Beltran’s countenance brightened on hearing this little explanation, and he then, with affected carelessness, asked after his old friend Jacobo. I replied, that I had left him quite well at Grazalema; a piece of information that seemed to puzzle him amazingly.
Melchor did not keep us long waiting, and our final dispositions were soon made. It was settled that he should proceed with all speed to join his band at El Burgo, and at daybreak on the following morning make the projected foray into the eastern part of the vale of Ronda, to draw upon him a portion of the garrison of the fortress. Beltran, meanwhile, was to march immediately with his troop, (which was already assembled at Gaucin) and gain the valley of the Guadiaro below Montejaque; whilst I should post back to Grazalema, to conduct my quadrilla to the pass in the chain of Sierra to the left of that same village. Our two bands would thus be so situated as to be able to form a junction, and fall upon the defenceless city, the moment the favourable opportunity presented itself.
Although, as chieftain of the largest band, the direction of the operations devolved upon me, yet, out of compliment to Beltran, I invited him to meet me at the village of Montejaque, as soon as he had conducted his troop to its assigned position; whence we could watch the movements of the enemy in the plain below, and put the necessary “ensemble” in our movements. I then remounted my horse, and lost no time in rejoining my band.
My first care, on regaining Grazalema, was to send for Pépé. The scoundrel confessed every thing. Beltran, Melchor, and himself, had entered into a plot to betray me into the hands of the French. Alonzo, he declared, knew nothing of it. A French force was, that very night, to occupy the narrow pass between the lofty Sierras of Endrinal and San Cristoval, in our rear, to intercept me, when—on discovering that our plan to entrap the enemy had failed—I should attempt to escape by that issue to Ubrique.
Alarmed at my sudden determination to visit my coadjutors at Gaucin, and yet more at the hint I had thrown out of the possible disarrangement of our plans, Pépé rightly conjectured that I had received some hint of impending danger, and had despatched a hurried epistle to Beltran, (who, he knew, was then at Ronda, making final arrangements with the enemy,) acquainting him with my proceedings. My faithful Pépé furnished me, moreover, with a list of six of my own men, who were engaged in the plot. It was, however, with the greatest difficulty I brought him to confess what had moved him to engage in this treacherous plot; the more unpardonable on his part, since, in all our intercourse, he had received nothing but benefits at my hands. At length, he acknowledged that he had been worked upon by that strongest and strangest of all human passions, jealousy—that uncontrollable phrenzy, which, of all our weaknesses, is the only one that fails not with our declining years, and that—strange to say—ofttimes causes the very feeling, the suspicion alone of which gave it birth!
Such was the case in the present instance. The wife of Pépé was a dark Gitana,[227] in the full bloom of woman’s beauty; and, with a form as graceful, and passions as unrestrained, as those of the wild deer that bounded through her native forests, she possessed, as I soon discovered, a spirit that ill assorted with the clownish and imbecile character of her husband.
The source whence the mysterious warning sprung was now evident; but, until that moment, I had not even been aware that Pépé’s wife had accompanied him to Grazalema.
I solemnly protested to him that I had never looked upon Paca with the eyes of love, and that his jealousy was, consequently, quite unfounded—a declaration which, at that time, was not more solemn than true; and Pépé’s jealousy ceased precisely at the moment when cause for it commenced.
For his unreserved confession of the plot I granted the wretch his life on one condition; a condition which I will hereafter specify, and to the performance of which he bound himself in the most solemn manner. I knew him sufficiently to trust to his superstition, what I no longer could to his honour.
Without taking any further notice of this conspiracy, I assembled my troop, and, towards nightfall, put it in motion for its allotted position; which we reached towards midnight. I now sent for Jacobo, and, communicating to him my secret, directed him to proceed on, whilst yet the shadows of night would conceal his movements, towards Ronda, and, with the earliest dawn, to make the demonstration I had arranged with the French Governor of the fortress. This done, I proceeded myself to Montejaque, to give the meeting to my confederate Beltran.