Bandit Love by Juanita Savage (brene brown rising strong txt) 📖

flash across her mind she moved back quickly and switched off the lights, but crept back again to the casement to listen again to the thrilling song until the last notes died away.

"Adios, mia cara!" said the voice below, and there was silence.

Strangely stirred, Myra undressed in the dark and crept into bed, but, tired though she was, it was a long time before she could compose herself to sleep.

"Am I falling in love with him?" she asked herself, and did not answer her own question.

She was inclined to laugh at herself next morning, and to chide herself for being sentimental, and the opportunity to administer another reproof speedily presented itself.

"Did you hear someone singing a serenade in the courtyard last night, Myra, after we went to bed?" one of the guests inquired in Don Carlos's hearing.

"Yes, I thought of throwing him a few coppers in the hope he would stop and let me get to sleep," drawled Myra, and had the satisfaction of seeing Don Carlos's lips tighten and his black brows draw together in a frown.

"If you are prepared to run the risk of being waylaid by El Diablo Cojuelo, I suggest that you go riding and allow me to show you the neighbourhood," Don Carlos said. "I have half a dozen good horses in my stables."

Myra, Tony, and several others who were keen on horse exercise welcomed the proposal with enthusiasm, and went to change into riding kit. Their ride was quite uneventful. They saw some fine mountain scenery, but no sign of any brigands. They did, however, meet a squad of mounted carabineros, who saluted them respectfully, and with the leader of whom Don Carlos paused to chat.

"You will be relieved to learn that the officer reports that everything seems quiet, and he has no news of El Diablo Cojuelo having been seen in the neighbourhood for many weeks," he reported when he rejoined his guests. "But I doubt if he has taken fright, as the Captain suggests. He isn't easily scared."

He made no attempt to make love to Myra that day, but often she caught him looking at her with an expression that baffled her and made her feel vaguely uneasy. He looked, somehow, like a schoolboy with a sphinx-like expression, planning mischief and inwardly enjoying some private joke.

"He is quite the most exasperating man I have ever met—and the most interesting," Myra reflected, as she dressed for dinner that evening. "I wonder if he really has a heart, or if he is acting all the time?"

Dinner was served in the great hall that night, and once again it was a triumph for the chef and the host. During the meal an orchestra, composed of some of the servants on the estate, clad in picturesque national costumes, discoursed sweet, haunting, heart-stirring music.

Outside, the courtyard was festooned with coloured lights and around lighted braziers groups of men, women and children, in multi-coloured garments, were gathered, feasting, singing, playing and dancing.

"To-night, if it pleases you, we will mingle with my people, who are holding festival in your honour," said Don Carlos when dinner was over. "I would advise you all to put on your warmest wraps, for the night winds here in the Sierra Morena are treacherous."

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.

Her captor halted for a moment, growled out some orders breathlessly in Spanish, and Myra found herself dumped down on the seat of a motor car, which immediately started off at a rapid rate. Half stifled, she tore the cloak from her face, and as she did so an arm encircled her.

"El Diablo Cojuelo has captured the prize of his lifetime!" said a deep voice triumphantly.

Myra's heart seemed to miss a beat as she felt the outlaw's arm tighten around her, panic seized her, and she had to fight the inclination to scream, and scream and scream.

"You are trembling, little lady," said the muffled voice of her captor.
"Do not be so sore afraid. I am not the fiend people make El Diablo
Cojuelo out to be, and will take care of so precious a treasure. Don
Carlos will ransom you, but perhaps when you have seen me and my
mountain nest you will not want to be ransomed."

Myra's natural courage began to reassert itself, and she was ashamed of having displayed any signs of fear. "Displayed" is hardly the word, for the inside of the car, which was hurtling along at great speed, was so dark that she could not even see the shape of the man whose arm encircled her, and she knew he could not see her.

Somehow, the brigand's voice, muffled though it was—as if he were speaking with something over his face—struck her as vaguely familiar, and as Myra collected her scattered wits it occurred to her that El Diablo Cojuelo had spoken in English.

"A Spanish brigand who speaks English!" she exclaimed aloud, and
Cojuelo laughed.

"Si, señorita!" he answered. "So we shall be able to understand each other. Don Carlos de Ruiz taught me English, and I imitate his voice and accent when I am speaking your language. We are really very good friends, Don Carlos and I, and he bears me no ill-will. I provide him with amusement, and he would be sorry to see me captured."

"He will certainly bear you ill-will for having kidnapped me, and make every effort to kill you," retorted Myra, recognising that Cojuelo's muffled voice did resemble that of Don Carlos.

"Because he loves you?" queried Cojuelo, with a chuckle. "You think he will be mad because I have robbed him of his heart's desire?"

"How do you know that he loves me?" asked Myra in amazement.

She was no longer terrified, and had recovered her nerve, but she still found it difficult to believe she was not dreaming. It seemed more like a nightmare than actuality that she should be sitting in a pitch-dark car, talking of love and Don Carlos to a Spanish outlaw who had captured her, and whose arm encircled her waist. She was not conscious of fear now, but Cojuelo's reply to her question scared her more than a little.

"Sweet señorita, what man with a heart and eyesight could resist falling in love with so beautiful a woman?" he responded. "Perhaps I shall fall in love with you myself and refuse to surrender you, no matter how great a ransom is offered. For years I have been seeking my ideal, but not one of the many women I have captured in my time pleased me enough to make me wish to keep her. You may be different."

Before Myra could find words to reply, the car came to a sudden stop, the door was flung open and a gruff voice growled out a question in Spanish which Cojuelo answered in the same language.

"We will alight now, señorita, and take a little riding exercise," he said to Myra. "I know you are an expert horsewoman, for I was near you this morning when you were riding with Don Carlos, and I know you will have no difficulty in sitting a mule although you are not in riding dress. Only mules can negotiate the paths that lead to my mountain nest. Come!"

CHAPTER XII

Without a word, Myra stepped out, to see by the headlights of the car that she was apparently in a mountain gorge, and to see a group of masked and armed men standing beside some mules. She turned to look at her captor as she reached the front of the car, and found that Cojuelo was wearing what looked like a monk's cowl which completely covered his face, and which accounted for his muffled voice. She saw that he was tall, but that was all.

Cojuelo snapped out some orders, and a soberly-dressed, elderly man, wearing no mask and carrying in his arms a number of parcels, appeared out of the darkness and got into the car, which turned and sped away.

"Bien!" exclaimed Cojuelo, as the motor disappeared. "Everything is working according to plan. In the unlikely event of the car being stopped, it is found to contain Garcilaso, Don Carlos's steward, returning from doing some marketing in the city. And who would guess that the fair señorita had been spirited away in one of Don Carlos's own cars?"

"So some of Don Carlos's servants are in your pay?" exclaimed Myra.

"They are all in my pay, sweet lady, and every man knows it is as much as his life is worth to betray me," Cojuelo answered, with a triumphant laugh. "But we waste time, and must not take the risk, remote as it is, of being seen. Let me assist you to mount."

He picked Myra up in his arms and swung her up without any apparent effort on to the saddle of a mule which one of the men had led forward, mounted another mule himself, and gave some rapid orders.

"Follow me and ride carefully, señorita, for there are some steep and dangerous paths to negotiate," he called to Myra. "Mendoza will lead your mule at the most perilous places. Avanzar!"

To anyone less accustomed to riding and to taking risks than Myra, that night ride through the mountains of the Sierra Morena would have been a blood-curdling and nerve-shattering experience. Often she had to guide her mule along a rough path barely a couple of yards wide, with a sheer drop of hundreds of feet on one side, a path where a