For a hundred heart-beats all the party held their breath. Then Rollo whispered to Señor Muñoz to mount and take the little Princess before him.
"As for you, you must run for it, Ramon!" he said to El Sarria. "The fat is in the fire now, and all we can do is to hold them back as long as we can. Make straight for the gorge towards Vera. You know the way. May God help you to reach it before they can turn our flank!"
Then it was that the Sergeant received a definite shock of surprise. That queens would be foolish, arbitrary, even absolutely idiotic, was no marvel to him. That they should choose their favourites from estanco-keepers and guardsmen, and elevate them at a day's notice to grandeeships, dukedoms of Spain, and privileges even higher, did not in the least astonish him. But that the person so elevated should after all, in his less corporeal attributes, prove to be a man, was a first-rate surprise to José Maria.
Muñoz was now to furnish the Sergeant with an absolutely new sensation.
"Señor," he said, quietly addressing El Sarria, "be good enough to mount and conduct the Queen to a place of safety. I intend to remain here with these gentlemen!"
Then he went up to Maria Cristina and spoke a few sentences to her in a tone so low that only the last words were audible.
"If not, by the Immaculate Virgin, I swear that you shall never see my face again!"
"Fernando! Fernando! Fernando! You are cruel!" was the answer uttered through choking sobs.
But El Sarria was by this time in the saddle. The little Princess was set in her place in front of him.
"Off with you!" whispered Rollo.