The Velvet Glove

n was delivered to Marcos, literally from hand to ha

some minutes, he deliberately walked knee-deep into the water and touched Marcos on the elbow. Fo

Nature, and the slow movements of the far-sighted. For Nature is always consistent, and never hurri

s an odd suggestion of brotherhood between these men of very different birth. For as men are equal in the sight of G

se face, wrinkled like a walnut by the sun

g pool beneath some alders. "There is a

re a second crop of hay was already

rously since Charles III was king--for he gave a deeper attention to the matter in hand than most have time for. He turned

"I want you, and awa

the Count had reflected, "without pers

tributaries of the Ebro which have run with blood any time this hundred years. The country, moreover, that it drained was ma

t have not stood empty since the forties. And all the valley of the Wolf, from the grim Pyrenees standing sentinel at its head to th

for the king, when we have a king worth fightin

d what the Sarrions had told them. At

not worth hold

ou take Torre Garda first," thought tho

or, and in the meantime they paid no taxes, enjoyed no po

ass each other, and a carriage could be driven at the trot, there often passed a patrol from the Royalist stronghold of Pampeluna. But the Government troops never ventured up the valley which was like a mouse-hole with a Carlist ca

ion in any written word that might pass from th

htmare, a bad, distorted dream of a pointer--stood in front of Marcos de Sa

og it seemed, knowing that he was not quite a pointer, sought to conciliate humanity by an eagerness, by a pathetic and blundering haste to

m the mountains near the frontier, where dogs are trained to smuggle. Full of zeal, he had probably smuggled too eagerly. Marcos had found him, half starved, far up the valley of the Wolf. He had not been deemed worthy of a baptismal name and

ng water and now stood awaiting orders, his near hind leg sha

to say, he said it. But if he had nothing, he was silent. Which is, of course, fatal to social advancement, and set him at one stroke outside the pale of political life. Spain at this time

sphere than an obscure Pyrenean gorge, no greater a following than the men of the Valley of the Wolf. These he held in an iron grip. Within his deep and narrow head lay the secret which neither Madrid nor B

be remembered that these mountain slopes have given to the world the finest guerilla s

who see below the surface, know that the restful man is he

nd hardest of all schools, where hunger is the usher, awaited,

. The railway station was only twenty miles away, which is to this day considered quite a convenient distance in Navarre. There would be a moon soon after nightfall. There was plenty of time. Th

at the open window in Saragossa when Marcos, with the dust of tr

h. All is ready in your room. I have seen to it myself.

father was taller, slighter and quicker in his glance, while Marcos' face seemed to bespeak a greater strength. In any common purpose it would assuredly fal

and had emerged half cynical, half indifferen

e to Torre Garda with an education completed in England and France. "But there is no o

ime. Gradually he supplanted his father in an unrecognised, indefinable monarchy in the Valley of the Wolf; and there, in

d sat down at once with a keen appetite to his first breakfast of coffee an

ow leant against the window which opened on to the hea

turned secretly to Saragossa. I think he was coming to this house; but

note the passage of a sort of shadow across his d

wn there, at the corner of the Calle San

t spot where Mogente had fallen before the story went any farther. Perro went so far as to push his plebeian head through the bar

ta know?" a

e in the nature of a disappointment than a sorrow. Her hear

down again

ad to go round by the Paseo del Ebro. To render help was out of the question. I went down afterwards, however, when help had come and the dying man had been carried away--by a friar, Mar

now that he was coming t

hat was in his pockets is, of course, quite simple, and common enough. But why should he be cared for by a friar, and taken to

t a will?"

rette away, and coming into the room, sat down in front of the small t

rough it. Mogente made a will on his death-bed--which was, by the way, witnessed by Leon de Mog

left his

wish her harm. I have picked up what unconsidered trifles of information I can, but they do not amount to much. I cabled to Cuba for

pesetas in the

und Juanita's neck," said Sarrion, folding

nt of funds, and the Jesuits know that it is Don Carlos or a Republic, and all the world knows that all republics have been fatal to the Society--bah!" the Co

id Marco

thought of it night and day. Th

thoughtfully, and waited to

rry her," sa