The obvious idea was that they would have conveyed their prisoners to some brigands' nest in the mountains, in the hope of obtaining a rich ransom. But they had evidently expected an automobile, or they would not have raised a barricade, just round a sharp corner on a particularly lonely piece of road.
Could they have been lying in wait for the King? This seemed impossible, as he had told no one that he was going out, and the expedition had indeed been made on the impulse, in the company of but one companion beside the chauffeur. He had intended to have a spin, and discover the state of the roads as far as practicable on the way to Jerez before turning back for the procession in the afternoon. And that evening he must return to Madrid. No, it was not the King for whom the seven men had prepared.
Who, then, was to have been their prey?
I believed that I could have answered this question, but I kept silent; and there was no reason why the King should guess that I had a suspicion.
“At all events,” he said, “we have you and your friend to thank that the affair was not more serious. I hope we should have been able to give a good account of ourselves; but seven [pg 279]against two are long odds. And there seems a fate in it that you should have come to me in the nick of time to-day as well as at Biarritz. I should like to know your names.”
I had dreaded this. Foolishly, perhaps, I felt that I could not bear to see the cordial light in his eyes fade to proud coldness, as it must when he knew me for a son of the man who had tried to place another on his throne. Besides, that I should at such a moment announce myself a Casa Triana would seem like bidding for pardon as a reward for what I had done. The confession stuck in my throat; and while I hesitated, Dick spoke.
“My friend didn't mean you to know, sir,” said he, gabbling so fast that I could not stop him; “but this isn't the second time he's happened to be around when there was a little thing to be done for your Majesty,—it's the third. Yesterday it was he who snatched that bomb away from the man under the paso, collared the other fellow, and stuck the bomb in a smashed water-jar, although he gave the credit to the chauffeur—who, by the way, is ‘shover’ to this car. My friend here is travelling, as you might say, incog. for important private reasons, which he'll want you to know some day, sir, if he doesn't now; and that's why, when Ropes the chauffeur happened along, he made him a present of all the praise.”
The King flushed, looking me straight in the eyes with an expression so noble and at the same time so kind that, had we lived a century or two ago, when men were not ashamed to show their true feelings, I should have thrown myself at his feet.
“I thank you again,” he said, “for everything. I'm glad to know you are Spanish, even if I am to know no more. But am I to know no more?”
“Will your Majesty pardon me,” I asked, “if I beg to remain nameless for the present?”