Judas

"Well, my friend, if you will not listen to reason, if you prefer to allow your mistress to starve, I can do nothing more. I will give her your message. He rose from his seat. "And I shall at least have the satisfaction of being able to add that such an ungrateful rascal is dead; for in this hole you won't live another week, and you can't expect me to do anything for your release."

"Stay!"

The afrancesado caught the word and halted expectantly as he was turning away. With a supreme effort the sick man had raised himself on his elbow, and, struggling hard for breath, gasped out:

"Liar! Traitor! Spy! Do you think—I do not-do not see you for what you are? Go back-go back, accursed afrancesado, to those who have-bought you. Out of my sight! The price of blood!-Judas!-the doom of Judasawaits you the doom-of-Judas!"

The afrancesado recoiled as at the stroke of a lash; then an ugly look crossed his face, and his hand sought the hilt of his knife. But even as it did so the man sank back half insensible, the gleam of fierce rage faded from his face, and while Miguel was hesitating whether to stay or go, the prisoner began to talk in a low but distinct voice, as repeating a lesson he had learned by heart.

66

'Yes, Señor, dear master, I swear it. I will watch over the señorita as long as I have life; I swear it. None shall ever know except the señor Inglés. In the garden

the old-"

His voice was dying away again into a whisper; the afrancesado bent eagerly over him to catch the feeble tones, and when he rose a look of mingled greed and malignant triumph shone in his eyes. He waited for a while longer, while the sick man continued to babble in the same strain, his voice occasionally rising so that it could plainly be heard by the sufferers in the neighbouring beds. Murmurs arose, and, helpless as they were, their mutterings struck the heart of the afrancesado with a cold chill of dread. Rising, and throwing one hurried backward glance at the now silent figure on the bed, he hastened from the room, pursued by the vengeful glance of all who were conscious enough to recognize him.

An hour later the sick man opened his eyes and looked

At Large

around, as though fearing to meet once more the traitor's malign glance.

"What is that you were saying about a promise, and a garden, and a señorita?" whispered the prisoner in the next bed.

"Saying! When?" he asked with a note of mortal anguish.

"Just now, when the vile afrancesado was with you. Have you forgotten?"

The man waited a moment, expecting a reply. None came; the man had fainted.

The afrancesado did not leave Bayonne that night as he intended. Stricken with the prison fever, he took to his bed, and there lay for several weeks, tended with unstinted care by his one-eyed servant. When he recovered from his delirium he was eager to set out, as soon as his strength permitted, on his return journey to Spain, and was amazed to hear from the French commandant that he must consider himself a prisoner.

"Nonsense!" he said; "Ia prisoner! What have you against me?"

"The prisoner you talked with in the sick ward, monsieur-"

"Is he dead?" asked Miguel eagerly.

"He may be, but his body has not been recovered. His health rapidly mended from the day of your interview with him, and ten days ago he escaped by swimming the Adour-a marvellous feat for a man in his condition."

"Escaped!" screamed Miguel, starting up. "I must go, I must go at once, before it is too late!"

"Then you did not arrange the escape, monsieur?" said the Frenchman, surprised at the other's violence.

"Arrange it! Am I a fool? Am I mad? Arrange the escape of my worst enemy! I must go! He has gone to rob me; he will ruin me; I must go, before it is too late!"

His agitation was so sincere that, after a consultation among the French officers, the afrancesado was permitted, a few days later, to depart with his servant, and they rode southward out of Bayonne at a furious pace, the stones clattering, the dust flying behind, and all who saw them staring after them in amazement.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Palafox the Name

ONE day the guerrilla camp in the mountains was thrown into some excitement by the sudden reappearance of Pepito. All the guerrilleros by this time knew something of the strange complications in which the English señor was involved. They had been constantly on the look-out for the gipsy boy whom he was so anxious to see; and when, on this sunny morning, the boy was seen bounding up the hillside, they flocked to him in a crowd, crying "Qué hay de nuevo? Qué hay de nuevo?" Pepito made them no answer. He had already caught sight of his master sitting some yards above him, and rushed forward with a piercing cry of delight.

"Found, Señor!" he shouted.

"Found!"

Jack needed no telling who was found. "Where is she?" he asked.

"Glad Señor is well, glad Señor is well!" shouted the little fellow. "The Señorita will be glad too. Oh, she will! When I told the Señorita—"

"Where is she?" repeated Jack impatiently.

"When I told the Señorita that Señor was ill, she jumped up; said she must come; but the old Busna looked ugly; said no; and I come to fetch Señor." "Pepito, tell me at once where she is."

"Safe, at a convent near Cariñena, Señor, all among the trees and flowers. Señor can go, now he is well, and I know who will be pleased. Yes, I know!"

"You're a good boy, Pepito." He turned to Dugdale. "Grampus, when shall I be fit to ride?"

Look here,

"Good heavens! Not for a long time. Lumsden, I'm not going to have my cure spoilt and my career ruined by you going raiding before you're fit. Don't laugh. I'm in dead earnest. I'm sick and tired of playing the fool at Oxford. As soon as I get home I'm

Nonplussed

going to be a doctor. New idea, you know; fresh air and cold water. The pater will laugh himself into a fit when I tell him; but don't you see, if you back me up, and I can show you as my first case—why, bet you the old boy comes round and doubles my allowance, to encourage me. See?"

"But you must

"All right!" said Jack, laughing. finish my cure quickly, for the instant I can manage it I'm going to ride over to Cariñena.”

"What for? What is there special about Cariñena?” "Well, I've a—a friend there I want specially to see.' "H'm! A friend? Bet you my first year's fees it's a girl. Now look here, Lumsden, don't be a fool. An Englishman oughtn't to marry till he's thirty at least. I've got ten years yet, and it won't be too much. It takes time to be able to face a girl without flinching, and for my part I'd rather learn Greek verbs than-"

Oh, shut up!" exclaimed Jack. "Who said anything about marrying? Juanita-"

"Oho! Juanita! Sorry for you, my boy; no cure for that complaint. Well, I'll take care of you, but it'll be a long time yet before you can ride."

Nearly a month passed away before Jack, after a few experiments, was pronounced fit to undertake the ride to Cariñena. The period of waiting was diversified by one or two expeditions against French convoys, in which Antonio achieved brilliant successes. Jack chafed at being obliged to remain inactive, and to share in these. raids merely in imagination. He spent hour after hour in attempting to decipher the postscript of Don Fernan's letter, always without success. Remembering the enigmatical phrase in the letter he himself had received in Salamanca, "Palafox the Man, Palafox the Name", he believed that the key must be contained in that; but though he tried to fit it to the ciphered message, and made considerable demands on Dugdale's patience, he drew no nearer to solving the puzzle, and finally gave it up in disgust.

At length the day arrived when, feeling well and strong, he set off on his ride to the convent. Pepito had several times conveyed verbal messages between him and Juanita, but nothing had been committed to paper for fear lest it

In the Convent

should fall into the hands of the French.

Guided by the boy, who rode before him, he reached the convent in the afternoon of a beautiful April day, and was at once admitted to the presence of Juanita, with whom he found the old duenna he had seen in Saragossa.

Though Juanita greeted him with as much cordiality as ever, he was conscious of a slight difference in her manner; there was not quite the same frank comradeship she had shown in Saragossa.

"I am very glad to see you looking so well, Jack," she said. "Will you take a cup of chocolate?"

"Thanks!" replied Jack briefly. He sipped it for a brief interval without speaking, then said suddenly: "I say, Juanita, I am mighty glad you escaped, you know. It was good of Padre Consolacion to help you-after trying to persuade you to marry Miguel, too. Tell me about it."

Without her usual animation Juanita recounted how she had been captured as she neared Morata by a party of troopers, among whom she had recognized Perez, Miguel's one-eyed man. She had been treated kindly enough by the wife of a colonel of chasseurs, who, however, irritated her beyond endurance by constant reference to her approaching marriage. Miguel himself had only seen her once. He had asked what had become of her father's old servant José, and shown some annoyance when she refused to answer. But she had had another and a more frequent visitor. After the capitulation, Padre Consolacion had been surprised to find that, though he had been as consistent an opponent as Don Basilio and Santiago Sass, he had not met with the same fate at the hands of the French. He could only conclude that he owed his security to the good offices of Miguel, whom, however, he now held in utter abhorrence. Making his escape from the city, he had gone into hiding at Morata, where he soon learnt of what had befallen Juanita. It was not difficult for him, with the assistance of the people of the house, to obtain secret interviews with her. On the day before Miguel went with Commissary Taberne on the foraging expedition, Juanita learnt from the colonel's wife that pressure was to be brought to bear in high quarters for the purpose of bringing about her marriage