The bride was lovely, but there was a look of pride
and triumph in her flashing brown eyes that only I could
read. She was My Lady of the Vela Tower I

A GRANDEE OF SPAIN

'You are likely to have trouble getting out of Spain,'
said General Gushing, the American Minister, when
I called to take leave at the end of my stay in Madrid.
*I shall appoint you a special courier of this legation,
travelling to London. The dispatches you are to carry
will be ready to-morrow. You will have to go by
Santander and then on a coast steamer to the frontier,
where you may have difficulty with the authorities, un-
less under the protection of our Government.'

The Carlist War was still in progress; the Basque
provinces, alive with insurrection, were under martial
law. Prisons in all northern towns of the kingdom
were crowded with suspects and arrests were made
daily at the capital. Foreigners were under espionage :
several domiciliary visits had been inflicted upon me.
The certificate of my appointment as a special
courier of the United States, bearing the great red-wax



192 News Hunting on Three Continents

seal of the American Minister, came as promised —
delivered by the hand of Mr. A. A. Adee, Secretary
of Legation. When the express left Madrid for San-
tander, that night, I occupied a seat in a compartment
with three other passengers. Our first stop was at
the Escurial — ^that marvellous gridiron of stone, at
the foothills of the Guadarama mountains, built by
Philip II, to the glorification of San Lorenzo's martyr-
dom. A gray-haired traveller joined us there; but
dim light in the roof of the car prevented a clear view
of his features.
