Sarita, the Carlist

by Arthur W. Marchmont

"I was with Quesada this morning," I answered, the words coming in obedience to an impulse that I could neither account for nor resist.

"I am afraid of you, Ferdinand. How do you learn these things? How much do you know?"

"My dear one, you are playing with weapons of death, and with men who will but use and then fool you. Your one chance of safety and of happiness lies in trusting me. Leave all this seething maelstrom of intrigue, and come with me away from it all." I pleaded with all the force at command and with all the power of love to back the appeal.

But my note was a wrong one. Sarita, my love, would have yielded, but Sarita, the Carlist, was still the stronger; and my appeal fell on ears deadened by the calls of her patriotism and the cause she loved so fanatically. She grew less and less in sympathy as I pleaded.

"You must not tempt me to treachery, Ferdinand, and I cannot, I dare not, I will not listen. I should despise myself. Remember what I told you when first we met. You came too late."

"I will not hear that. I will not let you be sacrificed. You are mine, Sarita, bound to me by the bonds of our love! and, come what may, I will save you from this, despite yourself."

"Do you think I heed myself in such a cause? Then you little know me. What you ask is impossible—the one thing in all the world you should ever ask of me in vain, Ferdinand. But this I cannot grant."

"I will not take that answer. I know you to be in far deeper peril than you dream. If this scheme for abducting the King were to succeed, how would you profit? Can't you see the master-craft that is directing all: the wires that make you all no more than the puppets of the man who does nothing without a purpose, and everything for the one purpose of his own good. If Spain were kingless to-morrow, who would gain? You Carlists? To the winds with such a dream. When has Quesada lent himself to a cause which was not for his own advantage? Have you asked yourself this? How would he stand to gain by any such change? What were his words to me to-day? By heaven, I begin to see his master-stroke now. You are his dupe, Sarita, nothing but his dupe. You told me once you knew his heart—aye, but you have not yet measured the height of his ambition? To 'overset one feeble family in order to set up another'—that was his phrase. Where, then, is his profit in this? He lets you think you have won him over through his love for you; that you know his heart; that he will help you for this coup if you in return will be his wife. Sarita, are you blind? What think you is the meaning of the careful network of preparations to strike at all you Carlists? What are those copious lists of names already in the hands of his agents? To help you Carlists, or to crush you? By God," I cried, passionately, as a great light burst in on me—"I see the object. He would have the young King out of his path; and yours are the hands by which it shall be done. And when you have done it, do you dream that he will help to set up another King? What would be his chance? Picture it. Once the young King were away, who would be supreme in this Spain of yours? Who is the most powerful man to-day? To whom would the eyes of the people turn in the hour of kingless crisis? To him or to Don Carlos? No, no, I tell you his power in that moment would be all but supreme, and he would use it to crush relentlessly you very Carlists whom he had used to clear the way for him. Surely, surely, you can see now that you would be the dupe and naught else, and that he aims at securing power that shall be nothing less than supreme."

Sarita listened to my rapid, excited speech with gradually paling cheek, and when I finished, her breath was coming fast and her eyes shining brightly.

"If I thought that, I'd—— But no, Ferdinand, he dare not, he dare not," she exclaimed, in quick, bated tones.