We dumped our civil guard at the entrance to a side street which was, we hinted, rather narrow for automobiles, and, not waiting for his grateful adieux, we darted on, asking a bootblack the way to the best hotel. At the “Sign of the Swan” we paused [pg 284]just long enough to give the Gloria water, and to find out that a motor-car had stopped for a few moments about two hours ago. There were ladies inside, but they had not got out. A gentleman, covered with dust, had ordered sherry and biscuits, which he and the chauffeur had themselves carried to the other passengers, appearing rather impatient with the waiters. This gentleman had spoken Spanish in the hotel, but had been heard conversing in English with his friends. They had remained about fifteen minutes, and had then gone on. A waiter remembered seeing the chauffeur and his master consulting a road-map, and had heard the word “Cadiz” spoken.
This gave us an apparently unbroken clue, and half expecting to be caught in a police-trap, we slipped stealthily out of Jerez, with a spurt of speed as streets were left behind.
Still we were watched by purple-robed, guardian mountains, sitting in conclave. A running fire of poppies swept the fields between which we travelled, while distant meadows were paved with gold, or with forget-me-not blue like squares of the sky's mosaic fallen out. The air grew luminous as the crystal bell which hangs over the lagoons of Venice; and with the subtle change of atmosphere we had in our nostrils the first tang of the sea.
Here and there a strip of lush green was belted with cactus, but we were driving through salt marshes, and round us spread a plain piled with strange, shining pyramids of salt, white and bright as hills of diamond dust. Then, suddenly, a broken line of turrets and domes and spires was cut in gleaming pearl against the sky; and it was not the opal clearness of the air alone which took the memory to Venice. Here was the same ebb and flow of salt water in glittering lagoons, the same dark, waving lines of seaweed, the same wide stretch of sapphire beyond the alabaster domes.
For Spain, the road was good, and we glided smoothly through the pretty old town of Puerta de Santa Maria, with its big bodegas and Byronic associations. Across the Guadalquivir, where it tumbles into the Atlantic, dashing through an aromatic forest of [pg 285]umbrella pines we came out at Queen Isabel's white, Moorish looking Puerto Real. Thence, distant Cadiz on its rock appeared to change position bewilderingly, like a group of fairy castles, as we swept round the rim of that semicircular bay where once the Phœnicians traded in metals of England, and amber of the Baltic; where the ships of the Great Armada lay; and where Essex wrought destruction.
At San Fernando, I was assailed by doubt. What if, after all, the car we sought had not gone to Cadiz, but had here taken the coast road to Algeciras? The great conference was only just over, there; tourists of all nations were flocking to the town, attracted by curiosity; and as the place boasts the most beautiful hotel in Spain, it seemed likely that in flying from Seville the Duke should choose Algeciras instead of Cadiz. But some fishermen, on that rope of sand which binds Cadiz to the mainland, had seen a car pass a few hours before. Yes, only one; and they thought it was grey. It had four or five passengers, and was going to Cadiz.
Thither we spurted, Dick studying a plan of the city as we flew along the straight road embanked above the sand. By the time we arrived in silver Cadiz he was able to say in which direction I must drive to find the chief hotel; and in an open place not far from the crowded port we stopped.
Dick stayed to guard the car from the crowd which quickly collected, while I went to question the landlord.
No travellers with an automobile were stopping with him at present; but one had arrived a couple of hours ago, perhaps, and its passengers had wished to remain overnight. Unfortunately, however, as a big ship had just come in from America every room was taken.
There was no other hotel at which persons of taste could stop in comfort; and after some discussion, the owner of the car had decided to run on to Algeciras by way of Tarifa. The party, consisting of three ladies, one gentleman, and the chauffeur, had taken a hasty meal, and had got away about an hour and a half before our arrival.