“Oh, do me the favor, sir, of letting me go with you. I can show you exactly where I left her. She will not have gone far. She may be there yet. I know that I can find her sooner even than Rodrigo. Father! Father!”
But Don Carlos, thoroughly displeased, thrust the clinging hands away.
“We want no help of yours. Stay where you are. That is my command. If you are not old enough to understand what it means to betray a trust, at least it is time you learned obedience.”
It was midnight, and their hearts had grown heavy with dread, before they found Pilarica. The first trace they had of her was in the gypsy quarter, where the whole cave population came swarming out upon them, aroused by Xarifa’s shrill defence of the Gypsy King. He knew nothing whatever of their trumpery trash, she unblushingly declared with the little watch and chain deep in her pocket, nor did he know even by sight their nuisances of children, and he was, moreover, so sick with the misery in his bones that he had not been off his bed for seven days and nights. Rodrigo had enough to do to get his father, whose peremptory bearing only made matters worse, out of the jostling, threatening crowd before they were actually mobbed, yet he found a chance to throw a smile at a young gypsy girl whose dancing he had often admired.
“A clue, Wildrose of the Hillside! One little clue, Feet of Zephyr!” he coaxed, and Zinga, flashing him a friendly glance, pushed against him in the throng and muttered:
“There are more pearls in the Alhambra than ever the Moors dropped there.”
Acting on this doubtful hint, they had roused the indignant Don Francisco from his slumbers, and when that drowsy guardian of the old palace told them of the invasion of children that afternoon, had induced him to conduct a search for Pilarica. By the help of lanterns, for a chill rain had blown over from the Sierra Nevada, quenching the moonlight, they made their way through corridor after corridor and chamber after chamber and court after court. Don Francisco wished to shout the child’s name, but her father feared the sound might startle her out of sleep into sudden alarm, and so they pursued their anxious quest as noiselessly as might be.
“Hush!” breathed Rodrigo. He had heard, and not far off, the voice of his little sister, piping faintly:
“Oh, I have a dolly, and she is dressed in blue,
With a fluff of satin on her white silk shoe,
And a lace mantilla to make my dolly gay,
When I take her dancing this way, this way, this way.
“When she goes out walking in her Manila shawl,
My Andalusian dolly is quite the queen of all.
Gypsies, dukes and candy-men bow down in a row,
When my dolly fans herself, so and so and so.”
“It’s only Big Brother,” spoke Rodrigo quietly and, stepping forward with his lantern, he turned its light on a brave little lassie cuddled in the window-recess of what had been the boudoir of a queen. She was hugging to her heart a most comforting, companionable doll, made out of a bundle of newspapers that one of the tourists had let fall. Pilarica’s wisp of a hair-ribbon was serving as a belt and the costume was completed by Rafael’s red fez. Although the child had not slept through all the long, dark hours, the shapeless doll had borne her such good company, rustling affably whenever conversation was in order, that she had forgotten to be afraid.
V
A BEAUTIFUL FEVER
PILARICA did not remember her father, and it was not without some persuasion that she consented to let the stranger carry her, while to Rodrigo was entrusted the newspaper doll, whose demeanor he pronounced quite stiff, although her intelligence was beyond dispute.
“Don’t lose the magic cap, pl – ” murmured Pilarica, but for once her politeness remained incomplete, for no sooner was the silky head at rest on the broad shoulder than the exhausted child fell fast asleep. Curiously enough, the warm pressure of that nestling little body turned the thoughts of Don Carlos, for the first time since he had left the garden, to Rafael. Had he, perhaps, been too harsh with the youngster? How suddenly that first, happy look in the great eyes had been clouded with distress and shame! The boys’ mother had always been tender with them, even in their wrongdoing. And he, accustomed as he was to deal with bolts and wheels, must learn not to handle the hearts of children as if they, too, were made of iron. The father’s mood was already self-reproachful as they entered the stone kitchen, which a ruddy brasero, the Spanish fire-pan where charcoal is burned, and a savory odor of stew made cozy and homelike.
“Now praised be the Virgin of the Pillar!” cried Tia Marta, unceremoniously snatching Pilarica from Don Carlos and carrying her to the warmth of the brasero. And while Rodrigo, his vivacity unchecked by hunger and fatigue, poured forth the story of the rescue, which lost nothing in his telling, Tia Marta woke the little sleeper enough to make her swallow a cup of hot soup, undressed her, rubbed the slender body into a rosy glow and tucked her snugly away in bed. Grandfather stirred in his cot as the child was brought into the inner room and hummed a snatch of lullaby, but Rafael’s cot was empty.
Tia Marta’s squinting eyes, as she returned to the kitchen, peered into the shadows that lay beyond the flickering circle of light cast by the brasero.
“Rafael, come and get your soup and then to bed,” she called. “You must be as sleepy as the shepherds of Bethlehem.”
But no Rafael replied. Rodrigo and his father exchanged startled glances.
“Didn’t the boy come back to the house?” asked Don Carlos.
“Do you mean to say you didn’t take him with you?” demanded Tia Marta.
“Father commanded him to stop where he was,” said Rodrigo, aghast, and rushed out again into the rain, Don Carlos and Tia Marta at his heels.
They found Rafael, drenched to the skin, standing erect with folded arms beside the Sultana Fountain, a stubborn little image of obedience; but when his brother’s hand fell on his shoulder, the child reeled and fainted away. Rodrigo caught the boy just in time to save the dark head from crashing against the marble curb of the basin and, with Tia Marta’s help, carried him to the kitchen. Here they both worked over the passive form with rubbing, hot flannels and every remedy they knew, while Don Carlos, sick at heart, looked on, not venturing to touch his little son.
Rafael revived at last, but only to pass into fit after fit of convulsive crying. He lay in his brother’s arms, refusing to taste the hot soup, goat’s milk, herb tea, that, one after another, Tia Marta pressed upon him.
“But it’s peppermint tea, my angel,” she wheedled, “and peppermint is the good herb that St. Anne blessed.”
“It’s bed-time, Rafael,” pleaded Rodrigo. “Isn’t it, father? And no boy ever goes to bed without his supper.”
“Bed-time? I should think so indeed,” replied Don Carlos. “It’s quarter of two by my watch.”
At the word watch Rafael’s wild crying broke out anew.
“Do you see those tears, Don Carlos?” scolded Tia Marta, whose anxiety had to vent itself in abuse of somebody. “Tears as big as chickpeas! A house in which a child weeps such tears as those is not in the grace of God. And why, in the name of all the demons, must you be talking of watches? Such is the tact of Aragon, not of Andalusia. Oh, you Aragonese! You would speak of a rope in the house of a man that had been hanged.”
Rafael’s crying suddenly ceased. The loyal little lad sat upright on Rodrigo’s knee and turned his stained and swollen face with a certain dignity upon the old servant.
“You are not to speak to my father like that, Tia Marta,” he said. “What my father does is right.”
“Oh, the impudent little cherub!”