Sarita, the Carlist

by Arthur W. Marchmont

The two servants were dragged from the box in a trice and bound with the reins, and just as the young King thrust his head out of the window to see what was wrong, both doors were flung open, the King was seized by one pair, and the attendant equerry, an old man and incapable of any serious resistance, was collared by the other pair. To borrow an Irish phrase, the thing was over almost before it had begun. The young King proved his pluck and did what he could; but that was, of course, nothing against the strength of the men who seized him and carried him to the carriage up the hill.

Then came a delay which puzzled me. The two men got into the Carlist carriage with the young King, and remained in it some three or four minutes, and what they were doing I could not see; but at the end of the time one got out again, shut the door, threw on a footman's livery coat, mounted the box beside the driver, and the carriage started immediately. Two others had meanwhile gone for their horses, and now came out from behind the wood, and followed the carriage at an interval of about a furlong.

A last look before I slipped from my tree showed me that the others were now making all haste to get the royal carriage away. Then I ran to my horse, mounted, and started in pursuit.

My hopes of accomplishing my object had run down with a rush to zero, and for the time I was full of consternation at the course things had taken. No less than five men were told off to guard the young captive, and I knew they were desperate men, who had imperilled their lives to capture the King, and would risk them freely to keep him. How then could I hope single-handed to effect a rescue? Moreover, it was essential to my plans that I should succeed in my purpose without being recognised by the Carlists; and this seemed to be just a sheer impossibility.

The one step which had baffled me was their precaution in having a couple of mounted men to follow the carriage. But for this my task would have been infinitely easier. It made even the work of pursuit vastly difficult. I could not ride on the open road, as this would have roused suspicion; and I had thus to resort to a hundred shifts; now galloping hard straight across country, now waiting in hiding; sometimes crossing the road for better going or to take a straight line where the road curved; and all the time harassed and worried by the constant effort to remain unseen by these men and yet to prevent them from getting out of sight of me.

Splendidly as I was mounted, the work began to tell on my horse almost as much as upon my temper, and I grew not only anxious but positively desperate. Full of difficulty as this scouting work was, it was leading nowhere. Time slipped on as mile after mile was traversed, but I got no nearer my object. So little did I like the prospect indeed that at length I was forced to contemplate an entire change of plan and the abandonment of the now forlorn hope of accomplishing the rescue single-handed.

It was still open to me to stop the business by dogging the abductors in a more open manner until we came to a place where I could get the carriage stopped by the authorities; and when we were about a couple of miles from the large village of Podrida I resolved most reluctantly to take that course. It involved a bitter disappointment; it would have Heaven alone knew what effect upon my after plans; it might mean indeed the frustration of everything; but I saw no other way, and accordingly I got back on to the road and began to close up the distance between me and the two horsemen as we approached Podrida.

I cursed what I called my ill-luck at the turn things had taken, and was riding in a very sullen mood and ill-temper when a little incident occurred which suddenly changed everything, and once more set my hopes beating high.

We were about a mile from Podrida, and I was some hundred yards behind the two men, when the horse of one of them fell as they were trotting briskly down a hill, and pitched its rider head foremost heavily on to the rough stony road. His companion pulled up and dismounted. The fallen horse scrambled up, and I saw he was dead lame, while the rider was apparently stunned for the moment.

In a trice I resolved to attempt the rescue at once. I clapped my heels into my horse's sides and darted forward at the gallop, and then, luck having changed, Fortune tossed me another favour. The second man had left his animal untethered as he bent over his companion, and, excited apparently at the galloping of my horse, it threw up its head, snorted and neighed as I passed, and came rushing madly after me. Thus in a moment both the guards were out of the fight; and as I had been careful to turn my head in passing, I got by without the risk of recognition.