Part 90 (1/2)

”It's the Irishman!” cried Don Carlos--”it's the Irish guerilla! It's O'Toole! The villain! he shall hang for this!”

Harry was too good-natured to feel revengeful, and was just beginning to beg for O'Toole's life, when suddenly there arose behind them the sound of hurried footsteps, followed by wild cries. All turned, and a strange figure met their eyes.

It was a woman. She wore a military cloak and an officer's kepi. She looked wildly around.

”Where is he? Where is my own one?” she cried--”'His Majesty?' Where is the hope of Spain?”

Russell saw her.

He threw out wide his manly arms--he opened his mouth: ”Jew?li?a-r-r-r-r-r-r!”

With a long, loud cry he shouted this name, and rushed toward her.

Mrs. Russell saw him coming--her lost, lamented lord! the one whom she had mourned as dead! Was this his ghost? or was he indeed alive? In any case, the shock was awful for a woman of delicate nerves; and Mrs. Russell prided herself on being a woman of very delicate nerves.

So she did what a woman of delicate nerves ought to do--she gave a loud, long, piercing shriek, and fainted dead away in her fond husband's arms.

Don Carlos gave a grin, and then pulled at his mustache.

”Another victim,” said he to the laughing company. ”Oh yes; O'Toole shall certainly swing for this. Discipline must and shall be maintained. Send out and catch the fellow. Have him up here at once.”

They sent out and they hunted everywhere, but nowhere could they discover any traces of the brilliant, the festive, the imaginative, the mimetic, the ingenious O'Toole. He was never seen again.

Some say that in the dead of night two figures might have been seen slowly wending their way up the path toward the tower; that the one looked like O'Toole and the other looked like Rita. It may have been so; many things are possible in this evil world; and if so, we must suppose that these two gradually faded away among the mists of cloud-land that always surround a castle in Spain.

CHAPTER LXI.

IN WHICH THERE IS AN END OF MY STORY.

The ill.u.s.trious host received his guests with large and lavish hospitality. The best that could be afforded by a bounteous commissariat was placed before them. The table was laid, the banquet was spread, and all the company sat down together.

At the head of the table was Don Carlos.

On his right was Talbot, with Brooke beside her.

On his left was Katie, with Harry beside her.

Next to Harry was Dolores, with Ashby beside her.

Next to Brooke was a priest in somewhat martial attire, whom Don Carlos introduced to them as--The Cure of Santa Cruz!

He was a broad-shouldered, middle-aged man, with strongly marked features, eagle eye, and bold and resolute face. This was the very man whom Brooke had once personated; but Brooke was just now silent about that particular matter, nor did he care to mention to any of his Spanish friends the fact that he was an American, and a newspaper correspondent. In spite of the pa.s.sports and credentials with which his wallet was stuffed and with which his pockets bristled, he had not been recognized by any one present; a fact that seems to show that those papers had been obtained from some of the inferior officers of Don Carlos, or perhaps from some other correspondent who had fallen in the practice of his professional duties.

The Cure of Santa Cruz said grace, and the banquet began.

Don Carlos was a man of joyous soul and large, exuberant spirit, with a generous, romantic, and heroic nature. He also knew how to lay aside, on occasion, all the cares of his position; so now he was no longer the commander of a gallant army, the banner-bearer of a great cause, the claimant of a throne. On the contrary, he was the simple gentleman among other gentlemen--_primus inter pares_--the hospitable host, chiefly intent upon performing the pleasing duties of that office.

He had also showed such an amiable interest in the adventures of his guests that they had frankly told him all that was of any interest. Harry had a more confiding disposition than the others, and after the ladies had retired he disclosed more and more of their affairs, until at last their gallant host had obtained a very clear idea of the sentimental side of the story.