Espartero stooped and touched her brow lightly with his lips, graciously and tenderly as a father might upon a solemn occasion. Then he gathered up her little brown hands in his. They were trembling now, not rock-steady as when they held the musket on the balcony at La Granja. "My daughter," he said, "do not fear for your young Scot. Queens and consorts and premiers are not the most powerful folk in Spain--not, at least, so long as Baldomero Espartero, the Andalucian, commands those good lads out there!" Then the future Dictator stepped to his tent door, summoned a staff officer, and ordered him to put a tent at the disposal of the young _Senorita_. "And request the commandants of the several columns to come immediately to me at headquarters, as also the gipsy-spy Ezquerra, our late headsman of Salamanca!" Thus did Mistress Concha, "for Rollo's sake!" CHAPTER XLV FORLORNEST HOPES But Rollo himself, our firebrand from the slopes of the Fife Lothians--what of him? The foxes that Samson sent among the cornfields of Philistia, with the fire at their tails, ran not more swiftly than his burning thoughts. We have followed his career long enough to know that he is not of those who sit long with his head upon his hands. Even as we look we feel assured that while he grasps it between his palms, plans, ideas, possibilities, are passing and repassing within that brain, coming up for judgment, being set aside for reconsideration, kicked into the limbo of the finally rejected, jerked sharply back by the collar for another look over, or brayed in a mortar and mixed into new compounds--all finally settling down within him into a series of determinations and alternatives as definite as Euclid and more certain of being carried into practice than most Acts of Parliament. After a long time Rollo raised his head. With supremest indifference he heard about him the first hubbub of the hue-and-cry after Concha. So heavy was his heart within him that (to his shame be it writ!) he had never even missed her as she went up the mountain. Yet she would have missed him had fifty queens and princesses been in danger of their lives--aye, and her own honour and that of her race at stake throughout all their generations. Rollo, however, gave no heed, but following his intent, stalked slowly and steadily to the General's quarters. "No one is allowed to enter," called out an officer, whose only mark of rank was a small golden badge with "C. V." upon it, pinned upon the collar of his blue shirt. He was sitting cross-legged on the grass, mending the hood of his cloak with a packing needle. "I am Colonel Rollo Blair," said the young man; "I brought hither the royal party, and I must see General Cabrera!"