"I regret," said Rollo, "that your Highness must be compelled to believe it. Pray do me the honour of following my argument. The Holy Father judges it necessary for the peace of this realm, and your own soul's profit, that you should be placed in a situation where you may be able to act more in accordance with what he knows to be your secret desires for the welfare of the Church of which he is God's vicegerent on earth."
Rollo was glad to reflect that, in uttering these words, he was only repeating the sonorous phrases of Don Baltazar Varela when the Abbot delivered him his commission in his own chamber at Montblanch. He added of his own accord a little prayer to the recording angel that he might be guilty of no blasphemy in thus acting at second hand as an emissary of Holy Church. After all, it was entirely the Abbot's affair, and Rollo was anxious that it should so be understood above.
But the lady chiefly concerned continued obdurate. She would not budge an inch. She professed an absolute certainty that her guard would appear in a few hours, and with them her Father-Confessor, who would inform her how to reply to any genuine and authentic message from his Holiness Gregory the Sixteenth. Further than that she could not be moved.
"In that case," said the young man, "I will not conceal it from your Highness that considerable discretion has been granted to me. Your company and that of your daughter we must have upon our journey. It is our intention to place you and her in a place of safety——"
"To steal us—to kidnap us, you mean!" cried the Queen, with the utmost indignation.
"Your Majesty," continued Rollo, "I am not disputing about words. Our actions of last night will best explain our intentions of this morning. But with respect to this gentleman"—he turned to Señor Muñoz as he spoke—"I have no directions either to permit or compel him to accompany us. Yet since we must act with the greatest speed and secrecy, it is clearly impossible to leave him behind. I am compelled, therefore, to put an alternative before you, which, having had an opportunity to remark the Señor's courage, I am pained to declare. If your Majesty will consent to accompany us at once and without parley, Don Fernando may do so also. But if not, since we have not force sufficient to deal with additional prisoners on such a journey, it will be my unhappy duty to order the gentleman's instant execution."
A shriek from the Queen punctuated the close of this speech—one of the longest that Rollo had ever made. But the Queen, hardly yet believing in the reality of their threats, still held out. As for Muñoz, he said no word until Rollo abruptly ordered him to kneel and prepare for death.
"In that case," said the ex-guardsman, "permit me to put on a decent coat. A man ought not to die in a dressing-gown. It is not soldierly!"
Rollo bade the valet bring his master what he wanted, and presently the Duke of Rianzares, in his best uniform coat, found himself in a position to die with credit and self-respect.
But so unexpected was the nerve and resolution of the Queen that it was only when the Duke had been bidden kneel down between the halves of a French window which opened out upon a balcony that Cristina, flinging dignity finally to the winds, fell upon his neck and cried to her captors, "Take me where you wish. Do with me what you will. Only preserve to me my beloved Fernando."