Whither Thou Goest

The Earl of Saxham was vastly annoyed when his son, Guy, fell in love with a "penniless nobody," and announced that he would marry her against all opposition. He determined to separate the lovers; to which end he persuaded an influential friend in the Foreign Office to secure an appointment for Guy in the Embassy at Madrid. He little knew that he was sending his son into the centre of a hotbed of anarchism, that Guy's footsteps were to be dogged by a vindictive and revengeful woman, that his life was to hold many a thrilling moment and not a few narrow escapes.

Mr Le Queux has written a thrilling story of anarchism and its deadly secret plotting, a story through which there runs, nevertheless, a rich vein of romance.

PROLOGUE.

A hot July evening on the calm Biscayan coast of Spain.

The sun had disappeared like a globe of molten metal into the sapphire sea, and now, in the breathless blood-red afterglow which tinged the unruffled glassy waters away to the Atlantic, the whole populace of the peaceful old-world town of Fonterrabia had come forth from their houses to breathe again after the intense heat and burden of the blazing day.

Dusty green sun-shutters were being opened everywhere, while upon the golden beach the clear waters hardly rippled, for the summer tide was upon the turn. Across the bay lay a cluster of gaily-painted sardine boats in reds and greens, awaiting a breeze, and along the sea-front, so fiercely swept in winter, stood the quaint mediaeval houses, crumbling and sun-blanched, with their wide overhanging roofs and many balconies, palpitating with the heat, now rapidly receding. It had been a scorching day in Spain.

In the stunted tamarisks which sprang, dust-covered and twisted, from the yellow, shifting sands the grasshoppers still chirped merrily, though it was sunset, and from the sun-blanched sea-front came of a sudden the high, tuneful twanging of a mandoline, and a man's tenor voice singing that ancient love-song which one hears everywhere in the wine lands of the Guipuzcoa.

Pase cantivo amor entus prisones.

From the houses came forth the many mixed odours of the evening cena, the appetising smell of rich ollas, mostly flavoured with garlic, be it said, while from the shops which sold eatables there emanated that faint and peculiar perfume which only those who have lived in hot climates can know, and can justly appreciate.

Of a sudden the ancient bells of Santa Gadea, the old incense-laden, Gothic church above the town, clanged forth again, as they had done so many times a day through centuries, summoning the good people of Fonterrabia to kneel before the high dark altar, with those long candles and the wonderful brass chandelier above.

Now as the bells jangled forth an observer might, perhaps, have noticed two men meet, as though entirely by accident, close to that obscure little cafe "The Concha," which faces the sea.

On the pavement before the little place sat several men in their blue berets, drinking wine and gossiping as all Spaniards must do.

The pair who had met were of quite different stamp.

One, who was about forty, of a refined but rather parvenu type, was dressed in a well-cut suit of thin, dark grey material, and wore a straw hat much ripened by the sun. He was idly smoking a long valenciano, and betrayed surprise, though feigned, at the meeting. The other was a typical fisherman in the blue blouse and blue beret, the national headdress of all the Basque people. He still wore his heavy sea-boots, in which, however, he walked jauntily, for his age was not more than thirty, and his dark, handsome countenance was bright, enthusiastic, and well bronzed.