The night seemed quite mild, but Myra took her host's advice and put on
her fur coat before going out into the courtyard to watch the
performance. Don Carlos and his English guests were greeted with
cheers when they appeared in the patio. A bearded patriarch, who
looked as if he had stepped out of a picture by Velasquez, stepped
forward and delivered a flowery speech of welcome, then comely maidens
and dark-visaged youths performed a picturesque dance to the
accompaniment of stringed instruments.
The set dance over, groups of men sang old Spanish and Basque folk
songs, after which Don Carlos's own orchestra, which had played in the
great hall during dinner, took up a position in the centre of the patio
and dancing became general.
"Come, let's mingle with the throng and take part in the fun," cried
Don Carlos gaily. "Come, Myra, let me teach you the Spanish dance the
boys and girls are dancing so merrily."
He did not wait for an answer, and before Myra quite realised what was
happening she found herself being whirled round in his arms in the
midst of the motley crowd.
"Don't hold me so tightly, Don Carlos, and don't dance so fast," she
protested breathlessly, after a few minutes. "I am nearly suffocated
in this fur coat, and the cobbles are hurting my feet. One can't dance
on cobble-stones in satin shoes."
"Myra, darling, the delight of holding you in my arms made me forget
all else," Don Carlos responded, slackening his pace. "I'll guide you
out of the crowd, and make love to you instead of dancing."
"I don't want you to make love to me," said Myra, "but I shall be glad
to get out of this crush, for I hate being elbowed about."
"Make way, good people, make way for the señorita who will soon be your
mistress!" cried Don Carlos in Spanish, and those around stopped
dancing to cheer.
Just as the couple were free of the crowd, all the electric lights,
both in the castle and the courtyard, were suddenly extinguished, and
at the same moment uproar broke out at the courtyard gates and shots
were fired.
"The bandits! El Diablo Cojuelo and his men!" a voice screamed.
Instantly all was confusion. Women shrieked and ran in all directions
in the darkness.
"I am here! Rally to your master, Don Carlos!" shouted Don Carlos.
"Rally to Don Carlos!"
Almost immediately he was surrounded, not by his own servants, but by a
body of masked and armed men. Myra clung to his arm, but was snatched
away from him, someone enveloped her head in a cloak, she was picked up
in strong arms as if she were a baby and carried quickly for some
distance. She struggled fiercely, but the cloak that enveloped her, to
say nothing of her own fur coat, hampered her movements, and she was
almost as helpless as an infant in the arms of its nurse.