Bandit Love

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.