‘It is like a cat walking down an alley full of dogs,’ he muttered.
At last the lights of Toledo hove in sight, and across the river came the sound of the city clocks tolling the hour.
‘Midnight,’ said Concha. ‘And all respectable folk are in their beds. At night all cats are grey.’
No one heeded him. Estella was sitting upright, bright-eyed and wakeful. The General looked out of the window at every moment. Across the river they could see lights moving, and many houses that had been illuminated were suddenly dark.
‘See,’ said the General, leaning out of the window and speaking to Conyngham, ‘they have heard the sound of our wheels.’
At the farther end of the Bridge of Alcantara, on the road which now leads to the railway station, two horsemen were stationed, hidden in the shadow of the trees that border the pathway.
‘Those should be Guardias Civiles,’ said Concepçion, who had studied the ways of those gentry all his life. ‘But they are not. They have horses that have never been taught to stand still.’
As he spoke the men vanished, moving noiselessly in the thick dust which lay on the Madrid road.
The General saw them go—and smiled. These men carried word to their fellows in Madrid for the seizure of the little Queen. But before they could reach the capital the Queen Regent herself would be there—a woman in a thousand, of inflexible nerve, of infinite resource.
The carriage rattled over the narrow bridge which rings hollow to the sound of wheels. It passed under the gate that Wamba built and up the tree-girt incline to the city. The streets were deserted, and no window showed a light. A watchman in his shelter, at the corner by the synagogue, peered at them over the folds of his cloak, and noting the clank of scabbard against spur, paid no further heed to a traveller who took the road with such outward signs of authority.