Carmona

“ We left the place and its mealy-headed population, and turned eastward into wide, rolling tracts, scattered here and there with gnarled olive trees. The soil was loose and sandy, and hedges of aloes lined the road. The country is thinly populated, and very little of it under cultivation.
About noon we reached Carmona, which was founded by the Romans, as, indeed, were nearly all the towns of Southern Spain. It occupies the crest and northern slope of a high hill, whereon the ancient Moorish castle still stands. ”

“ I wondered in my black cell—“before Monica's eyes?” But aloud I said, “Thanks; don't be too long, or I shall be tempted to smash the door.”
“You'll find that impossible,” answered Carmona. “Don't worry if I seem to be gone an age. There's only one man on duty to-day who knows the secret of this room; I asked for him when we came, but his comrade said he was away on leave till four o'clock. It must be that now, and I'll have him here as soon as possible. He will be the more pleased to set you free, as he's an old friend of yours. ”

“ If my messenger were true, soon Monica would be in one of the patios of Carmona's palace, looking up at the Alhambra towers. “The middle window as you go into the Hall of the Ambassadors,” I repeated, and found my way back through the court of the Alberca; for you do not need to know the Alhambra to find your way from sala to sala, seen a hundred times in imagination.
So beautiful had I guessed that room above all others, that I had not expected to be surprised; yet I was surprised, and oddly excited, for supreme beauty is always exciting to the Latin mind. ”

“ In Seville, at the Fonda de Madrid, the cooking is really excellent; but further in the interior, judging from what I have heard, it is even worse than I have described.
Continuing our journey, we passed around the southern brow of the hill, under the Moorish battlements. Here a superb view opened to the south and east over the wide Vega of Carmona, as far as the mountain chain which separates it from the plain of Granada. The city has for a coat of arms a silver star in an azure field, with the pompous motto: "As Lucifer shines in the morning, so shines Carmona in Andalusia." ”

“ Don't look as if you thought it would do no good, Dick; if she's promised to marry Carmona in spite of all, it's because he has made her think he can ruin me if she refuses. Pilar's instinct is right, I know; and now for the first time I understand why Carmona didn't denounce me to the police as Casa Triana, when Monica refused to keep her engagement with him, as I'm sure she did. ”

“ Among the ladies with the Infanta were the Duchess of Carmona, Lady Vale-Avon, and Monica. With the officers and friends of the King stood the Duke, his dark face radiating satisfaction, as if this were the crowning moment of his life.
Not only was Monica with the man as his fiancée, but she was dressed, in compliment to him, like a girl of Spain. She wore a mantilla such as the Infanta wore, and so bright was her hair, so fair her skin framed in the black flounce of lace, that she was almost as much stared at as the King. ”

“ Lady Vale-Avon would not wait for Monica to write to the Princess, but would probably wire; and no matter what my private anxieties might be, for Monica's sake I must do nothing openly. As for defying Carmona to use his knowledge of my true name, and challenging him to fight, that must not be thought of. Monica's fair fame would never survive such a scandal, especially in Spain, where a girl's reputation is as easily damaged as the down on a butterfly's wing. ”

“ I said. “I am the Marqués de Casa Triana. I met Lady Monica some time ago, and have this moment told her that I love her. Now, I ask your consent to—”
“Casa Triana here!” exclaimed Carmona, in a tone which could have expressed no more of horror, had I been a bandit at large.
“Have no fear for your house,” I could not help sneering.
[pg 025] He gave me a look not to be forgiven a man by a man. “I have no such fear,” he said; “but there are those here whose safety is dear to me; and your name is not one which should be spoken under the same roof.” ”

“ Don Ramón,” the Cherub went on. “You see, as our place is only five miles outside Seville, we know many people; and [pg 209] though Carmona is seldom there with his mother, he certainly has acquaintances, and some of them may be ours too. You have travelled since Burgos as my son, though you wore his uniform only for two days; but you may be sure Carmona has been looking forward to shaking you off, once and for all, if you should venture to Seville to see the show of Semana Santa as other tourists see it.” ”

“ Unless the news of my presence in Granada had reached Carmona in his bed, there was little fear of treachery; and when I slipped into my hip pocket the revolver bought in Madrid, I felt that I was safe.
It was a dark and lonely road, that way of the dead. Not a soul had I met when I reached a narrow path, a mere goat track, leading higher up the hillside to a row of four or five tiny lighted windows in the rock. These must, I knew, mark the cave dwellings of which the gypsy had spoken, some little offshoot from the main settlement by the Albaicín. ”

“ I'm going to marry the Duke of Carmona.”
After all, she had proved herself a docile daughter. She had seen what the house of a grandee of Spain can be like. She had seen the Blanca Laguna pearl. Poor child of eighteen years, brought up to know poverty and to loathe it; was I to let my love turn to hate because she was not an angel, but a woman like others? ”

“ Spaniards, especially Spaniards with Moorish blood in their veins, do not like to think girls they love capable of carrying on secret correspondence with other men; and I imagined that Lady Vale-Avon was a woman to guess this. Already Carmona knew that Lady Monica was interested in someone else, or had a girlish fancy for him, which might or might not have been frightened away. ”

“ It was not yet five o'clock when Dick and I plunged into the cool gloom of the cathedral, passing the spot where Carmona had struck at me, and the chapel where I had taken Monica. The stones were slippery as the floor of a ballroom, with wax dropped from innumerable candles, and the air was heavy with the smoke of stale incense.
The searchlight of dawn could scarcely penetrate the black curtains which throughout Holy Week had draped the cathedral; therefore a solitary beam, like a bar of gold, slanted in through one superb window. ”

“ No Muira bull is more savage than he if he's roused. You know, the Duke of Carmona's bulls are as celebrated as the Muiras themselves. But Vivillo has always loved me, and one or two others—me best, though—and he'll eat out of my hand, the great brown velvet beast, like a kitten. ”

“ Carmona is built on a ridge overlooking the central plain of Andalusia, from the Sierra Morena, on the north, to the peak of San Cristobal, on the south. It has a thriving trade in wine, olive oil, grain and cattle ”

“ This news had come to Pilar at Granada in an ill-spelled, but well-meaning letter from Mateo, the ganadero.
“It was sheer spite,” went on Dick, “and Pilar was broken-hearted. If she hadn't blurted out Vivillo's name in a temper, the bull might have been safe. Carmona wouldn't have interested himself, as he trusts his agent in all business matters. It's true several of the grandee owners of bull-farms have been asked to give each a picked bull for the royal fight, which is expected to be the grandest affair of the generation; but Carmona could as well have given another instead of Vivillo.” ”

“ There was no question which hotel Carmona might choose. He would go to the best; consequently unobtrusive persons whose hopes lay in keeping to the background, must select one less good.
We halted outside the town, while I consulted a guide-book for the most Spanish fonda in Burgos. When, straining my eyes in the twilight, I read out a name, Dick exclaimed, “That's where Angèle's friends the O'Donnels are staying.” ”

“ Not wishing to pursue with too conspicuous violence, lest we defeat our object, we let Carmona's party leave the dining-room before us. A quarter of an hour later we followed, going out into the strange grey streets, haunted by men and women who have made history. Dick (armed with a book by Leonard Williams, greatest of authorities on Spain) was allowed to walk beside Pilar, while that most unsuspecting and kindly of chaperons, the Cherub, bestowed his society on me. But, according to his habit, he was often silent, giving me time to dream of Toledo's past. ”

“ I remembered Colonel O'Donnel's telegram, and his mention of a man in Granada whom Carmona valued above many doctors. It seemed not impossible that this person and my “good friend” were one and the same; but if—weak as I was now—I hoped to get out of his house alive, perhaps I had better change my tactics, and keep my suspicions to myself, until I should recover strength. If the man believed that he had convinced me of his innocence and kindly intentions, he would perhaps think it easier to let me live than to put me violently out of the way. ”

“ There it was, stuck in a drift like a frozen wave; and there was Carmona himself up to his knees in diamond dust, gloomily superintending his chauffeur who packed snow into the radiator to cool the overheated motor.
All the extra power of the Lecomte gave no advantage over the Gloria here. Fate had set the stage for us, and we must obey the cue. No ingenuity of Pilar's could hide us in the wings any longer, and we must play our parts as Destiny prompted. ”

“ In sight of the conspicuous church tower at Utrera—ancient home of outlaws—we came upon a dusty white line diverging to Ecija. Pausing to question a road-mender, I remembered Colonel O'Donnel's story of the Seven Men of Ecija, and the curious bond between them and the Dukes of Carmona. But what brought the tale to my mind—unless it was the name of Ecija on the road-map and signpost, or the fact that we were now in the real heart of brigand-land—I could not have told. ”

“ If it shines at all, it is because it is a city set upon a hill; for that is the only splendor I could find about the place. The Vega of Carmona is partially cultivated, and now wears a sombre brown hue, from its tracts of ploughed land.
Cultivation soon ceased, however, and we entered on a dehesa, a boundless plain of waste land, covered with thickets of palmettos. Flocks of goats and sheep, guarded by shepherds in brown cloaks, wandered here and there, and except their huts and an isolated house, with its group of palm-trees, there was no sign of habitation. ”

“ From Carmona, the next day, to Fuentes; a very pleasant and healthful small town, from whence the Marquis, uncle to the now Duke Medina Sidonia, had his title. From Fuentes, the next day, to Ezija; which, in respect of the great heats thereof at some times, is called 'the Frying-pan of Andaluzia,' yet we, upon the 5th of April, their style, found it cold enough. I was there very civilly and splendidly lodged and entertained for two days; being, indeed, an extraordinary place. Our company and cattle harassed ”

“ Alonso Martin of Carmona, for Lutheranism, was scourged in both Seville and Carmona and Juan de Aragon of Málaga, who had pretended to be a familiar, was scourged in Málaga and again in the scene of his offence. [367]
Probably two hundred lashes were about the limit of safety, especially with those enfeebled by prolonged incarceration, for the infliction was excessively severe. We hear of Margarita Altamira reduced to such extremity after a scourging that the viaticum was administered to her. [368] There was no mercy for age or sex. ”

“ The night before when we arrived he had left six cases to be distributed to the priest, the alcalde, the intendente, Captain Frias, Vargas, and the notary.
The next day I rode to Carmona's hacienda which is located about nine miles up the Ticalco River on a level expanse of land which stretches northward to the stony slopes of the barren mountain Cumaile. The house itself is a long, low, rambling affair of adobe which was once whitewashed, but that so long ago that but little of the white color is left on its sides. ”

“ XVIII The Man Who Loved Pilar When Ropes had gone to send a telegram to Paris, Dick and I talked the matter over from so many points of view, that Colonel O'Donnel apparently went to sleep. It was only when I burst into vituperation against Carmona, that the excellent man suddenly showed signs of life. ”

“ The town at the present day, though small, is a very important place, with some eight thousand inhabitants, and over two hundred flour-mills, and is known as the “oven of Seville,” El horno de Sevilla. Carmona—the Roman Carmo and Arab Karmanah—with double the population, was the last stronghold of Peter the Cruel, and is full of historic associations.
[226] Madoz, in his Diccionario Geografico-estadistico, published in 1846, half a dozen years after the date of Borrow’s visit, says nothing under Carolina, Carlota, or Luisiana of this supposed German colonization. ”

“ The reredos, one of the finest Renaissance works in Spain, contains statues by Salvador Carmona, and a curious bronze statuette of the Virgin and Child on a throne of champlevé enamel of the 12th century. The chapter-house, built by Juan Moreno in 1637, and the staircase and sacristy are good examples of later work. The convent of the Augustinas Recoletas, begun by Fontana in 1616, is in better taste than any other Renaissance building in the city. ”