Yet for all this brave adventure Concha was as far as ever from meeting with General Elio. She had not even reached Vera, where it sits proudly on the northern slopes of the Moncayo—not though El Sarria had quite correctly pointed out the path, and though La Perla had served her like the very pearl and pride of all Andalucian steeds.
For once more, as so often in this history and in all men's lives, the cup had slipped on its way to the lip, the expected unexpected had happened—and Concha found herself in the wrong camp.
She rode at full speed (as we have seen) out of sight—that is, the sight of La Perla's owner. And owing to the red boina—which Master Adrian considered to become her so well, she came very near to riding out of this history. For, through the higher arroyo of Aranda de Moncayo, which (like a slice cut clean out of a bride's cake) divides the shoulder of the mountain, she rode directly into the camp of a field force operating against Cabrera under the personal command of General Espartero, the future dictator and present Commander-in-Chief of all the armies of the Queen-Regent.
At first she was nowise startled, thinking only that Vera and General Elio were nearer than had been represented. "Well," she thought, "so much the better!"
But as she came near she saw the measured tread of sentries to and fro. She observed the spick-and-span tents, the uniforms and the shining barrels of the muskets, which in another moment would have arrested her headlong course.
Concha at once perceived, even without looking at the standard which drooped at the tent door of the officer in command, that this could be no mere headquarters of Carlist partidas.
As women are said by the Wise Man to be of their lover's religion if he have one, and if he have none, never to miss it; so Concha was quite ready to be of the politics which were most likely to deliver Rollo from his present difficulties. Therefore, taking the red boina from her head, an act which disturbed still more the severe precision of her locks, she dashed at full speed into the camp, crying, "Viva la Reina! Viva Maria Cristina! Viva Isabel Segunda!"
Checking her steed before the standard, Concha first saluted the surprised group. Then giving a hand to the nearest (and best-looking) officer, she dismounted with a spring light as the falling of a leaf from a tree. With great solemnity she advanced to the staff from which the heavy standard hung low, and taking the embroidered fringe between finger and thumb, touched it with her lips.
Yet if you had called our little Concha a humbug—which in certain aspects of her character would have been a perfectly proper description—she would have replied in the utmost simplicity, and with a completely disarming smile, "But I only did it for Rollo's sake!"
Which was true in its way, but (strangely enough) the thought of an audience always stirred Mistress Concha to do her best—"for Rollo's sake!"