The Argosy, Vol. XXV, No. 3 — page 67: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE PHANTOM ARMY. 451 A man spoken of by the peasants as their lord and master! A man seeking swords for his service! What child could not have told the rest? ‘The way before me was no longer hidden in darkness. I saw that it lay straight —the road to the prison or the scaffold. And so suddenly did the truth come to me that I reined in my horse and sat fora long while dazed and helpless as one struck by an unseen enemy. What course to take, now that I knew all, whether to go on and see this man with my own eyes or to return at once to England and face the woman, was the question which held me to the place? I could see the girl watching me with anxious eyes ; I could detect her fear lest I should turn and leave her there on the road to the mountains. But that was no hour wherein to be led by a woman’s pretty face. I determined on the spot that I would not ride another league unless she could add some good word of explanation to the extraordinary story she had told me. ‘‘ Giralda,’’ said I, unconsciously letting the horses go again, ‘‘do you know what is going to happen to this king of yours?’’ She laughed scornfully. ‘To the prince, senor—what is going to happen to him?’”’ ‘Call him what you like, king or prince, as you please, they are going to take him to Madrid presently and cut off his head.”’ Her contempt for this answer was a pretty thing to see. She regarded me as a child who spoke of things yet to be learned. ‘“ Senor,’’ she said, ‘‘ there is no power in the world which could harm my master.’’ It was my turn to laugh. ‘He is iminortal, then? ”’ ‘‘ He is sent from God,’’ she answered simply. ‘That may be—but God is on the side of the largest battalions. Who can help this man if the Spanish troops seek him in the mountains ?”’ “Spain will help him, excellency—Spain and his friends, who are to be found in all the cities of the world. Ay Dios, he is above all men, greater than all men. The people fall on their knees and worship him when he rides through the mountains. His armies come and go like the wind and the thunder. ‘Today we see them; tomorrow there is silence in the moun- tains. His enemies die and their houses crumble to the dust. His friends are richer than kings, and follow him like children. Mother of God, if I were a man, it would be happiness to obey such a master and to die for him !”” I had never thought that a simple girl of the people could betray such passion as this gipsy girl now showed. All the religious ecstasy of the igno- rant mountaineer was to be read in her words. Her eyes sparkled as the eyes of a woman at prayer. She clenched her hands and raised them to heaven as though to ask a blessing on him she spoke of. For myself, she had given me the word I asked. Hada gibbet stood upon the road before me, I would have gone on to the end. ‘‘ Tell me,’’ said I, ‘‘ the prince lives at Torla?”’ ‘There is no house in the mountain which is not a home to him.”’ ‘‘ But we shall hear of him at Torla?’’ (E@) COPpMiclaoolK<