But a cloud had of late overspread the fair prospects of the party. Their great general, Tomas Zumalacarregui, had been killed by a cannon ball at the siege of Bilbao, and Cabrera, though unsurpassed as a guerrilla leader, had not the swift Napoleonic judgment and breadth of view of his predecessor. Add to this that a new premier, Mendizabal, and a new general, Espartero, were directing operations from Madrid. The former, already half English, had begun to carry out his great scheme of filling the pockets of the civil and military authorities by conveying to the government all the property belonging to the religious orders throughout Spain, who, like our friend the Abbot of Montblanch, had resolutely and universally espoused the cause of Don Carlos. It was an early rumour of this intention which had so stirred the resentment of Don Baltasar Varela, and caused him to look about for some instrument of vengeance to prevent the accomplishment of the designs of "that _burro_ of the English Stock Exchange," as his enemies freely named Mendizabal. But Cristina of Naples was a typical woman of the Latin races, and, however strongly she might be determined to establish her daughter on the throne of Spain, she was also a good Catholic, and any oppression of Holy Church was abhorrent to her nature. Upon this probability, which amounted to certainty in his mind, the Abbot of Montblanch resolved to proceed. Moreover, it was an open secret that a few months after the death of her husband Fernando, Cristina had married Munoz, one of the handsomest officers of her bodyguard. For this and other Bourbon delinquencies, conceived in the good old Neapolitan manner, the Spaniards generally had the greatest respect--not even being scandalized when the Queen created her new partner Duke of Rianzares, or when, in her _role_ of honorary colonel of dragoons, she appeared in a uniform of blue and white, because these were the colours of the "Immaculate Conception." But enough has been said to indicate the nature of the adventure which our hero had before him, when after a toilsome march the party halted in the grey of the dawn in a tiny dell among the wild mountains of Guadarrama. The air was still bleak and cold, though luckily there was no wind. Concha, the child of the south, shivered a little as Rollo aided her to dismount, and this must be the young man's excuse for taking his blue military cloak from its coil across his saddle-bow, and wrapping it carefully and tenderly about her.