And praise from a chauffeur is praise indeed!
We were in the defile of Despeñaperros, the most terrific and, at the same time, the noblest gorge of Spain; and I should have known it from stories told by my father, who had once fought with bandoleros upon this very road. Down into the river that tossed up white plumes of foam far below, he had flung one man, while another fired shot after shot from his carbine, screened behind a rock on the opposite side of the ravine, scarcely a biscuit-throw away.
Long before, too, history had been made in this mountain passage whose walls had rung with wilder sounds than the screaming of our siren. The rival battle-cries of Moor and Spaniard had echoed among the rocks, and Christian blood and pagan had mingled in the white spume of the river.
I thought of these things, as I looked down into the silent depths of the gulf, and saw the sparkling veins of granite, and purple masses of slate gleam with volcanic life and colour. But still I heard the haunting echo of Monica's voice, in the solitude [pg 195]through which she must lately have passed, perhaps leaving some message, if I could only know.
Was it merely a fantastic twist of my nerves, or was her spirit calling, trying to make itself heard and understood?
It was Pilar who broke the spell by a sudden clapping of her hands. “Andalucía! dear Andalucía!” she cried; and each one of us, subdued and silenced by the majesty of the scene, started as if waking from sleep.
She was pointing at a stone obelisk, looking at which her father smiled and raised his hat.
“No more cold,” said he; “no more winds to nip our noses. Here's the dividing line between the north countries and the country of the sun.”
Then, as if the obelisk had been the finger of some genie invoking a magic change, an enchantment blurred the stem features of the landscape. It was as though the fierce face of an angry giant had been transformed into that of a beautiful, laughing woman with the sun in her eyes.
The defile opened when we had slipped past a half-hidden mountain hamlet or two; widened into a valley bright with colour as the jewels on the spread tail of a peacock; and boat-like, the car rode an undulating sea of green and azure and gold, that scintillated as if a spray of diamonds were tossed into air with the speed of our going.