Sarita, the Carlist

by Arthur W. Marchmont

"We must follow and find them," I said, promptly. "Which way can they have taken? It is clear that he induced her to escape, and while they were together they were making these preparations. He left about an hour ago, and as the senorita had then to complete her arrangements she cannot have been gone very long. How can we trace them?" A question to Carlos sufficed to show that they must have left by the lane we had come; for it led nowhere but to the house. They had not passed us on the road, and it was clear, therefore, that they must have turned in the opposite direction from the capital.

There were two horses in the stable, and I had these saddled, and rode off with Rubio, ordering the carriage with Rubio's assistant to follow us at such pace as the coachman could get out of the smoking, lathered animals who had brought us so well from Madrid.

At first the trail was broad and easy to follow. We had scarcely turned into the high road when we met some men, who told us enough to show that Livenza and his companion were on horseback, riding at a moderate pace, and were not more than a mile or two distant. We covered four or five miles at the gallop, stopping wherever we met anyone on the road to make inquiries; and it was soon abundantly clear that we were overtaking them fast. They seemed to be keeping to the high road, for what purpose or whither bound it was impossible to guess; nor did it matter much so long as we were rapidly closing up to them.

Then the scent failed suddenly. We had rattled along for a couple of miles or so, and I was expecting to overtake them at any moment, when a carter whom we questioned declared that no one answering to the description had passed him. The news was serious indeed; it was now late, there were few people abroad; the sparsely-scattered houses and cottages were closed, and the inmates abed; we had passed more than one branch road; and thus the chances of our tracking them ran down to zero.

We turned our horses' heads, and at the first of the branch roads drew rein to confer. Rubio had no stomach for the work of further search, and was for doing no more until we could get sufficient help to continue the hunt vigorously the next morning in the daylight. This, no doubt, was a counsel of reason; but I was in anything but a reasonable mood, and would not listen to him—much to his disgust.

"We know just about where they were last seen on the high road," I said. "They can't ride about all night in these by-lanes; if they were making for any definite town they would have had to stick to the main road; and we must take these by-roads in turn, and ride a few miles along each of them. You follow the first, and I'll take the next. We shall find them in that way."

"It is useless, senor. We shall only wear ourselves and our horses out to no purpose," he protested; but I insisted, and sending him down the first lane, I rode on to the next, and dashed along it through the rain that was now falling in gusty, blusterous squalls. But I found nothing to help my search; not a soul did I see, not a cottage or building of any kind; and with something like a groan of disappointment, I pulled up at length, and began to retrace my steps.

Then what might have been expected happened—I lost my way. Puzzled by the darkness I took a wrong turning which, instead of leading me back to the high road, brought me out by a rough zig-zag way on to a wild, bleak hillside, where it ended; and I was stranded, far away from any sign of a habitation, in the pitch darkness, with the wind howling round me and the rain falling in torrents.

For an hour or more I groped about, having at times to dismount and lead my horse, until I realised that I was hopelessly lost, and that I had not only no chance of discovering Sarita that night, but should be lucky if I had not to spend the night in the open.

I was halting for the twentieth time under the shelter of trees to escape some of the pelting rain, when my luck turned, and I caught sight of a glimmer of light faintly quivering through the darkness above me. Where light was, some human being must be also, and if money or force could prevail, that human being should guide me back to the high road and safety; and I led my horse in a bee-line toward the light, stumbling, floundering, and slipping over the sloppy, uneven ground, now blundering into a ditch or sinking ankle deep into a vegetable patch, or almost breaking my shins against stone heaps, until I found that the light came from the window of a cottage.