“Very well, then; matters are desperate, and desperate remedies must be tried; things can't be worse than they are. I shall hang about Carmona's house early in the morning, and when the first person comes out I'll go in. If I don't come out, you will know what's become of me; and I don't suppose in these days even a Duke can kill a man without getting into trouble?”
“He would merely have you arrested as a housebreaker,” said the Cherub.
“Well, I should have seen Monica first, and perhaps have got her on the right side of the door.”
“We'll have a go at the business together,” said Dick. “It would be more sociable.”
“All right, thank you,” said I. “Then something's settled; and these best of friends can go home and sleep.”
“Sleep!” echoed Pilar scornfully. “Oh, if I were a man, and could do something to punish the Duke!”
“I wish you could set your bull at him,” said Dick. “Only, now I think of it, it's his bull still.”
Try as we might, it was impossible to persuade either Colonel O'Donnel or Pilar that they ought to return quietly to bed, if not to sleep. No, they would do nothing of the kind. Besides, no properly disposed person within ten miles of Seville would lie in bed that night. Processions would go on till early morning. Many [pg 268]people would watch them, or spend the hours till early mass in prayer in the cathedral, which would be open all night. Why should not the O'Donnel family do as others did?
There was no answer to this; and it was finally arranged that, if they wished to rest at all, it should be at the hotel in the Plaza de San Fernando, where we had dined. That was to be the rendezvous; and the Cherub would engage the verger we knew to watch the Duke's house in the morning, bringing news of our fate to the hotel—if we did not bring it ourselves.
Never—if I live beyond the allotted threescore years and ten—shall I forget that strange night of Holy Thursday in Seville.