Chapter 34

THE RACE

It was lucky for us that the guard had met an automobile between the brigands’ barricade and Jerez, otherwise we should have been at sea. The road-mender near Utrera had seen but one car, and that might have been the King’s; but now we had something to hope for still; and Dick and I resolved to get out of Jerez as soon as possible, provided we could learn that the car we followed had gone on. If we lingered, the civil guard might, after all, think it his duty to have us detained, and we did not wish to give him time to change his mind.

“It’s a pity, though,” said Dick, with a thirsty sigh. “I’ve always had a sneaking fancy that if I ever came to Spain I’d stop at Jerez—‘the place where the sherry comes from’—and potter about in huge, cool bodegas, sampling golden wine from giant casks with queer names on them. Only think what it would feel like to-day to have a stream of mellow ‘Methusalem’ trickling over our dusty lips and down our dry throats? Great Scott! I daren’t dwell on it, since it can’t be. But it’s a grand chance missed.”

Almost as he spoke we flashed into a neat white town, with green glimpses of patios; and groaning, Dick shut his eyes upon a great bodega where the famous names of Gonzalez and Byass loomed black on white.

We dumped our civil guard at the entrance to a side street which was, we hinted, rather narrow for automobiles, and, not waiting for his grateful adieux, we darted on, asking a bootblack the way to the best hotel. At the “Sign of the Swan” we paused just long enough to give the Gloria water, and to find out that a motor-car had stopped for a few moments about two hours ago. There were ladies inside, but they had not got out. A gentleman, covered with dust, had ordered sherry and biscuits, which he and the chauffeur had themselves carried to the other passengers, appearing rather impatient with the waiters. This gentleman had spoken Spanish in the hotel, but had been heard conversing in English with his friends. They had remained about fifteen minutes, and had then gone on. A waiter remembered seeing the chauffeur and his master consulting a road-map, and had heard the word “Cadiz” spoken.

This gave us an apparently unbroken clue, and half expecting to be caught in a police-trap, we slipped stealthily out of Jerez, with a spurt of speed as streets were left behind.

Still we were watched by purple-robed, guardian mountains, sitting in conclave. A running fire of poppies swept the fields between which we travelled, while distant meadows were paved with gold, or with forget-me-not blue like squares of the sky’s mosaic fallen out. The air grew luminous as the crystal bell which hangs over the lagoons of Venice; and with the subtle change of atmosphere we had in our nostrils the first tang of the sea.

Here and there a strip of lush green was belted with cactus, but we were driving through salt marshes, and round us spread a plain piled with strange, shining pyramids of salt, white and bright as hills of diamond dust. Then, suddenly, a broken line of turrets and domes and spires was cut in gleaming pearl against the sky; and it was not the opal clearness of the air alone which took the memory to Venice. Here was the same ebb and flow of salt water in glittering lagoons, the same dark, waving lines of seaweed, the same wide stretch of sapphire beyond the alabaster domes.

For Spain, the road was good, and we glided smoothly through the pretty old town of Puerta de Santa Maria, with its big bodegas and Byronic associations. Across the Guadalquivir, where it tumbles into the Atlantic, dashing through an aromatic forest of umbrella pines we came out at Queen Isabel’s white, Moorish looking Puerto Real. Thence, distant Cadiz on its rock appeared to change position bewilderingly, like a group of fairy castles, as we swept round the rim of that semicircular bay where once the Phœnicians traded in metals of England, and amber of the Baltic; where the ships of the Great Armada lay; and where Essex wrought destruction.

At San Fernando, I was assailed by doubt. What if, after all, the car we sought had not gone to Cadiz, but had here taken the coast road to Algeciras? The great conference was only just over, there; tourists of all nations were flocking to the town, attracted by curiosity; and as the place boasts the most beautiful hotel in Spain, it seemed likely that in flying from Seville the Duke should choose Algeciras instead of Cadiz. But some fishermen, on that rope of sand which binds Cadiz to the mainland, had seen a car pass a few hours before. Yes, only one; and they thought it was grey. It had four or five passengers, and was going to Cadiz.

Thither we spurted, Dick studying a plan of the city as we flew along the straight road embanked above the sand. By the time we arrived in silver Cadiz he was able to say in which direction I must drive to find the chief hotel; and in an open place not far from the crowded port we stopped.

Dick stayed to guard the car from the crowd which quickly collected, while I went to question the landlord.

No travellers with an automobile were stopping with him at present; but one had arrived a couple of hours ago, perhaps, and its passengers had wished to remain overnight. Unfortunately, however, as a big ship had just come in from America every room was taken.

There was no other hotel at which persons of taste could stop in comfort; and after some discussion, the owner of the car had decided to run on to Algeciras by way of Tarifa. The party, consisting of three ladies, one gentleman, and the chauffeur, had taken a hasty meal, and had got away about an hour and a half before our arrival.

“Those beastly bandidos!” I exclaimed to Dick in a rage of disappointment. “If it hadn’t been for them we should have been on the heels of the grey car, and caught it up here at the hotel. I should have been able to snatch Monica away from under their noses—for I know she wouldn’t have failed me.”

“Those beastly bandidos introduced you to the King,—don’t forget that,” said Dick consolingly. “And the day may come before long when you’ll be glad of that introduction. You can never tell, in a life like yours. And once Carmona’s at Algeciras, why, you’ve got him in a kind of cul-de-sac from which he can’t escape, any more than a mouse can jump out of a basin half full of water. If he takes rooms at the Reina Cristina, you’ll come plump upon him. If he tries to return by road, he’ll run into your arms; and one or the other must happen unless he puts his auto on a train or steamer, neither of which is likely.”

Somewhat comforted, I proposed to follow at once, but Dick wistfully reminded me that the afternoon was wearing on, and he was wearing with it. Soon he would be worn out, unless I gave him something to eat. It seemed years since that cup of coffee and roll of the early morning.

If we needed nourishment, the car needed water. Both needs were supplied somewhat grudgingly by me, though the physical part of me did appreciate the coolness of the restaurant, and the strange dishes for which Cadiz is famous; the mushroom-flavoured cuttle-fish, the golden dorado in sherry.

Then off we started again, to take a road which the landlord warned us was none too good. People who travelled by carriage or diligence had evil things to say of the fourteen to eighteen hours of journey, though the scenery was fine. This did not sound enlivening; but what good horses could do in fourteen hours, the Gloria could do in three or four.

Through ramifications of narrow streets I steered the car out of Cadiz. In all directions they branched off from one another, interlacing, overlapping with the intricacy of a puzzle. The houses were high, too, and there was not a window with glittering balcony of glass and iron, where dark-eyed women did not lean between heaven and earth, to smile down upon our humming motor. It was all very quaint and gay, in spite of ancient, tragic memories; and though few cities of Spain are older than Cadiz—which claims Hercules for founder—the white houses looked as clean as if they had been built yesterday or some mediæval model.

We tore back to San Fernando; and soon came upon the bad surface which had been prophesied. The Gloria bumped over ruts and grooves, and scattered stones, and perforce I had to slacken speed lest she should break some blood-vessel. Nevertheless we did not waste time in covering the six miles to Chiclana de la Frontera; and when we had crashed through this ancient stronghold of the Phœnicians we jolted out into an open, sandy solitude, with only the knoll of Barosa to break its blank monotony.

Even a mind preoccupied must spare a few thoughts for Graham and the “Faugh-a-ballaghs,” on this ground where Spanish men and British men fought shoulder to shoulder against the French invader. But when we passed the road branching away to Conil, and held straight on across the little river Salado, I heard a thing more instructive than history, more exciting than romance.

A man we met—who looked almost old enough to remember the brave days of the great tunny fishing—had seen a large automobile, not more than an hour ago. Evidently, then, we were gaining on the quarry. The news gave me courage.

The sea and the Straits of Gibraltar were near now, and though they were not in sight yet, nor the sandy headland of Trafalgar, the smell of salt came to us with the wind.

At the old Moorish town of Vejer de la Frontera (scarcely a town in this storied corner of the world but tells, with its “de la Frontera,” of days when the Moors were crushed back, ever farther and farther) we had travelled full thirty miles from Cadiz. Childish voices screaming round the car cried that another automobile was not far ahead; and like a racehorse nearing the finish, we put on speed, dashing at a rush to the Laguna de Janda, over the ground where Tarik the Conquerer began his great running fight with Rodrigo. So through little Venta de Tabilla, leaving the lake to plunge into an imposing gorge which was a doorway to the sea. There, spread out before, were the straits and the burning African coast; Europe and Africa face to face; white Tarifa jutting into the green waves; Trafalgar in the distance, smothered in clouds like clinging memories; Tangier opposite, a crescent of pearls, tossed seaward by towering blue waves which were the Atlas Mountains. Taking the wild beauty of the scene with all that it meant, it was one of the great sights of the world—the world once supposed to end here, with Hercules’ pillars.

As the Gloria sprang on towards Tarifa, a fierce wind which had been lying in wait leapt at the car and sent her staggering. Gust after gust darted from ambush, half blinding our ungoggled eyes with the sand they flung by handfuls into our faces. But we jammed on our hats; and the Gloria bore the onslaughts bravely, her voice drowned in the screaming of the wind, which might have been the war cries of those Moorish armies whose battleground this land had been for seven centuries.

As the good white road mounted the shoulder of a down on its way to Tarifa, that most Moorish of all Spanish towns stood up like a model cut out of alabaster in a frame of jade. Clear against the sky rose the crumbling tower of Guzman el Bueno, the Abraham of mediæval history; but our way, instead of leading through the strange old city, passed the horseshoe gate of entrance, and bore us up into the mountains.

Not a soul did we meet, once we turned our backs upon Tarifa. Only the wild wind would not desert us, but roared in strange voices along the hollows of the land, in a country where all was wild. The rough mountain sides were peppered with stunted oaks; and as our way ascended more thrilling grew the views, with the smoke of great steamers streaming black pennons over the sea, and the Atlas Mountains squatting Sphinx-like to guard the African shore.

Then, we lost the hard blue line of water, screened behind mountains; and slipping down over the summit we hid from the bellowing wind. The car flew like a circling bird round the wide curves, and dropped us in peaceful vales sheltered by cork forests, and rocky walls inlaid with the silver of trickling streams.

Thus, back to the wide sea view and downs whose flowery carpet was torn by jagged nail-heads of rock. Cork trees, sombre as giant olives clad in mourning, strong in their corselets and shields of half-stripped bark as knights in armour, covered the hills like a vast army. At the foot of the hoary warriors, waved bracken and yellow iris in tangled masses; high above their heads sailed here and there a golden eagle of a vulture, looking like paper birds or Japanese kites.

Far below us the white houses of Algeciras lay scattered, a broken necklace of white beads; and from across the water that dark lion, Gibraltar, crouched as if waiting to spring.

Whether Dick or I saw it first I can’t tell, but we exclaimed together, “There’s the other car!” And there it was, a moving speck upon the road in a white cloud of dust.

After it we went with a bound of increased speed. No need now to stop and ask the way to the hotel; all we had to do was to follow and catch up with the Lecomte at the steps of the Hotel Reina Cristina. A wild idea flashed into my head, that I would snatch Monica as she alighted from Carmona’s car, fling her to Dick in mine, jump in after her myself, and be off before the others had time to recover from their surprise.

The more I thought of this the more feasible did it seem. No slowing up for sharp turnings now; trust to luck that the road was clear ahead! I was thrilling with hope and excitement as we dashed after the disappearing dust-covered automobile into a wide open gateway. The scent of heliotrope and rose geranium, hot under the April sun, intoxicated me as we swept along the white avenue, and came in sight of the other car just drawing up before an arcaded loggia.