They were now waiting only for the royal party, and the time seemed long to impatient Rollo. Were all his plans, so carefully laid, to be made naught because, forsooth, a queen in danger of her life must still keep up the punctilios of a court and cherish the pettishnesses and caprices of a spoilt child? Was his reputation to go down to posterity as that of a man who, being trusted with the lives of a woman and a child, had brought them straight to the shambles?
At last—there! They were coming. But why, for God's sake, could not they make less noise?
With a motion of his hand which directed El Sarria to keep an eye upon the gagged sentries, Rollo went forward to receive the Queen and conduct her to her horse. Muñoz, however, came out first, carrying in his arms the little Princess, who, so soon as she heard Rollo's voice, whispered her desire to be transferred to him. But Rollo had already offered the Queen his arm, and whispering her to tread carefully, led the way to the little hollow where Sergeant Cardono kept the three bridles in his hand, cursing meanwhile the slow movements of crowned heads and ennobled estanco-keepers in Romany of the deepest and blackest.
He had cause to curse another peculiarity of monarchs and spoilt children before many minutes had gone by. Till now the success of the plot had been complete. There remained indeed only to mount and ride. El Sarria brought up the rear, assuring himself for the hundredth time that his weapons were in good order and ready to his hand. No great general, Ramon Garcia was a matchless legionary.
But the Queen-Regent would by no means submit to be assisted to her seat (it was a man's saddle) by Rollo. She called to her husband in a voice clearly audible all about.
"Fernando—my love! Come to me—I want you!"
As Rollo said afterwards—no queen born under the lilies of Bourbon ever ran a nearer chance of having the rude hand of a commoner set over her august mouth than did Maria Cristina of Naples on this occasion.
Nor was the appeal without effect.
Señor Muñoz instantly put the little Princess down upon the ground and hastened to his wife. What happened after that is not very clear, even when the subject has been repeatedly and exhaustively threshed out by the persons most immediately concerned.
Perhaps the little Princess, deposited thus suddenly upon the ground, caught instinctively at one of the long tails of the horses which (in common with those of almost all Spanish horses) almost swept the ground. Perhaps the animals themselves grew suddenly panic-stricken. At all events one of the three lashed out suddenly. The Sergeant bent sideways to snatch Isabel from among their hoofs. In so doing he dropped a rein, and in another moment one of the steeds went clattering up the dry arroyo, scattering the gravel every way with a wild flourishing of heels, and making, as the Sergeant growled, "enough noise to arouse twenty camps."