Barcelona (where a
promising adventure had ended in premature disaster) she had tried her
best wiles upon Ramon.

She had met him as he came wearied home, with a basin of water in her
two hands, and the deference of eye-lashes modestly abased. He passed
her by, merely dipping his finger-tips in the water without so much as
once looking at her. In the shade of the pomegranate trees in the
corner, knowing herself alone, she had touched the guitar all
unconscious, and danced the dance of her native Andalucia with a verve
and abandon which she had never excelled. Then when Ramon discovered
himself in an arbour near by and congratulated her upon her
performance--in the very middle of her tearful protestations that if she
had only known he was there, she would never, never have dared, never
have ventured, and could he forgive her--he had tramped unconscious
away. And instead of forgiving her in a fit and proper manner, he had
said he would go and bring down his wife to see her dance the _bolero_
in the Andalucian manner. It would afford Dona Dolores much pleasure.

With such a man who could do anything? It was a blessing all men were
not alike, said Concha with a pout. And indeed from Cadiz by the sea to
the mountains of the north she had found men otherwise--always quite
otherwise, this innocent much experienced little Concha.

* * * * *

Meanwhile the hunters closed in on Ramon the brigand on the hills above
Montblanch. One cannot kill (or as good as kill) an alcalde's son
without suffering for it, and it chanced that the government, having
been reproached on all sides for lack of vigour, and being quite unable
to capture Don Carlos or Zumalacarregui, had resolved to make an example
of Ramon, called "El Sarria."

So to begin with, it had confiscated all that Ramon possessed--house and
farm, vineyard and oliveyard, wine-presses and tiers of well-carpentered
vats with the wine of half a score of vintages maturing therein. These
were duly expropriated in the name of the government of the most
Christian regent Dona Maria Cristina. But how much of the produce stuck
to the fingers of General Rodriguez, the military governor, and of Senor
Amado Gomez, administrator of so much of the province as was at that
time in the hands of the Cristinos, who shall say? It is to be feared
that after these gentlemen had been satisfied, there remained not a
great deal for the regencial treasure-chest at Madrid