the sooner the better. And if you want a friend, you'll know where to find
one."

He held out his hand, and when I took it, shook mine warmly in English
fashion. Something else he was about to say on a second thought, when his
friend--who had now restored the chauffeur to dazed consciousness--drew his
attention. "Sir," he said, "the guardia civile are coming back without
prisoners."

A minute or two later the two men had galloped up to us, one wounded in
the cheek. They had chased the brigands, exchanging shots, until suddenly,
having passed beyond a clump of trees and a few lumpy hummocks of sand,
the band had vanished as if by magic. The civil guards had explored the
spot for some cleverly concealed hiding-place, which they knew must exist
within the space of two hundred metres, but they had found nothing. And as
they had had no time to ascertain the condition of the men left for us to
deal with, they had thought it best to return lest the wounded enemy prove
not to be _hors de combat_ after all.

Fortunately the distance from this lonely spot to Jerez was not more than
thirty kilometres, and within three miles there was a farm. Here a cart
could be got to take the wounded brigands into the town; and from Jerez a
posse of men would be immediately sent out to scour the country for the
escaped brigands.

The King, whom the guardia civile recognized with respectful surprise, was
now anxious to get back to Seville, where he was due in the royal box for
the Good Friday procession, and must appear by five o'clock at latest. He
delayed only long enough to be sure that his chauffeur was not hurt beyond
a slight concussion of the brain, to speak a few kind words to the civil
guard, and to say a significantly emphasized "_Au revoir_" to Dick and me.
Then, taking the wheel himself, whilst the half-dazed chauffeur lay in the
tonneau, he backed the big, reddish-brown car off the barricade, and
darted away in a cloud of dust at a good forty miles an hour.

It was left for us to do what we could to advance the civil guard with
their task; and though we had already lost too much time for my peace of
mind, it was our plain duty to help those who had helped us. When we had
levelled the rough barricade we reluctantly bundled the wounded men into
our tonneau, and going at a pace which enabled the civil guards to gallop
close behind us, we steered for the farm of which they had spoken. There,
in a buzz of excitement, the brigands were