Concha and El Sarria sat down on an outcrop of red sandstone rock, and gazed back at the prospect.  There below them lay the camp and the house in which was imprisoned the reigning branch of the royal family of Spain.  A couple of sentries paced to and fro in front.  A picket had established itself for the night in the back courtyard.  Beyond that again stood the tent in which the General was at present engaged in drinking himself from his usual sullen ferocity into unconsciousness.

A little nearer, and not far from their own camp-fire, at which the Sergeant was busily preparing the evening meal, sat Rollo, sunk in misery, revolving a thousand plans and ready for any desperate venture so soon as night should fall.  Concha gave a quick little sigh whenever her eye fell on him.  Perhaps her conscience pricked her-perhaps not!  With the heart of such a woman doth neither stranger nor friend intermeddle with any profit.

The sauntering Vitorian halted within speaking distance of the pair.

“A fine evening,” he said affably.  “Can you give me a light for my cigarette?”

It was on the tip of El Sarria’s tongue to inquire whether there were not plenty of lights for his cigarette back at the camp-fires where he had rolled it.  But that most excellent habit, which Don Ramon had used from boyhood, of never interfering in the business of another, kept him silent.

“Why should I,” he thought, “burn my fingers with stirring this young foreigner’s olla?  Time was when I made a pretty mess enough of my own!”

So without speech he blew the end off his cigarillo and handed it courteously to the Carlist soldier.

But Concha had no qualms about breaking the silence.  The presence of a duenna was nowise necessary to the opening of her lips, which last had also sometimes been silenced without the intervention of a chaperon.

“A fine evening, indeed,” she said, smiling down at the youth.  “I presume that you are a foot soldier from the musket you carry.  It must be a fine one from the care you take of it!  But as for me, I like cavaliers best.”

“The piece is as veritable a cross-eyed old shrew as ever threw a bullet ten yards wide of the mark,” cried the Alavan, tossing his musket down upon the short elastic covering of hill-plants on which he stood, and taking his cigarette luxuriously from his lips.  “Nor am I an infantry-man, as you suppose.  Doubtless the Senorita did not observe my spurs as I came.  Of the best Potosi silver they are made.  I am a horseman of the Estella regiment.  Our good Carlos the Fifth (whom God bring to his own!) is not yet rich enough to provide us with much in the way of a uniform, but a pair of spurs and a boina are within reach of every man’s purse.  Or if he has not the money to buy them, they are to be had at the first tailor’s we may chance to pass!”

“And very becoming they are!” said Concha, glancing wickedly at the youth, who sat staring at her and letting his cigarette go out. “’Tis small wonder you are a conquering corps!  I have often heard tell of the Red Boinas of Navarre!”

“I think I will betake me down to the camp-I smell supper!” broke in El Sarria, curtly.  He began to think that Mistress Concha had no further use for him, and, being assured on this point, he set about finding other business for himself.  For, with all his simplicity, Ramon Garcia was an exceedingly practical man.

“The air is sweet up here; I prefer it to supper,” said Concha.  “I will follow you down in a moment.  Perhaps this gentleman desires to keep you company to the camp and canteen.”

But it soon appeared that the Vitorian was also impressed by the marvellous sweetness of the mountain air, and equally desirous of observing the changeful lights and lengthening shadows which the sun of evening cast, sapphire and indigo, Venetian red and violet-grey, among the peaks of the Sierra de Moncayo.  When two young people are thus simultaneously stricken with an admiration for scenery, their conversation is seldom worth repeating.  But the Senorita Concha is so unusual a young lady that in this case an exception must be made.

Awhile she gazed pensively up at the highest summits of the mountain, now crimson against a saffron sky, for at eventide Spain flaunts her national colours in the very heavens.  Then she heaved a deep sigh.

“You are doubtless a fine horseman?” she cried, clasping her hands-“oh, I adore all horses!  I love to see a man ride as a man should!”

The young man coloured.  This was, in truth, the most open joint in his armour.  Above all things he prided himself upon his horsemanship.  Concha had judged as much from his care of his spurs.  And then to be mistaken for an infantry tramper!

“Ah,” he said, “if the Senorita could only see my mare La Perla!  I got her three months ago from the stable of a black-blooded National whose house we burnt near Zaragoza.  She has carried me ever since without a day’s lameness.  There is not the like of her in the regiment.  Our mounts are for the most part mere garróns of Cataluna or Aragonese ponies with legs like the pillars of a cellar, surmounted by barrels as round as the wine-tuns themselves.”

At this Concha looked still more pensive.  Presently she heaved another sigh and tapped her slender shoe with a chance spray of heath.

“Oh, I wish -” she began, and then stopped hastily as if ashamed.

“If it be anything that I can do for you,” cried the young man, enthusiastically, “you shall not have to wish it long!”

As he spoke he forsook the stone on which he had been sitting for another nearer to the pretty cross-tied shoes of Andalucian pattern that showed beneath the skirts of Concha’s basquiña.

“Ah, how I love horses!” murmured Concha; “doubtless, too, yours is of my country-of the beautiful sunny Andalucia which I may never see again!”

“The mare is indeed believed by all who have knowledge to have Andalucian blood in her veins,” answered the Alavan.

Concha rose to her feet impulsively.

“Then,” she said, “I must see her.  Also I am devoured with eagerness to see you ride.”

She permitted her eyes to take in the trim figure of the Vitorian, who had also risen to his feet.

“Do go and bring her,” she murmured; “I will take care of your musket.  You need not be a moment, and-I will wait for you!”

A little spark kindles a great fire in a Spanish heart, and the young man, counting the cost, rapidly decided that the risk was worth running.  The horses of the Estella regiment were picketed in a little hollow a few hundred yards behind the main camp.  It was his duty to watch these two strangers, of whom one had already gone back to the camp, while as to the other-well, Adrian Zumaya of the province of Alava felt at that moment that he could cheerfully devote the rest of his life to watching that other.

In a moment more he had laid down his musket at Concha’s feet, and set off as fast as he could in the direction of the horses, keeping well out of sight in the trough of a long roller of foot-hill until he was close to the cavalry lines, and could smell the honest stable-smell which in the open air mingled curiously with those of aromatic thyme and resinous juniper.

In five minutes he was back, riding his best and sitting like a Centaur.

Concha’s eyes glistened with pleasure, and she ran impulsively forward to pat the cream-coloured mare, a clean-built, well-gathered, workmanlike steed.

Now the young man was very proud of the interest this pretty Andalucian girl was showing in his equipment and belongings to the exclusion of those of his comrades.  Perhaps he might have been less pleased had he known that the young lady’s interest extended even to the gun he had left behind him, the charge of which she had already managed to extract with deft and competent fingers.

“La Perla she is called,” he cried with enthusiasm, “and sure none other ever better deserved the name!  I wish we of the camp possessed a side-saddle that the Senorita might try her paces.  She has the easiest motion in the world.  It is like riding in a great lady’s coach with springs or being carried in a Sedan-chair.  But she is of a delicate mouth.  Ah, yes-if the Senorita mounted, it would be necessary to remember that she must not bear hard upon the reins.  Then would La Perla of a certainty take the bit between her teeth and run like the devil when Father Mateo is after him with a holy water syringe!”

Concha smiled as the young fellow dismounted, flinging himself off with the lithe grace of youth and constant practice.

“You forget,” she said, “I also am of the Province of Flowers.  Do not be afraid.  La Perla and I will not fall out.  A side-saddle-any saddle!  What needs Concha Cabezos with side-saddle when she hath ridden unbroken Andalucian jennets wild over the meadows of Mairena, with no better bridle than their manes of silk and no other saddle than their glossy hides, brown as toasted bread!”

As she made this boast Concha patted La Perla’s pretty head, who, recognising a lover of her kind, muzzled an affectionate nose under the girl’s arm.

“Oh, how I wish I could try you,” she cried, “were it but for a moment-darling among steeds, Pearl of Andalucia!”

“La Perla is very gentle,” suggested the young cavalier of Alava, as he thought most subtly.  “With me at the mare’s head the Senorita might safely enough ride.  But for fear of interruption let us first proceed a little way out of sight of the camp.”

They descended behind the long ridge till the camp was entirely hidden, and as they did so the heart of the young Vitorian beat fast.  They think plentifully well of themselves, these young men of Alava and Navarre.  And this one felt that he would not disgrace the name of his parent city.

“Only for a moment, Senorita, permit me-there!  The Senorita goes up like a bird!  Now wait till I take her head, and beware of jerking the rein hastily on account of the delicacy of the little lady’s mouth.  So, La Perla,-gently and daintily!  Consider, jewel of mares, what a precious burden is now on thy back!”

“A moment, only a moment!” cried Concha, her hands apparently busy about her hair, “this rebozo is no headgear to ride in.  What shall I do?  A handkerchief is not large enough.  Ah, Cavallero, add to your kindness by lending me your boina!  I thank you a thousand times!  There!  Is that so greatly amiss?”

And she set the red boina daintily upon her hair, pulling the brim sideways to shade her eyes from the level evening sun, and smiled down at the young man who stood at her side.

“Perfect!  Beautiful!” cried the young Vitorian, clasping his hands.  “The sight would set on fire the heart of Don Carlos himself.  Ah, take care!  Bear easily on that rein.  Stop, La Perla!  Stop!  I beseech you!”

And he started running with all his might.  Alas, in vain!  For the wicked Concha, the moment that he had stepped back to take in the effect of the red boina, dropped a heel (into which she had privately inserted half an inch of pin, taken from her own headgear), upon the flank of La Perla.  The mare sprang forward, with nostrils distended and a fierce jerk of the head.  Concha pulled hard as if in terror, and presently was flying over the plain towards the cleft on the shoulder of Moncayo beyond which lay the camp of General Elio.

The young Carlist stood a moment aghast.  Then slowly he realised the situation.  Whereupon, crying aloud the national oath, he ground his heel into the grass, snatched at his gun, kneeled upon one knee, took careful aim, and clicked down the trigger.  No report followed, however, and a slight inspection satisfied him that he had been tricked, duped, made a fool of by a slip of a girl, a girl with eyes-yes, and eye-lashes.  He leaped in the air and shouted aloud great words in Basque which have no direct equivalents in any polite European language, but which were well enough understood in the stone age.

However, he wasted no time foolishly.  Well he knew that for such mistakes there was in Cabrera’s code neither forgiveness nor, indeed, any penalty save one.  Adrian Zumaya of the province of Alava was young.  He desired much to live, if only that he might meet that girl again at whose retreating figure he had a moment before pointed an empty gun barrel.  Ah, he would be even with her yet!  So, wasting no time on leave-taking, he bent low behind the ridge, and keeping well in the shelter of boulder and underbrush, made a bee-line for the cliffs of Moncayo, where presently, in one of the caves of which El Sarria had spoken, he counted his cartridges and reloaded his rifle, with little regret, except when he wished that the incident had happened after, instead of before supper.

However, he had in reserve a hand’s-breadth of sausage in his pocket, together with a fragment of most ancient and rock-like cheese.  These, since no better might be, he made the best of, and as the sun sank and the camp below him grew but a blur in the gloom, he washed them down with the water which percolated through the roof of the cave and fell in great drops, as regularly as a pendulum swings, upon the floor below.  These he caught in his palms and drank with much satisfaction.  And in the intervals he execrated the Senorita Concha Cabezos, late of Andalucia, with polysyllabic vehemence.

But ere he curled himself up to sleep in the dryest corner of the cave, he burst into a laugh.

“In truth,” he said, “she deserves La Perla.  For a cleverer wench or a prettier saw I never one!”

The young man’s last act before he laid himself down in his new quarters had been to take from his coat the circular disc with the letters “C.  V.,” the badge of the only Catholic, absolute, and legitimate king.  Then, approaching the precipice as nearly as in the uncertain light he dared, he cast it from him in the direction of the Carlist lines.

“Shoot whom you will at sunrise, queen or camp-wench, king or knave,” he muttered, “you shall not have Adrian Zumaya of Vitoria to put a bullet through!”

So easily was allegiance laid down or taken up in these civil wars of Spain.  And that night it was noised abroad through all the camp that young Zumaya of the Estella regiment of cavalry had taken his horse and gone off with the pretty Senorita whom he had been set to watch.

Upon which half his comrades envied him, and the other half hoped he would be captured, saying, “It will be bad for Adrian Zumaya of the Estella regiment if he comes again within the clutches of our excellent Don Ramon Cabrera.”

And this was a fact of which the aforesaid Adrian himself was exceedingly well aware.  But the most curious point about the whole matter is that when he awoke late next morning he found the sun shining brilliantly into the mouth of the cave.  The camp had vanished.  There was a haze of sulphur in the air which bit his nostrils, and lo! beneath him, on a little plot of coarse green grass and hill-plants, a cream-coloured horse was quietly feeding.

“It is my own Perla!” he cried, as, careless of danger, he hastened down.  There was a red object attached to the mare’s bridle.  He went round and detached a red boina, to which was pinned a scrap of paper.  Upon it was written these words: 

     “I hope you have not missed either of the objects herewith
     returned.  They served me nobly.  I send my best thanks for the
     loan.-C.  C.”

“That is very well,” said the young man, smiling as he mounted his horse, “but all the same, had my heels not served me better than my head, your best thanks, pretty mistress, had come too late.  They would not have kept me from biting the dust at sunrise with half a dozen bullets in my gizzard, instead of waking here comfortably on an empty stomach.  Well, I suppose I must don the cap of liberty now and be a chapelgorri.  It is a pity.  ’Tis not one half so becoming as the boina to one of my complexion.”

Then Adrian Zumaya, late of the Estella regiment of Carlist horse, meditated a little longer upon the mutability of all earthly affairs.

“Yet perhaps that is just as well!” he added.  “It is ever my hard fate to lose my head where a woman is concerned.”

For he thought how the last admirer of his red boina had served him.  So with a little sigh of regret he tossed it into the first juniper bush, and tying a kerchief about his head in the manner of the Cristinos, rode forth light-heartedly to seek his fate, like a true soldier of fortune.