The Firebrand

by S. R. Crockett

But this the little girl would in nowise permit. She let go the iron rail, and with both hands clenched fell upon her attendant with concentrated fury.

"Bad, wicked Susana," she cried, "I will have you whipped and sent about your business. Nay, I myself will beat you. I will kill you, do you hear? I have had nothing to eat and no one to play with for a week—not a gardener, not a dog, not even a soldier on guard to salute me or let me examine his sword-bayonet. And now when this dear, this sweet old Señora comes by with her lovely, lovely goats, you must perforce try to pull me off as if I were a village child that had played truant from the monks' school and must be birched for its fault!"

All the while she was speaking, the young Princess directed a shower of harmless blows at the skirts of her attendant, which Doña Susana laughingly warded off, begging all the while for pity, and instancing the direct commands of the little girl's mother, apparently a very exalted personage indeed, as a reason for her interference.

But Isabel of Spain was not to be appeased, and presently she had recourse to tears in the midst of her fury.

"You hate me—I know you do—that is what it means," she cried, "you would not have me happy even for a moment. But one day I shall be Queen, and do as I like! Yes, and drink as much warm goat's milk as I want, in spite of all the stupid, wicked, cruel Susanas in the world. And I shall throw you into a dungeon with nothing but mice and rats and serpents and centipedes—yes, and snails that leave a white slimy trail over you when they crawl! Ugh! And I will have your hands tied, so that you shall not be able to brush them off when they tickle your neck. Yes, I will, Susana! I swear it, and I am growing big—so big! And soon I shall be old enough to have you put in prison with the mice and snails, bad Susana! Oh, wicked Susana!"

Now, whether these childish threats actually had some effect, or whether the old lady was so soft-hearted as her comfortable appearance denoted, certain it is that she took a key from her pocket and passed it through the tall gilt railings to La Giralda.

"Go down a hundred yards or so," she said, "and there you will find a gate. Open it with that key and bring over your animals to the little pavilion among the trees by the fountain."

Upon hearing this the Princess instantly changed her tune. She had got her own way, and now it was "Beautiful Doña Susana! Precious and loveliest companion, when I am Queen you shall have the greatest and handsomest grandee in the kingdom to be your husband, and walk in diamonds and rubies at our court balls! Yes, you shall. I promise it by my royal oath. And now I will run to the house kitchen for basins to catch the goats' milk in, and my little churn to churn the butter in—and—and——"

But before she had catalogued half the things that she meant to find and bring she departed at the top of her speed, making the air ring with her shouts of delight.

Slowly, and with the meekest dignity, La Giralda did as she was bidden. She found the little gate, which, indeed, proved so narrow that she could not get her donkey to pass through with his great side-burdens of fagots. But as these were not at all heavy, La Giralda herself detached them, and, laying them carefully within the railings, she unhaltered the patient beast and, tying him only with a cord about his neck, left him a generous freedom of browsing upon the royal grass-plots and undergrowth.