So, for this reason, the question of Maria Cristina remained unanswered. For, even as a star shoots athwart the midnight sky of winter, so the little Queen of Spain had passed and been lost in the darkness and terror without the beleaguered castle of La Granja. CHAPTER XXXIII CONCHA WAITS FOR THE MORNING The dead woman was carried into the mortuary attached to the smaller chapel of the _Colegiata_, and placed in one of the rude coffins which had been deposited there in readiness upon the first news of the plague. This being done, the mind of Rollo turned resolutely to the problem before him. Every hour the situation seemed to grow more difficult. As far as Rollo was concerned, he owned himself frankly a mercenary, fighting in a cause for which he, as a free-born Scot, could have no great sympathy. But mercenary as he was, in his reckless, gallant, devil-take-the-hindmost philosophy of life there lurked at least no trace of treachery, nor any back-going from a pledged and plighted word. He had undertaken to capture the young Queen and her mother and to bring them within the lines of Don Carlos, and till utterly baffled by death or misadventure, this was what he was going to continue to attempt. If therefore the little Princess were not in the castle, she must immediately be sought for outside it. The palace of La Granja was, as he well knew, surrounded by eager and bloody-minded foes, bent on the destruction of all within its walls. It was conceivable that Isabel might already be slain, though in the absence of the daughter of Munoz, he doubted whether the gipsies would go such lengths. To be held to ransom was a much more probable fate. At any rate it was clearly the duty of some one of the party to make an attempt for her recovery. At the first blush Sergeant Cardono appeared to be the person designated by experience and qualifications for the task. But, on the other hand, how could Rollo entrust to the most famous of ex-brigands, a gipsy of the gipsies, of the blackest blood of Egypt, the search for so great a prize as the little Queen of Spain? The difficult virtue of self-denial in such a case could hardly be expected from a man like Jose Maria of Ronda. Consider--a ransom, a Queen put up to auction! For both sides, Nationals and Carlists alike, would certainly be eager to treat for her possession. In short, Rollo concluded that he had no right to put such a temptation in the way of a man with the record of Sergeant Cardono.