"Also there is an abundance of vegetables in the garden—when you get them separated from the weeds, that is," he explained; "the clear air of these heights has enabled them to keep their flavour to perfection."
He did not add that he had also seen in that same garden a mound of newly-dug earth, under which lay, beside her little daughter, a mother as loving and more faithful than that Queen-Mother for whose sake they were risking their lives.
The Sergeant's hurriedly prepared lunch was a prodigious success.
The great folk partook as heartily as any, and (perhaps owing to their extreme youth) the pollos tasted much more tender than could have been expected, considering the fact that the Sergeant had found them industriously pecking and scratching in the dust of the farmyard upon his arrival, and that, while he dug the grave, he had sent La Giralda to drive them into a wood-shed, where presently they were captured en masse.
Rollo ate but little, for he was intensely excited. He had succeeded beyond expectation so far, and now he was beginning to see his way past all entanglements to the successful accomplishment of his mission. His plan was to proceed by unfrequented paths, such as were, however, perfectly familiar to his adjutant Sergeant Cardono, along the northern slopes of the Guadarrama till he should be able to look out across the fertile plain of the Duero towards the mural front of the Sierra de Moncayo.
Thence by forced marches across the valley, undertaken at night, he might hope in two stages at most to put his charges under the care of General Elio, the immediate representative of Don Carlos, who had established his headquarters there. Small wonder that Rollo grew excited. The worst seemed over—the myriad adventures, the perilous passes, the thousand enemies. Now the plains lay before him, and—Concha loved him.
If only this weight of responsibility were once off his mind—ah, then!
Poor Rollo! And indeed poor humankind in general! How often the wind falls to a breeze, heat-tempering, grateful, which comes in fits and starts, not severe enough to chill, yet long enough to cool the body weary of the summer heats, with a sense of grateful relief.
And it is precisely in the teeth of such a gentle-breathing, cheek-fanning earth-wind that the thunderstorm comes riding up overhead, its flanks black and ragged with rain and fierce spurts of hail, and in the midst of all the white desolating lightnings zigzagging to the ground.