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The truth did not strike me at first, so I said innocently, "Oh, has he been wounded and obtained permission to be nursed at home? Is he seriously hurt?" "He is quite well, I believe, and is one of us." "Felipe Montilla turned Patriot?" I cried in amazement. Now let me not be misunderstood. I honestly believed our cause just.
She must have left her home hurriedly and unobserved, since it was an unheard-of thing that the daughter of Don Felipe Montilla should be out on foot and unattended. I was sure that should her father discover it he would be greatly annoyed. The whole affair was so mysterious that I could make nothing of it. The girl's sobs were more under control now, and she began to speak.
Then he talked of my mother, repeating the messages she had given him, and I could have listened for hours. As it was, I plied him with questions, asking this and that if my pony was well; had he seen Rosa Montilla; was my mother less sad; and a hundred other things, many of them trivial enough, yet full of interest to me. At the end I asked how he had found his way to the Hidden Valley.
As soon as I was perfect in that performance, my master announced that on that day the wise dog would run at the ring, and exhibit other new and incomparable feats, which, indeed, I drew from my own invention, not to give my master the lie. We next marched to Montilla, a town belonging to the famous and great christian, Marquis of Priego, head of the house of Aguilar and Montilla.
Then Sorillo began to speak, clearly and distinctly, but with no note of anger in his voice. "Don Felipe Montilla," he said, "you are brought here by order of the Society of the Silver Key." Don Felipe's lips curled as if in amusement. "It is charged against you that you, having taken the oath of loyalty to the government, have since been in traitorous communication with the Royalist leaders.
Remember that we know nothing against Don Felipe." "Oh, don't we? He got the estates into his hands once, and by hook or by crook he'll get them again!" I thought José exaggerated the danger, but this meeting with Lureña set me thinking. The fellow was evidently a Royalist soldier, and on a secret errand. If José's idea was correct, there could be only one object in his visiting Montilla.
The man's sudden change of manner puzzled me. After all, I was only a boy, with little ability and no training to seek for things lying beneath the surface. And Montilla seeing the state of my mind, played upon it with consummate skill.
And if so," he concluded gloomily, "yours form part of them." "He shall not keep them," I cried angrily, "whatever San Martin has promised!" "No; but we must not quarrel openly until the Spaniards are done with. Montilla has influence, and no doubt San Martin finds him useful. But don't take it to heart, Jack; we will defeat him in the end."
"But," I exclaimed, striving to appear calm, "that will be set aside now. San Martin will never allow our property to be confiscated because my father died for the Patriot cause." "Montilla is a fox, Jack, and has made a good bargain for himself, no doubt. I expect he obtained the general's written promise to confirm him in all his estates.
"Trust me," he answered, his voice sounding now like the purring of a cat; "Felipe Montilla never makes mistakes." I had a stinging reply on my lips, but refraining from giving it utterance, I bade him farewell. "Come again, Juan," said he, "if the general can spare you!" And though not overburdened with wits, I had a sense of being laughed at.
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