, Robledo, I am satisfied as far as that goes. But you have work before you of a new character."</p>
<p>The swordsman struck a chair with his riding-crop. It seemed a favorite stage effect with him; the Duke was not slow in catching its significance.</p>
<p>"Just forget these little affectations, my good man," he said haughtily. "None of this blustering around me. I know that you do your work well, and at other times there is much to be desired. Now, in this case, you have a dangerous man to combat. And the combat must be final, no matter how difficult."</p>
<p>"How is he dangerous?" and there was a new note in Robledo's blustering voice.</p>
<p>"Unless he is stopped he may cause trouble for the traditions of Seguro. He is crafty as a
<i>
contrabandisto</i>, cunning as the snakes of the Pyrenees! He has been brought here by my cousin the Princess to make some special investigations." He laughed, with that cruel, mirthless inflection so characteristic. "She should have left that to me—and she will be sorry ere it is all over. This man has thwarted me twice already. Coming over on the steamer from America the scoundrel disappeared from the ship most remarkably, just when I had all arranged to put him into duress in Liverpool. I have yet to learn the secret of it. He must be discouraged ... you understand, Robledo?"</p>
<p>"Excellency, I can assure you that the Yankee pig will be convinced, in a language which he will understand, that his presence in the castle to-night is quite unnecessary. Have you any particular instructions?"</p>
<p>The Duke shook his head and grimaced suggestively.</p>
<p>"Any way you please, Robledo. You understand my general ideas on such subjects. Means are of no consequence to a born statesman. Results are the only permanent things in this world. However—I warn you. Don't underestimate your man. He will shoot; I imagine that he can shoot quickly and without a tremor."</p>
<p>"Ha, ha! Good opposition. I welcome such an antagonist—these fat-brained peasants about here are too simple to stimulate me to good work. I have been growing dull and commonplace—I am almost out of training, as they call it in the bull-ring."</p>
<p>"Come then, and I will give Pedro some money to buy drinks for the stupid dolts,—they can drink my health: it is none of the best these days, Robledo. My American trip was wearing. It is a wretched, unromantic hole—not a country, just a great mob of people."</p>
<p>"I can well believe your Excellency. This way, sir."</p>
<p>They returned to the big room of the tavern, and Dolores retired from the temporary confessional box. Her face showed mixed emotions—but predominating over any other influence was the great desire to serve the rulers of her family. Curiously loyal are these humble peasants of the inland Latin districts. Their lives follow the monotonous example of the generations before them: as their grandsires, their fathers were tradesmen of a certain calling, so do they follow the strata, contented to exist with the conventional beginning, moderately happy middle era, and inevitably stupid ending of their lives.</p>
<p>It is this which is so pleasing to the European aristocrats: no matter how bankrupt, incompetent, disreputable, the class theory which is recognized by the masses is, "Once a gentleman, always a gentleman."</p>
<p>It is inconceivable upon the Continent for a peasant's or even a tradesman's son or daughter to aspire to a higher level than that of the family. Exceptions to the rule are looked upon with distrust by superiors as well as the lowly equals: too much ambition is a temptation to the gods which is hardly respectable.</p>
<p>There is a smug contentment, then, in the feudal countries which is the surest bulwark of the "divine right of kings"—and courtiers! A pleasantly distended belly, a mellow thrill from cheap wine, a certainty about the repetition of regular meals and drinks, with enough clothes and shelter to maintain relative positions with the neighbors—this year, next year, and twenty years from now ... these things are the mess of pottage for which the Esaus of the kingdoms and principalities sell their birthrights and their souls!</p>
<p>Vardos—for instance—bodyservant and sole military retainer of a princely line which for generation after generation had considered itself in humiliating straits unless there were at least a thousand lances at beck and call—old Vardos had been thrown into a mental maelstrom by the sudden change in the lifelong existence. Sure of his meals and a modicum of money for occasional visits to taprooms, he was now placed in a position of responsibility, one where executive and aggressiveness were demanded. Here old Vardos failed, because he was a peasant true to his type. The poor fellow had struggled with his grief these fifteen days—now he felt, with a helpless aching of the faithful heart, that he must have been in a sense responsible for the death of his master. He had pleaded with the young Prince not to enter the accursed place.</p>
<p>Insanity and suicide though it seemed to be to him, he could not help it. That was bad enough—but with the prospect of the beautiful Princess going into the place as well: life had become a horrible thing to him.</p>
<p>He sought the wayside shrine down the crooked village street. He threw himself upon his knees before it, vowing candles to every saint who had granted petty favors to him in the past!</p>
<p>He faced the great cathedral, rearing its pale crest in the dim light from the stars, vast and exalted above the miserable squalor of those whose ancestors had created its grandeur with their inspired devotion. He told the Holy Family and the saints, with tear-choked voice, the quandary of his noble master, and begged that, though they should never grant him another request, somehow, somewhere, they find and bring a gallant adventurer who could turn defeat into victory, one more willing and competent than himself, to die!</p>
<p>And the answer to this prayer was unburdening his own soul with semi-religious phrases, in a Kentucky accent, addressed with unwonted and even picturesque fluency at the stumbling, stodgy Rusty Snow, who trudged along loaded with luggage and an insatiate hatred of this "cussed foreign joint," as he labeled it to himself.</p>
<p>The Princess and her maid had, at Jarvis' suggestion, left them with the automobile in its latest quagmire, to reach the shelter of the inn. So it was that, as her vassal and his vassal struggled with the luggage in the dark, she reached the portal of the house of Pedro.</p>
<p>Robledo was hearkening carefully to certain careful instructions from the Duke of Alva, nodding with a smile of malicious portent at the final words.</p>
<p>"I will not fall short of my former reputation, your Excellency," declared the Don. "When a man reaches my time of life, after a success in the bull-ring as toreador, in the army as a duelist, and in the private retinue of so distinguished a nobleman as yourself, he has a certain pride in his ability.... Indeed, I regret that I must waste my talents upon a stupid pig of a Yankee."</p>
<p>Shaking his head, Carlos drew out his purse.</p>
<p>"The man is no idiot, unfortunately. He has completely won the confidence of the Princess, despite his obvious trickeries. Now, however, I would like to attend to a few little tasks of cleaning up after that miserable trip."</p>
<p>Pedro was approaching them subserviently, a humble, bobbing head betokening his anxiety to please the fine folk.</p>
<p>"Anything else, your Excellency?" he stammered, overcome with the pomp and majesty of the situation.</p>
<p>"Here, my good man, take this coin and have the brave lads in the taproom drink to my health and that of her Exalted Highness, the Princess Maria Theresa."</p>
<p>With studied carelessness, he dropped the coin upon the floor, and Pedro chased the rolling golden disk with surprising agility.</p>
<p>"Then bring me up some hot water, soap, and towels. You may prepare a hasty supper, as well—but let it be fit for a gentleman to eat!"</p>
<p>"Yes, yes! Your Excellency!" and Pedro nearly brought back his rheumatic spell by the renewed bobbing of the stiff old back, as he retreated to the barroom.</p>
<p>He returned promptly after breaking the gladsome tidings of the treat, and led the nobleman up the stairway, as a chorus of cheers rang out from the alcoholic ward.</p>
<p>"The Duke! The Duke! His Excellency the Duke of Alva!"</p>
<p>Robledo walked to the door, with his characteristic swashbuckler rhythm, and stirred them up to more enthusiasm.</p>
<p>"Louder, you beggars, or I'll give you something to yell about—louder, I say!"</p>
<p>Dolores had slipped through the doorway, facing the road.</p>
<p>Suddenly she danced in through the entry again, happy and exultant.</p>
<p>"Her Highness has come, father. Her Highness!"</p>
<p>Old Pedro stumbled toward the balcony and peered over at her querulously.</p>
<p>"Father, father!"</p>
<p>"What is it, Dolores?"</p>
<p>"Her Highness, the Princess!"</p>
<p>The old man bustled down the stairs, trembling with added excitement, just as Maria Theresa and Nita were bowed into the tavern by a villager who had accompanied them from the delayed machine.</p>
<p>The peasants trooped into the room from the tap, howling with mediæval enthusiasm.</p>
<p>"Your Gracious Highness does my humble inn great honor," began Pedro, as his local guests imitated the clumsy courtesy with varying ability.</p>
<p>"Thank you, Pedro," replied the Princess graciously as one would address a polite child.</p>
<p>She held out her hand to Dolores, who kissed it reverently, with a bow and a bend of the knee.</p>
<p>"Your Highness, we are poorly prepared for this great favor, ill prepared indeed," apologized Dolores. "Your exalted cousin gave us but short warning of your coming. Our humble tavern is hardly fitting for a great lady."</p>
<p>"My child, any place to remove the dust of travel will do for me." She turned toward the villager at the door. "Tell my chauffeur that when he repairs the car I shall want it kept in readiness to use again."</p>
<p>Nita advanced anxiously.</p>
<p>"Your Highness is not thinking of going to the castle to-night, surely?" Her voice was politely remonstrative, with a note of apprehensiveness for the welfare of her mistress.</p>
<p>"But I must have news," declared the young woman impatiently. "I am frantic with worry, and the things which José has told me. Come to a room, Nita."</p>
<p>"Ah, your Highness, you are too brave, too determined. You are all worn out with this long trip. Better to wait until daylight, if I may be so bold as to suggest to your ladyship. You are all unstrung just now."</p>
<p>Maria Theresa did indeed show the strain of the nerve-racking trip, but she valiantly shook her head.</p>
<p>"Show me up, Dolores. When Mr. Warren, my representative, arrives inform him that I will be down very soon. Come, Nita, for I know that your hands can rest me, with their skillful massage," and she spoke wearily.</p>
<p>Pedro stepped forward, bowing.</p>
<p>"Allow me the honor, your Highness. I have the finest chamber in the tavern prepared for you—a fire to take the night chill from the largest bedroom."</p>
<p>She started up the steps, followed by her maid and the old man, still risking a strained back with his excited bows.</p>
<p>Again she turned to Dolores, with a strange nervousness, to say: "Do not forget to explain to Mr. Warren. He may think I have left the tavern. I will see him soon."</p>
<p>"I will give your commands to the Señor Americano, your Highness," promised the black-eyed Dolores, with a heightened color.</p>
<p>Then the Princess disappeared across the end of the balcony. Dolores walked to the doorway, and discerned two figures approaching with a strange slowness.</p>
<p>"Is this the inn?" cried a voice, with a slight foreign accent in the Spanish.</p>
<p>"Yes, yes, señor. Come in, señor, we are expecting you," replied the girl.</p>
<p>The villagers were still grouped about the door to the taproom. Dolores stepped back, as Warren Jarvis and Rusty Snow entered the big front hallway, and blinked in the unaccustomed glare of light.</p>
<p>They were both burdened with suitcases, and two of the Princess' hatboxes. These they dropped unceremoniously on the floor, with sighs of relief.</p>
<p>"We're here, Rusty, with both feet!"</p>
<p>"Yassir," and the negro groaned with exhaustion, "and I'd jest as lieve be back in Meadow Green. Dis don't look very scrumptious for a Mrs. Princessess' plantation house."</p>
<p>"This is no castle, Rusty. This is only the halfway house."</p>
<p>Dolores could not understand their low conversation in English—and Afro-Americanese! But she had studied the clear features, the nonchalant bearing of the tall American. She turned toward the sheep-like, staring villagers, and with an eloquent wave of her hand she cried out resonantly:</p>
<p>"Gentlemen—<i>a man</i>!"</p>
<p class="figcenter">
<SPAN name="man">
<ANTIMG src="images/005.jpg" alt=""<i>Gentlemen—a man</i>"" width-obs="500" height-obs="379"></SPAN></p>
<p class="caption">
"<i>Gentlemen—a man</i>"</p>
<p>Jarvis was lighting his cigarette, and he laughed, with a side-remark to his valet:</p>
<p>"Rusty, as the Indians said to Columbus: 'We're discovered!'" He turned toward the girl. "Did you by any chance address me, fair señorita?"</p>
<p>"I'm calling the attention of these valiant gentlemen of Seguro to the only man with spirit and bravery enough to enter the haunted castle," she declared.</p>
<p>"How did you know?" and his eyes widened with surprise. This was a queer place.</p>
<p>"All Seguro knows by this time, señor."</p>
<p>At these words, Don Robledo swaggered in through the door from the bar. He pushed the villagers aside with contemptuous roughness. He even thrust the girl out of his way as she tried to detain him. He laughed insultingly into the bland face of Jarvis.</p>
<p>"So, you are the
<i>
brave
</i>
American, are you?" he cried, surveying Jarvis, with hands on hips and stocky legs well spread.</p>
<p class="figcenter">
<SPAN name="brave">
<ANTIMG src="images/006.jpg" alt=""<i>So, you are the brave American, are you?</i>"" width-obs="383" height-obs="500"></SPAN></p>
<p class="caption">
"<i>So, you are the brave American, are you?</i>"</p>
<p>Jarvis puffed cigarette smoke at him and answered with ingenuous modesty.</p>
<p>"I'm
<i>
an
</i>
American. And here" (he waved his hand to Rusty, who saluted with divination of the tenor of the interchange) "I present to your notice another American. In fact, we're both Americans!"</p>
<p>"And you both want to die?" cried Don Robledo, drawing a stiff forefinger suggestively across his brawny throat. Rusty was reading the pantomime with perfect understanding. He made a wry face and rolled his eyes at Jarvis, who responded with a droll wink.</p>
<p>"Well, now that you mention it, I'm in no hurry about it. I'm not at all anxious on the subject."</p>
<p>He sat down in one of the carven chairs and continued to puff his cigarette with provoking amiability.</p>
<p>Robeldo leaned forward toward him and snarled:</p>
<p>"You had better keep out of the castle then. It has a fatal climate."</p>
<p>Warren laughed, and flicked the ashes of the cigarette upon the sleeve of his interviewer.</p>
<p>"Oh, you mean the castle ghost—this old rummy who can't sleep in his grave of nights? Ha, ha! I'm not afraid of a little trifle like that, señor."</p>
<p>Robledo stepped back threateningly, and yet with hesitation caused by the perplexing simplicity of this foreigner.</p>
<p>"No?... Well, señorita, we gentlemen of Seguro will gladly drink to your American hero! Here, lads, is a toast to the maddest fool that ever came to Spain!"</p>
<p>He turned contemptuously on his heel, with military precision. Then he chuckled Dolores under the chin with a leer, to have his hand indignantly pushed aside. As the girl glared at him with a flash of hatred in her eyes, he stalked into the taproom, followed by the ready topers.</p>
<p>"Pile these bags on the table, Rusty," ordered Warren, as he smiled winningly at the girl.</p>
<p>"Yassir. We kin use 'em for one of these yere barracadies, if we has to."</p>
<p>"It looks as though we're booked for a warm reception in Seguro, Rusty. Doesn't it?"</p>
<p>Rusty rolled those chalky optics, with an expression of mingled drollery, apprehension, and confidence in his master's ability to lead the battle. It is wonderful how much expression can be condensed into a darky's eyes!</p>
<p>"Yassir. It's some tropical, dat's shore. But, you-all ain't no cold-storage rooster yohself, Marse Warren. A little Kaintucky ammanition might make some echoes 'round dis confabulation."</p>
<p>From the taproom came loud howls of derision from the associated village sports of Seguro.</p>
<p>"That ward heeler seems to be making a campaign speech, Rusty. He may be making a few promises that he can't fulfill after he gets elected," observed the Kentuckian, with pursed lips. "Listen to them holler!"</p>
<p>Rusty looked over his shoulder, while Dolores studied these two types with girlish curiosity, as they chattered in their alien tongue. She had never seen a man unafraid of Don Robledo but his distinguished Excellency, the Duke, before. It gave her a new thrill.</p>
<p>"He's a mighty nice man, he is. Mighty nice, Marse Warren. He's almos' too nice, ain't he?"</p>
<p>Warren shook his head, with a serious look on the usually laughing face.</p>
<p>"No, Rusty, not too nice—yet! He'll be a lot nicer before he's ten years older. I think his education has been neglected. You and I must begin to keep school around this township. There's nothing so nice as education, especially when the school-teacher has a nice long rattan concealed up his sleeve!"</p>
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