Far down the glen, on the crest of a conspicuous spur—a bright spot of colour. Major Duckworth of King George III.’s Own Fusiliers dived his hand into the mighty pocket of his overcoat, drew out his glass, and focussed it on the object. It was a scarlet coat—the King’s uniform.
Four hours had passed since then, and at length Duckworth was forced to recognise that not alone would he have only his pains for his labour, but that he was hopelessly lost amongst the intricacies of the Sierra de Avila. The valley that had seemed so full of feature at first, was for him featureless. Each subsidiary glen seemed exactly like the other; every spur looked the twin of the next. To add to the difficulties of the situation the mists had come down to within a hundred feet of the bottoms.
Moreover, he had disobeyed orders; and he realised that when he returned—if he returned—to camp, his reception by Sir Edward Pakenham, however reasonable his excuses, would be the reverse of sympathetic.
He had excuses, or rather explanations, which had appeared quite satisfactory an hour or so ago. It was true that a general order had been issued that scouts were not to venture far out of touch with the outposts; but in the circumstances, the order had seemed inapplicable—a few hours ago.
The reason for the order was that recently no fewer than four officers employed on reconnaissance duty among the hills had failed to return to headquarters at Fuente Aguenaldo. The French knew nothing of them, and the French were honourable adversaries. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the Sierra were Spanish irregulars—our allies, guerrillas who varied the intervals between action and retreat by remunerative military exploits, flavoured under favourable conditions by torture. It was not inconceivable that these gentlemen might have failed to differentiate between the French and English nationalities in the case of the absentees.
Explanation I.—Duckworth had seen the King’s uniform on a stray figure—presumably that of one of the missing officers. It was therefore his duty to ride in search of him.
Explanation II.—The hills in that neighbourhood were innocent of guerrilla—for a season, at least. Early in the day, Duckworth had watched a force of French rounding up a large body of his irregular allies at the point of the bayonet, in a businesslike manner that evoked his enthusiastic admiration.
Result!—Disobedience to orders and nothing whatever to show for it.
If his thoughts were gloomy, his surroundings were depressing. Every stream, every runnel, every trickle, was frothing with dirty grey soapsud-coloured water; the clean white limestone cliffs had taken a dull, grey, lifeless, unwashed hue; the dripping dank leaves seemed to be doing their best to turn grey, and over all the mist stretched its grey, unwholesome canopy.
For some time he had followed the river, the general direction of which would, he knew, take him towards the British lines; but all at once the water, after the exasperating habit of mountain streams in limestone countries, slipped underground, leaving a trackless chaos of stones and boulders. Disgustedly the Major turned his charger’s head, trusting to luck to find a way out somehow to somewhere.
Now and again he would halt and give a hail in the hope of attracting the attention of the wandering brother officer he was seeking.
Unexpectedly his hail was answered—almost at his elbow. The intonation was not English, and Duckworth swung round, pistol in hand, to find himself face to face with a Spanish priest.
The stranger’s bearing was refined, his manner courteous, his voice cultured, his features handsome and prepossessing. Nevertheless, Duckworth decided out of hand that the man was a scoundrel, and that he was in that strange place at that strange hour for some sinister purpose. Not even when, after a few words of salutation, the priest offered his poor hospitality for the night and his services as guide in the morning, did he modify his opinion. He hated Spanish priests.
‘’Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil’; and when a grown man is offered the choice between a desperately certain deep sea of night, on storm-swept, brigand-haunted hills, and shelter with a prejudicate devil, the alternative is not difficult of decision. With fair words on his lips and mistrust in his heart, Duckworth permitted himself to be guided by the priest.
The way led sharply upwards; then once and again twisted smartly between colonnades of fantastic spikes of limestone, and so on, through a path, or rather alley, over-roofed with interlacing boughs of tangled trees.
Emerging from the wood, they found themselves in a towering amphitheatre of rock, sheer or overhanging, broken by little terraces of vivid green, and with here and there a yew or birch or mountain ash growing out of the crevices. It recalled to the Major a place he had once seen in his own country—a mighty rift in the scarp of the great Craven Fault, Gordale Scar. For a moment he stood gazing upwards, overawed by the grandeur and the gloomy majesty of it.
‘We are here!’
It was the priest who spoke, and at the sound of the voice Duckworth started, then laughed foolishly. Here! This was anchorite hospitality indeed. He looked round through the increasing darkness in the hope of finding so much as a cave.
The priest laughed also, and pointed ahead to where a low barrier of limestone stretched across the gorge.
At first sight it appeared part of the parent cliff, but closer inspection showed it to be strangely regular in outline. It was in fact the wall of a considerable building, and a second glance sufficed to recognise it as such, although an attempt had been made to emphasise its resemblance to its surroundings by piling broken rock along the top of the wall and leaving the edges ragged. Again the priest laughed, and, taking Duckworth by the arm, led him onwards, and so through an opening—which even scrutiny might have mistaken for the entrance to a cave—to the interior.
There was shelter here—solid shelter; but the Major could not throw off the feeling that he would prefer to be out in the storm on the mountains. The place was uncomfortably like a prison—a low, square, featureless edifice, enclosed within a quadrangle of massive wall through which he had just passed.
He had no opportunity for immediate reflection, however, for the priest, who had hitherto been somewhat taciturn, began to talk with great volubility. It seemed to Duckworth that he was endeavouring to attract his interest, or rather to distract it. Still, there was neither sight nor sound to justify suspicion, so he suffered himself to be led to a shed, built within the court between the containing walls and the building, which he was gratified to find was a stable. Here the priest took his leave for a few minutes, with apologies that he had no servant and a light observation on the fondness of the English for their horses.
‘The foolish fondness for his horse,’ characteristic of the English according to Mauvillon, did not deter Duckworth from thinking, and thinking hard. The place did not look like a monastery, though there was no reason to suppose it was not. For the matter of that, the man did not look like a priest.
Ere long, Duckworth began to realise that he was physically as well as mentally uncomfortable. Before he had finished grooming his steed, the perspiration was running off him. The atmosphere was something like that of a vapour bath. Up till then, he had been unpleasantly chilly and only too glad of the warmth of his great-coat. Neither was it the temperature only that was oppressive. The place was unnaturally still. Without, had been clangour and anger of elements; within the gorge, was quiet. The tumult of the wind passed high overhead and was shut off by the overhanging cliffs. The only obtrusive sound was a dull, unusual murmur that seemed, to the Major’s imagination, to come from far below him.
He was wondering what it might mean, when a step on the flags of the court arrested his attention. A man was coming towards him—a man who was not a priest. In an instant his pistol was cocked and ready.
The man laughed.
‘Surely, sir,’ he said, ‘yours is a somewhat discourteous way of greeting your host!’
Duckworth stared. The voice and features were those of the priest, but the costume was that of a Spanish gentleman, and Duckworth noted that the hair was untonsured.
‘Come!’ continued the Spaniard, ‘if you have finished with your horse, you will be glad of some refreshment. I can offer you but little. Still, it will be more palatable than bread and water.’
He turned as he spoke, and led the way across the court. Duckworth noted with a thrill that he limped slightly. There were ill tales in the camp of a bandit with a limp.
They passed into the house, crossed a hall, and entered a small room, roughly but comfortably furnished. On the hearth a newly lighted fire of logs was crackling. The window was wide open.
The stranger courteously assisted Duckworth out of his great-coat, which he threw over an arm-chair in front of the blaze. Then, indicating a chair at a table on which food and wine were laid out, he seated himself in his turn and poured out two goblets of wine.
‘I dare say, sir,’ he said, with twinkling eyes, ‘you are wondering—and perhaps with not a little suspicion—what the meaning of all this is?’
Duckworth flushed, and made a deprecating movement with his hand. The other laughed again.
‘To begin at the beginning,’ he resumed. ‘Why the disguise of a priest? Because, sir, I value my skin. You English, I do not fear—except on a retreat. The French, however, are most inconsiderate to all Spaniards—even non-combatants—but they leave the clergy alone. Finally, on these hills, there are countrymen of my own, who, I fear, prey on all and sundry. Fortunately, they are superstitious or excessively religious—call it which you will—and so—’ he ended with an expressive gesture.
Duckworth had been studying the man carefully. He was of fine presence and soldierly bearing.
‘Why not join the army?’ he asked.
‘Because, sir, your British methods of fighting do not appeal to me. I fought at Albuera. Ah! I know hard things have been said of my nation, but it is not given to all nations to stand still like a wall and be shot down. Also, I was unhorsed, ridden over by the cavalry, speared whilst on the ground by a Polish lancer, and lamed for life. In fact, sir, I have had enough of war.’
Duckworth began rather to like the man. After all, it was not given to every nation to breed regiments of Fusiliers and Die-Hards, and the Spaniard had fought and taken punishment.
‘You have been very frank with me, señor,’ he said, ‘may I ask of your courtesy one more question?’
‘Who am I, and what am I doing here?’ laughed the Spaniard.
Duckworth nodded.
‘It is easily answered—I am Don Luiz Aguinaldo, once a wealthy hidalgo, now a poor fugitive. The accursed French have swept my estates like a flight of locusts: my mines are unworked, my vineyards destroyed. My cousin was a priest in this monastery: I had visited him here and knew of it. When war broke out, the Fathers, to a man, left their sanctuary and went out to serve the sick and the wounded. I made my way here, found the place deserted, and here I have lived ever since.’
All Duckworth’s mistrust returned in a moment. ‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ was his unspoken comment. What he said was:
‘I wonder you can stand it. It is the most enervating place I have ever been in. I should die of exhaustion in a week.’
‘Yes,’ assented Aguinaldo, ‘that fire is not for comfort, but to dry your coat. Your boots would be none the worse for a toasting either. Wait, I will get a light.’
As he spoke, he kindled a taper at the fire and proceeded to light a lamp. This he placed for a moment on a table in the window and then, as if on second thoughts, set it down by Duckworth. All the time he kept up an incessant flow of talk.
‘It is the hot springs,’ he explained. ‘This is, in fact, the real Fuente Aguinaldo. The town—your headquarters—is a by-product, an offshoot. A strange place it is, and a strange place this old monastery is, too. It is a quadrangle within a quadrangle, and right in the centre of the building is a great tank. I suppose it was a natural formation in the first instance, and was carved into regular shape by the monks. The waters are always warm, and at one time had a great reputation for healing rheumatism and such complaints. Cripples used to come on crutches and go away dancing, so say the monks. I have no doubt the holy men made a good thing out of it. However, somehow or other, it lost credit, and I believe I am about the only person who uses it now. I have a bathe every morning. Not,’ he ended ruefully, ‘that it does my wounded leg any good.’
Duckworth was puzzled. He scented mischief. He was confident that the Spaniard was deceiving him, yet he was, paradoxically, sure he was speaking the truth. Nothing, however, was to be gained by conjecture, so he affected an interest in his surroundings, talked of the waters at Bath and all kinds of bagatelles. Eventually, almost inevitably, the conversation came round to the war. Duckworth had missed Albuera, and was delighted at the prospect of a first-hand account from an eyewitness.
Don Aguinaldo spoke like a soldier. He understood and appreciated the cleverness of Soult’s manœuvres and was unsparing in his denunciation of Blake. For Beresford his admiration knew no bounds. His desperate courage and heroic strength dominated the Spaniard’s imagination. Duckworth concluded that his host was unacquainted with the Marshal’s exploit of carrying a runaway Spanish ensign, colours and all, to the front, and deemed it courteous not to enlighten him.
The evening passed pleasantly without word or act that could be construed into confirmation of Duckworth’s suspicions—save one. He chanced to mention the encounter between the French and Spaniards he had witnessed that morning, and he thought that his host for an instant changed countenance. He could not be sure, for at that moment Aguinaldo chanced to spill his glass of wine, and the annoyance his face exhibited might have been attributable to the accident.
At an early hour they retired for the night. Duckworth was weary in head and body. The day had been a trying one physically, the tepid atmosphere of the gorge was most exhausting, and finally he could not shake off the impression that his host was a villain who would cut his throat if opportunity offered. Suddenly suspicion became conviction.
Aguinaldo was conducting him down a long corridor of the monastery to his bedroom, when Duckworth recognised an odour that was not incense. It was quite unmistakably a mixture of rank tobacco and garlic. Now, his host’s cigars he had found singularly good, and the hidalgo did not reek of garlic. Moreover, the smell was too strong to be the ‘drag’ of one individual, however high. A less intelligent man than the Major would have recognised that the chances were that he was in a brigands’ nest. Duckworth felt his appreciation of the French he had seen that morning increase immensely. But for them, he might by that time have died rather painfully. As it was, he was confident from the admirable manner in which they had attended to the business in hand, there was nothing to fear from the Spanish gentlemen of the hills for some time to come. As for Aguinaldo, he could, and would, wring his neck as soon as look at him, for the Major was certainly no weaker a man than Marshal Beresford.
Nevertheless, he lay down with his pistols under his pillow and his drawn sword by his side. The point of his scabbard he had jammed under the door—a most effective wedge.
Tired as he was, he could not sleep. He could not even rest. That dull, unusual murmur he had noticed in the courtyard, that never-ceasing, monotonous, subterranean muttering, was unmistakable. It was closer, clearer, and more insistent. It seemed to come now actually from beneath his feet. He tossed impatiently from his couch and leaned out of the open window.
The murmur was, if anything, less distinct, and there was nothing to be seen but the unsightly gloom of the pallid limestone cliffs, barely visible in a drip of sickly moonlight that filtered down through the dank atmosphere. It was pleasanter to keep the eyes closed than to look on a scene so sepulchral, and Duckworth was turning away when he noted that the thin rays trembled below him into broken radiance.
It was water—the surface of the tank of which he had been told, the innermost of the quadrangles—reflecting the moonbeams. The sinister murmur was caused no doubt by the overflow or escape of the drainage. And this was the bogey that had fretted him.
A broad, harsh, yellow glare flashed crudely across the water. Duckworth instinctively stepped away from the window into the darkness of his room.
The precaution seemed unnecessary. The cause of the light appeared innocent enough. Through a casement on the opposite side of the quadrangle could be distinguished the form of Don Aguinaldo, silhouetted against the light of a lamp he held in his hand. He appeared to be hanging up some bright-coloured garment beside a row of others on the wall of the chamber. Duckworth could not distinguish details as the glare of the light was between him and them.
‘Inspecting his wardrobe!’ grunted he. ‘I dare say the fellow has as many disguises as a mountebank, and—’
A low, hideous laugh poisoned the stillness, and bore on its evil wings a hideous suggestion that made Duckworth’s scalp creep and his seated heart knock at his ribs. Those bright garments on the wall—might they not be—were they not British—the tunics of the missing officers? The light of the lamp had disappeared, but enough came from the moon to enable him to locate the casement, the third from the left-hand end. He resolved to inspect it in the morning at all hazards, and if he found his suspicions correct, Don Aguinaldo should indeed guide him back to the British camp, but with a pistol at his ear and a gallows in prospect.
He was worn out in mind and body, and recognised that sleep he must. He accordingly wheeled his couch parallel to, and immediately below the window-sill, so that anyone attempting to steal in by that route must inevitably tread on him, and dropped off in profound slumber.
He awoke feeling thoroughly out of sorts. He had lain down almost fully dressed in case of emergencies, and the discomfort inseparable from a night in one’s clothes was aggravated by the clammy warmth of the atmosphere. His head was aching, his mouth was dry, and he was sticky all over—skin, clothes, and hair. He felt detestably unclean, and began to think longingly of the possibilities of a bathe in the tank.
As if in response to his thought, there came a hail from below his window, and, looking out, he saw Aguinaldo, standing at the water’s edge, clothed in a towel. The Spaniard’s face darkened as he noted Duckworth’s attire. Nevertheless, he wished him a fair good morning and courteously invited him to join him in a swim.
‘He can’t do me any mischief in that kit,’ thought Duckworth. ‘I wonder if I am wronging the fellow!’
He sent back a cheery reply, and in a few moments had swung himself out of the window and was by Aguinaldo’s side, similarly attired.
The tank was of considerable size—some forty feet in length by twenty across. It had obviously been hewn into its present rectangular formation, but no attempt had been made to polish the sides, which remained covered with small excrescences and seamed with minute fissures. Near one corner stood a crude apparatus—a sort of combination between a ship’s wheel and a lock-sluice, by which, Aguinaldo explained, they regulated the water which welled in through a crack in the centre and escaped into the bowels of the earth through an opening in the corner of the tank immediately below the wheel.
To Duckworth it seemed that the water was lower than it had been during the night—it was quite four feet below the edge—an impression doubtless due to the change of light. The fact was, however, vexatious. It had been his intention during his swim, quite unobtrusively, to get out of the water under the third casement from the left and take a glance at the interior. As it was, he perceived there was only one exit from the bath—by a rope ladder close to where he was standing. Whilst he was revolving these things in his mind, the Spaniard’s voice broke in.
‘I am wondering,’ he said, ‘whether it would be possible for a man to cover the entire length of the tank in one plunge. I have tried, and failed. The breadth is as much as I can do.’
Duckworth measured the distance with his eye. It was a sporting suggestion. He poised himself for a moment, and then launched his superb frame out in a magnificent header, neither did he move muscle till his fingers touched the limestone at the far side. When he had shaken the water from his eyes and turned, he saw Aguinaldo had drawn up the ladder.
‘Fairly trapped, Major!’ sneered the Spaniard. ‘Bah! what a fool you are! How you came to the lure of the uniform! It belonged to one Vavasour, of the 14th Dragoons. My merry men brought him in, but those thrice-accursed French have driven them away. That uniform hangs in yonder room as a memorial of an insult to a Spanish hidalgo, and yours shall hang there too.’
So the vision had not lied. Duckworth felt no fear, only a fierce remorse. Had he but verified his suspicions—and the Spaniard could not have prevented him—he would have brought the murderer to execution. As it was:
‘Fairly trapped!’ came the taunting voice. ‘I had to work by myself, and here you are, the strongest of them all, helpless to my hand! I am glad you are strong—that you can swim long. I have much to say. Only please do not attempt to climb out. I have a brace of pistols on that window-sill, and am a good shot.’
He paused, hoping against hope for appeal for mercy, but Duckworth made no reply. He was reckoning up his chances. His silence exasperated Aguinaldo.
‘Curse you English!’ he shouted. ‘Ah! you are brave now, whilst you are strong and warm, but wait—wait till you are weak and cold and death is at hand. Then—then, you will weep for mercy like your comrades—’
‘Liar!’ interrupted Duckworth coolly.
‘For that word,’ returned Aguinaldo, stamping, ‘I would have the skin scourged from your back if my men were here. As it is—’ He broke into blasphemy and imprecations.
Duckworth, paddling easily, watched him, well content. However slight his chances, they would be immeasurably increased if his enemy lost his self-command. After a while the Spaniard resumed.
‘I did not tell you how I was unhorsed at Albuera. It was that great bully, Beresford. He struck me from the saddle with his hand. He called me—me—coward! And I swore, as I lay on the ground, I would have an English officer’s life for every finger on his hand. Four have I taken. You are the fifth, and you shall die, die, die!’
Duckworth continued silently swimming. There was just one chance for him—a desperate chance. Everything depended on swiftness of execution. Scarcely had he conceived the idea when his tormentor furnished an opportunity.
‘Have you any idea what will happen to you?’ he cried. ‘See this wheel! Below, in that corner, is the sluice-gate—a great slab of stone. One turn of the wheel and the water will sweep you down, down, with irresistible force, through the sluice, deep into the earth, where you shall lie with your comrades. No one will ever know your fate. There, in those dreadful caverns, you shall lie and rot. Ah, I wish I could see you! I wish I could know whether death came swiftly or slowly!’
Again he broke into curses. At length Duckworth spoke.
‘I am interested in that sluice-gate,’ he said, with studied carelessness. ‘I will have a look at it.’
As he spoke, he dived easily to the bottom—the water was barely eight feet deep. Aguinaldo craned over to watch him. It was what Duckworth had hoped.
Bracing his feet firmly against the bottom, he crouched a moment; then with a spring and a tremendous down-stroke of the arms, he leaped upwards, half his height out of the water, and in an instant was gripping the edge of the tank with both hands.
Aguinaldo might have dislodged his hold. Instead, he dashed to the wheel and spun it round. For a moment the downward drag of the rushing water on Duckworth’s legs was sickening. Then the broad edge of the sluice-gate, heaved upwards by the Spaniard’s mad energy, came against his feet. It gave him just the required purchase for his toes. The Spanish devil had saved his life.
With a spring, Duckworth was on the edge. The next moment, Aguinaldo was swung from the ground and sent hurling through the air into the tank, and so came the horror of it.
Duckworth had determined that he should die, but in good set fashion, after trial. It was not to be. The escaping water seized the wretched man in its merciless grip, and whirled him to his death. Duckworth frantically tore at the wheel. He could not move it; it was locked by some device. He flung himself on the edge, if by chance he might catch the man’s hand. It was too late. There was a dreadful vision of staring eyes and wildly gripping hands—and the tank was empty.
Very white and shaken was Duckworth as he rode into camp to report himself, and Sir Edward Pakenham’s face was scarcely less white by the time the tale was told.
‘Major Duckworth!’ he said, at length. ‘You have disobeyed orders, but you have been dreadfully punished. On one condition will I overlook your fault. You will take a hundred men of your regiment, and you will report to me to-morrow morning that not one stone of that accursed place is left on another.’
Claude E. Benson.