The Ghost Breaker Part 24

As he started for the door the girl called after him.

"Will you go again to-morrow, Vardos?"

"Yes, senorita. I will go forever, until I know for sure that it is useless. Good-night."

His words as he pa.s.sed through the old portal were drowned by the cheering and applause which followed some especial favorite who had ended a song.

Dolores looked sadly at the basket, the tears streaming down her face.

She lifted the napkin, showing the simple but nouris.h.i.+ng food which had been untouched by the missing Prince. She crossed herself, with a whispered prayer for his safety, crossing the room to the ancient pantry.

The dreams of Pedro were rudely interrupted. The big door suddenly opened to admit a character very different from the weaklings who made his tavern their rendezvous. He was dark-skinned as the rest of the crew, red-faced as old Pedro (from the same faithful indulgence in vintages), not younger than forty, yet aggressive, vibrating with physical power, elasticity, and an overweening insolence. His manner of approach--and he entered this tavern with the same studied grace with which he swaggered into half a hundred others--seemed to indicate that he delighted in disorganizing and terrorizing whatever he might find established and orderly--wherever he might find it!

Beholding the somnolent proprietor, he advanced quietly to the middle of the big room. Then, with malicious enjoyment of the effect, he banged his riding-crop violently upon the table, close to the tavern keeper's ear.

"Hey, you Pedro!" he roared. "Wake up, you blockhead--wake up, I say!"

There was only a response of snores.

"You, Pedro, attention! What's the matter here? Where are you? Wake up and stop your dreaming!"

At this the startled landlord leaped to his feet, bowing through force of habit.

"Ah, Senor Robledo! One thousand pardons!" he gasped timorously. "What can I do for you, sir?"

"You're a wretch of a tavern keeper," and the newcomer advanced upon the unhappy Pedro as though about to slay him for his drowsiness.

"Yes, senor! You are always right." The man humbly endeavored to collect his wits. "How may I serve your lords.h.i.+p?"

The bully swaggered, puffed his cheeks, and feeling that his host was finally awake to the seriousness of the situation, he cried out once more: "My horse stands outside by the post. He has been hard ridden, for I have come on an important mission. Varlet, go out and wash his mouth, dry him down, and don't give him water until he has cooled off.

Are you finally awake, you idiotic Pedro?"

The tavern keeper gulped fearsomely, and bowed his most fetching bow, without result.

"My horse is almost dead on his legs. Be kind to him. I've had a hard ride over these miserable province roads. As for me--I want a flask of ... well ... of something decent. I know that's not in your line. Step lively now; and mind you, draw it from your private cask. My temper is no better than it should be, to-night."

The old man bowed and started to leave the big room.

The bl.u.s.tering guest howled at him once more, punctuating his remarks with the b.u.t.t of the whip.

"Where's your daughter?"

The old man trembled and bowed once more.

"I'll call her," Pedro said apologetically. "She'll be right here, sir."

He went to the door at the right, and shouted quaveringly: "Dolores!

Dolores! Dolores!... There, senor, she will come at once."

"And, Pedro--if that rat-infested larder of yours is empty, get it filled before the Duke arrives," added Robledo. "Yes ... the Duke. He is coming to-night. Don't stand and stare, but hurry up and see to my horse."

"Yes, senor!... Yes, yes!"

And he tottered away on his errands.

Dolores had entered in response to the call. At first she did not observe the newcomer, whose back was toward her.

"Yes, father," she began. "Why do you wish me?"

"Dolores," Robledo turned toward her impatiently. "Did you not know I had come?"

"Oh, it's you?" and there was a scornful sniff from the girl.

"Well, well, can't you say you're glad to see me?"

The jade was hard to impress, where others showed abjection before the terrorist.

"I can, but I won't. Where's my father?"

"Never mind your father--I want to talk to you."

"Is it so, Senor Robledo? Well, you won't in that tone."

He intercepted her in the center of the room, catching her wrist and turning her about to face him.

"What do you want to say to me?"

"You little devil!... Come here, don't try to get away." The girl was tugging to release herself. "What's come over you these days? You are about as fond and sweet-tempered as a tigress. Anyone would think that you didn't care for me at all. What have I done, Dolores?"

"It is what you have not done. For fifteen days your Prince has been in need of you, and you have not had the courage to go to him. Let go my wrist."

Don Robledo laughed, yet with a quaver in his voice, for there was a depth of pa.s.sion here, intensified by the spirited resistance of the girl.

"Who's the little spitfire trying to tear to pieces now?"

"You!" she snapped back. "Don Robledo--sword-fighter--toreador--fire-eater --hero of a hundred duels!... You--Don Robledo--_coward_!"

He clumsily chuckled her under the chin.

"I asked you to-day," she continued, as she threw his hand away from her face, "I begged you to go into the castle and rescue your Prince. I ask you now to answer the signal that I just saw in the tower window, where he can see our lights. Perhaps he has burned something, a sc.r.a.p of paper, in the hope that some of you, his retainers, would notice it and come to his a.s.sistance. But--he doesn't know what a pack of cowards you all are, or he would have saved his matches. So, it's Don Robledo--_coward_!"

The big man snarled.

"Coward--never a coward in a fair fight in the open, and I'll meet the best man that walks the earth." Here he faced the inquisitive and thoroughly awed villagers. "Any two or three!"

He banged the table with his riding-crop to punctuate the emphasis.

"I don't ask you to kill one or two or three of these poor whimpering sheep of Seguro. I ask you to dare something, at risk to yourself. To go to the aid of your Prince.... There isn't a man among you--who _dares_! _Dios!_ How I could love _such a man_!"

They had not heard the thrum of the motors on the roadway outside. The door opened, and the first of the party to enter was the Duke. He walked quietly into the room, overhearing the words of Dolores.