But the Sergeant lay still, with the breast of his jacket opened, and his head on Concha's shoulder. She dropped warm tears over his face. Rollo, too, was there, and held the dying man's hand. He beckoned La Giralda to him and whispered a word in Romany. She nodded, and presently returned with the same great bulk of a man, brown as a Moor of Barbary, whom Rollo had encountered on the night of the plunder of San Ildefonso. "Ezquerra," the Sergeant whispered, "I am spent. There is a spike in the neck-band this time. All that is honestly come by, I want you to give to this young lady. You will find it by itself under the hearthstone in my house at Ronda. The rest you will take no objections to, I know, on the ground of morals. Keep it for yourself!" Concha glanced once up at Rollo and then, receiving his nod of approval, bent down and kissed the Sergeant. The Andalucian looked up with that wondrous flavour of gay humour which distinguishes those born in the joyous province. His saturnine visage brightened into the sweetest smile. Very feebly he raised his hand to his brow in a last salute in acknowledgment of Concha's favour. His head fell back on her breast. "A thousand grateful thanks, _Senorita_!" he said. And then noting the executioner he added, "Ah, Ezquerra, this is better than dying on the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca with the iron collar about one's neck!" They were his last words. And so passed Jose Maria of Ronda, whom to this day every Spanish peasant holds to have been the greatest man Spain has seen since the dead Cid rode forth on Babieca for the last time to outface the Moors. CHAPTER XLVII MENDIZABAL Rollo and his companions rode into Madrid amid the clamour and rejoicing of thousands, as indeed he might have done behind Don Carlos had he been successful in his first intention. Madrid was healthy and hungry. The plague had been stayed by the belt of barren country which cinctures the capital village of Spain. And as for fear, do not the inhabitants say that what happens not in Madrid, happens not at all! Rollo, so long accustomed to the high clear silences of the _sierra_ or the scarcely less restful valleys where the birds sing all day in the spring, felt himself closed in and deafened by the clamour, blinded by the brilliant colours, and in ill-humour with all things--chiefly, it must be confessed, because Concha, attired by the Queen's own waiting-maid from Aranjuez, sat in a carriage with the aplomb of a duchess. They were all in high favour. For Munoz (now more than ever the Power behind the Throne, and perhaps secretly proud of having played the man at the defence of the _barranco_ of Moncayo) had quickly turned the tide of the Queen-Regent's displeasure. And at this period there was scarcely any honour that she would not have bestowed upon her preservers.