THE

  PHANTOM REGIMENT


  OR

  STORIES OF "OURS"


  BY

  JAMES GRANT

  AUTHOR OF
  "THE ROMANCE OF WAR"



  LONDON
  GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS
  BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL
  NEW YORK: 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE




  JAMES GRANT'S NOVELS,

  Two Shillings each, Fancy Boards.

  THE ROMANCE OF WAR
  THE AIDE-DE-CAMP
  THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER
  BOTHWELL
  JANE SETON; OR, THE QUEEN'S ADVOCATE
  PHILIP ROLLO
  THE BLACK WATCH
  MARY OF LORRAINE
  OLIVER ELLIS; OR, THE FUSILIERS
  LUCY ARDEN; OR, HOLLYWOOD HALL
  FRANK HILTON; OR, THE QUEEN'S OWN
  THE YELLOW FRIGATE
  HARRY OGILVIE; OR, THE BLACK DRAGOONS
  ARTHUR BLANE
  LAURA EVERINGHAM; OR, THE HIGHLANDERS OF GLENORA
  THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD
  LETTY HYDE'S LOVERS
  CAVALIERS OF FORTUNE
  SECOND TO NONE
  THE CONSTABLE OF FRANCE
  VIOLET JERMYN
  THE PHANTOM REGIMENT
  THE KING'S OWN BORDERERS
  THE WHITE COCKADE
  FIRST LOVE AND LAST LOVE
  DICK RODNEY
  THE GIRL HE MARRIED
  LADY WEDDERBURN'S WISH
  JACK MANLY
  ONLY AN ENSIGN
  THE ADVENTURES OF ROB ROY
  UNDER THE RED DRAGON
  THE QUEEN'S CADET
  SHALL I WIN HER?
  FAIRER THAN A FAIRY
  ONE OF THE SIX HUNDRED
  MORLEY ASTON
  DID SHE LOVE HIM?
  THE ROSS-SHIRE BUFFS
  SIX YEARS AGO
  VERE OF OURS
  THE LORD HERMITAGE
  THE ROYAL REGIMENT
  THE DUKE OF ALBANY'S HIGHLANDERS
  THE CAMERONIANS
  THE SCOTS BRIGADE




  CONTENTS

  I. The Romance of a Month
  II. The Guarda Costa
  III. Jack Slingsby
  IV. The Venta
  V. The Regiment of San Antonio
  VI. La Posada del Cavallo
  VII. The Halt in a Cork Wood
  VIII. The Alcalde
  IX. The Tertulia
  X. Don Fabrique
  XI. The Raterillo
  XII. La Rio de Muerte
  XIII. Pedro the Contrabandista
  XIV. The Spanish Steamer
  XV. The Circassian Captain
  XVI. Osman Rioni
  XVII. The Hussars of Tenginski
  XVIII. Zupi
  XIX. We Reach Head-Quarters
  XX. St. Floridan; or, the Adventures of a Night
  XXI. The Widow; or, the Adventures of a Night
  XXII. Perez, the Potter; or, the Adventures of a Night
  XXIII. The Major's Story
  XXIV. "Estella"
  XXV. A Legend of Fife
  XXVI. The Phantom Regiment--The Quartermaster's Story
  XXVII. The Phantom Regiment--The Unco' Quest
  XXVIII. The Phantom Regiment--The Midnight March
  XXIX. The Last of Don Fabrique




THE PHANTOM REGIMENT;

OR,

STORIES OF "OURS."



CHAPTER I.

THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH.

"Adios, Señora Paulina--adios, mi Señora Dominga."

"Adios, Señor Don Ricardo," replied a sweet voice from the depths of
the old Spanish coach.

"Vaya usted con Dios, y que no haya novedad Señoras," said I, making
a vigorous effort with my best Castilian; and with these words, and
one bright parting glance from two black Andalusian eyes, so ended my
little romance of a month, as the old-fashioned coach, which was
doubtless the production of some cunning workman of Seville or Jaen,
rolled slowly, pompously, and heavily away towards the Spanish lines,
from the north gate of Gibraltar.

And this farewell took place exactly this day twelve months ago.

The coach which bore away the old lady who rejoiced in the euphonious
cognomen of Donna Dominga de Lucena y Colmenar de Orieja, and her
daughter the pretty Paulina, was a genuine old Castilian contrivance
of the true caravan species; and, though still in use, in this our
age of luxury and invention, had been constructed, perhaps, before
folding steps were conceived; for a three-legged stool, to facilitate
ingress and egress, hung near the door.  The roof was shaped like the
crust of an apple-pie, and the lower carriage, like that portion of a
triumphal car.  It was drawn by a pair of fat sleek mules, which
seemed to have grown old with the vehicle, and with Pedrillo, the
little postilion, who floundered away on a demi-pique saddle, with a
gigantic cocked hat surmounting his dark visage; and his lean spindle
legs lost in two gigantic jack-boots, which belonged to the
beforesaid saddle rather than to his own person.

Such was the antediluvian vehicle which bore away the pompous old
Donna and her daughter the charming Paulina, who, for the past month
(during which she had resided in Gibraltar), had turned all the heads
of "Ours;" and was boasted by the Spaniards as the fairest belle in
las Cuatros Reinos--yes in the three mighty little kingdoms of
Seville, Cordova, Jaen, and Granada, which are now conglomerated into
the beautiful province of Andalusia.

And so, without other escort than the redoubtable Pedrillo, who wore
a trabujo or blunderbuss slung across his back, and strong in their
belief in the virtues of the Santa Faz of Jaen, a picture of which
was hung in the back of their coach, these two Spanish ladies, on the
conclusion of their visit, departed on their return to Seville, their
native city; and from the British fortifications, which frown in
solid tiers towards the Spanish lines, I watched the venerable
carrozzo as it rolled across the low sandy Isthmus, which is known as
the neutral ground; and it disappeared just as the sun began to fade
upon the beautiful masses of the Serrania de Rondo, which rose in
piles against the golden clouds, and as the evening gun pealed like
thunder among the Moorish peaks of Jebel Tarik; and then I turned
away with a sigh as I thought of the winning smile I should never see
again.

"It's all over now, Ramble," said my friend Jack Slingsby, who was
the subaltern of my company, and who had been my chum at Sandhurst;
"it is all over, Dick," he continued, with a laugh and one of those
rough slaps on the shoulder, which no one ventures to give but an
Englishman; "and so, instead of airing your sorrows here, 'sighing to
the evening breeze' and all that sort of thing, you may as well come
with me and knock the balls about a little--or join Shafton, the
colonel, and some of "Ours" who have proposed a pool to-night--and
meanwhile solace yourself with another of my 'very superior' cabanas."

"Perhaps it is as well she is gone, Jack," said I, endeavouring to
imitate his light-hearted indifference; "had she remained among us
another week, I would certainly have booked for her, and so have
bedevilled myself, as you said yesterday."

"For Donna Paulina?"

"Of course--had you any doubts as to which?"

"Why--no.  I certainly did not think that you were in love with the
mother."

"Well," said I, impatiently.

"Paulina is very beautiful, no doubt; she has those Andalusian eyes
and ancles which all the world talk about, but which all the world
must see to feel the full effect of either.  She has a charming
manner--a glorious 'espiêglerie'--yes, that's the word! full of
pretty repartee, and all that sort of thing--you understand me, Dick,
or Don Ricardo, as she called you; but withal, I assure you, I should
not like to enter for a Spanish wife, of all women in the world; no,
no--what does the song say?" and as we reascended to the higher parts
of the fortress, this careless fellow sang aloud a scrap of a popular
mess-table song, somewhat to this purpose:--

  "No fair fräulein or demoiselle, nor donna with her smile,
  Shall ever teach me to forget the dear ones of our isle;
  And when I seek a heart and hand among the fair and free,
  Still constant in my faith, I'll say an English girl for me."


"That is the mark, Dick,--

  "----an English girl for me!"

Besides, half of the young fellows in garrison here ran after
Paulina; and at every mess-table she was as well known as the big
drum, or the regimental snuff-box, or that great ram's head with its
devilish horns, with which those highland fellows of the 92nd
decorate their table, after the cloth is removed.  At every jail,
field-day, and tertulia--at church, and on the promenade, a crowd of
admirers surrounded her, like flies round honey, and she seemed to be
equally delighted with all."

"That was one of the peculiar charms of her manner, Jack," said I.

"Peculiar, indeed!" said he, letting out a cloud of smoke from his
well-mustachioed lip.

"In public, she distinguished none in particular, but was alike gay
with all."

"And in private, who was said generally to be the happy Lothario?"

I made no reply, but knocked the ashes away from the 'very superior'
cabana, with which he had just favoured me.

"It was said to be a certain person known as Dick Ramble of 'Ours',"
continued Slingsby, in his bantering way; "but I am deuced glad it is
all over, like any other flirtation, and you are 'free to win and
free to wed another;' I don't like Spaniards--and never shall.  In
fact, I have hated them ever since that unpleasant adventure I had at
Malaga last year, and about which I shall tell you some other time;
but here come Shafton, Morton, and some more of 'Ours,' and as soon
as we leave the mess, we shall adjourn to the billiard table."

What this 'unpleasant adventure,' to which Slingsby referred--and to
which I had often heard him refer before--might have been I cared not
then to inquire; but walked on, more chilled than consoled by his
rattling manner and by that mess-room raillery, which I have known to
laugh many a wiser man than your humble servant, out of an honest and
sincere passion; while it has also been the saving of many an
inflammable "Newcome," or unfledged, but amatory ensign, from the
lures of those passé garrison belles, whose feathers are beginning to
moult, and whose brilliance is beginning to fade, after a long career
of close flirtation, round-dancing, supper-crushes, cold fowl, ices,
pink champagne, affectionate farewells in the grey morning, when the
drowsy drum-boys beat reveillie, or when the route arrived, and each
lover--a lover alas! but for the time--departed with his regiment to
return no more.

Of Paulina de Lucena (such a pretty name it is!) I had seen much
during her short residence in Gibraltar, and had become--what shall I
term it, for 'Ours' were not marrying men--charmed by her sweetness
of temper and piquant manner, as well as by her acknowledged beauty.

Jack Slingsby stigmatised this under the denomination of "being
spooney;" but as I have a proper abhorrence of all that slang
phraseology which is peculiar to the university, the barrack, the
clubhouse, and the turf, I believe I shall quote honest Jack no more,
but proceed in my own fashion.

She was the only daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Don Ignacio de
Lucena, a Knight of San Ferdinando, an officer of Lancers in the
service of the Queen of Spain, in one of whose battles he was taken
prisoner by Cabrera, and shot in cold blood with fifty of his
soldiers: for this ferocious Carlist behaved with such barbarity to
the Constitutional Army that one of its officers, who had been a
prisoner, assured me that at Valencia he and his comrades were
subjected to such cruelty by their captors, that after a thousand
sufferings, on being denied food, they were driven to the dreadful
necessity of devouring the body of a fellow captive.*


* A work published in Valencia positively asserts this.


The profession of her father, together with the circumstance of one
of her brothers being in the Spanish sea service, and another in the
army of Portugal, caused her to view with a favourable eye all who
have the honour to live by the sword; and my small smattering of
Spanish, which I picked up in those idle hours of a garrison life
that otherwise must have hung heavily over me, gave me every facility
for cultivating a friendship which had in it everything that might
serve to dazzle and charm a young man; for with the idea of Andalusia
and Spanish beauty we are apt to conjure up so much of love and of
romance that the imagination gets the better of the senses; besides,
those rogues of travellers and romancers have always given us such
exaggerated pictures of Spanish loveliness.

In regularity of feature and fairness of complexion, Donna Paulina
was inferior to many a pretty girl I have seen at home.  Her most
glorious attractions were her dark glossy tresses and her black
eloquent eyes--brilliant, sad, subduing, ever varying, but ever
black, and under their long, long fringes, ever melting.  In beauty
of form and grace of movement she was unmatched out of her own
province, and I can assure the reader that the first time her very
striking figure appeared among the promenaders in the Alameda of
Gibraltar with her drapery of black lace falling from a high pearl
comb, her mantilla, her close-fitting dress, her pretty feet in their
Cordovan slippers, and her large fan, the unhappy bones of which were
ever in a state of flutter and excitement, and between which she shot
her most dangerous glances, it occasioned much marvel, curiosity, and
speculation at all the mess-tables of Her Majesty's forces stationed
on the rock.

To such a companion imagine the charm of acting cicerone about the
fortifications of old Gibraltar; imagine our evening rambles round
Rosia Bay and along the new mole, where the ships of the British and
Yankees, the French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Turks, Greeks,
Moors, Arabs, and Jews, with all their varieties of ensigns, costume
and rig, are riding at anchor, and where many a grim mortar and
cannon gun frown over the new bastion; imagine the transition from
the sunny Alameda to the deep cool galleries which are hewn in the
heart of the living rock, and which are now turned to such war-like
purposes as old Pomponius Mela, who first wrote of them, could never
have conceived, and where we wandered for many an hour, the pretty
donna forgetting the starched customs of her country so far as to
grasp my arm with both her hands at times, for the aspect of these
places filled her with timidity and awe.

To these subterranean batteries there is admitted but a dim and
dubious light that steals through their embrasures, glinting on the
damp slime of their walls and roof of rock; and on the heavy
ordnance--sixty-eight pounders some of them--which stand on frames of
metal, on piles of balls and bombs, and on doors studded with iron,
that lead to other and inner vaults full of missiles and unknown
terrors.

On, on would we wander, through grim batteries, gloomy magazines, and
far-stretching galleries, that seemed to be without end, obtaining at
times through the vaulted embrasures a glimpse of the town, then
basking in the glare of the noonday sun, or of the sea, shining under
a brilliance in which the vessels on its bosom became lost, while we
heard only the sound of our own voices, the twang of a bugle, or the
sharp rat-tat of a drum in the barracks, the faint boom of a breaker
on the cliffs, or the fainter sound of voices in the town, far, far
down below, where all the races of the world were mingling; for
there, in its streets, might be seen the smart Greek in his scarlet
fez and ample kilt; the hideous Afric Jew in his black and white
striped cowl; the slow and solemn Turk; the bare-kneed Scottish
soldier; the lively Italian sailor, and the puffing, perspiring, and
grumbling John Bull.

I saw Paulina daily, and garrison life became one long and enchanting
dream!

In the batteries of the rock we promenaded often when the heat became
too great in the sunny Alameda, and with such a companion, while
wandering through the subterranean and twilight shades of Saint
George's Hall, or the Windsor Gallery, how was it possible to escape
from loving her.--A coquettish Andalusian, who, whenever I ventured
to become a little more tender than usual, would tap me over the
fingers with her fan, or give me one brilliant, flashing and
fascinating glance, as she closed her screen of black lace, and
threatened to leave me, while she sang, with the most charming grace
in the world, "Pues por besarte Minguillo," the English of which is
somewhat to the following purpose:--

  "Give me swiftly back, thou dear one,
    Give the kiss I gave to you;
  Give me back the kiss, for mother
    Is impatient--prithee do!
  Give me that, and take another,
    For that one, thou shalt have two."

And where, the while, the reader may naturally enquire, was the
cautious, suspicious, and lynx-eyed Spanish mother therein referred
to?

Now old Donna Dominga had conceived a vehement friendship for me
since the first evening on which I had the pleasure of meeting her at
the residence of the Governor and Commander-in-Chief; and where I
supplied her with ices when she was warm, adjusted her mantilla when
she was cool, held her fan, snuff-box, and poodle, and brought her a
cigarillo and orange-water dashed with the smallest taste of brandy;
and, discovering her sympathies and antipathies, soon learned to
anathematise Cabrera and the Conde de Montmolin, to express a vague
belief in miracles in general, and the verity of the Holy Face of
Jaen in particular.  I "turned" the old lady's flank, and established
myself safely under the wing of her prejudices.

She always accompanied Paulina and me in our rambles; but I generally
contrived, by a little successful manoeuvring, to leave her to the
care of Dr. MacLeechy, our senior surgeon, after Jack Slingsby had
very disobligingly revolted against this duty; and as the doctor and
the Donna were either somewhat pursy, or disposed to prose and
linger, we usually left them far in the rear and lost sight of them
altogether.

Now the doctor, who quoted Kelaart as if he had been his own father,
and expatiated to the old lady on geology (with mineralogy, botany,
and Scottish metaphysics), was so very particular in explaining the
leaves, fibres, and various properties of the _Iberus Giberaltarica_,
the only plant peculiar to the rock, that the stout Donna Dominga,
who deemed all this but the language of the flowers, and viewed
everything through the medium of gallantry, became troubled in
spirit, and would occasionally blush behind the sticks of her fan, or
ogle and look unutterable things at our poor unconscious medico.  She
would sigh tenderly when he plucked the soft palmetto which grows in
the rocky crevices, or tremble over the white polyanthus, and was
ready to drop like a ripe pumpkin into his arms, when he grew
eloquent upon the various species of the cacti.

This was all very well while it lasted, for while the ponderous old
donna thought that our quiet, canny, and discreet Galen, who signed
himself M.D. of St. Andrews, and F.E.C.S. of Edinburgh, was a lover
of her own, she forgot to look too narrowly after us; and believed
that she had found a most agreeable mode of passing the month in
Gibraltar, which, for change of air, had been recommended by some
sangrado of Seville, as her health had become somewhat impaired by
ease and good living.

I was so dazzled and delighted with the charming Paulina, and her
pretty little ways, that I had really begun to prepare my mind for
repelling the banter of the mess, and for waiting with due solemnity
upon Donna Dominga to confer with her alone, upon settlements and so
forth, when a terrible denouement took place!  Having rashly boasted
of her imaginary conquest over our doctor, to a lady whom she met at
the house of a rich Spanish merchant in the Alameda, there ensued
between them an immediate scene; for this unlucky communication
(given with all the coy triumph with which the plump old lady could
invest it) was made to no other than the doctor's wife, who had just
arrived from Dublin; and as it had never entered the head of Donna
Dominga to inquire whether our unsuspecting medico was a
Benedick--bond or free, as they say in Australia--a storm was the
consequence.

Now, Mrs. Leechy MacLeechy, our Scotch doctor's better half, was a
strong-minded Irish woman, who wore a species of turban, and was the
terror of the regiment; on each of her fat wrists she wore a bracelet
of blood-encrusted medals, torn, as she said, "off Rooshian breasts,"
and sent to her from Sebastopol by her brother, who was "the
matchor--the saynior matchor--devil a less, or the foighting
eighty-ayth;" and so this lady, in her deep Galway patois, poured on
the Spaniard a broadside that would have sunk the Santissima Trinidad.

Finding her love affair at an end, the cruel donna resolved to cut
short mine.  Within an hour after this meeting, Pedrillo was
summoned; the old Spanish coach was brought forth; the baggage
packed, and her farewell cards--P.P.C.--dispatched to the governor
and his military secretary; to the aides-de-camp and staff colonel;
to the officers commanding regiments, and all the great folks of the
place.  The old lady and the pretty Paulina got into the depths of
the ponderous 'carrozza;' the three-legged stool was strapped to the
door; Pedrillo clambered into his bucket-like boots, and muttered
many 'carajos!' as he applied his latigo to the sleek sides of the
dapple mules, and while their proprietrix was sulking and fuming at
Gibraltar and all the heretics who dwelt therein, the huge conveyance
crawled along the narrow causeway which forms the communication
between the town and the isthmus, and, for the present, thus ended,
as I have said, my pleasant little Spanish romance of a month.

A recollection was all that remained to me of Paulina, and of that
flirtation which was fast maturing into something of a better and
more lasting nature.




CHAPTER II.

THE GUARDA COSTA.

During the two preceding months we had been daily expecting orders to
embark for the Crimea, and this expectation formed almost our sole
topic at mess; but days became weeks, and weeks became months, yet we
heard no more of it than what passed among ourselves.

Transports laden with troops--horse, foot, and artillery--touched
daily at the Rock, and steamed on into the bright blue Mediterranean,
with spirit-stirring cheers rising from their crowded decks.
Regiments junior to ours were withdrawn from the Rock and dispatched
to that scene of bravery and bloodshed, of mismanagement and
disaster, towards which all our thoughts, our hopes, and hearts were
turned; but the route never came for "Ours," and we grew decidedly
peevish, and found the dull routine of duty among the endless
batteries, bastions, curtains, magazines, and casemates of that
mighty fortress which was so long boasted (before the days of steam)
as the key of "the great French lake," sufficiently tedious; for we
felt that we were merely playing at soldiers like militiamen, while
our comrades of the line were engaged in desperate work, and played
the great game of war, with the eyes of all the world upon them.

One evening, about a week after the departure of the ladies, I was
captain of the guard at the New Mole Fort, and Jack Slingsby was my
subaltern.  We had just finished the dinner which had been sent to
us, hot and smoking, from the mess-house, in a conveyance for the
purpose; the windows of the officers' guardroom were open, and with a
box of contraband cigars, a few periodicals from the garrison
library, a telescope to watch the passing ships, and a bottle or two
of very choice mess claret, we were dozing the sunny evening of
Andalusia very comfortably away.

The last dispatches from the Crimea had been read and discussed by
us; the last lists of killed, wounded, frozen, or missing in the
trenches had been conned over for some familiar name, which brought
vividly before us some fine fellow we should never see again; but
whose sudden fate was the more interesting to us, because it soon
might be our own.

Whether it was the result of the good dinner, the good wine, the
sultry atmosphere, or our own thoughts that oppressed us, I know not;
but we sat long silent, and gazing at the varied scenery and
glittering waters of the bay.

My thoughts were still wandering after Paulina, and I was
endeavouring to imagine what she might be about at that precise
moment.

Slingsby had lost a very heavy and very absurd bet, on an interesting
race run at Grand Cairo between an Irish mare and an Arab horse
belonging to Halim Pasha, when the former beat the latter "all to
nothing," as Jack phrased it, and he had to hand over 500_l._ to
Morton, our colonel, for booking on a horse which neither of them had
ever seen.  The same race was offered for the last two years against
all England, for ten thousand sovereigns, and, as all the sporting
world know, the challenge was not accepted.  Blue-devilled by his
loss, Jack Slingsby sipped his claret in silence and made wise
resolutions which he never intended to keep, with moral reflections
which he never could practise, and longed for the Crimea, insensible
to the charms of this delightful climate, where, even in January, the
narcissus-polyanthus hang in white clusters from the rocks; where the
purple lavender flowers in large beds and parterres; where the
palmetto spreads its fan-like foliage to the sun; where the gigantic
aloe puts forth its leaves, and the prickly pear expands its
ponderous bunches, while the wild tulip and the damascus-tree are in
full blossom under the gloom of the solemn pine, or the lighter
foliage of the cork-tree--and where all is verdure, fragrance, and
joy!  Yet, amid all this, Jack Slingsby, like the rest of "Ours,"
sighed for the frozen camp, the battered trenches, and the misery of
Sebastopol.

"So you have not got the better of your Spanish fancies, eh?" said
he, for lack of something better to talk about; "the charming
Paulina--that most rotund of elderly females, her mamma, and all that
sort of thing?"

"What leads you to think so?" I asked languidly, as I lay stretched
at length on the Windsor chairs, watching the smoke which ascended
from my lips to the ceiling.

"It is quite plain, dear Don Ricardo."

"You cannot mimic her, so don't attempt it, Jack; but how is it
plain, eh?"

"As clear as when the right is in front, the left is the pivot."

"A technical reply."

"Dick Ramble, my boy, you are quite sad about her, and there is no
use in attempting to conceal it," continued Slingsby.

"Not sad, exactly," said I, making an effort to look brave; "never
was I fool enough to be sad about any woman yet; there are as good
fish, &c., and as for the Spanish girl--try another Cuba, the box is
beside you."

"Thanks--about this Spanish girl?"

"Fill your glass, and push across the decanter; has not that bottle
been a little corked, think you?"

"Perhaps--about this Spanish girl?" continued Jack doggedly.

"Well, what the deuce about her?"

"You were just on the point of remarking some thing."

"Only that her eyes were very fine, were they not?"

"Very, but I prefer blue--

  "'No fair fräulein nor dem-----'


"For heaven's sake, Jack, don't begin that ever-lasting ditty!" said
I, pettishly; "yes, Paulina's eyes were beautiful; they seemed, as
the Spaniards say, to be in mourning for the murders they committed."

"A stale compliment," was Jack's retort to my interruption of a song
with which he had favoured the mess every night since we left
Southampton, for a small amount of vocal talent will go a long way to
charm a mess-table; "she murdered you, however, with very little
compunction; but to think of the doctor's botanising with the mother
being mistaken for love-making--was it not glorious, Dick?"

"I have sometimes thought of a month's leave, just between musters,"
said I, without joining in Jack's boisterous laugh.

"Leave! for what purpose?"

"A ride into Spain--say, as far as Seville; what do you think of it?"

"Seventy miles or more to help you to continue a flirtation begun in
the casemates of Gibraltar.  Thank you, Ramble; I would rather hold
myself excused.  I had a little adventure in Spain once before, and
its devilish concomitants quite cured me of all taste for another;
though if I had not lost this unlucky 500_l._ perhaps--"

"Well, why the deuce did you not let Halim Pasha and his nag alone?
What did their race matter to you?"

"But lend me the telescope--what is that puff--a gun?"

"It is a smuggler running right for the harbour, pursued by a Spanish
guarda costa; bang! there goes another gun from the Don."

"And right through the felucca's sail too!"

"Hollo! they will be within gunshot of us ere long," said I,
springing up: "and this will be work for us.  Sentry, call the gunner
of the guard."

"Gunner of the guard!" reiterated the sentinel, who stood, bayonet in
hand, under a sunshade, at the guard-house door.

The solitary artilleryman, who was attached to my guard, appeared in
an instant with his sword by his side, and a lintstock in his hand.

"Get ready a gun," said I; "for there is a Spanish guarda costa in
pursuit of a smuggler, and we must protect our friend."

"An 18-pounder, or a 24, sir?"

"Oh, give him a twenty-four, and take a file of the guard to assist
you."

While the smuggler, with her long sweeps out, and every stitch of
canvas crowded on her long and tapering masts and whip-like yards,
was straining every nerve to escape from the Spanish cruiser, which
plied away with her bow guns, and bore after her close-hauled, and
rushing through the shining waves till they seemed to smoke under
her, it may be necessary to inform the reader that the manufacture
and smuggling of tobacco and cigars at Gibraltar is a never-failing
and never-ending source of angry discussion between the Governments
of Spain and Britain; for, by the former, tobacco has long been
reckoned a royal monopoly.  Now, in Gibraltar, almost every second
house is a cigar-shop, and more than two thousand men are daily
employed in the manufacture of these articles of luxury, without
which a Spaniard would be, as some one says.  like a steamer without
a funnel.  Three-fourths of the British exports from Gibraltar to the
three United Kingdoms are also smuggled, and to such an extent is the
contraband trade carried, that the annual importation of tobacco into
that fortified town, says Mr Porter, in his "Progress of the Nation,"
"amounts to from six millions to eight millions of pounds, nearly the
whole of which is purchased by smugglers."

The boats of the contrabandistas are generally rigged as feluccas,
and painted black; they are built sharp as a pike-head, and carry a
heavy brass gun, which, in harbour, is usually concealed under a pile
of old boxes and casks, with a tarpaulin thrown over it, while in
cases of emergency, various pistols, pikes, and cutlasses, make their
appearance in the hands of the brown-visaged, black-bearded,
red-sashed, and rather pictorial-looking ruffians, whose chief
occupation is to sleep and lounge about their decks by day.

To look out for these lads of the knife and pistol, the Government of
Her Most Catholic Majesty maintains a number of fast-sailing revenue
craft, called guarda costas, commanded by brave and vigilant
officers.  These are the abhorrence of the contrabandistas, whose
operations are greatly facilitated on land by the concurrence of the
corrupt Spanish officials; and those guarda costas, in their zeal,
had, of late, been rash enough to pursue their prey into those waters
which are under the jurisdiction of the Governor and
Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar; and in three instances had boarded
them with pistol and cutlass, shot the crews, or driven them
overboard, and thereafter cut the feluccas out from under the very
guns of Her Britannic Majesty's fortress.

This, however, was not to be tolerated again, and strict orders had
been issued that every guarda costa who ventured into troubled waters
should be fired on.  John Bull is consistently absurd and unjust in
all things, and, with all his boasted justice, is the most veritable
bully in the world--except, perhaps, his thriving son Jonathan; he
would no doubt cut his own smugglers out of any port in the world,
and in the same moment would deny the poor Spaniards the right to do
the same; for John is a man full of honour and liberality, or a man
of neither, just as may suit his own particular purpose for the time;
but to return,--

On came the felucca in question, running straight for the anchorage,
which was protected by the heavy guns of the New Mole Fort where we
were on guard.  and the parapet of which was lined by the soldiers,
all eager to witness the result of that most exciting of all things,
a chase--a struggle between a strong party and a weak one.  On came
the guarda costa in pursuit, plying her bow-chaser, cleaving asunder
the clouds of white smoke which ever and anon it rolled ahead of her,
and riding over the waves, then shining in all the rosy brilliance of
a Spanish sunset, while astern waved the large ensign with the red
and yellow horizontal bars of Castile and Leon.

Suddenly the little felucca ran up British colours; a sharp patter
rang over the water, and a wreath of smoke rose from her stern as the
devil-may-care contrabandistas gave the cruiser a dose of small arms.

Boom again!  The don gave another shot from his brass gun, and this
time an angry shout arose from our own vessels in the roadstead, for
the ball had crossed the forefoot of a Newcastle collier.

"Ramble, this will never do," said Slingsby; "that Spanish craft is
too near by half--much nearer than our standing orders permit."

"Now, gunner, is that 24-pounder ready?" said I.

"All ready, sir."

"Then bang at her."

We all watched the shot with breathless interest, for to us, the
whole affair was merely a race, a game of hazard, like any other.
The sullen roar of the 24-pounder shook the solid parapet of the New
Mole Fort, and pealed in repeated echoes round all the shore to the
extremity of Rosia Bay; and as the cloud of light smoke curled away
from before us, we saw the shot whipping the water far astern of the
guarda costa, and a flush of annoyance spread over the honest face of
the artilleryman; for, as all our eyes were bent upon his
performance, he had been most anxious to excel, and this very anxiety
had probably defeated its object.

A muttered exclamation of impatience escaped him.

"Run back the gun," said he to the guard.

Back went the carronade, and home went the sponge, as he set his
teeth, and, with hasty determination, proceeded to reload.

"Quick, quick," said I; "for if she hauls her wind, gunner, there
will barely be time to give another shot."

"I'll toss you for it, Señor Capitano," said Slingsby; "bet you a
bottle of champagne that I will hit the guarda costa."

"Done," said I; "toss for the first fire."

We tossed, and it fell to Jack.

"Take care that you don't hit the felucca."

"Miss the pigeon and hit the crow--eh, Dick?" he said, while,
laughing, he applied his eye to the sites on the breech, and
proceeded to adjust the screw, to the evident annoyance of the
gunner, who, while he could not decline to relinquish his place to an
officer, was piqued on being deprived of a chance of retrieving his
name as a professional marksman; and now he stood by, with his match
lighted, in the earnest hope, doubtless, that Jack Slingsby would
send his shot as wide of the mark as possible.  Cigar in mouth, Jack
glanced coolly--almost carelessly--along the gun, and on covering his
object, cried--"fire!"

Again the lintstock fell on the touch-hole; again the gun-shot rolled
along the echoing shore, and pealed away to seaward; a large white
splinter was seen on the gunwale of the guarda costa; her sails
shivered and flapped in the wind, as the ball struck her, and
suddenly backing her mainyard, she lay to, heaving like a wounded
seabird, on the long glassy ridges of the ground-swell, ere the burst
of applause with which our soldiers greeted Slingsby had died
away--for my friend Jack was one of their most favourite officers.

"You did for her, there, sir," said the gunner, approvingly, as he
rammed home the sponge.

"Yes, but as you fired when she was much further off, remember that I
have the less credit in hitting," replied Jack, as he gave the gunner
a crown-piece to console him.

By this time the felucca, with a shout of derision rising from her
deck, ran into the harbour, ducking her colours thrice to us in
salute, as she passed the New Mole Fort.

I had not been looking for more than a minute through the spy-glass
at the guarda costa, when I became assured that some one on board had
been wounded severely, either by the shot or its splinters.  The
crew--all save the man at the wheel--were grouped amidships; many
were kneeling on the deck, and, once or twice, clenched hands were
fiercely shaken in menace towards the battery; then we saw a man
borne carefully aft between several others.

"Some one has evidently been killed or wounded desperately," said I,
handing the glass to Slingsby.

"Good Heaven! do you say so?" cried Jack; "well, it would seem
so--poor fellow--you know, Ramble, I did not exactly anticipate such
a thing--so it is--so it is!  There is a man stretched on the deck!"
he added, passing the telescope to our soldiers.

"We have only obeyed a standing garrison order," said I; "and the
responsibility thereof, if any, does not lie with us, but with those
who issued it.  Come back to the guard-room, Jack, and my servant
shall go to the messman for that bottle of champagne you have won so
well."

"Oh! deuce take the champagne, and all that sort of thing," said
Jack, looking still at the guarda costa.

For a time an evident confusion and indecision, seemed to reign among
her crew.  She lay heaving and tossing, rising and falling on the
long and ridgy rollers, with the setting sun glaring full upon her
white mainsail, which lay flat to the mast; the light of day soon
sank in the west, behind the upper peak of the rocky mountain, from
which a myriad rays shot upward and played on the masses of floating
cloud; the strait was still bathed in the amber glory of evening, and
each glassy billow of the slow ground-swell as it rolled away from
west to east, rose like a bank of gold from a plain of brilliant
blue; and all the amphitheatre of the town, which stretches along the
base of the rock, and rises gradually from the shore in the most
delightful manner--mingling in picturesque confusion, the lofty and
airy Spanish caza, with its flat roof, verandah, and sun-shaded
windows, the close, compact English house, the solid rampart, and the
flimsy wooden storehouse--all were bathed in the warmest tints, and
every casement and window flung back the gleams of radiance, as if
they had been illuminated by lamps of crimson and gold.

Soon after the departed sun had shed its last ray on the bare scalp
of the sugar-loaf, the crew of the guarda costa, as a protection
probably, hoisted British colours, and crept past us into the
harbour, and immediately on dropping her anchor, sent a boat ashore.

We supposed that this visit could only be for the purpose of lodging
a complaint against the officer in command at the New Mole Fort--to
wit myself, a complaint which we knew would be unavailing: but we
were mistaken; for my servant, on returning from the barracks with
the bottle of champagne and other &c. requisite to enable Jack and me
to pass the night on guard agreeably, brought us the unpleasant
information that the shot had carried away both legs of the
unfortunate Spanish lieutenant who commanded the guarda costa, and
that doctor M'Leechy of "Ours" had at once gone off to the vessel to
succour the patient, who--poor fellow!--had died under his hands.

This catastrophe proved a great damper to us, and to Jack in
particular, for he was one of the best-hearted fellows in the
service; so we had more champagne brought from the mess-house, and we
talked of the guarda costa and her poor lieutenant almost till the
morning gun was fired; and the affair furnished me with a special
paragraph for that "column of remarks" in the guard report which
seldom contains memoranda of greater importance than a notice of "the
cracked pane of glass, handed over by Captain O'Brien of the 88th;"
or, "the poker, handed over, broken, by the last guard under
Lieutenant Smith, of the Buffs," and so forth.

In the morning we found that the guarda costa had sailed in the
night, taking her dead commander with her; and long before the end of
the week we had ceased even to speak of the circumstance at mess, and
I forgot the affair as the image of Paulina came before me again, and
thoughtless Jack Slingsby was as gay as ever.

But I must mention, that on being relieved from guard at the New Mole
Fort, I found waiting me, at my quarters, Pedro de Urquija, a
well-known contrabandista, and king of the smugglers of Gibraltar,
who gave me a profusion of thanks "for saving his little felucca, La
Buena Fortuna, from that devil of a guarda costa," saying it was the
closest run he had ever experienced in twenty years of arduous
smuggling; and he insisted upon my acceptance of several boxes of
prime Cubas and some dozen yards of magnificent lace, worked by the
nuns of Cadiz and the poor sisters of Santa Theresa at Estrelo, and
we parted the best friends in the world: but a heavy rod was in
pickle for Jack and me; and the affair was destined to cost us more
danger, trouble, and anxiety, than we could ever have calculated on
risking.




CHAPTER III.

JACK SLINGSBY.

The killing of the Spanish lieutenant revived among our diplomatic
people the ever-rankling quarrel about the contrabandistas, and the
captain-general of Andalusia wrote an angry letter to the governor of
Gibraltar, remonstrating with him on the conduct of the officer in
charge of the battery at the Mole Fort, in daring to fire upon a
Spanish government cruiser, and requesting that the said Don Ricardo
Ramble should be given up to the Spanish authorities to be sent to
the galleys at Barcelona probably, or to be otherwise disposed of.

This absurd demand, however, the old general commanding waived
politely; but the correspondence was prolonged until the military
secretary became bored to death on the subject, and lost all patience
at the very mention of it.  Now as the Queen of Spain designates
herself sovereign lady of Gibraltar, and as the alcalde of San Roque,
a little town which has sprung up within the last hundred and fifty
years, still styles himself in all official documents Alcalde of San
Roque and of Gibraltar, and holder of supreme authority therein, the
tone assumed by the capitan-general, who was on a visit to Jaen, was
pompous, high, and mighty; for no explanation we could give in
writing could make the irritable old Castilian hidalgo see that the
lieutenant of the guarda costa had been in the wrong.

One evening, on entering the mess-room, I was startled by Colonel
Morton acquainting me that by directions just arrived from the
Foreign Secretary he had been requested to send the two officers who
were on guard in the new Mole Fort into Spain.

"Without hostage or guarantee--the devil!" said I, shrugging my
shoulders; "and to whom?"

"To this obstinate old bore by habit, and boar by nature, the
captain-general."

"As prisoners, colonel?" cried Slingsby, with an astounded air from
the other end of the table, and pausing with his hand on a wine
decanter; "you don't mean to say as prisoners?"

"Prisoners--not at all; how could you think of such a thing?" said
the colonel, laughing, for he was a hearty old soldier, at whose name
stood P.W. and K.H., and C.B. in _Hart's Army List_; "you go merely
to explain the late affair in person; and it is the more necessary
for you both to go as the two aides-de-camp of the governor are on
the sick list.  It is only a ride of some seventy or eighty miles
into Spain--wish 't were I who had the duty to do."

"And where does the captain-general live?"

"At Seville, to which place he is now returning from Jaen."

"Ah, indeed, Seville," said I, reviving, as I filled my glass with
Moselle, and Slingsby stuck his glass in his remarkably knowing eye.

"You'll take good horses; but be careful of rogues, raterillos, and
footpads by the way.  I can lend you a pair of pistols with spring
bayonets."

"Thank you, colonel, I have my revolver," said I, laughing.

"What! you smile, Ramble?" said the colonel; "and believe me to have
the bandittiphobia; but I know Spain well, having marched over every
foot of the Peninsula under Lord Lyndedoch, and fought my way from
the Black Horse Square at Lisbon to the banks of the Nive, so I know
pretty well, that in peace as in war armed desperadoes, whose hands
are against all men, are, as a certain traveller says, 'the very
weeds of the Spanish soil.'  Right well do I know the land of Los
Espagnols as we used to call them in the old fighting 5th Hussars.  I
was in the cavalry then, and had I not grown stiff in the joints, and
lost all relish for adventures by day, fleas by night, and the
resinous taste of vino out of a skin at all times, I would have saved
you the trouble of the journey and gone myself; but my instructions
from home say that Captain Ramble and Lieutenant Slingsby must go, so
there is the end of it.  Major, Mr. Vice, another bottle of wine to
drink 'bon voyage' to Ramble and Slingsby."

"With all my heart; sergeant Slopper, a fresh allowance of wine,"
said the major.

"Wish I were going with you," said Shafton, the captain of our light
company; "a ride to Seville!  the very name of the place conjures up
a sunny vision of orange trees and glowing grapes, of black mantillas
and taper ancles, and different duty from trenching in the Crimea as
we might have been, and ought to have been by this time."

"Aye," quoth M'Leechy the doctor, who although married (as he knew to
his cost) was dining that day with the mess; "and a pleasant change
after our dull routine of garrison life, during which we have, as
'Punch' says--

  "Contentedly eat ration beefs and muttons,
    Contentedly drank ration rums and waters;
  Darned our own socks, and sewed our own buttons,
    Fried in summer, and froze in winter quarters."


"A fine upon the doctor," said Shafton; "colonel, Mr. Vice,
gentlemen, he vilely satirises Her Majesty's service, a bottle of
champagne from the doctor."

"You will remember us all most affectionately to Donna Dominga and to
the bewitching Paulina--you will see them of course," said some one
from the foot of the table.

"The doctor must prepare some of the rarest specimens of those
remarkable cacti with which he subdued the heart of the plump widow,"
said Slingsby, taking up the chorus of banter, "and have them ready
by to-morrow; we start to-morrow, I presume, colonel."

"As early as you please," said Morton.

"We shall have some glorious fun in Seville--eh, Ramble?  You'll envy
us, gentlemen."

"If the captain-general does not garotte you," snarled the doctor;
"or treat you as Don Ramon Cabrera, the Conde de Morella, treated the
husband of Donna Dominga."

"But for that gentle sigh, doctor, I would have considered you quite
a bear," said Slingsby, "but pass the wine, M'Leechy."

"If you find Seville dull," retorted the doctor, "you had better play
the same little prank you played at Kilkenny when you were in the
Sixth."

"What did he do when in the Sixth?" inquired a dozen voices at once.

"What did he not do you should ask," continued the doctor, while Jack
smiled faintly and filled up his glass.  "Once when we marched into
Kilkenny we found there had been a quarrel between the Rapparees of
the district and the first battalion of Scots Royals.  It was in the
time of high Repeal enthusiasm, and nothing was thought of but an
Irish Republic, so the people looked darkly at the redcoats.  Now
Slingsby had never been in Ireland before, and as he received over
the barrack-guard from one of the Royals, with bayonets fixed and
drum beating, he asked how the inhabitants liked the troops.

"'Ill enough,' answered the Royal, 'since we shot some of them in a
tithe business near Roscrea: they have been as cold as charity, and
the devil a dinner or ball have we had since last muster day, and you
be here till you are mouldy without seeing such a thing as a waltz or
white kids--ices and fowl, trifle and champagne.'

"Whereupon Mr. Jack Slingsby, being an Englishman, and knowing no
better, believed he might play pranks upon the Irish; and seating
himself in his quarters next day, he assumed his pen and dispatched
the following card to every house in the town:--


"'Lieutenant Slingsby, of H.M.'s 6th Foot, presents his compliments
to the ladies of Kilkenny, and takes the earliest opportunity of
announcing his arrival.  He begs to inform them that he can play
whist, casino, and every game on cards known in Christendom; that he
flirts to admiration, and can polk, waltz, and dance the varsovienne
ditto, that generally he can accommodate himself to every whim-wham
of the charming sex, and is always to be heard of at his residence in
the infantry barracks.'


"Among others he rashly sent one of these precious circulars to Mrs.
Towler, the wife--I beg her pardon--the lady of the major-general of
the district, who wickedly handed it to her husband at breakfast; so
poor Jack's production brought him before a general court-martial.
It went very hard with him, for the irascible general deemed that his
wife and her ten highly-eligible daughters were grossly insulted; but
our hero escaped with a reprimand, and the colonel was directed to
watch his conduct in future, but he became thereafter the lion of
Kilkenny and Carlow to boot, and all the district from Roscrea to
Clonmel.  After that, an evening party without Jack, would have been
like a bell without a clapper."

"But the general never forgave me for that prank," said Jack,
good-humouredly; "and he was always on the watch for me afterwards."

"You remember how nearly he had you booked for another court-martial
on a race day?"

"And how nicely I outflanked and outwitted him!  It was the day of
the principal races; I had a horse to run, and more than half the
regiment had made a heavy book on him, and a great amount of paper
was expected to change owners on the issue.  The lord-lieutenant was
to be there, and I was all anxiety to be present at the race, when,
as the devil or the adjutant would have it, I found myself in orders
the day before--orders for guard!  Everybody was going to the course,
and not a soul for love or money would take my duty; so with a heavy
heart I paraded in the morning; and as the time for the start drew
near I saw all our fellows bowl out of barracks in drags and cars
attired in sporting mufti and in high spirits.  Then came old General
Towler, commanding the district, in his blue frogged coat, and with
the sabre which he had wielded at the passage of the Bidassoa, Mrs.
General Towler, several Misses Towler, all demoiselles of mature age,
and the A.D.C. Horatio Towler, captain of a regiment which he never
saw, for he wisely preferred his mamma's drawing-room in Kilkenny to
broiling on Cape Coast.  They all scampered out, then the barrack
gates were shut, and all became very quiet and still.

"No sound stirred in the empty parade-yard, for no one was abroad;
the sun was scorching and the sentinels stood in their boxes.  I
thought of the buzz, the glitter, the fun and frolic, the cold fowl,
the iced champagne, the brandy and soda-water, the flirtation on the
roof of a drag, on the rumble or the dickey--all the excitement and
enthusiasm of the races, and more than all, I imagined how my nag
would look when the exulting grooms drew his cloths off, the jockey
in blue and white colours, and fancy painted him scouring like a
whirlwind round the smooth green course, and beating Flying Dutchman,
Lady Fanny, Albert, and all the rest of them hollow.  As the time of
the start drew nigh, my excitement and longing increased, but I knew
too well the danger of absenting myself from a guard.  I knew,
moreover, that old Towler, who spent half his life in laying traps
for subalterns (ensigns being his peculiar aversion), was daily
furnished with a card, whereon were written the names of the officers
on garrison duty, and he had seen me on guard as he passed out.  The
barracks are so empty, I'll never be missed, thought I, and may steal
to the course in the crowd.  So, as the distance was short, I hurried
off on foot and in full uniform just as I had paraded for duty, with
my sword, white belt, and shako.  Lost amid the wilderness of tents,
stalls, thimblers, and rolypoly men, carriages, gigs, cars, and
vehicles of every kind, I reached the grand stand, or rather its
vicinity, and was eagerly looking about for my horse as the bell had
rung at the starting-point, and the race had begun long since, when I
heard a tremendous cheer, and saw my own jockey borne past me,
shoulder high.  Blue and white had won!  In my excitement and
confusion I forgot all about my uniform, and was pushing, jostling,
and fighting my way through the delighted mob, when the basilisk
expression of two fierce grey eyes that peered from under their
shaggy brows arrested me.

"Heavens and earth!  I was close to the carriage of old General
Towler, and there he sat, sullen as Jove upon his throne of thunder
clouds, scanning me and his card,--the fatal detail card, alternately.

"'I am done for!' was my first thought; 'I have won the race, but
lost my commission; he has nailed me at last!' and my heart sunk, as
I thought of the too probable consequences of a second court-martial.

"'To the barracks,' I heard him say imperiously, and I knew in a
moment that he was deliberately driving off to turn out the main
guard, and thus to prove me absent therefrom.  I felt that I was
lost--that my commission, the pride of my heart, was gone; and had
not a happy thought seized me, I should not have been here to night.
Just as the carriage turned round, I sprang up behind it, and stood
there unseen, but stooping low, because the roof was open.

"'You're sure it is that impertinent fellow, Slingsby, of the Sixth?'
said Mrs. Towler, with a smile of malicious satisfaction.

"'Sure as you are beside me, my love,' growled the general; 'bad
example to the soldiers--very! subversive of all discipline--I'll
smash him now--absent from guard--a general court-martial----'

"'A saucy jackanapes,' said Miss Towler.

"'Gross dereliction of duty!'

"'He was most impertinent to Maria at the last ball,' said Mrs.
Towler.

"'Violation of the articles of war,' growled the Major General; 'but
here we are close on the barracks--now we shall have him!'

"'Guard turn out!' cried the sentry, presenting arms, and facing his
post.

"'Stop, coachman,' cried the general, as the carriage, with wheels
flashing and its steaming bays at full gallop, dashed up to the guard
house, where they reared back on their haunches, as the guard formed
line, opened ranks, and the drum gave the single customary ruffle,
just as I dropped unseen from the foot-board behind, drew my sword,
and took my place coolly at the head of my men.

"'Sergeant,' roared the general; 'where's the officer of the
guard--where's that infernal--where is Mr. Slingsby?'

"'Here, general,' said the astonished noncommissioned officer.

"'I am here, sir,' said I, haughtily lowering the point of my sword.

"'Here--you!' he exclaimed with a glance of astonishment and
perplexity, as he fumbled with his confounded detail card; 'what the
deuce--I thought--that will do, however; guard, turn in, sir;
coachman, drive on!'

"And the carriage, with the general and all his daughters, with their
fringed parasols, rolled away.  Old Towler never discovered how I
circumvented him, though he assured his son, the aide-de-camp, that
he could have made his affidavit on seeing me at the races, and in
ten minutes after found me at the head of my guard more than two
miles distant."

Next day Slingsby and I left the garrison on our mission to Seville.
He accompanied me with some reluctance, for he disliked the
Spaniards, having been frequently among them, and being one who
possessed a strange facility for getting into all kinds of scrapes
and broils.  Before starting we received from the military secretary
all the papers connected with the affair of the guarda costa; and,
what was of more importance to us, we received from the paymaster a
necessary portion of "the soul of Pedro Garcias," and taking with us
only our undress uniform and grey great-coats, our swords and
revolvers (for one might as well travel without brains as without
arms in Spain; besides, Fabrique de Urquija, a devil of a fellow,
haunted the Sierra de Ronda), a valise with six shirts each, a box of
cubas, and a John Murray, we crossed the isthmus, passed through the
Spanish lines about an hour after the morning gun was fired, and with
the gorgeous sunrise of a beautiful Spanish day took the wild and
lonely road into Andalusia, with well-filled purses, good nags under
us, light hearts and thoughtless heads, and in such a frame of mind,
that, in pursuit of adventure, we would have faced anything, from a
black beetle to a mad bull.

I thought of Donna Paulina (when did I not think of her?) and as the
strong ramparts of Gibraltar lessened in our rear, I hummed "Pues por
bisarte Minguillo," her coquettish little song of "The Kiss."

Poor Paulina!




CHAPTER IV.

THE VENTA.

We had left the dull world of matter-of-fact behind us, and were now
in the land of romance, where, save the invention of cigars and
musket locks, all was unchanged since the days of Charles V.; for
while all the world moves around her, Spain alone stands still,
torpid and unchanging as her unclouded sun and mighty mountain
Sierras.

On reaching Castellar we expected to receive an escort from the
officer commanding a troop of cavalry quartered there, a necessary
protection against the banditti of Fabrique de Urquija, whose name
was now a terror to Andalusia.

It was a Spanish day; the air was clear, ambient, and pure as light;
the sky was cloudless, and exhibited a deep immensity of blue,
rendering the most distant objects visible in the blaze of the
soaring sun, that whitened the rocks and the narrow horse path we
pursued; while the dark pine branches and the light cork trees were
unstirred by a breath of wind.

We passed through San Roque, a town of some importance to Spain,
since Sir George Rooke in 1704 took Gibraltar, which was almost the
only acquisition of the English arms until the union with Scotland,
and consequent consolidation of the naval and military resources of
the two kingdoms.  After leaving it, our route lay through that
beautiful forest of cork trees which spreads over a great part of the
country, and borders on the bay of Gibraltar.

At Venla we passed several strings of galley slaves, who were chained
together, and at work upon the road.  As we trotted past, they paused
to glare at us, and their dark sparkling eyes shone through the
tangled masses of their jetty hair, which was the sole covering of
their heads alike under the winter rain and the scorching summer sun.

At Castellar we were disappointed in our expected escort, as the
cavalry had marched to Seville, so we halted at a venta, or inn, and
were strongly advised by the hostalero, or keeper, to tarry with him
awhile, for the approaching night at least, as several outrages had
lately been committed in the neighbourhood, and a band of broken
Carlist soldiers and runaway galley slaves had hovered for some time
in the Sierra de Ronda, making themselves the terror of all the
country from Cortes to Vente Quemada.

"Disparate," said I; "nonsense!"

"A sly trick to get us to stay over night," said Slingsby, as he took
a long draught of Xeres and cold water, and renewed his attack on the
boiled fowl, which was all the patron could as yet provide for us.

"Madre maria purissima!" said the latter, turning up his glossy black
eyes; "may you be forgiven your incredulity; but, señores, did you
not remark the number of crosses by the wayside as you came along?"

"We did," said Jack; "and what then?"

"Each one marks the scene of some 'novedad.'"

"Novelty--a new term for a murder, Señor Patron?"

"And the poles, with robbers' heads on them?"

"I observed one," said I.

"And singular to say, a bird had built its nest in it," added Jack;
"it was a mere skull."

"One--madre de Dios--are there not a hundred? yet, señores, you could
not ride without an escort, even so far as Alcala--the thing is not
to be thought of."

"What think you of all this sort of thing, Ramble?" asked Slingsby.

Before I could reply, a loud cracking of whips, the creaking of
ill-greased wheels, and the clamour of voices were heard.  On this
the hostalero cried,--

"It is the convoy already--the convoy from Marbella to Medina--your
graces will excuse me."

He hurried away, and in a minute after came breathlessly back with
intelligence that it had been fired on by Don Fabrique with at least
fifty thousand banditti, at Benelauria, near the foot of the Sierra,
and but for a case of reliques carried by a padre of Medina, every
soul must have perished; but would not the noble señores come down
stairs, and count the bullet-holes in the pannels?

"The bullet-holes!"

"By Jove, this affair becomes interesting," said Slingsby, and we
descended to the inn-yard, where we found ourselves amid a Babel of
tongues and dire confusion.  Let the reader imagine four calessos,
all painted in bright stripes of red and yellow, the royal colours of
Spain, each with pannels full of glaring flowers and absurd
miraculous pictures, a body like a cabriolet, supported on a
ponderous under-carriage with high wheels, all splashed with mud.
Each calesso was drawn by two mules, the collars and bridles of which
were covered with clear jangling bells.  These were each driven by a
Jehu who wore all the brilliant colours of the rainbow in his jacket,
sash, breeches, and embroidered leggings.  These four calessos were
full of passengers.  There were soap-boilers and potters of Seville,
sleek, well fed, and in easy circumstances; the old padre, José
Torquemada, the curate of Medina, in a broad hat and long black
cassock buttoned to the throat; over his shoulders he wore a broad
cape, and in his hands were his beads, breviary, and the case of
reliques which had just been of such signal service.  There were
several cotton manufacturers on their way to Cadiz; but all--save a
military man who wore a green surtout and forage cap laced with
gold--most unwarlike personages to meet a party of robbers in a
Spanish sierra.

The drivers, we were told, were singing merrily, the bells were
jangling, the passengers all smoking, chatting, and laughing, as they
entered a defile in the hills, when suddenly the rocks and trees
which overhung the rough path were found to be manned--

"Don Fabrique de Urquija!" was the cry, shots were fired--maladito!
and the escort, which consisted of a sergeant and four dragoons of
the Spanish army, turned their horses and fled at full speed, leaving
the convoy to the mercy of the outlaws, who captured the rear
calesso, cut its springs, shot the driver, and had retained it with
all its contents and passengers.  The other four had escaped, and
came thundering down the narrow path to Castellar with all their
passengers shouting with terror, the mules galloping, the bells
jangling, and every vehicle plunging like a ship in a storm.

"Morte de Dios!" added the military personage, whom they called Don
Joaquim, and from whom we had this account; "it was a narrow escape,
for Urquija is a very Tartar--a blood-drinker!  You belong to the
British service, señores, I presume?"

"Yes," said I.

"To the garrison in Gibraltar, of course?"

"Of course; we have no other garrison in Spain."

"And you are on leave, señores?"

"Si, señor, on leave, and going to Seville," said I, conceiving that
to tell our real object to this inquisitive officer might not be
conducive to the cultivation of mutual good-will.

"I also am an officer," said he, bowing; "and belong to the
Portuguese service--Major in the ancient Regiment of St. Anthony."

"But you are a Spaniard," said I.

"The señor is right; but my father was tied to a post one fine
morning, and shot by Don Ramon de Cabrera; it gave me a disgust at
Spain, for I saw it done, so I entered the service of Portugal.
Come, hombres, I am glad to meet two brothers of the sword; we shall
have a fresh bota of Xeres, and be comfortable for the night.  After
this devilish piece of work, the convoy cannot proceed without an
escort; it must halt till morning, so let us all be happy together.
I shall be in Seville myself ere long, and hope to have the pleasure
of meeting you there."

Don Joaquim seemed to be about thirty-five years of age; in figure he
was somewhat short and punchy, his face was round and good-humoured,
though at times it became stern, sinister, and almost fierce, if
anything excited him.  His hair was shorn short, but his moustaches
were long and lanky, and hung over his mouth like black leeches,
imparting to his face an aspect not unlike the old portraits of
Philip II.  His light-green military surtout, like his scarlet
trousers, was edged with gold lace, and he wore an enormous sabre,
which clattered in a scabbard of polished brass.  At a button-hole
hung a little order of merit; the bag, or end of his forage-cap,
drooped upon his right shoulder; his mouth was never without one of
those paper cigaritos of which he was constantly employed in the
manufacture from a little paper book and tobacco bag; and now I hope
the reader sees before him, or her, Major Don Joaquim of the Regiment
of St. Anthony, otherwise styled of Lagos.

The hostalero was in high spirits at the arrival of so much good
company, and being assured of their detention for at least a night or
two before the escort could join them, he bustled about, applauding,
vociferating, and directing, while getting their baggage,
portmanteaux, and bales under cover, ever and anon pausing to count
or draw attention to seven or eight bullet perforations which had
been made in the calesso panels, to the great perturbation of the
"easy-going" soap-boilers and "well-to-do" cotton merchants, who had
no taste or predilection for such matters, and could not see how or
why Don Joaquim considered it such "a capital joke," that one had
received a bullet through his hat; another had received one through
the collar of his coat; and that a third had his cigar--demonio--the
very cigar carried out of his teeth!

Soon we were all grouped together, some thirty or so of us, in the
large apartment of the venta, some seated on stools, others on
chairs, but many on piles of baggage; bottles of vinto tinto, and
skins of the common wine, were set abroach; fresh cigars were made up
from those little pouches and paper books which every Spaniard and
Turk carry about with him; Don Joaquim produced his guitar, and
favoured the company with a song.  To my surprise it was
Paulina's--"Pues por bisarte Minguillo"--and we all became merry and
noisy.  The soap-boiler forgot the hole in his sombrero; the potter,
the dangerous mode in which he had lost his cigar, even the old padre
José relaxed his grim solemnity, and slily relaxed the lower buttons
of his long cassock, to make more room for supper and the purple
contents of the thrice-blessed bota; while the patrona, a buxom dame
in a short skirt and scarlet stockings, and wearing large silver
ear-rings, superintended the cooking of a vast dish of ham and
eggs--'huevos y tocino'--from which the fragrant steam went hissing
up the chimney, while the drivers in their gaudy jackets sat near the
glowing hearth, chewing biscuits and bacalao, or roasting the
sputtering chestnuts, joining in our jokes and stories, while the
happy hostalero bustled about, superintending everything and
everybody.

The company of the convoy soon recovered from the terror of their
late adventure, and anxious speculations or terrible surmises as to
the fate of their captured friends, sobered down into hopes that they
would soon join us; but the ruddy evening deepened on the beautiful
mountains of the Ronda; the darkening peaks threw their shadows on
the vine-clad plains, the stars began to gleam in the dark blue
vault, and the last slice of ham and egg had sent its fragrance up he
wide chimney, but no fugitive reached the now closed and barricadoed
gate of the venta at Castellar.

As one may easily suppose, the late occurrence caused the
conversation to run very much upon robbers and their exploits; thus
we heard stories of wanton cruelty sufficient to make the hair of a
well-regulated Briton stand erect on end; but as these tales closely
resembled the common stock of robber narratives, especially such as
we are told by romancers, who have been smitten with what has been
termed the bandittiphobia, I will not attempt to rehearse them all.
One or two of these relations struck me as having something peculiar
in them.

"I was once passing through Antequera," began the venerable José
Torquemada, "that city so famed for robbers and picaros--

"Ay de mi! señor padre," said a goatherd of Honda, "it was once famed
lor something better."

"True, my child," replied the old priest, approvingly; "for it was
there Don Ferdinand the Just, the valiant Infante of Castile, in the
fifteenth century, founded the noble order of the Jar of Lilies, in
honour of our Blessed Lady, by whose aid his good and valiant knights
stormed the city from the Moors, and slew fifteen thousand of those
God-abandoned infidels.  Ah mi hijo! it was something to be a
Spaniard then!  But to return; I was once passing through that same
city of Antequera, when I had an adventure with Don Fabrique--

"With Fabrique de Urquija?" exclaimed all, drawing nearer the padre
and lowering their voices.

"Ave Maria!" exclaimed Don Joaquim, "this must indeed be something
worth hearing."

"The more so, as I realised a pretty round sum by it," continued the
priest.  "You all know Antequera, señores, a handsome town on the
plain between Granada and Seville, and situated in a land that teems
with oil and wine.  One night when the hour was late, and no moon had
risen, I was passing through the great street which leads to the old
Moorish castle, and counting ever and anon in the pocket of my
cassock three poor pistareens, which were all I possessed, but which
I was hastening to bestow upon a poor widow.  Her husband, a brave
guerilla, had been taken in a skirmish at the Pena de los Enamorados
(or Lover's Rock), which stands a league from Antequera, and, after a
brave resistance, had been bound with cords, and shot that morning in
the Plaza--"

"By the Count de Morella?" cried Don Joaquim.

"Yes, by Cabrera."

"Bah--I thought so," said the major, grinding his teeth; "proceed,
reverend padre."

"The little pistareens were all I had in the world, and when I
thought of the poor widow and her six children weeping by the corpse
of their unburied father, and unable to buy masses for his sinful
soul, I paused to gaze at the old castle of the Moors, and sighed to
know the secret of the treasures that lay hid among its ruins; and
then I craved pardon of Madonna for the thought, as all the gold of
the infidels is buried under the spell of such enchantment as no man
may break and live.

"Well, señores, I was just thinking of these strange things when a
hand was laid heavily upon my shoulder; I turned, and by the light of
a shrine at the corner of a street, saw a dark face and a tall figure
girdled by a scarlet sash full of daggers and pistols.

"'Who are you,' I asked fearlessly.

"'Fabrique de Urquija.'

"'Go, go,' said I, feeling my heart leap at the name; 'I am but a
poor priest, and can give you nought but my blessing.'

"'Your blessing be hanged! señor padre, hand over all you possess, or
by the Holy Face of Jaen,'--and grinding his teeth he grasped a
poniard.

"'As I live I possess nothing but my cassock and these poor little
pistareens which are for a widow and her starving children.'

"'Then off with the cassock, and give me the pistareens to boot.
Your garment I must have, for I mean to play the priest to-night, and
visit a dame whom I may make a widow, too, some of these days.'

"In vain I begged him to leave me the pistareens, but this demon of
avarice only laughed, and touching his pistols said,--

"'Quick, quick, and here take my jacket and maldito, begone without
looking behind you.'

"The exchange was soon made; with a hoarse laugh the robber thrust
himself into my threadbare cassock, and with loathing I drew on his
old velvet jacket, which was tattered and full of holes.  He then
bade me farewell with mock solemnity; and glad to escape so easily I
hastened away, but had not gone many yards when I heard the voice of
the terrible Urquija commanding me to 'stop;' and believing that,
repenting of his clemency, he only meant to poniard me, I turned and
fled with all the spaed of my poor old legs, fervently invoking the
saints, and praying to Madonna that the vision of the sacrilegious
pursuer might be obscured, and that I might escape.

"'Come back, padre, come back, there is a mistake,' I heard him
crying; 'por vida del demonio, stop, or it will be the worse for you!'

"But, blessed be Heaven, I escaped and reached the humble house of
the widow, where her little ones gathered round me, and sought to
clutch as usual the long skirts of my cassock; but, ay de mi, they
were gone, and with them my pistareens, so that I was without the
means of buying bread for the children of the dead guerilla.

"What shall I do!" thought I, and mechanically felt the pocket of the
jacket; it contained something hard: what is this!  I pulled it
forth, and Madre Maria! found the sudden cause of the robber's oaths,
pursuit, and vociferations, for by the exchange of our apparel I had
become the possessor of one hundred golden pistoles!

"I had never held so much money in my hands before; find for a long
time I was quite bewildered how to dispose of such a treasure.  First
I made the hearts of the widow and her little ones glad, and the rest
I bestowed on the poor old nuns of St. Theresa, who had just been
stripped of all they possessed in the world, and were begging their
bread in the public streets of Antiquera--thanks to the liberal
Government of Spain."

The idea of the robber so egregiously outwitting himself occasioned
great satisfaction among all the listeners; the goatherd was so
delighted that he thrice flung his hat up to the ceiling, and aloud
'viva' greeted the old padre as he finished his little story.

"I once had a more narrow escape than yours, Padre José," said the
Major Don Joaquim, "and but for the intervention of the blessed St.
Anthony of Portugal whose brother officer I have the felicity to be,
I had not had the happiness of addressing you all to-night, or
enjoying these roasted castanos, or the most excellent vino tinto of
the worthy señor patron."

"Through the intervention of San Antonio," exclaimed all present; "do
tell us, señor oficial, all about this."

"You have heard of St. Anthony, señores?" said the major to us.

"One of the seven champions of Christendom, who broke enchantments,
fought with giants, and did all that sort of thing," said Slingsby;
"of course, who has not heard of him?"

"Ah, who, indeed?" said the major.

His words smacked of a miracle, and every one present became at once
interested.  Lighting a fresh cigar, and replenishing his wine-horn
from the big-bellied leathern bota, the major pushed his red forage
cap a little more on one side, fixed his dark eyes on the glowing
embers, and, with all the air of a man who is rallying his forces to
tell an interesting narrative, began in the following words.




CHAPTER V.

THE REGIMENT OF SAN ANTONIO.

You must know, Señora patrona, and señores, my friends, that Saint
Anthony, the patron of Portugal and patriarch of monks, though born
at Heraclea in Upper Egypt, on the borders of Acadia, so long ago as
the third century, is now a member of the battalion in which I have
the honour to hold the commission of major; and that he has been many
times visible in its ranks, mounting guard, and always when under
fire, or engaged with the French or Spaniards.  Under Wellington in
the last war he was frequently seen among our men, clad in a cloak of
white wool, and wearing an inner garment of hair-cloth, with a bell
tied to his neck, and a pig trotting beside him, for it was his
favourite animal when he was hermit near the village of Coma.  When
our esteemed regiment was first embodied about a century and a half
ago at the city of Lagos, in the ancient kingdom of Algarve, the
blessed St. Anthony was enrolled in the muster-book thereof, as a
private soldier, that he might be its especial patron and protector,
even as he is the patron of the whole Portuguese nation.

He conducted himself with such fidelity, valour, and distinction,
that he soon passed through the ranks of corporal and sergeant, and
having restored, no one exactly knows how, the colours of the
regiment, after they were lost at the battle of Almanza in 1706, he
was appointed captain, and his pay, together with four marevedis from
each soldier, were devoted to buy masses for the souls of our
comrades who die on service--a very pretty perquisite, padre José,
for mother church.

It would be a vain task in me to attempt enumerating the miracles
performed by St. Anthony during the one hundred and eighty seven
years he has belonged to the valiant regiment of Lagos in the kingdom
of Algarve; for in danger, doubt, difficulty, or death, his comrades
have never sought his aid in vain.

Our colours have been thrice lost in battle, after prodigious
slaughter you may be sure--being Portugese colours; and were thrice
restored to us, being found quietly in the colonel's tent the next
morning, with the naked footmarks of a man and a pig--the blessed pig
of course--impressed upon the turf!  At the passage of the
Guadalquiver, our drum-major was swept away and would have been
drowned beyond a doubt, had he not called upon St. Anthony; and lo!
an old man of most venerable aspect, clad in skins like this shepherd
beside us, but with a long beard and leathern water-bottle hanging at
his girdle, suddenly appeared among the reeds by the river side, and
stretching out his crook, fished up the ponderous Anibale Pintado
lightly as a straw, though he was at that moment in heavy marching
order, with knapsack, blanket, great-coat, sword and his canteen,
which was full of brandy.  Then to think of the wounds that have been
closed, the bullets that have been extracted, the bones that have
been set, the sick made whole and fit for service, by our soldiers
merely thinking on, or praying to, the glorious St. Anthony, would
occupy all the paper in the kingdom of Algarve; but his crowning
miracle was the birth of a child of the regiment, for one of our
soldiers' wives being in labour, during the siege of Roses, and
calling upon the saint in her pain, to the astonishment of the whole
allied armies was delivered of a little drummer boy in the uniform of
the battalion of Lagos!  I hope I have now said enough to convince
you that the regiment, and every member of it, are under the peculiar
protection of the saint, and this, as I am about to have the honour
of telling you, I experienced myself, although not a Portugese, but a
native of the fair city of Seville; and as a further proof of what I
have adduced, I will take the liberty of reading to you from my
pocket-book, the following certificate of the military service
performed by the saint--which certificate I copied fairly from the
books of the noble regiment of Lagos in the kingdom of Algarve, being
the document which was forwarded by one of my predecessors, then in
command of the battalion, when recommending the blessed saint to
further promotion from the rank of captain which he had held since
the year 1706.  (With this long and pompous flourish, the Spaniard
opened his pocket-book, and read a translation from the Portugese,
which ran as follows.)*


* See notes at end


"Don Herculeo Antonio Carlos Luiz, José Maria de Albuquerque e Arajo
de Magalhaens Homem, noble of Her Majesty's household, cavalier of
the sacred order of St. John of Jerusalem, and of the most
illustrious the military order of Christ, lord of the towns and
partidos of Moncarapacho and Terragudo, hereditary alcalde-mayor of
the ancient city of Faro by the sea, and Major of the Regiment of
Infantry of the noble city of Lagos in the kingdom of Algarve, for
her most faithful majesty, Donna Maria, Francesco Isabella the first;
whom God and the Blessed Virgin long preserve, &c., &c., &c.

"I hereby attest and certify to all who shall see these presents,
signed at the bottom with my sign-manual, and the broad seal of my
family arms a little to the left thereof, that the Lord St. Anthony
of Lisbon (commonly and most falsely called of Padua) has been
enlisted, and has borne a place in this regiment since the 24th of
January, ever since the year of our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ 1668.

"I do further certify, upon my word of honour, as a noble, a knight,
and a good Catholic, what hereunder followeth.

"That on the said 24th of January, 1668, by order of His Majesty Don
Pedro II. (whom God hath in glory), then Regent of the valiant
kingdoms of Portugal and Algarve for Don Alphonso VI.,--St. Anthony
was duly enlisted as a private soldier in this Infantry Regiment of
Lagos, when it was first formed by command of the same illustrious
prince; and of that holy enlistment there is a register extant in
vol. i. of the records of the said regiment, page 143, wherein he
gave as security or caution for his good conduct, the queen of
angels, who became answerable to the colonel that he would never
desert his colours, but always behave as became a good Portugese
grenadier.  Hence did the saint continue to serve and do duty as a
private until the 12th of March, 1683, on which day the same Prince
Regent became King of Portugal by the death of his brother Don
Alphonso VI., when he was graciously pleased to promote St. Anthony
to the rank of Lieutenant of Grenadiers in the said regiment, for
having, a short time before, valiantly put himself at the head, of a
detachment of the regiment which was marching from Jurumenha to the
garrison of Olivença, both in the province of Alentizo, and beat off
four times their number of Castilians who had been lying in ambush
for them, with the intention of carrying them all prisoners to the
castle of Badajoz, the enemy having obtained information by spies, of
the march of the said detachment, every soldier of which saw our
blessed patron, visibly, and to all appearance in the body, and
attended by his pig.

"I do further certify, that in all the above-cited registers, there
is not any note of St. Anthony being guilty of bad conduct, disorder,
or drunkenness; frequenting taverns, or other improper places; nor of
his ever having been flogged or sent to the guard-house when a
private: Thus during the whole time he has been an officer, now about
one hundred and nine years, he has constantly done his duty with the
greatest alacrity, at the head of the grenadiers, upon all occasions,
in peace or war, conducting himself like an officer and a gentleman
of good breeding; on all these accounts I hold him most worthy of
being promoted to the rank of aggregate-major to our noble regiment
of Lagos, with every other favour Her Majesty may be graciously
pleased to bestow upon him.  In testimony whereof, I have hereto
affixed my name, at the Castle of Belem, this 25th day of March, in
the year of our redemption, 1777.

"MAGALHAENS HOMEM."


(Thus ended this wonderful certificate, the contents of which,
together with the pompous gravity of the reader, made Jack and I
almost choke with suppressed laughter.  The major then continued)--

Hereupon Her Most Faithful Majesty, who reigned at that time--now
seventy-eight years ago--was pleased to promote the saint to the rank
prayed for, and he is now our lieutenant-colonel by brevet.  Once in
each year it is the custom to send an officer to Lisbon to receive
the pay and perquisites of St. Anthony from the royal treasury, and
in the course of last year this most honourable duty devolved upon me.

We were then quartered at Barbacena in the jurisdiction of Elvas; and
to this place I travelled alone from Lisbon, with the pay of the
saint, which was to be given to the care of our chaplain.  Being in
moidores, it was not very bulky, but its value was great--its
sanctity greater; and after traversing in safety the whole province
of Alentijo, it was with some anxiety I saw the mountain Sierra,
which lay between me and my destination, rising in my front, about
sunset.  The hope of being able to get across those rocky hills
before the approaching night set fairly in never occurred to me.  I
found myself in a solitary spot, without shelter near, or any place
where information of the right way could be gathered, and my horse
was growing weary.

The sunlight died away behind me, and shed its last rays on the white
walls, the square campanile and tall cypresses of a convent which
crowned a height on my left; and on the red round towers of an old
castle that topped a rock on my right; but both were in ruins and
desolate, as the wars of the infidel Moors, ages ago, had left the
first, and the desolating retreat of Marshal Massena had left the
second.  The older fragments of a Roman aqueduct lay between, and
half hidden among wild shrubs.  The pathway was rugged; untamed goats
scrambled about; snakes hissed in the long grass, and eagles screamed
in mid air.  Ave Maria! it was impossible to conceive a place more
dreary and desolate; but the way became still wilder, and as I
progressed into the gorge of the Sierra, even the ruined works of man
and the traces of his feet disappeared.  I was in a desert, and, save
the faint crescent moon, without a light or guide.

As I rode slowly on, thinking of the bright golden moidores of our
Lord St. Anthony, with which my pouch was blessed, and reflecting on
the prize they would be for any sacrilegious picaros who might be
hovering in this dark wilderness, ever and anon humming a song,
muttering an ave, and feeling the percussion caps on my pistols, I
suddenly met a strange figure in the dim moonlight--a goat-herd, as
he seemed to me.

He was clad in a zamarra of sheepskin, which he wore with the wool
outwards; his white hair hung in tangled masses upon his shoulders; a
bota was slung at his girdle, and he carried a stout Portuguese
cajado, with a little cross stick nailed thereon, to give it more the
aspect of a pastoral staff, than a weapon of defence.

"Vaya usted con Dios, Señor Major," said he.

"God be with you," I reiterated, a little scared on finding that this
stranger knew my name; "you have the advantage of me, Señor Pastor."

"Hombre, do you think so? but do not be alarmed, for I am an old
Christian, without stain of Moor or Jew in my veins.  I am no
enchanter----"

"Ave Maria, I should hope not!"

"Yet I know that you have in your pouch the pay of St. Anthony of
Lisbon, whom rogues and fools style of Padua--what the devil should
he have to do with Padua?--in your left breast pocket, all in fair
round moidores of gold--eh, señor?"

"Very true, pastor," said I, slipping a finger into my near holster,
and keeping my horse well in hand and beyond the reach of his cajado;
"but how came you to know me?"

"I know every officer and soldier in the regiment of Lagos as well as
if I had made them--and you especially, Señor Major."

"Well--and about the moidores," said I, uneasily; "you know of them,
and what then?"

"Merely this, Señor Don Joaquim; that if you would arrive at
Barbacena to-morrow with the pay of the patron of the regiment of
Lagos----"

"In the kingdom of Algarve," suggested Jack Slingsby.

"Si, señor; and would hand it over safe and sound to the reverend
chaplain," continued the old man, in a manner so impressive that a
chill came over me, the more so as I saw his sunken eyes shining in
the dim moonlight like two bits of green glass; "you will beware, my
son and comrade, how you taste the wine of Xeres to-night."

"The wine of Xeres, father pastor," said I, with a loud laugh;
"Heaven forgive you for the tempting thought; I am not likely to
taste aught to-night but the chilling dew; yet if a good cup of Xeres
did come my way----"

"Avoid it as you would poison, or by the soul of St. Anthony you will
repent it."

At that name I raised my hand to my cap in salute, like a good
soldier of the regiment of Lagos; while waving his hand
authoritatively, the old man hobbled up the slope of the mountain
pass and disappeared.  As he did so I heard the tinkle of a bell, and
for the first time perceived a little pig trotting by his side as he
vanished in the shadow of the mountain and its moonlit rocks.

The scales fell from my eyes; por el Santo de los Santos, he was no
other than our Lord Saint Anthony, whom I had seen.  Who but he would
have termed me "son and comrade?" sinner and fool that I was.  The
hair of my flesh stood up, as the Scripture says, and with a prayer
on my lips I gored my poor nag with the spurs and dashed along the
pass of the Sierra for two leagues more until the poor animal almost
sank beneath me; but perceiving rest necessary for him, I reined up
at the door of a lonely wayside inn, in a part of the country which
was entirely unknown to me, and which seemed to be overshadowed by
mountain peaks and masses of rock, the features and outlines of which
were strange, and to me gloomy and fantastic.  In my excitement, and
the holy terror under which I laboured, I had evidently lost the
path, and thus mistaking my way, had ridden, Heaven and St. Anthony
alone knew whither.

Solitary, dark, and desolate as this posada seemed,--and it was just
the kind of place we so often read of in romances as being a
rendezvous for robbers, and for having a landlord in their interest,
with trap-doors under the beds, stains of blood upon the floors, old
skeletons in the cellars, and a terrible reputation for mysterious
appearances and unaccountable disappearances--it was a welcome
halting-place for one so weary, so thirsty, and anxious as I was
then, and so full of supernatural fear, as I never, for an instant,
doubted having seen the blessed patron of our regiment, and to me at
that time the human countenance even of a robber had been thrice
welcome.

Though the hour was late the hostalero had not gone to bed.  He
seemed a civil and respectable man, and smiled with good-humour when
he saw me, with all the care of an old traveller and the suspicion of
a true Spaniard, transfer my pistols from their holsters to my
girdle, a movement which seemed to fill with alarm the miserable and
drabbish-looking Maritornes, who seemed to be the sole assistant of
the patrona.  Vague fancies and a sense of alarm were floating
uppermost in the current of my thoughts; and being most anxious to
start betimes when day broke, I left the saddle on my horse, as I
stabled him in the lower apartment of the posada, for you may know,
señores, that the Portuguese inns are constructed exactly like those
among us here in Spain, the lower story being entirely one vast and
clay-floored chamber, appropriated to the cattle and baggage of
travellers.  I merely relaxed the saddle-girth and curb-chain, but
left my Andalusian jennet all ready for marching, when the morning
came, and then ascended by a wooden trap-stair to the upper story,
where the patrona had a steaming supper of ham and eggs, just such as
we have had, well seasoned with pepper and garlic, spread for me,
with a bunch of raisins and a choice flask of--ah, demonio! my heart
leaped when I saw it--the wine of Xeres de la Frontierra.

A prayer rose to my lips, I thought of St. Anthony, but felt strong
and composed, believing that I was under the peculiar care of that
blessed patron of the regiment of Lagos.  I would have left the
little venta and betaken myself once more to the road, but, if any
snare was really laid for me, such a movement might only render me
more liable to an open and deliberate attack.

"I will be wary," thought I; "let me watch well, even as our holy
patron watches me.  Xeres! ouf, I would rather drink the salt lake of
Fuente de la Piedra than touch a drop of it."

I felt morally certain that it was poisoned or drugged for some fatal
purpose, and that in the tasting of it lay the main part of my
danger.  I finished the rasher of ham and the fragrant huevos; and to
lull all suspicion asked my host to join me in discussing the bottle
of Xeres as he uncorked it.

"The señor would, perhaps, excuse him.  Xeres always made him ill,
maldito--yes, and there was no doctor nearer than Elvas or Abrantes;
but he would take a glass of aguadiente to my health and successful
journey."

"Rascally picaro!" thought I; "you have other reasons for declining
the Xeres, but I shall mar them yet."

I might have forced him with my sword at his throat to drink a
cupful; but I dissembled, and filling out a bumper from the leathern
beta, raised it to my lips, pretending to taste.  I saw, then, the
slow stealthy eyes of the hostalero watching me keenly.

"It has a peculiar flavour," said I.

"Flavour, señor?" he asked, anxiously.

"But not unpleasant."

"It is from the grapes of Puerto de Santa Maria, like those of
Tribujena, as the Señor Caballero will perceive; they have a peculiar
flavour--sharp, is it not?"

"Yes, but as I said before, not unpleasant," continued I, placing my
pistols on the table, and availing myself of an opportunity to pour
the whole of my bumper back into the bota, and this I achieved
unseen.  Some grounds which remained at the bottom of the crystal
glass assured me that the wine was drugged.

"I have a pigskin full of wine from the grapes of Don Carlos, or
rather I should say of my Lord the Marquis de Santa Cruz, who now
owns the vineyard; and if your grace----"

"Many thanks," said I, pouring out a second bumper, so that the wine
frothed in the glass; "but be assured I shall content myself with
this most excellent bottle of Xeres," and taking another opportunity,
while the patrona was telling her beads near the fire, and the worthy
patron was below pretending to groom my horse--but no doubt to
appraise its furniture which he expected to possess before morning--I
repeated the manoeuvre, and poured the wine back into its leathern
receptacle; thus my deluded entertainers were led to believe that I
had taken enough to drug a regiment of Asturians.

I scrutinised my hostess; she was a swarthy and dark-skinned
Portuguese; her hair, which was coarse and thick as the mane of a
steed, she had knotted in a coronet round her head, and over this she
wore a yellow shawl.  Her features were square, massive, and
repulsive; and her arms and legs, which her scanty garments fully
displayed, were disgustingly powerful and muscular.

"Are you not somewhat lonely here, señora?" I asked, when her orisons
were over.

"Yes; but then we are never disturbed.  Once, indeed, some drunken
contrabandistas, riding to Gibraltar, made a noise at our door; but
my husband shot one with his escopeta, the rest fled, and we have
never been molested since.  But erelong the new railway from Lisbon
to Abrantes will change everything--for so the priests predict."

"You talk of this little shooting affair with delightful coolness,"
said I, "and just as if that devil of a contrabandista had been a
crow.  Ah, and so he was shot?"

"Yes, and buried about a mile beyond this," replied the woman, over
whose dark eyes there passed a savage gleam; "perhaps, caballero, you
observed the cross as you came along?"

"You forget that I came this morning from Montemor o Novo, where I
wish I had stayed with all my heart."

"Ah, our caza is a very poor one, señor," growled the host, with a
glance at my glass and another at the bota: "but none ever complain
of it after they leave us."

"I believe you, my lad," said I, with a glance at the cuchillo in his
sash; madre mia! it was at least twelve inches long in the blade.  He
detected my expression and said,--

"I am always well armed, Señor Caballero, for my little wife, our
niece, and I, are the only inhabitants here.  They are apt to be
timid at times; thus I always keep my escopeta loaded, and six
junkets of lead in that old brass-mouthed trabujo over the
mantel-piece; so with my knife and strong bolts, bars and shutters,
we could stand a very good siege, even if Don Fabrique de Urquija and
all his band were assailing us.  One glass more of the Xeres before
you retire, señor--no?--well, how such a sober Caballero belongs to
the regiment of Lagos surpasses my--a thousand pardons, señor; I
meant no offence; but a poor man must have his little joke as well as
a rich one, and I am sure a noble Caballero will excuse it.  So you
won't take one glass more of the Xeres before retiring, well,
well--this way, señor, up this stair--take care of the step, and now,
señor, Bueno noches, and may all good attend you."

I was alone.  I was in my sleeping apartment, a miserable loft, to
which I had ascended by means of a trap-door and trap-stair.  The bed
was poor and shabby; a thousand discolorations, the combined result
of damp and dirt covered the ill-plastered walls and bare wooden
floor.  A small and ill-glazed window opened to the dark mountains,
behind which the moon, a pale crescent, was just sinking, and to the
deep black gorge which yawned between their peaks like some vast
Titan's grave.  There was not a sound upon those solemn hills, or in
that savage pass through which the roadway wound; there was no sound
in the posada below me, and as I set down the candle and listened, I
heard only its sputtering and the beating of my own heart.

I knelt down, and drawing forth my beads and crucifix, said my
prayers like a good Catholic, and solemnly invoked the protection of
St. Anthony.  After this, apprehension almost vanished.

If any attempt was made upon me in the night, I had but one man to
oppose--the hostalero, and surely I was a match for him.  But then
there was his wife, a powerful Asturian termagant, who had doubtless
the cunning of a fox with the strength of a bull.  I looked about for
something wherewith to secure the trapdoor, but found nothing; my
bedstead was the only piece of furniture, and it was too weighty for
removal.  I might have lain down and slept above the trap; but the
idea did not then occur to me; and at times, as my candle burned low,
such is the weakness of the human heart, that I began to mistrust
even the protection of my Lord St. Anthony, and think I was unwise in
not quitting this unblessed posada, instead of retiring to a
bed-chamber, as the hostalero might be joined by others more
ruffianly than himself, and thus overpower me.

"No, no," thought I; "no others will come; the rascal trusts in his
Xeres, and I shall soon see the sequel."

I drew off my boots and flung them heavily on the floor, as one might
do who was undressing; and having thus, as I supposed, deceived any
one who was listening, drew them carefully on again; tightened the
buckle of my waist-belt, and loosened my good Toledo sabre in its
sheath.  I then examined my pistols; ay de mi! what were my emotions
on finding the percussion caps removed, and that my pouch, with the
remainder, was in my holsters below!

My heart stood still on beholding this, and an emotion of rage shook
my heart, for I now remembered having laid them on the table beside
me in case of accident, for I once had a friend who was killed by a
pistol exploding in his belt.  The patrona, while laying the supper
table, or bustling about me, had adroitly--but the saints alone know
how--removed the caps.

Twenty times I searched every pocket, in the faint and desperate hope
of finding a stray one.  Not one--they were all below with my
holsters.

"Ass that I am!" thought I, replacing them with a sigh in my belt;
"this will be a lesson of prudence that may cost me dear."

At that moment the candle-end sank down in the iron holder; it shot
one red flush upwards on the cobwebbed ceiling and damp, discoloured
walls; on the ill-jointed trap-door which led to the lower story, and
expired.  I was in darkness at last, with no companions but my Toledo
and my own thoughts.  The first was silent--the second sufficiently
uncomfortable.

Sleepless and watchful, I lay on the miserable pallet for more than
an hour, till the silence began to oppress me, and in spite of
myself, my eyes were closing.  Could it be the drug--could it be the
wine that slowly was sealing them up?  Nonsense; I had but put it to
my lips, and I struggled to shake off the coming sleep.  Yet, I must
have closed my eyes for a moment, for I started suddenly, like one
who dreams he is on the brink of a precipice.  A strange shivering--a
minute, pricking sensation ran all over me from head to foot, and
from a state of drowsiness, I sprang all at once to the sharpest
wakefulness, and grasped the hilt of my drawn sabre.

A dim light was now ascending from the floor of the apartment, and I
perceived the trap-door was lifted up, and the round bullet-head of
the hostalero appeared, with his deep-set stealthy eyes, scanning the
bed and its occupant, myself, who affected to be sound asleep.  Up,
up he came, step by step, until he stood by my side, with one hand
grasping his long cuchillo, and a finger on his coarse, blubber-like
lips, as if he would impose silence on himself, and still his very
breathing.

Mueran del Demonio, what a moment it was!  I would not endure it
again for a million of reals.  He came close to the bed; he stooped
over me, the knife was lifted up, and I saw its baleful gleam; but at
the same instant there was an upward flash, as I swept my sabre round
me, and one stroke cut off three of the robber's fingers, and cleft a
fair slice off his right temple--a stroke which stretched him without
a cry at my feet.  Desperate and furious as a wild beast--half
blinded with his own blood, he sprang upon me and we grappled in the
dark; but as his wife, that diabolical Asturian, rushed up the
trap-stair, armed with a ponderous cajado, to his aid, I flung him on
the bed, for he was weak as a child now.  Seeing a figure struggling
on the miserable pallet, the woman, who was as furious as an enraged
tigress, and who, in the uncertain light, believed that figure to be
mine, whirled round her head the cajado--which is the favourite staff
of the Portuguese, and is usually seven feet long, with a leaden knob
at one end of it--and by one blow dashed out her husband's brains as
completely as a cannon-ball would have done.

Madre mia, some of that frightful mess flew over me, and that blow
ended the matter, for I uttered a cry of horror, and plunging down
the trap-stair, threw myself on my horse, and galloped away.  On, on
I rode, with no wish but to leave that scene of crime behind me, and
at the very place where I was met by that venerable shepherd, whom,
until my dying hour, I will maintain to be no other than our blessed
St. Anthony, but for whose warning I had drunk that poisoned Xeres,
and perished--I overtook a troop of the Carbineros of Alentejo, to
whom I told my late adventure.

A party was sent to the little inn, where they found the hostalero
brained, as I have said, in that miserable loft, and the hostess
almost bereft of her senses, such as they were.  But the dragoons
placed her on a troop horse, and brought her before the Alcalde of
Vimiero, which is the nearest town, and before the next day's noon,
she had been garotted and buried by the wayside; and you may still
see her grave, one mile beyond the gates, on the side of the way that
leads towards Estremoz and the mountains.

Two days after, I reached Barbacena, our headquarters, in safety, and
paid over to our Father Chaplain, the purse of moidores, containing
the pay of our extra Lieutenant-Colonel, the blessed St. Anthony.
Only a month ago, we marched through the pass of the Sierra, and I
found the old posada roofless by the roadside, for it is shunned like
that place of horror, the Rio de Muerte; the grass has grown on its
floor, and the wild vine overtops its chimney; the merriest muleteer
becomes silent as he passes the place, and whips his lagging team
down the mountain side, without looking once behind him.

----------

The major of the noble Regiment of Lagos now paused, and looked round
with the air of a man who thinks his story has rather made an
impression; for he had told it well, and with much gesture and
spirit, and completely succeeded in arresting the attention of all in
the venta; but of none more than my matter-of-fact friend Jack
Slingsby, who had listened to the narrative with a degree of
attention which I thought unusual in one so volatile and heedless.

"Your story, major, has had a peculiar interest for me by its
striking and close resemblance to an adventure of my own," said Jack,
"an adventure to which I can never recur without an emotion of
horror."

"Is this the Spanish story you so often refer to, Jack?" said I.

"The story our mess could never get out of me?--yes."

"And shall we hear it now?"

"With pleasure; because it will interest all here, whereas among our
own bantering fellows at Gibraltar it would only have subjected me,
perhaps, to jibes and jokes, and all that sort of thing, from those
who were, perhaps, more thoughtless than myself.  Señora patrona,
please to have the wine replenished; give us more cigars, and stir up
the fire, Ramble, while I prepare to tell you a story--aye, a marvel
of a story, in which I had the misfortune to be a principal actor not
very long ago."

"Bravo!" muttered every one.

All were provided with a fresh supply of wine, new cigars were
lighted, and Jack found himself the centre of a circle of dark,
gleaming, and intelligent eyes, while every ear was waiting for the
promised narrative; for among the romantic, adventurous, and
marvel-loving Spaniards, as among the wandering Arabs, a story-teller
is at all times the principal person in company.

It would be scarcely possible to find a scene more remarkable, or a
group more picturesque, than the great apartment presented, in which
we were all congregated.

A large fire blazed on its broad hearth, and shed a ruddy glow upon
the rough architecture and ill-squared beams of the chamber, from the
roof of which hung innumerable bunches of raisins, strings of the
garlic onion, pigskins of wine, hams, baskets, and other etcetera.
The flood of steady red light that gushed from the hearth glared on
the striking forms and foreign faces of the listening group, among
whom were the well-conditioned potters and soap-boilers of Seville in
their black velvet jackets and gaudy sashes; our patrona, a plump and
pretty paisana of Valverde, in her provincial costume, a dark blue
skirt, the scantiness of which displayed her well-turned legs and
handsome feet encased in little shoes of untanned leather, while the
gathered masses of her smooth black hair shone in the glow of light;
there, too, sat the old padre José of Medina in his sable cape and
long cassock, and a grisly goatherd of the Honda clad from neck to
knee in sheepskins, with a weatherbeaten sombrero slouched over his
sallow visage; a knife and bota, castanets and flute, at his girdle,
to which descended his snow-white beard, giving him the aspect of St.
Anthony in the major's story; then there was the major himself in his
light green frock-coat, scarlet cap and trowsers, with a cigar
glowing like a hot coal in the centre of his heavy thick mustache;
then there was an old unhoused Franciscan, begging for that
subsistence of which the new Government had deprived his order; a
charming young Gitana, tall and beautiful in form, with a clear olive
complexion and magnificent eyes; and by her side sat a free, jolly
Catalan reaper, whom in defiance of all gypsy rule and immemorial
custom she had taken as her spouse; so it must be acknowledged that
if Jack's audience was not select, it had at least the merit of being
so remarkable in costume and character, that a painter or novelist
would have been delighted with the whole group, its background, and
accessories.

"In many of its features," said Slingsby, "my story is so similar to
the one just related by the major, that I am assured you cannot fail
to be struck with the resemblance.  The adventure made a deep
impression upon me; and though several months have passed since it
occurred, the whole affair is as fresh in my mind as if it had
happened only yesterday.  On leaving the 6th Regiment," continued
Jack, turning to me, "I went for a few months into the Highlanders,
but, being an Englishman, I never felt at home in the kilt, so I
exchanged into our present corps, which will account for my being in
the Mediterranean at the time referred to.--So now for the story."

"Bravo, señor!" said the major of the regiment of Lagos; "you speak
Spanish like a good Christian.  We are all attention."

Jack bowed, stuck his glass in his eye, tipped the ashes off his
cigar with the nail of his forefinger, and began the following story,
which deserves an entire chapter devoted to itself.




CHAPTER VI

LA POSADA DEL CAVALLO.

In the summer of last year, I was proceeding home to Britain on leave
of absence from my regiment, the --th Highlanders, which were then,
and are still, lying in garrison at Malta.  Favoured by the
friendship of her commander, and my good friend and old
school-fellow, Lieutenant John Hall, I had a passage given to me in
Her Majesty's Sloop Blonde, of twenty-six guns; and after a pleasant
run for a few days, a smart breeze, which we encountered off
Almuneçar, when sailing along the coast of Spain, brought down some
of our top hamper, and we ran in to Malaga to repair the damage.

It was a beautiful and sunny evening when our anchor plunged into the
shining waters of that deep bay which presents so superb a line of
coast, and the background of which is formed by the undulating line
of the Sierra de Mija towering into the pure blue sky of Spain, and
bounding, in the distance, the flat and fertile Vega.

From the quarter-deck of the Blonde, we had a magnificent prospect of
Malaga, with its stately mansions, its domes, its spires and snowy
kiosks, bathed in a warm yellow tint as the sun's rays faded along
the Vega, and the shadows deepened on its hills, clothed with
vineyards and plantations of orange, almond, lemon and olive trees.
The gaudy Spanish flag descended from the dark ramparts of the old
Moorish fortress of Gibral-Faro as the evening gun was fired from the
guard-ship; and then, as the sun set behind tha mountains, the bells
tolled for vespers in the lofty steeple of the square Cathedral, and
a red lambent light began to glimmer on the tall brick chimneys of
that extensive iron-foundry, which (alas for romance!) a thoroughly
practical Scotsman has built in Malaga, where it finds food and work
for hundreds, in smelting the ore of the adjacent hills, while it
pollutes the cerulean sky of Granada.

Bent upon a ramble or adventure, the second-lieutenant (Jack Hall)
and I took our fowling-pieces, and, leaving our swords behind us--at
least I took only my regimental dirk--were pulled ashore in the
dingy, which landed us at one of those piers that project from the
city into the sea, forming part of that noble mole which measures
seven hundred yards in length.

Leaving our guns and shooting apparatus at our hotel, we wandered
about the town; visited the Alcazaba, which must once have been a
fortress of vast strength; then the old Roman Cathedral and Bishop's
Palace; but we lingered longest in the Alameda--that beautiful
promenade--which is eighty feet wide, and is bordered by rows of
orange and oleander trees, and in the centre of which a magnificent
marble fountain was tossing its sparkling waters into the starry sky.

Here we saw some bright-eyed Spanish women in their dark mantillas
and veils, and not a few in tha homely and assuredly less graceful
bonnet and shawl of London and Paris, whose fashions are gradually,
and, I think, unfortunately, superseding the more captivating dress
of old Spain; we saw too, ferocious-looking soldiers in dark dresses,
weaving yellow sashes, red forage caps, and enormous moustaches; old
priests gliding stealthily along, with an aspect of meekness, and
apparently crushed in spirit; for the Government presses with a heavy
hand on the ecclesiastics; citizens clad in light stuffs of bright
colours, with red sashes and low-crowned hats, having black silk
tufts at each side; queer-looking Caballeros in large brown cloaks
like that of Don Diego de Mendoza's "Poor Hidalgo," and wearing hats
'à la Kossuth.'  As every man was smoking as if his salvation
depended upon his doing so with vigour, the whole air was redolent of
cigars.

I had on my undress, a forage cap, and plain red jacket, with tartan
trews, my sash and dirk; for I have found that the British uniform
always ensures the wearer attention and respect in every part of the
globe.

We wandered long in that lovely Alameda, until the last of its fair
promenaders had withdrawn; and then we returned to our hotel rather
disappointed, that of all the black eyes we had seen flashing under
veils of Madeira lace, not one had given us a glance of
encouragement; that of all the pretty lips, which had been lisping
dulcet Spanish mixed with the Arabic of Granada, none had invited us
to follow; that of all the sombre cavaliers, not one appeared to be
an assassin or a Grand Inquisitor; and that, of all the hideous old
duennas whom we had seen cruising about us, not one had approached,
and with finger on her lip, and an impressive glance in her eye,
placed a mysterious note into either of our hands, and "disappeared
in the crowd."

Nothing remarkable happened, save that Hall had his pocket picked of
his handkerchief and cigar-case, and we returned like other men to
our hotel, where we supped on devilled turkey and the wine of the
district, Tierno and Malaga; after which we turned into bed, warning
the waiter to summon us early, and have a guide to lead us toward the
neighbouring hills, where we intended to make some havock among the
game next day.

Punctually at five o'clock in the morning the mozo-de-cafe roused us,
and, after coffee, we shouldered our double-barrelled rifles, and
accompanied by a young 'gamin' named Pedrillo, for whose fidelity the
waiter pledged his "honour," we departed on our ramble.

If ever you saw the Spanish beggar-boys, as depicted by Murillo in
his famous picture, which is now in Dulwich College, they will know
perfectly the aspect of Pedrillo, our little guide.

He was about twelve years old; but, hardened by indigence and
sharpened by privation, his perceptive faculties were keener than
those of many a man.  His sallow little visage was stamped with more
of the animal than the intellectual being; his eyes were black,
glossy, and glittered alternately with cunning and intelligence.  His
sole attire consisted of a dilapidated shirt, a pair of
knee-breeches, and a cowl, which confined his luxuriant black hair;
he had zinc rings in his ears, and bore altogether the aspect of a
little Lazzarone.

He was intelligent withal, and he told us a vast number of anecdotes,
which increased in wonder and ferocity as we paid him one peseta
after another; but he dwelt particularly on the achievements of a
certain Juan Roa, otherwise styled de Antequera, who was then
prowling in that savage range of mountains, from whence he descended
sometimes alone, sometimes with many followers, especially when the
Solano blew from Africa, to commit outrages among the quiet quintas
and villages of the fertile Vega, where he was said to be in league
with every posada-keeper for forty miles around Malaga.

About mid-day we rested under the cool shadow of a cork wood, about
ten miles from the city; it was a beautiful place, where the sward
was soft as velvet, and where a thick border of blushing rose-trees,
and wild hydrangias flourished near us.  Here we shared our
provisions with a paisano and two armed contrabandistas whom we met,
and who shared with us their wine in return.  The two smugglers had
strong and active horses, and carried blunderbusses and pistols to
guard their bales of chocolate, soap, tobacco, and cigars; they were
fine, merry fellows, gaudily dressed, and full of fun and anecdote;
for in Spain the contrabandista is a species of travelling newspaper.
Now all their news were of the last feat or outrage of Juan Roa.

"I would give a guinea to meet this interesting vagabond; the
interview would tell famously in some of the monthlies," said Hall,
with a heedless laugh.

"I think I should know him," said I; "for we saw at least twenty
coloured prints of him in the shops on the Alameda, last night.  He
is a ferocious-looking dog!"

The contrabandistas looked round with alarm, and then laughed
immoderately.

"Ferocious?  Indeed, señor?" said the paisano; "I beg to differ from
you, having myself seen Juan of Antequera face to face; and so think
him quite like other men."

I gazed at the speaker, whom, by his green velvet jacket, adorned by
four dozen of brass buttons, his sombrero, with its broad yellow
ribband, his black plush breeches, red scarf and shoe-buckles, I
supposed to be the substantial farmer of one of the adjacent quintas.
He had a fine dark face, a powerful figure, and two black eyes that
seemed to be always looking through me.  Over one eyebrow, he had a
large black patch.  He carried a riding switch, had a knife in his
girdle; and altogether, as he lolled on the sward, smoking a paper
cigar and sipping red wine, I thought he would make a fine and
striking sketch, and equal to any by Pinelli.

"Juan Roa," said he, "has committed great outrages in the Vega of
Granada.  The Duke of Wellington has there an estate, having on it
about three hundred tenants, who yield some fifteen thousand dollars
of rental; but Juan has thrice drawn every duro of it from the old
abagado, who acts as steward to the duke."

The contrabandistas again laughed at this immoderately.

"You have seen this Juan of Antequera, have you not?" said I.

"Face to face--often, señor."

"And so have I," said little Pedrillo.

"You! and when was this, my little fellow?" said Jack Hall.

"On the night old Barradas, the muleteer, was murdered."

The Spaniard with the patch knit his brows.

"Caramba!" said he; "ah! I remember that."

"Tell us about this murder," said Hall.

"You must know, señors," said Pedrillo, "that at the foot of the
Sierra de Mija, about five miles from this, there stands a wayside
inn, called La Posada del Cavallo, for the keeper, Martin Secco, had
a great horse painted on his signboard.  This man is the uncle of
Juan Roa, or of Antequera.  He has a wife, and had two daughters.
The place is lonely; and it often happens, that those who put up
there for the night forget the right path; for they are lost among
the mountains, or fall into the sand-pits--at least, they are seldom
heard of after.  You understand, señors?"

The Spaniard with the patch smiled grimly, and played with his knife.

"One night last year, I guided Pedro Barradas, the Cordovan muleteer,
to the posada, when it was dark as pitch.  Pedro was very old, and
half blind, and had never been that way before.  A storm came on, and
he desired me to remain with him, saying he would pay me well; old
Barradas was rich; he had made money in the war of independence, and
in the last civil war between the Carlists and Christines; and had
given three silver images to the church of his native puebla in Jaen.

"We supped on baccallao, raisins, and plain bread, for the season was
Lent.  While we were at supper, in the common hall of the posada, I
heard the rain pattering on the wooden shutters (there is not a glass
window in the house); I heard the thunder grumbling among the hills,
and the wind howling as it swept over the fields and vineyards of the
Vega.  It was a lonely place for a poor boy who had neither father
nor mother, señors; but, then, I was not worth killing, though many
fears flitted through my mind; for Martin's wife--an ugly and
wicked-looking Basque provincial--put some very alarming questions to
old Pedro Barradas.  She told him that the neighbourhood was infested
by bandidos and contrabandistas; and asked if he was a heavy sleeper.

"'No,' said Barradas, 'in the war against Joseph Buonaparte I learned
the art of sleeping lightly.'

"'But what will you do if attacked?'

"'That is as may be; but I have only twenty duros, and so shall sleep
soundly enough.'

"These questions alarmed me very much; visions of murder and
slaughter came before me.  I crept close to Barradas, who, as I have
said, was very old and very frail; but his presence seemed a
protection to me for a time.

"When the hour for bed arrived, we, who were the only guests, were
somewhat imperatively requested to retire to our rooms by the wife of
Martin Secco.

"Barradas saw, perhaps, his danger, and said that I should sleep in
the same room with him.

"But Inez Secco told him roughly that he must be content to sleep
alone.  Then the poor old man was half-led and half-dragged away.  As
for me, I was but a boy; so they thrust me into a dark closet, where
some straw lay on the floor, and, desiring me to sleep there and be
thankful, left me.

"I lay down on the straw, and finding it wet, arose in horror,
fearing that it was blood; and so I remained in the dark, praying to
our Lady of the Seven Sorrows, and trembling and listening to the
howling of the storm for more than an hour, when all the other sounds
in that terrible posada died away.

"I was just beginning to dose when a ray of light streamed through
the keyhole of my door; I heard it opened, and lo!  Martin's wife,
Inez Secco, appeared with a long and sharp cuchillo in her hand.  A
man accompanied her.  He was Juan Roa de Antequera!  Terror paralysed
me; and she believed me to be asleep, for she felt all over my
clothes--that is, my poor shirt and breeches-pockets, from which she
took two quarter-duros--all I possessed in this world; and then,
passing the light thrice across my face, to assure herself that I
slept, the hag went away muttering--

"'Caramba! only a half-duro; this little wretch is neither worth
lodging nor killing.'

"Immediately after this I heard them whispering with Martin Secco;
and then they knocked at the door of old Pedro Barradas, who, like a
cautious man, had fastened it on the inside.

"'Get up,' said they, 'Señor Barradas--get up--you are wanted.'

"But old Barradas either slept like a top, or he was too wary to
open; for he heeded them not.

"Then I heard Juan and Martin muttering curses as they deliberately
forced open the door; next there came a terrible cry of--

"'Help!  Pedrillo, help!  Ayuda, por amor de neustra Señora
Santissima!'

"This was followed by sounds like those made by a sheep when the
knife of the carnicero is in its throat; and, in the meantime,
Martin's two daughters were singing as loud as they could, and
dancing a bolero in the passage, to conceal these terrible sounds,
which froze the blood within me."

Here Pedrillo paused.

"Go on," said Jack Hall, impatiently; "and how did you escape?"

"If the noble señors would help me to refresh my memory----"

"Ah, I comprehend," said I, tossing a peseta to him; "now fire away,
Pedrillo."

"You should not encourage this young picaro, Señor Caballero," said
the Spaniard, whose face was now darkened by a terrible frown; "for
it is my belief that he was the mere decoy, who led poor old Pedro
Barradas to that villanous posada."

Instead of being angry, Pedrillo lifted up his hands, and prayed that
Heaven and our Lady of the Seven Sorrows would forgive the speaker
for his vile suspicions.

"I never closed an eye that night.  In the morning I was told by Inez
the Patrona, that old Barradas had departed across the hills of
Antequera without me.  Martin Secco asked me how I had slept?  I
said, like a dormouse; and as soon as I was free, I ran like a hare
back to Malaga; and to make up for the loss of my last night's rest,
slept like a torpedo under the trees of the Alameda."

"You acquainted the magistrates--the alguazils, of course," said
Hall, knocking the ashes from his third cigar.

"I was only a poor, ragged, little picaro," replied Pedrillo, in a
whining voice; "and who would believe me?  Besides, old Barradas was
a stranger from Cordova or Jaen; and a man, more or less, is nothing
in Granada; but since that time Martin's two daughters have been sent
to the galleys at Barcelona, by the captain-general of the kingdom,
for intriguing in many ways with the contrabandistas of Jaen.  Now,
señors, the noon is past; and if it please you, 't is time we were
moving, if you wish to reach the Sierra."

While we were placing fresh caps on our rifles, and preparing to
start, the Spaniard with the patch, who had listened to Pedrillo's
story with great impatience, now seized that young gamin by the arm,
and grasping it like a vice, gave him a savage scowl, and said
something in Spanish; but so rapidly, that I could only make out that
he was reprehending him severely for telling us "a succession of
falsehoods."

So I thought at that time; afterwards I was enabled to put a
different construction upon his indignation, at which Pedrillo seemed
to be considerably alarmed.

Bidding adieu to him and the contrabandistas, we departed under
Pedrillo's guidance, and (sans leave) shot all along the sides of the
mountain range, on the slope of which stands the small but ancient
city of Antequera, so noted for the revolt of the Moors in the
sixteenth century; and had some narrow escapes from falling into
those remarkable pits, where the water settles in the low places, and
is formed into salt by the mere heat of the sun.

We did not see much game, but knocked over a few brace of birds, and
with these, and two red foxes, our little guide Pedrillo was quite
laden.  So he seemed to think; for, taking advantage of the
concealment afforded him by some olive groves, and the scattered
remnants of an abandoned vineyard, among which we had become
entangled, the young rogue slipped away with our game and made off,
either towards Malaga or Antequera; at least we saw no more of him,
or of his burden at that time.

This was just about the close of the day, when Hall and I were
draining the last drop of our flask, and surveying from the mountain
slope the magnificent prospect of the verdant Vega, spreading at our
feet like a brightly-tinted map, having that warm and roseate glow,
which well might win it the name of Tierra Caliente.  Malaga, the
ancient bulwark of Spain against Africa, was shining in the distance,
with its towers and gates, its flat-roofed houses, and vast
cathedral; its Moorish castles and gothic spires, all bathed in a
warm and sunny yellow; while beyond lay the broad blue Mediterranean,
dotted by sails, and changing from gold to purple and to blue.

This was all very fine: but our pleasure was lessened by the
conviction that our little rascal Pedrillo was absconding with our
game; and we knew that it would never do to relate to the gun-room
mess how we had been outwitted, on returning to the Blonde next day.

The foreground of this beautiful panorama was broken by innumerable
small hillocks and clumps of wood of many kinds; but principally
olive, pine, and cork trees, that grew on the slope of the great
Sierra; and though the sky and landscape darkened fast after the sun
set, we instituted a strict and angry search for Pedrillo, shouting
and whistling as we stumbled on, we knew not very well whither,
looking for our lost spoils--two foxes, with gallant brushes, and
eight brace of birds.

No moon had risen: the wind began to whistle among the groves and
hollows; the night was very dark.

"What, if we should meet Master Juan of Antequera?" said I.

"If he had our game, I should be very well pleased," replied Hall;
"but I wish that Pedrillo had been with old Scratch when we hired him
yesterday.  If I had the little lubber on board the Blonde, I would
show him the maintop."

"Spain is a land of mishaps and events," said I.

"Yesterday we were wishing for an adventure."

"And to-night we have one with a vengeance!" said I.

"Belay; I see some one moving in that hollow.  Let us jump down--ahoy
below there!"

"But we may lose the track," I urged.

"True; so do you remain where you are, while I go down into the
hollow.  Hollo now and then, to let me know your whereabouts."

With his rifle in his hand, Hall, who was a fine active fellow,
sprang down into a ravine that suddenly yawned before us, and I
remained with my rifle cocked, and stooped low to watch what might
follow.  Hall disappeared in the obscurity below.  I halloed; but the
night wind tossed back my own shout upon me.  Then I thought I heard
his voice, and sprang after him; but fell upon a point of rock, and
sank, completely stunned, to the earth.

There I lay for nearly a quarter of an hour, unable to move, or rally
my senses.  When I arose, I found myself at the bottom of the hollow,
and upon a narrow mule track; the moon was rising brightly at the
south end of the ravine, silvering the masses of rocks, tufts of
laurel-trees, and wild vines that grew in the clefts of the basalt.
I shouted, but received no reply; and after a long and fruitless
search could discover no trace of Hall in any direction.

Considerably alarmed for his safety as well as my own--for to lie at
night upon those hills of Antequera, with the devilish stories of
Pedrillo and the contrabandistas haunting one's memory, was anything
but pleasant--I tried the charges of my rifle, looked again to the
percussion-caps, and set off in that direction where, by the rising
of the moon, I knew that Malaga must lie; but frequently paused to
hollo for Jack Hall, and received no reply save the echoes of the
rocks.

The ravine descended and grew more open.  Again I saw the Vega
sleeping at my feet in the haze; and, on turning an angle of the
road, found myself close to an inn or taberna, which I approached
with joy, concluding that my friend Jack must have gone that way, and
would probably be there.

Like all Spanish inns, it was a large and mis-shapen edifice, the
lower story of which was nothing better than a great open shed, for
mules and vehicles; and, ascending from thence by a stair, I reached
a gallery, at the door of which I was received by the host, who
carried in his hand a stable lantern.

"Entrar," said he, bowing profoundly; "entrar, señor."

"I have been shooting on the mountains," said I, "and have lost my
companion, a British naval officer.  Has he passed this way?"

"No, señor," replied the host, (whose face I could not yet see,) as
he led me up another stair.

"Then get supper prepared; for he must soon be here, as I have no
doubt he knows pretty well the direction of Malaga.  And now," said
I, drawing a long breath, as I seated myself, "what place is this?"

"La Posada del Cavallo." (!)

"Eh! ah--and you?" I asked, in a thick voice.

"Martin Secco, at your service, Señor Caballero!"

"Here was a dénouement!

"Good Heavens!" thought I, mechanically resuming my rifle; "if the
stories of Pedrillo should be true."

I scrutinised my host and hostess.

Martin had a broad and open visage, with keen eyes, and a black beard
as thick as a horse-brush; a wide mouth, that frequently expanded in
grins; but in those grins no radiance ever lit up his glassy eyes.
The mouth laughed; but they remained immovable--invariably a bad
sign.  His forehead receded, and his ears were placed high upon his
head.  At the first glance, I concluded that my señor patron was an
unmitigated brute.  His figure was somewhat portly, and encased in a
brown jacket, brown knee-breeches, and black stockings; he wore his
hair confined in a caul, and had a yellow sash round his waist.

His wife was, as Pedrillo had described Inez Secco, a Basque, for her
Spanish was almost unintelligible; and her coarse black hair was
plaited in one thick tail, which reached to her heels.  Her gown was
of rough red cloth, with tight sleeves and a short skirt, displaying
a pair of yellow worsted stockings and leather sandals, fastened by
thongs above the ancle.  Her face was coarse and bloated; but the
expression of her eye was terrible.  It hovered between the bright
ferocious glare of a snake, and the glazed orb of an arrant sot.  She
scanned me closely; and I thought the old devil (she was a Spanish
woman, and past forty,) was accurately appraising the value of all I
had on.

"Well, señora patrona," said I, "what can I have for supper?"

"The señor has come at a bad time, for we have little or no
provisions in our larder."  (The larder of every Spanish inn has been
in the same condition since the days of Cervantes and Gongora.)  "For
now this road between Malaga and Antequera is but little frequented
after noon-day, owing to the terrible robberies and the four
assassinations committed by Juan Roa, during the last Solano.
Caramba! 't is very hard that we should suffer for him."

"What can I have, then?"

"A roasted galina, dressed with a few beans," said the patrona.

"And a glass of good aquadiente," added the host; "our Tierno has
soured in the wine-skins."

"'T is poor fare this, for hungry men.  I have said that I expect my
friend's arrival momently."

The host gave a cold smile, and said, "We have had nothing ourselves,
for a week past, but Indian corn and boiled garbanzos (beans); but
the best we have is at the disposal of the señor caballero."

The inn was old and crazy; the wind came in at one cranny, and
whistled out by another.  The roof, walls, and floor of the large
apartment in which we three were seated, consisted of a multitude of
beams and boards, placed horizontally and diagonally, without skill
and without regard to design or appearance.  There was but one candle
in the house (as the host assured me), and it was rapidly guttering
down in the currents of air.  The patrona transferred it from the
lantern to an iron holder, and it was placed on the table to light
the room and my supper.

An ostler, or nondescript servant, wearing fustian knee-breeches,
without braces, with a muleteer's embroidered shirt, and having a
yellow handkerchief tied round his head, spread a (not over-clean)
cloth on the table; knives, forks, and covers were laid for two, with
a cold fowl, a loaf of white bread, a dish of beans, garlic, and a
bottle of aquadiente.

I observed this wild-looking waiter frequently glancing at my rifle,
and the jewelled dirk that dangled at my waist-belt; I became
suspicious of everything.

"You are well armed, señor," said he.

"It is natural; for arms are my profession," said I.

I looked at my watch: the hands indicated eleven o'clock!  Two hours
had elapsed since Hall and I had separated; still there was no
appearance of him.  Twenty times I opened the shutters of the
unglazed windows, and listened intently; but the night wind that
swept down the dark ravine in the Sierra, brought neither shout nor
footstep; so I resolved to sup, go to bed, and trust to daylight for
discovering Jack, if he did not arrive at the posada before morning.

I had just concluded supper, when the last remains of the last candle
in this solitary inn, sank into its iron socket, and left us in
darkness; at least with no other light than the red wavering glow
that came from the hearth, where a few roots of pine and corkwood
smouldered beside the brown puchero, in which the amiable patrona had
boiled the beans for my repast.

"Here is a pretty piece of business!" said Martin Secco; "we have not
another candle were it to light a blessed altar; and the señor
Caballero must go to bed in the dark."

"Heed not that, señor patron," said I; "for I am a soldier, as you
may see, and am used to discomfort."

"'T is well; for I am sure that the señor has experienced nothing but
discomfort in our poor posada.  When I am rich enough, señor, I hope
to have an hotel in the Alameda; and then should the Caballero ever
come to Malaga again, he will remember Martin Secco."

At this remark, I heard the patrona utter a low chuckling laugh; but
whether at the prospect of the fine hotel, or the doubtful chances of
my ever again visiting Malaga, I could not say.

"Now, señor patron," said I, rising and taking up my rifle, "I should
like to reach the town betimes to-morrow; so show me to my chamber,
and should my friend arrive, fail not to call me."

"Will you not leave your gun here?" suggested the host.

"Thank you--no," said I, while my undefined suspicions grew stronger
within me.  "Do you lead the way, señor, and I shall follow.  Good
night, señora patrona."

"Bueno noche, señor," said she, stirring up the embers; and we
separated.

To follow Martin was perhaps the most unpleasant part that I had yet
acted; for I had to grope my way after him along a dark passage,
about forty feet long, at the end of which he ushered me into a room,
where there was no other light than that given by the moon, which
shone through a small window glazed with little panes of coarse
glass.  Here he bade me "Bueno noche;" and, after many apologies for
my miserable accommodation, left me.

The apartment was small.  In one corner stood a French bed, having
light-coloured curtains; this, with a basin-stand, two chairs and a
mirror, made up the furniture.  Like a true soldier, I turned to
secure the door.

Destitute of lock or bolt: it had only a small thumb-latch!

Dismounting the ewer and basin, I placed the stand end-wise between
the bed and the door, firmly fixing it, and thus forming a barricade,
which none could force without awaking me.  To make all sure, I again
dropped the ramrod into each barrel of my rifle, passed a finger over
the caps, unbuckled the belt at which my dirk dangled; and, without
undressing, for every moment I expected to hear Jack Hall hallooing
outside the house; in short, to be prepared for anything, I threw
myself down on the coverlet, and weary and worn by a long day's
ramble among the mountains, prepared to sleep.

For a long time a species of painful wakefulness possessed me; the
moans of the passing wind, the flapping of a loose board in the
external gallery, the wavering shadows thrown by the moonlight on the
damp and discoloured walls; even the ticking of my watch disturbed
me, and kept me constantly thinking of poor Hall's unaccountable
absence, with many a fear that he might have fallen into the hands of
Juan of Antequera, and not a few reproaches for my having perhaps too
easily relinquished my search for him.

These thoughts completely obliterated any sense of my own immediate
danger; but I was about to drop asleep when something moist that
oozed over my neck and face aroused me.  I started, fully awake in a
moment; and, passing a hand across my cheek, looked at it in the
moonlight.

"Blood!" said I, springing off the bed, while a thrill ran through
me.  I had not been wounded or cut by my fall; then from whence came
this terrible moisture?  I examined the pillow, and found the lower
part of it quite wet; I turned it, and lo! it was saturated with
blood!

This was the reason, that Martin Secco had declined to give me a
candle.  My heart beat thick and fast; apprehension of something
horrible came over me, and I remembered the stories of Pedrillo.  I
also recollected that I had some excellent Spanish cigar fusees, and
tearing three or four blank leaves from my note book, I twisted them
together, lit them, and surveyed the dingy chamber.  The boards in
front of the bed were marked by recent spots of blood; I raised the
little fringe or curtain, and, guided by some terrible instinct,
looked below, and saw--what?

Poor Jack Hall lying there in his naval uniform, with his epaulette
torn off, and his throat literally cut from ear to ear!

He had found his way here before me, and been assassinated.

Almost paralysed, I continued for half a minute to gaze at this
terrible spectacle, till the paper burned down to my fingers and
expired.  I heard my heart beating; and my head spun round as I
tightened my belt and grasped my loaded rifle.  Before I could adopt
any plan of operations, I heard a rustling and whispering in the
passage near my door; and, looking through a crack in the panels,
saw, within a yard of me, Martin Secco, bearing in one hand the rifle
of my poor friend, and in the other a lighted candle, although he had
made to me so many apologies, about two hours before, for not having
another in the house.  As he approached, he handed it to a boy, in
whom I discovered Pedrillo; and then the light flashed upon two other
men, in one of whom I recognised the ostler, and in the other, our
acquaintance of the noon, with the patch on his face, and wearing the
green velvet jacket and sombrero.  This worthy had a pistol in one
hand and a knife in the other.  The patrona was also there, with her
wolfish eyes and enormous Basque queue.

Outrage and assassination were impressed on the hard lines of all
their cruel and savage visages; and I perceived at once that without
a vigorous effort I was lost--that my life was forfeited; and all the
anticipations of newspaper paragraphs; "a mysterious disappearance"
in the "Times" and "Military Gazette," flashed upon my mind.  I had
youth, a noble profession, many kind friends, my regiment, and home,
with "the best of expectations," as old dowagers say, on one hand; a
horrible and sudden death--a lonely scene of unknown butchery, on the
other!

I cocked the locks of my rifle, and resolutely removed the barricade
from the door.

"Take time, Juan Roa," said the patrona.

"Hold your tongue, old perra; I know well enough what I am doing,"
growled the personage in green, whom I now knew to be that terrible
outlaw, who since the Carlist war, had laughed at the carabineros and
alguazils, and kept all Malaga, the Sierra de Mija, and the Vega of
Granada astir and in terror.

Including the patrona, and the treacherous young rascal Pedrillo, I
had five desperate enemies, and only two bullets at their service.

"Let us prove whether the Inglese is asleep, before we enter," said
the patron, knocking at the door gently, and placing the candle
behind him.

"No answer--he is certainly asleep," whispered the patrona.

"Knock again," growled Juan Roa.

A smart blow was then given; but still I made no reply.  Then the
patron applied his hand to the latch; but before he could open the
door, I fired right through the slender panels, and shot him dead by
one bullet, knocking over the ostler by the other, which he received
through his neck and shoulder.

Clubbing my rifle, I then rushed out; and charging them in the smoke
and confusion, dealt Juan Roa a tremendous blow with the butt end,
which levelled him beside the two ruffians who lay bleeding in the
narrow passage.  Escaping a pistol shot from Juan, but receiving two
desperate cuts from the termagant patrona and the wasp Pedrillo, I
reached the end of the passage, sprang through the common hall, and
found the outer door fastened.  By main strength I tore it open, and
reached the external gallery, over which I dropped, though it was
fully twelve feet from the ground; and, just as I did so, the boy
Pedrillo fired one of Juan's pistols after me; but I escaped it, and
ran down the mountain slope, loading my rifle as I went, and driving
a bullet home into each barrel.

Grey morning was spreading along the east, and the red flush of the
coming sun was brightening behind the dark towers of Gibral-Faro, and
sparkling on the lattices of Malaga.  The aromatic plants were
putting forth their sweetest perfume, and the light foliage of the
sugar-cane, the cotton plant, and the citron tree, were shaking off
the heavy dews of night.  The air was clear and cool; after the toils
of the past day, the sleepless night and its terrors, the fresh dewy
atmosphere revived me, and, dashing down the lonely mountain-side, I
reached a little puebla, and reported the whole affair to the officer
who there commanded a party of the carabineros of Antequera.

A sergeant and twenty troopers galloped away to the posada, which
they found completely deserted by all its living tenants; but they
hung the body of the patron upon a tree, burned the house to the
ground, and conveyed the mangled remains of poor Jack Hall to Malaga,
where they were interred next day, with all the honours of war, in
that corner of the Campo Santo which is appropriated for the burial
of strangers; and there the marines of the Blonde fired three volleys
over the grave, where as noble a heart as Her Majesty's service
possessed was committed to the earth of Spain.

An hour's examination before a magistrate, who swore me across my
sword as to the particulars, was all the judicial inquiry ever made;
we sailed next day, and reached Portsmouth, after a fine run, and
without any other mishaps; but I shall never forget that terrible
night among the mountains of Antequera, Martin Secco, his wife's
tail, and the horrors of La Posada del Cavallo.

Jack's adventure elicited a burst of applause, and was voted the
story of the evening, notwithstanding the great spice of the
miraculous and holy, which had seasoned the narrative of the Major
Don Joaquim.




CHAPTER VII

THE HALT IN A CORK WOOD

Next morning betimes we left the venta of Castellar where, overnight,
we had spent so many pleasant hours.  The Major Don Joaquim was very
curious to know the object of our mission to Seville, of which he
announced himself a well-known citizen; but we declined to state the
reason of our visit in uniform to that far-famed city; neither did we
mention that our business lay with no less a personage than the
captain-general of Los Cuatros Reinos.

In a country like Spain, where the people are so jealous of their
national honour and so revengeful, we did not conceive that it would
be conducive to our safety to state that we were the identical
officers whose affair with the guarda costa had caused so much
heartburning for some weeks past, and so much correspondence between
our governor and the minister Espartero; so, somewhat piqued by our
reserve, the major gave us a formal bow, and clambered into the
vehicle which was to convey him to Medina.  We separated, the convoy
of calessos got into motion after much noise and vociferation on the
part of the drivers, the stable-boys, the hostalero, and the
passengers, who were all gabbling at once in full-toned Spanish as
they rolled away under the escort of a party of very ill-appointed
dragoons in the service of Donna Isabella la Catolica, while we rode
off in the opposite direction towards Alcala de los Gazules, a small
town, which lies on the Seville road, and through which we passed
soon after.

"Let us push on," said I, to interrupt Jack, who had been rallying me
pretty smartly about Donna Paulina, and vowing that all this affair
of a trip to Seville had been foreseen and preconcerted by me for the
purpose of meeting her again and continuing a flirtation which was a
source of great merriment to the regiment.  "Let us push on, Jack,
for I feel very anxious----"

"To reach Seville, of course; but it won't run away; we shall find it
in its proper place on the left bank of the Guadalquiver."

"You mistake me.  I was thinking how awkward it would be for us if
the Himalaya was to come round during our absence; and if on our
return we should find the whole regiment embarked and steaming away
for the Crimea."

"Awkward!  I should think so, rather; but it is not likely they can
decamp in such a hurry.  After all we heard last night about the
restless habits of the good people in these mountains, and their
vague or peculiar ideas regarding property, together with the
eccentricities of this Don Fabrique, do we not run a little risk in
proceeding without an escort?"

"There is risk, certainly; but our return is not to be thought of
till the duty is done."

"Of course not--what would the regiment say?"

"And what should we think of ourselves?"

"We are, I hope, a match for any six Spaniards, with our swords and
revolvers, in fighting; and with these good nags under us I should
think we are more than a match for them in flying.  But the noon is
becoming so hot that I propose we should halt under that grove of
cork-trees and there take a siesta."

We halted accordingly at the base of a steep mountain chain, between
the cleft peaks of which a noonday-flood of yellow light was gushing.
Sterile, abrupt, and bare above us rose the ridgy rocks: the little
valley at the base was teeming with verdure and fertility, but it was
silent and solitary, for not a sound was heard save the murmur of a
stream which bubbled from a fissure in a vine-covered cliff.  It
meandered between meadows of aromatic plants, and sought deep pools
over which the oleander and the bay threw their branches, and the
cool shady thickets of the dark wood of olive and cork-trees.

Just where we dismounted, we found a personage lounging on the grass.
He was smoking a cigar, and had a long gun beside him.  Without
rising for a minute nearly, he scrutinised us and our horses with
marked curiosity.  His costume was somewhat gay, being in the highest
style of the bull-ring, or that of a majo or dandified Spanish
ladrone, whose free aspect and gallant air make him the admiration of
the dark-eyed paisanas and the envy of their more peaceful male
relatives; for the majo is the bravo of our own time.

This personage wore an ample brown cloak, which hung loosely about
his shoulders, a black velvet sombrero, with a large tuft of black
plush on one side thereof, and under its deep rim his coal-black hair
fell in heavy locks, and his flashing eyes watched all our motions,
with an indescribable expression of stealth and suspicion.  A long
knife and a pair of brass-butted pistols were in his gaudy sash; he
wore leathern gaiters, and was playing with the blade of a navaja, or
clasp-knife, about ten inches long--a deadly instrument, which the
Spaniard is never without, for therewith he cuts his 'carne' and
bread, or his bacallao in Lent, slices his melon in summer, and
slashes the face of any person with whom he may chance to differ in
opinion.  Indeed, the visage of this lounger bore the very
unmistakable mark of a long slash which had once laid it open from
eye to chin.  Beside him stood a beautiful Andalusian jennet, high of
head, and bold in chest; its gaily-fringed bridle was thrown over the
branch of an olive tree, and it was accoutred with a high-peaked
saddle of antique form, covered by a piece of white sheepskin, which
was spread also over a pair of holsters.

"Buenos dias, señor," said I; "a good morning--I fear we are
disturbing you."

"Not at all, señores--the greensward, the shadow of those trees, and
the waters of this stream, flowing from yonder sierra, belong to us
all in common.  Sit down, señores, and halter your horses, as you see
I have haltered mine.  You belong to the Gibraltar garrison, I
presume--right--you are Inglesos."

"No, Brittanicos," said I, with a smile.

"And whither go ye?"

"To Seville."

"Ah, would I were going with you: it is a place of joy and merriment,
Seville.  The sun shines on it once every day of the year; yet I go
there but seldom.  Allow me to make you each a cigarillo."

"With pleasure."

To have declined would have been an affront as great as to refuse a
proffered snuff-mull in the country of the clans.  Our Spaniard
produced one of those little books of soft blank paper (almost the
only volumes used in Spain), and tore out three leaves; he then took
tobacco from his silk pouch and made up three little cigars very
neatly and adroitly; but twice during the operation I detected his
stealthy eyes scanning us from under his bushy eyebrows.

My little box of patent lights excited his wonder and admiration, as
he was about to exert his patience by having recourse to the
antiquated flint and steel.  Then Jack Slingsby produced his
travelling flask; I brought forth mine, and the Spaniard had a
capacious bota of wine, a drinking cup of leather, a piece of
bacallao and biscuits; and we were just proceeding to lunch, when his
Andalusian jennet pricked up its ears and neighed uneasily.

"Maldito!" said our companion, as a scowl came over his visage and
his hand fell mechanically on the lock of his gun; "some one
approaches."

"An old woman on a donkey, and nothing more," said Slingsby,
carelessly; "amigo mio, you look as much alarmed as if you expected
the terrible Fabrique de Urquija, or Juan Roa of Antequera."

The keen eyes of the Spaniard flashed, and he looked at Jack as if he
would have pierced him through.

"I fear neither Don Fabrique nor any other man," said he gruffly; "a
woman on a burro--oh--it must be poor Sister Santa Veronica, of
Estrelo, a town about a league distant."

"How is she named so?" I asked.

"After the blessed Santa Veronica who wiped the pale face of our
Lord, when dying upon his cross," replied the Spaniard, lowering his
head; "and as she did so, on her kerchief there became impressed the
most wondrous of religious miracles--the Santa Faz--the holy
countenance of Jaen, where it is still preserved in our cathedral,
and from which the portraits of our Saviour are all taken; hence it
is that his sad and upturned face, with its crown of bloody thorns
and curling heard, and the long yellow hair parted over the smooth
pale brow, are so well known over all the Christian world."

As he spoke, an elderly woman, habited like a nun, in a coarse and
well-patched dress of black serge, with a hood of spotless white
linen folded across her brow and chin, and having its long ends
drooping lappetwise down her withered cheeks, rode up to us on a
donkey, which displayed--what one seldom sees in a Spanish
ass--evident signs of being ill-fed and ill-groomed.  The nun, who
had a careworn, grave, and, though stern, not unpleasing expression
of face, carried a covered basket on her arm.  Our companion sprang
to his feet, and, doffing his sombrero, hastened to meet her and to
hold the bridle of her animal.

She was abroad, as she told us, begging alms and food for the sisters
of her convent--ten ladies--all of whom were of noble rank, but the
most of whose kinsmen had fallen in battle under Don Ramon de
Cabrera, and thus left them friendless.  They were now, by the
confiscation of the ecclesiastical revenues, and the seizure of those
sums which they had paid as a dowry into the convent treasury,
reduced to extreme penury in their old age, and were driven from
their pleasant convent in the beautiful vega of Jaen; since then they
had endeavoured to perform the duties of their order, and to serve
God, in a poor and half-ruined house, which belonged to a noble,
charitable.  and religious lady, Donna Dominga de Lucena, y Colmenar
de Orieja, at Estrelo; and now would not the noble Caballeros give
something to the poor ladies of Santa Theresa, however small, for the
love of God and of blessed charity?

All this, which she prettily told, was addressed to us, rather than
to the stranger, at whom she glanced uneasily from time to time,
although he stood bare-headed, with the deepest respect, and holding
her burro by the bridle.

The circumstance of the sisterhood being befriended by the mother of
Donna Paulina would have sufficed to interest us, if the wrong done
them by the present Government of Spain had failed to do so.  Our
purses were at once produced, and we respectfully raised our caps on
presenting the poor nun with a few pillared dollars, which no doubt
she little expected from two heretical Brittanicos.

They had been robbed of everything, she continued--at least, all save
their cases of reliques and the bones of Santa Theresa, which they
had borne on their shoulders in sad procession from Jaen to Estrelo;
and, moreover, they had lost the wonderful portrait of their
patroness, which had been seized and sold by those hijos de Luiz
Philipe, the men of the new administration; but it was no fault of
the present Queen of Spain, for poor Isabella la Catolica had wept
her eyes out in the cause of the poor monks and nuns.  The señores
had, no doubt, heard of the wonderful portrait of the blessed Theresa?

In great sorrow we professed our ignorance thereof.

"Madre Mia!  It was said to be an Alonzo Cano, and had narrowly
escaped the clutches of the Marshals Soult and Massena, when they
swept away the golden moidores of the Portuguese and the divine
Murillos of the Spaniards.  It belonged to the chapel in which the
saint was baptized, and was quite as veritable and wonderful as the
holy countenance of Jaen, and was usually placed over the great
altar; but one day when the chapel was undergoing repair, it was
placed at the porch, where it was seen by a certain ruined
gamester--a savage and desperate fellow, worse than Juan Roa or Don
Fabrique, as he came past that way.  In a fit of mad despair, having
just lost everything, he struck his dagger into the bosom of the
picture, from which there immediately gushed out a torrent of blood
in the sight of the terrified people; while a faint cry was heard in
the air, as of one in pain afar off."

"And the gamester?"

"Went raving mad and died, chained like a wild beast in the Gaza de
Locos of Jaen."

To our gift, our companion added a doubloon, a present so valuable
that it excited our surprise and kindled the fear of the poor nun,
who accepted it with reluctance, and, with abundance of genuflections
and thanks, whipped up her burro, which trotted away.

"Shall I not have the honour of escorting you to Estrelo, reverend
señora?" cried our friend, hurrying after her.

"Muchos gratias--no, no! a thousand thanks, señor," she replied,
hurriedly; "no one will molest a poor sister of Santa Theresa."

Her ill-concealed repugnance to receive his alms evidently impressed
the Spaniard, who seated himself in silence, and smoked with a sullen
expression, as if somewhat depressed by the whole affair; but Jack
Slingsby, who hated silence more than anything in the world, began to
make some casual inquiries as to whether or not the famous Urquija
had been heard of hereabout, and where he was generally to be found.

"Found," reiterated the Spaniard, with a frown of surprise; "he is
often found by those who least like such a discovery."

"So it seems," replied Jack, "and by the accounts we heard of him at
the--how do you name it?--the venta last night, he seems to be ripe
fruit for the gallows."

"Indeed," said the Spaniard, quietly making up another cigarillo,
"you are very loud, Señor Viajador, (traveller), in condemning this
poor son of Andalusia, this Don Fabrique; but you do so simply
because you know nothing about him; being, like most Englishmen,
totally ignorant of every country except your own portion of Britain,
and, believing that whatever is not English must be radically,
physically, and morally wrong, you have come among us predisposed to
ridicule and to condemn."

"The deuce!" said Jack, with an air of pique; "I beg to assure you,
my fine fellow, that I could tell you a story of a posada----"

"Enough, señor," replied the other, waving his hand with great
dignity of manner, while a savage gleam shot over his stealthy eyes;
"but allow me to inform you that a bandit--I do not mean a pitiful
picaro who steals purses and pocket-handkerchiefs on the prado, or a
swindling raterillo who cheats at cards, but an armed robber (and
here his hand struck the butt of his escopeta)--is a modern Spanish
hero, and the pretty paisana and the bluff muleteer sing of his
exploits in the same breath with those of Rodrigo de Bivar, the Cid
Campeador, Hernando de Cordova, and the chiefs of the war of
Independence, when we saw the fields of Vimiero, of Talavera and
Rorica; lend a new lustre to the names of Mina, of Murillo, and of
Wellington!"

"Very likely; but this Don Fabrique commits such devilish atrocities,
and all that sort of thing," urged Jack, closing with his incessant
phrase.

"Do you know why poor Fabrique took his gun and stiletto, and went to
the mountains?"

"Shall I tell you?"

"If you please."

"Listen.  There was an abogado, a lawyer of Jaen, named Jacop el
Escribano, who married the aunt of Fabrique--an aunt who had been a
mother to him after his own died, or rather was murdered by the
Chapelgorri's.  She tended him, reared him, loved and educated him at
Alcala, and he was to be her heir, for she was rich, and had mines of
quicksilver and cinnabar on the confines of Murcia; and her heir he
had every right to be, for other kindred she had none.  Well, this
good aunt fell sick; those who were more than usually acute, or more
than usually evil-minded, said that the abogado had poisoned her
mentally and bodily.  At all events he wrote out her will, which
bequeathed all her property to himself, whom failing, to a certain
Gil Jacop, his son by a former marriage, and to poor Fabrique, the
son of her dead brother, not a peseta, not a pistareen!  This limb of
Satan and the law, succeeding in all his ends and objects, poisoned
her ears against the poor student of Alcala.  Well, the aunt died.
Full of sorrow Fabrique hastened to his home to find the door of it
shut in his face, and the malicious abogado in possession of
everything, even to his aunt's snuff-box and armed chair.  Our poor
student rushed to the Alcalde, who heard him with a smile of
incredulity--why? because he was the cousin of the abogado, and he,
too, shut his door in the face of Fabrique.  Bursting with
indignation he sought the corregidor, to pour out anew the story of
his wrongs; but, ay de mi! the corregidor, a Commander of the Knights
of Calatrava, was to dine that day with the abogado, who had invited
half the city to feast, and weekly gave a magnificent tertulia in the
house of the dead woman.

"Fabrique lost all patience and, swore a dreadful vow of vengeance,
so the wise, just, and most illustrious corregidor expelled him from
the city, and by the alguazils he was driven forth by the Audujar
gate.  His last money was in his pocket; so he bought a dagger and
musket, and shaking the dust off his feet at the puerta de Audujar,
he gathered together a band of gallant spirits who had followed Juan
Roa, and betook himself to the mountains, leaving the abogado in
possession of his aunt's house and her mines upon the Murcian
frontier."

"And did he enjoy them long?" I asked.

The Spaniard smiled grimly, and took a long quaff of the bota.

"You wish to know, señor?'

"Exceedingly."

"Listen.  A week after these events our abogado disappeared from
Jaen, and no man knew whence he had gone, and few cared.  A month
after, a poor wretch, half crazed and in rags, emaciated, pale and
hollow-cheeked by hunger, illness, agony, and wandering, and whose
vision had been destroyed by the simple application of a red-hot
ramrod, was found near a village of the Sierra de Ronda.  It was
Jacop el Escribano--whose scribbling was at an end, and whose eyes
were closed on the world for ever."

"And his son, Gil Jacop?"

"Was found shot one fine morning at the corner of that road, just
where you see a rough wooden cross, erected by the curate in memory
of the affair, and to beg a prayer of every passer-by for the dead
man's sinful soul.  The corregidor has thrice been robbed of all he
possessed--his rents, fees, and the revenue of his commanderie; and
the alcalde has quite as often been beaten to the very verge of
death.  Evil-disposed people lay those things to the charge of Don
Fabrique; but I say nothing, having no opinion on the subject."

"Then you are afraid of him?" said Jack, laughing.

"Afraid--ha, ha!" said the Spaniard, taking up his long gun; "no--not
so much as you were afraid of Juan Roa and Martin Secco, on that
night in the 'Posada del Cavallo' at Malaga.

"How know you of that affair?" asked Jack, starting to his feet.

"Did I not hear it told at full length last night in the venta at
Castellar?"

"Were you there?" I inquired, with surprise.

"You saw a goatherd present--an old fellow with a sheep-skin dress, a
long beard, a crook, and bota."

"Yes."

"'T was I.  Last night I was a goatherd, because it suited my purpose
to appear so, and to laugh at the terror of those miserable
soap-boilers on hearing the whistle of bullets in the Sierra; to-day
I am Fabrique de Urquija, the friend of poor Juan Roa; and had you
been less kind to that poor nun than you were, it was my intention to
have shot and robbed you both, which I could easily have done,
despite your swords and revolvers, your English impudence and cool
assurance.  Vaya usted con Dios, and may you have a pleasant ride to
Seville; but attend more to the rules of common politeness when next
you speak of Urquija beyond the security of your own lines at
Gibraltar.  I am not a bad fellow, señores, at times, though more apt
to take the advice of a curer of fish than a curer of souls in Lent."

With these words he leaped on his horse, and slinging his long gun by
his right leg, galloped into the cork wood, and disappeared.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE ALCALDE.

This rencontre, by illustrating the danger of lingering and of making
chance acquaintance--dangers for which no credit would be given by
the Horse Guards, and against which we found no hints afforded by our
"John Murray"--caused us to hasten through Estrelo without paying a
visit to the nuns of Santa Theresa, which (on the base of our
acquaintance with Sister Veronica) we had proposed to do; and a ride
of ten miles further, through a fruitful and beautiful district,
brought us to the ancient ducal town of Medina Sidonia, where the
Spanish commandant invited us to dinner, and where, finding ourselves
in safe quarters, we spent a pleasant evening, and with cigars and
Ciudad Real, Tresillo and Monte, whiled away the hours until we
retired to our posada, where we slept undisturbed by rats or robbers,
as quietly as if we had been in the best hotel in London.

We crossed a stream next day, and arrived at Arcos de la Frontierra,
a picturesque little town, situated upon a lofty rock, almost
insulated by the Guadalete, and so difficult of access on the south
and west that we had some trouble in discovering an entrance to it
anywhere.

The aspect of the place, with all its flat-roofed or red-tiled houses
clustering on the summit of a steep and abrupt rock; its two large
parish churches, with the square campanile of Santa Maria, and the
façade of the palace of the reverend the vicar-general to the
metropolitan of Seville, all lit up by the flush of a Spanish setting
sun, and throwing a huge broad shadow across the girdling Guadalete,
and that rich undulating country which stretches far away beyond it,
pleased me so much that, dismounting at the foot of the eminence, I
seated myself among some fallen walls and prostrate
columns--doubtless fragments of the ancient Arcobriga--to make a
little sketch of the place.

Reclined against a mass of vine-covered ruin, Slingsby of "Ours" had
fallen fast asleep with his horse's bridle buckled over his left arm,
and both he and the nag occupied a prominent place in the foreground
of my view, and a wayside cross, covered with rich creepers, and
having a sulky-looking raven seated on its summit, was in the middle
distance.  My labours proceeded rapidly and greatly to my own
satisfaction when they were suddenly interrupted by a heavy hand
being roughly laid on my shoulder.  I looked up.  Four men, muffled
in the inevitable, invariable, and eternal dirty brown cloak, in
which we always see the mysterious characters stride, swagger, and
swell on the boards of minor theatres, and which a Spaniard is never
without, under any circumstances, appeared beside me.  Two had drawn
swords, and two cocked blunderbusses.

"The señores will understand that they are our prisoners?" said one.

"Who the deuce are you--comrades of Don Fabrique, I suppose?"

"Heaven forbid! we are honest men--alguazils of Arcos, and the
Caballeros must both come before the señor alcalde."

"For what purpose?" I demanded hastily.

"The señor will soon be informed," said one.

"To his cost, perhaps," added a second.

"Vaya, come along," growled a third, "or it may be the worse for you."

Finding expostulation vain, I roused Jack, who after revolving in his
own mind whether or not he ought to revolve them--for his pistol had
six barrels, we took our horses by their bridles, and accompanied the
bravo-like alguazils, whose good-will we sought to cultivate by being
liberal with our cases of cheroots.

The alcalde, a bustling little manufacturer of Cordovan leather,
received us in his office, stuck his barnacles on his nose, summoned
his escribano, and opened the case with an air of awful pomp and
chilling consequence; but he seemed to be about as well qualified for
the office of lawgiver as Mr. Justice Shallow.

"The señores, who seemed to be British officers belonging to the
garrison of Gibraltar, of which her Most Catholic Majesty Donna
Isabella is sovereign, whatever Queen Victoria may assert to the
contrary, were found making a sketch--a military sketch, no doubt--of
her ancient city of Arcos, in the province of Andalusia; and the
señores, of course, knew the law framed by the Cortes on that point."

"Of sketching the city of Arcos?"

"No."

"What then?"

"Any city," returned the fussy little alcalde.

"But this is not a fortified town."

"But it might be fortified."

"No doubt--but it is not fortified at the present moment."

"Tonto de mi! what does that matter?"

"Why you stupid old----" Jack Slingsby was beginning, but I placed a
hand upon his mouth, and the irritable little alcalde continued.

"For what purpose was the sketch--this sketch made?--answer me that,
señor."

"To please myself and to show my friends."

"Of course, a likely story truly," he sneered, as he deliberately
tore my poor production into several pieces, threw them into the
brassero of charcoal which glowed in the centre of the apartment, and
watched until every fragment was entirely consumed.  I gazed at him
in silence, but feeling an emotion of considerable disgust; for
although well aware that to sketch any fortified place or garrison
town, barrack, or citadel, was strictly forbidden, it never occurred
to me that the restriction could apply to the miserable
conglomeration of Spanish huts and crumbling Moorish hovels which
clustered round the churches on the rock of Arcos; but in their
ignorance of the arts the Spaniards, like the Turks, cannot see a
difference between a little artistic sketch and a regular plan drawn
for the most desperate military purposes.

"So we are suspected of being spies," said Slingsby; "I am glad that
sketching was omitted in my education, and that I never could draw
aught but a cork or a bill in my life."

"But this may prove no matter for laughter, Jack," said I, as the
alcalde, with awful gravity, after duly entering our names and
designations in a huge tome, turned to another part thereof, wiped
his spectacles and addressed us.  I must own to feeling some
uneasiness, having once had a brother officer who went on sick leave
to Cadiz, where he was shot as a Christino priest; he was our senior
lieutenant, poor Bob Rasper, and was as much like a priest as the
great Mogul.  I had an uncle who was very near being strangled by an
alcalde, who was persuaded he was Don Carlos; and we all know that
Lord Carnarvon was well nigh murdered in mistake for Don Miguel,
while Captain Widrington was about to be garotted by another
official, who thought he might be an agent of Marshal Baldomero
Espartero, now first minister of Donna Isabella II.  These instances
of Spanish justice, clearness, and legal acumen were floating before
me when the little ruffian of an alcalde curled up his mustachios and
said,--

"The señores will have passports, no doubt?"

"No passports," I replied.

"Demonio!" ejaculated this Andalusian Solon, while the alguazils
(having finished their cheroots) began to clank their sabres and cock
their ominous-looking trabujos.  "Then you must both be sent to
prison in irons, and kept under guard until we communicate with
Espartero."

We lost alike our patience and temper at this piece of intelligence.

"Beware, señor alcalde," said I, "for the very person you have named
may send you to the galleys for this insolent interference.  We are
two British officers going on public duty to Seville, and being
passed through the Spanish lines by the officer commanding there,
require no other passports than our swords and our uniform, which you
had better respect, or we may play a mischief with you.  Our
ambassador at Madrid----"

"Vaya usted a los infernos!" exclaimed the alcalde, in a towering fit
of official indignation; "I shall show you how we treat those who
enter our city of Arcos without proper credentials, and I verily
believe you to be a couple of pitiful raterillos.  Search and secure
them!"

How this affair might have ended, I have no means of knowing; but
nothing saved us from much trouble and perhaps danger, but the sudden
discovery of a letter, which was found by one of the alguazils who
rudely plunged a hand into one of my pockets.  It was addressed in
high-flowing terms to the most illustrious señor, the captain general
of Andalusia, and bore the great official seal of the Governor of Her
Britannic Majesty's garrison of Gibraltar.  On beholding this, the
countenance of the alcalde fell.  This human bladder, which was
inflated by so much wrath and Jack-in-office pride, suddenly
collapsed.  His manner changed at once; he was profuse in his
apologies, and on a wave of his hand, those alguazils who, a moment
before, were ready to drag us to some foul prison and rudely too,
like ruffians as they doubtless were, slunk aside and withdrew; and
in five minutes after we were mounted, clear of Arcos, and trotting
along the road which ascended from the banks of the Guadalete.

"Those Spaniards will never change," said Jack; "they will ever be
bullies or cravens; so cudgels or cannon shot are the only means of
argument with them."

We then laughed at the whole affair--at the absurd pomposity of the
alcalde, and the idea of our being arrested as spies.

At a trot we traversed the little town of Alcantarilla.  It lies not
far from the Guadalquiver, a stream that wanders through a fertile
hollow, which in the days of the Cæsars was a hopeless march.  We
crossed the bridge which was built by the hands of the Romans, who
placed a tower at each end for defence.  Slingsby, with a waggish
smile, recommended me to make a sketch of these interesting remains;
but a wholesome terror of the alcalde of Arcos was yet too fresh in
my mind, so we pushed on towards Los Palacies, in company with a long
train of mules from the seaport of San Lucar de Barameda.  Their
drivers were gaily attired, and were all sturdy and hearty fellows,
who beguiled the way with stories, laughter, and songs of love and
wine, or legends of the Avalos, the Moors of Ronda, and of Bravonnel
the Moor of Zaragozza and his ladylove Guadalara, while they sung to
the cracking of their whips, the merry jangle of the mule-bells, and
the thrum of a guitar.  With all this, they were prepared for every
emergency, having poniards, blunderbusses, and other weapons--being
armed to the teeth, in fact; and with them we travelled until Seville
rose before us, with the fretted spires and gothic pinnacles of its
cathedral and Alcazar, and the gigantic tower of La Giralda, rising
above the domes of the Mohammedan times and the befrays of the
Christians; and all steeped in the unclouded blaze of an Andalusian
sunset, with the Guadalquiver winding through a low valley in the
foreground, bordered by groves of the orange and citron, and the
green undulating ridges of the Sierra towering in the distance, with
a golden vapour resting on the mellowed peaks, which bound a
landscape that, in the days of Alfonso the Wise, was studded by a
hundred thousand cottages and oil-mills.

But the Guadalquiver seemed as muddy as the Thames, where it
approaches the ancient fane of St. John of Alfarache, and there its
turgid tide was lashed and beaten by the steamers from San Lucar; and
we could see them ploughing their way (with red lights hanging at
their fore cross-trees) into the evening haze that settled over
Seville.

Our passports were demanded by the officer commanding an
ill-accoutered guard at the gate: but our letter addressed to the
captain general freed us from further question, and he politely
directed us to an hotel.

We rode through the grass-grown streets of the lazy Sevillanos, I
reflecting on stories of Pedro the Cruel and the past glories of the
Arab city--Jack Slingsby reflecting on the thoroughfares, which he
said "were remarkably dingy, devilish dirty, and all that sort of
thing," until we discovered the hotel de la Reyna near the Lonja, or
Exchange, and close to the far-famed cathedral church.  There we took
up our quarters for the night.

"At last we are in Seville!" said I, as I threw myself into a down
fauteuil, after tossing off a glass of iced Valdepenas, and flung
aside the last week's Madrid papers, the 'Heraldo' and 'España;' "in
Seville, where Trajan, Adrian, and Theodosius were born, and
where----"

"You shall flirt with the pretty Paulina to-morrow," said Jack; "pass
over the decanter; thanks; I can take you off your stilts in a
twinkling, my boy."




CHAPTER IX.

THE TERTULIA.

In the morning, after coffee, a devilled bone and a cigar, we sallied
forth to deliver the dispatch of our Governor to the captain general,
and resolved, soon after, to bid farewell to Seville; for Jack was
full of fears that the whole corps would be off, bag and baggage, to
fight the Russians before we could return.  The hour was somewhat
early, so we rambled about the beautiful city; but I do not mean to
inflict upon the reader a description of all we saw--of the gay
crowds who thronged the Plaza de Toros and the Alameda, with fan and
mantilla, sombrero and mantle; of the cathedral of Santa Maria, with
its carved buttresses and stupendous spires; of the Alcazar or palace
of the Moorish kings, with all its arabesques and oval arches; of the
Lonja and the huge tobacco factory.  I beg my reader to imagine them
all, for I could easily devote five several chapters to describing
these five several edifices.  It is enough that the Sevillanos have
an ancient proverb, that he who never saw Seville has never seen a
wonder; to wit--

  "Que en no ha visto Sevilla,
  Ne ha visto Maravilla."


As we issued from the cathedral, Jack's loquacity was somewhat
stilled by the grandeur of that stupendous pile and its dark
Murillos, the chief of which is the adoration of the Saviour by St.
Anthony of Padua--I beg pardon--of Lisbon and of Lagos--and full of
thoughts, which were rather solemn for such fellows as we are, we
walked slowly on with our eyes fixed on the far-famed tower of the
weathercock--the Giralda--which rises at the north-east angle of the
church, when a personage, whose eyes were raised to the same
altitude, came somewhat violently against us, and then we poured
forth mutual apologies.

"Maldito--come esta, señores; well met."

"Come esta, señor major--who would have thought of meeting you here?"

"Why so?" asked Don Joaquim, for he proved to be our friend of the
noble regiment of Lagos; "I think that I mentioned Seville as my
native city--so you have reached the end of your journey?"

"Yes, and mean to leave this to-morrow," said Jack.

"So early!  Maldito--a short visit.  Is your business so soon
concluded?"

"It is not yet begun; we have a dispatch for the captain general."

"Indeed!" said he, with wonder in his face.

"Where is his palace?  We were just about to inquire the way."

"You must pass the Lonja, our famous Exchange, a triumph of the
genius of Juan de Herrera--the architect of the Escurial; well, you
must pass it, and cross the Plaza de Toros; but allow me to have the
pleasure of escorting you."

"Many thanks."

"None are necessary, señores--hut this dispatch for the captain
general--Maldito!  I am bursting with irrepressible curiosity to know
what it is about.  Are we going to war with Russia too?"

"Then, señor," said I, "we may as well inform you that it concerns
the killing of a man on board of a Spanish government guarda costa,
by a chance shot from the Mole Fort at Gibraltar."

"He was in pursuit of a contrabandista, I presume?"

"Exactly so."

"Ah, those rascally contrabandistas!  It is too bad of your
Government to protect them--quite as bad as making war on the Chinese
because they would not poison themselves with opium.  I heard that
some of your people had shot at a guarda costa, and killed some one
on hoard.  It has excited considerable animosity, and been much
spoken of."

He led us through several dark and narrow streets, so narrow, indeed,
that people could easily have shaken hands from the windows on each
side of these quaint old Moorish thoroughfares.  Issuing suddenly
into the full Haze of the scorching Spanish sunshine, we found
ourselves before a handsome palace decorated by Corinthian pilasters,
and having its lofty windows covered by external shades of brilliant
red and white striped stuff.  Two sentinels of the line stood at the
portal under sunshades, with their muskets "ordered;" and they stared
at our uniform with black and lacklustre eyes.

"The palace of the captain general," said Don Joaquim, bowing; "he
has just returned from Jaen, having gone on a pilgrimage to the Holy
Face."

"We must have the pleasure of meeting you again," said I.

"Our hotel is the Queen's--de la Reyna--near the Exchange," added
Slingsby.

"Oh, I know the place very well," replied the Don, producing his
card, a token of civilisation little known in Spain; "my mother gives
a tertulia to-night, and we shall be delighted to see you--her
reception hour is eight--Donna Dominga de Lucena--Calle del Alcazar."

"You are the son of Donna Dominga, whom we had the pleasure of
knowing in Gibraltar?"

"The same, señores.  Are you the gentlemen who were so kind and
attentive to her?  It is quite a little romance this meeting.  How
odd, to think that we sat a whole night in the venta of Castellar and
knew nothing about this!  Then, doubtless, one of you must be that
accomplished cavalier, Don Leja Mag Leja, concerning whom she wrote
me so many letters when I was at Lagos."

With some laughter, we professed that neither of us was the portly
Leechy Mac Leechy, to whose name the Donna had given somewhat of a
Castilian character in her epistles to the major.

"But about the tertulia? we have no full uniform," urged Jack.

"Full uniform--bagatella!--stuff--come just as you are; but as your
business here is about that unlucky guarda costa, 'tis as well my
brother Hernan has not arrived; for he is in our naval service, and
might feel piqued on the subject.  Well, addio--I shall see you at
eight to-night--don't forget, the street of the Alcazar," and with a
salute he left us.

The sentinels at the door "handled" their arms as we ascended the
flight of marble steps which led to the door of the captain general's
palace.

"The last general officer with whom I had the honour of an interview
was old Towler, of the Kilkenny district," said Slingsby; "I have no
idea what manner of man our Spaniard may be."

As the interview with the captain-general and all the various pros
and cons thereanent--as a Scotsman would say--may have appeared
already among the public intelligence of "our own correspondent," who
most likely was not in Seville, and knew nothing about the matter, I
will only state that we were received with great urbanity and
politeness by the Spanish officer who held the important post of
Governor of the four kingdoms.  He was a fine old cavalier, and in
earlier years had served in the Peninsular war; he told us that he
had commanded a regiment under Cuesta; a brigade of Cazadores under
Hill, and a division under Murillo; that he had been wounded at
Vittoria in attacking the heights of La Puebla, and had received the
Grand Cross of the Bath from the hand of the Duke of Wellington, and
latterly the Order of Carlos III., which devoted him "to the pure
conception of the blessed Virgin Mary," from the Queen and the
Patriarch of the Indies, at the solemn chapter held in 1853.  The old
fellow's eyes kindled with pleasure as he invited us to lunch, and to
share with him a bottle of choice Valdepenas, saying that he loved
the sight of the red coat for the memory of the olden time that would
never come again--the poor red coats--he had often seen them lying
thick enough on many a Spanish plain, and in many a crumbling breach
and trench--at Badajoz, at Ciudad Rodrigo, San Sebastian and Tarifa.

Here, at least, was one noble old Spanish soldier--one true
cavalier--whose lively recollection of those great campaigns (which
are second to none the world has seen) and whose sense of what his
country owed to ours, formed a strong contrast to that cold
ingratitude which desecrated the tomb of the Scottish hero of
Corunna, and ploughed up the graves of our brave men, who were buried
in the little field beneath the ramparts of Tarifa; and for the
repose of whose bones our Government had to pay a sum to Spain.

We received from him a letter to the Governor of Gibraltar, stating
that our explanations of the affair of the guarda costa had perfectly
satisfied him; and on our rising to retire he made us an offer of a
cavalry escort as far as San Roque, which lies within a few miles of
our garrison; but being aware that we should be obliged to maintain
both the horses and the men, and to make them a handsome donation at
parting, I declined, saying that we had an idea of returning by San
Lucar de Barameda, and would there take the steamer for Gibraltar.

"But remember there is that restless gentleman, Don Fabrique de
Urquija," said the general, smiling; "he makes the roads very unsafe,
and does not hesitate to commit such outrages as have not been known
in the land since Marshal Massena marched through it."

We assured him of our being without fear in the matter; on which he
laughed, saying that he knew "los Brittanicos, of old, and that, like
our fathers who fought under Wellington, Hill, and Grahame, we also
were without fear," and we parted, highly flattered and delighted by
our interview with this old Castilian hidalgo.

We lounged long in the Alameda, where the notice our uniform
attracted was rather an annoyance.  After dining at the hotel and
making the most of our costume that our light marching order would
admit, we appeared at the door of Donna Dominga's residence in the
Calle del Alcazar, just as the cathedral clock struck eight; for the
Spaniards are too well bred to esteem any one the more for being late
at a conversazione, for such is a tertulia in fact and in effect.

A number of sedans, borne by servants in livery, were standing about
the steps of the mansion; and the links and torches flared on the
coats of arms that decorated the panels and the collars of Santiago
and Calatrava which surrounded them.  Various long-visaged and
spindle-shanked representatives of the pure did blood of los Cuatros
Reinos, untainted by the stain of Moor, or Jew, or heretic, were
stalking through the vestibule with due gravity and grandeur.

We were ushered forward by one servant, and were announced by another
on entering the saloon, where our old friend Donna Dominga sat with
fan and snuff-box in hand receiving her guests; and as her son had
prepared her for our visit, she was in a prodigious flutter, with her
fat round face forming the apex of a pyramid of black satin and black
Cadiz lace; for her veil, which was of the finest texture, fell over
all her person.

By her side sat the pretty Paulina on a rich low tabourette,
gracefully as a Spanish lady sits at mass, or a Moorish maiden on her
little carpet, for it is from their Arabian conquerors that the low
seats of the Spanish dames are borrowed.

The major, who wore the blue uniform and massive silver epaulettes of
"the noble Regiment of St. Anthony," and who had the order of St.
John of Portugal on his breast, hurried forward to meet and to
present us.  Then the younger donna blushed crimson, while the elder
wished very much to do so too, and dropping her eyelids, fanned
herself, and affected to be much agitated.  We bowed very low and
then stepped back, as it is not the custom in Spain to shake hands.
After a few of those complimentary remarks and those commonplaces,
which are customary in every country, we should have withdrawn a
little to make way for other tertulianos, had not Donna Dominga
especially invited us to remain beside her; and while the
presentation continued, and all that were noble (being rich or
beautiful went for nought in Seville) appeared in succession, and
while caballeros and grave and solemn hidalgos, with the red cross of
Calatrava, and the little sword of San Jago dangling at their
button-holes, advanced slowly, and with a faint smile and courtly bow
laid a hand on their heart and lisped the usual and invariable "A los
pies de usted, señoras" (I am at your feet, ladies), and then
retired; I was chatting gaily with Paulina, who had now become more
assured, and who overwhelmed me with a thousand inquiries about
Gibraltar and her friends.  Meantime that rogue Jack Slingsby poured
into her mother's ear pretended messages from MacLeechy, our
doctor--messages so tender and so pitiful that the old lady relented
and forgave him being married, saying it was "his misfortune, not his
fault, poor man;" Jack asserted his belief that the doctor was quite
of her opinion; and then the bulbous-shaped fair one made a vigorous
use of her fan and snuff-box, as she conjured up the image of the
"gay deceiver."

The saloon was a large apartment; the floor was of polished oak, and
was varnished until it shone like glass; the ceiling was of cedar,
and divided into deep, dark panels; the walls were painted white, and
were hung with several dusky pictures, principally of religious
subjects; one of these was by Roelas; another by Murillo, and both
had narrowly escaped abstraction by the French, during the War of
Independence, for Messrs. Soult, Suchet, and Co., made everything
march over the Pyrenees that was neither too hot nor too heavy.

Our garrison evening parties in Gibraltar had shown Donna Dominga
that considerable improvements might be made upon the solemn gravity
of the Spanish tertulia; thus the company were pressed to stay longer
than usual in honour of us; we had a few airs on the piano--a very
antique instrument, said to have been found among Joseph's baggage at
Vittoria, and in no way calculated to give full effect to the
compositions of Donizetti, Verdi, or Orsini, which Paulina and her
companions attempted to give us; but then they had their guitars, and
the lively songs of old Spain, and legendary ballads of the brave
Avalos of the Ronda, which if destitute of science, had at least the
merit of being full of music and melody.

Every sound was hushed as Paulina sang the song which was wont to
turn the heads of half Her Majesty's garrison.

  "Since for kissing thee, Minguillo,
    Mother's ever scolding me;
  Give me swiftly back, O dear one,
    Give the kiss I gave to thee!"


Either by chance, or an irresistible inclination, our eyes met just
as she sang these very tender and pointed words, and a soft tinge
shot over her pure white cheek.  My own heart filled with a tumult of
emotion, for the aspect of this noble Spanish girl, as she sat on the
low tabourette, in an attitude full of grace, with her high proud
head and the long veil of black lace that fell from it over her back
and shoulders, was so bewildering, that I felt convinced my peace of
mind would require an explanation with her before my bantering mentor
and I turned our horses' heads once more towards Gibraltar.

We had now a little waltzing, and a quadrille or two, with plenty of
groseille and fleur d'orange.

I had a thousand things to tell Paulina; but when she was the centre
of almost every eye in the room, it was no easy matter to be tender;
besides, whenever I looked round, the comical eye of Jack Slingsby,
with a glass stuck in it, was sure to meet mine; for whatever he was
about, in the waltz, the quadrille, in a quiet two-handed flirtation
(which, by the way, made the old hidalgos of Seville, who are not
wont to tolerate such things, shrug their shoulders and elevate their
eyebrows) in the middle of a tender speech, when handing fleur
d'orange, restoring a fallen fan, or reclasping a bracelet, he seemed
to watch all my proceedings with a species of amused interest--so
that nothing passed between Paulina and me but the merest
commonplaces.

"The moment so ardently wished for has arrived at last," thought I;
"she is beside me, and I have not one word of interest for her."

"And you leave Seville to-morrow?" said she, to break an awkward
pause.

"No, señora, in two days."

"A short visit--there are so many things to see here.  There is the
great tower of Cabildo with its enchanted weathercock, a Pallas with
a standard which always indicates the quarter from which an enemy is
approaching Seville."

"Ah--yes; I remember in the adventure of Don Quixotte with the Knight
of the Wood, the latter boasts, that among other deeds done in honour
of his mistress, he 'had challenged the famous fighting giantess, La
Giralda of Seville, who is strong and undaunted as one who is made of
brass.'"

"And who without changing place is the most inconstant woman in the
world.  Oh, Don Quixotte, he is charming!  And then in Seville we
have the letters of Francisco Pizzaro, of Columbus and the valiant
Hernan Cortes; and more than all, we have the cathedral with its
Puerta de Perdon, which was the work of a Moorish necromancer, and
was all built by a spell between the night and morning.  In two days
you can never see all these things."

"Your own presence, Donna Paulina, is more than enough to detain me
here for ever."

"Then why go so soon?" she asked, with her pretty Spanish lisp, while
her long lashes drooped.

"Go I must, señora, for, being a soldier, I have nothing to urge;
but----"

"But what?"

"The stern necessity of obedience."

"Ay de mi!" said she, gazing fully and honestly at me; "I am so sorry
to hear all this."

"I am full of gratitude to hear you say so, señora; but there is no
remedy."

"Señor," said she, smiling, "para todo hay remedio sino para la
muerte."

"True, there is a remedy for everything but death, it is a good old
Spanish proverb," said I; "but is not absence from those we love but
a living death? so when I am far from Seville I shall have but the
memory of one most beautiful face, and one bright happy night."

"Take this rose," said she, disengaging one from her bouquet; "it
will be a memento, though a small one."

"Thanks, señora; but the rose will wither and fade."

"So will the memory of the beautiful face and the one happy night,"
said she, with a winning smile.

"Never, never Paulina--you are so charming--so gentle and so good,
that----"

"Hush, Dios Mio! the people are observing us, and--but ave Maria
purissima! what is the matter with my mother?"

During this brief conversation, the servant Pedrillo had delivered a
note to Donna Dominga, who, on hurriedly glancing at its contents,
uttered a faint cry and fell upon the sofa, where all the ladies
crowded in an excited manner round her.  Don Joaquim snatched up the
letter and read it with flaming eyes.

"What, in Heaven's name, is the matter?" I asked, pressing forward.

"A letter has come from the captain of the guarda costa, stating that
the son of Donna Dominga, his lieutenant, had been killed by a shot
from the garrison of Gibraltar," said Slingsby, in a rapid whisper.
"The absence of the captain general at Jaen prevented the Sevillanos
from learning that the person slain was a townsman.  I find we are in
a mess here, and think we had better be off, my boy."

Though Spain had a post-office in those days when James III. of
Scotland was fighting the battles of the people against his
traitorous nobility, and when the brutal Henry of England was
murdering his wives and burning Catholics and Protestants together at
Smithfield, she has so far receded in the arts of peace that this
unfortunate letter had been all these many weeks in finding its way
from the sea port of Malaga to Seville.

Don Joaquim now said something to Paulina, who turned upon us with
eyes full of grief and dismay.

"'T is my brother Hernan you have slain," she exclaimed, in tones
that went through me like a sword; "O madre mia, madre mia! they have
murdered our dear, dear Hernan!" and she threw herself beside her
mother.

"Yes, señores," said Don Joaquim, folding up the letter with an air
of sombre ferocity; "her accusation is right, you have heard her; 't
is my brother Don Hernan who was killed by your accursed shot from
the mole fort of Gibraltar,--Hernan, lieutenant of the guarda costa,
and this letter is from his captain, detailing the circumstances of
that outrage on the Spanish flag--an outrage of which I have heard so
much since I left Portugal; but which I little thought--O Dios Mio!
how little indeed, that it would bring such sorrow to my own house,
and to hearts to me so dear.  My poor boy brother, Hernan!  So,
señores, you it is, who were the perpetrators of this foul act?  Fit
men you were, and proper too, to detail it to our blockhead of a
captain general, who was worshipping an old rag at Jaen, when he
should have been seeking vengeance at Madrid.  But look ye, señores,
I'll have it, sure and deep, and as certainly as there is a saint in
heaven, sure as my name is Joaquim de Lucena of the regiment of
Lagos!"

"Mueran los gabachos--death to the miscreants!" growled a number of
voices, and I laid a hand on my sword.  It was a natural impulse.

The ladies clustered like a brood of terrified doves round Donna
Dominga and her daughter; the gentlemen drew round her son; Slingsby
and I were left together in the middle of the large saloon.

"A pleasant predicament this!" said Jack, shrugging his shoulders:
"Ramble, I think we had better retire."

"To remain is useless, for these people are alike past listening to
explanation or apology," I replied; and with an emotion of
mortification and sorrow, which the reader may easily imagine, we
took up our swords, made a profound bow to this ungracious company
(none of whom responded), and quitted the house.

"Awful business this," said Jack, "is it not, Dick
Ramble?--speak--have you lost your tongue?"

"A strange combination of unfortunate circumstances!  To find
ourselves the honoured guests of the very woman whose son we slew!
In what light will Paulina view us, and Don Joaquim too?"

"As an officer he ought to be aware that we did but our duty," urged
poor Jack, who felt himself the most guilty party; "but I did not
half like the expression of his eyes as we left the saloon."

"How?"

"I read in them more of hatred and malice, than of horror for the
event, or natural grief for his brother's fate."

"You think so?"

"I am sure of it!"

"Well, the man is a Spaniard."

"And being so, will not let us off easily."

"We shall have a message from him in the morning, challenging us both
to fight, you think?" said I.

"Not at all; your Spaniards don't fight duels; he will lay some
desperate snare for us between this and San Roque; so, depend upon
it, the sooner we make ourselves scarce in Seville the better.  But
here is the hotel--for Heaven's sake let us have some iced champagne,
for this horrid business has made me as thirsty as if I had crossed a
whole county in the hottest hunting season."

I must own that though I was pretty well assured of the truth of
Jack's surmises and suspicions, fear for my own safety was quite a
secondary emotion to my sincere sorrow for the bereavement we had
occasioned to poor old Donna Dominga and the lively Paulina.  As for
that stormy fellow Joaquim, I felt no compunction for him in the
least; his grief was too noisy, and his sudden hostility too deep to
leave much room for natural sorrow; and so, while surmising,
considering, revolving, and talking the matter threadbare, we
finished several bottles of champagne; through the medium of these we
easily came to the conclusion that we were the most injured parties;
that we had been grossly insulted somehow, over night--that the usual
satisfaction was necessary; and then we retired to bed in a state of
just and proper indignation at the malevolent threats of Don Joaquim
and his friends, to whom the affair formed a notable subject for
discussion at those morning meetings, which are so dearly prized by
the Spaniards, who then debate everything from a ballet girl's ancle
to a rising in Catalonia; and for these gossips, the place of
rendezvous in Seville is the Plaza de San Domingo.




CHAPTER X.

DON FABRIQUE.

We were awake betimes in the morning, and breakfasted early, in the
true Spanish style, on good stiff chocolate with fried eggs, purple
wine, and snow-white bread; but no hostile message came from Don
Joaquim.  The hours stole on, and the sunlit streets threw the
shadows of their picturesque façades against each other.  The events
of the last night, and their probable consequences, had given us a
decided distaste for prowling about the streets of Seville.  We were
both somewhat thoughtful, and said little, or conferred only on the
nearest route by which we could reach Gibraltar, in coming from
which, we had made somewhat of a détour; and Jack hinted that we
should probably have some more brawls with alcaldes, rows at posadas,
skirmishes with banditos, and other pleasant adventures, before we
reported ourselves "as just arrived" at head quarters.

"A letter for El Señor Capitano Don Ricardo," said the waiter,
approaching.

"A letter for you, Dick," said Slingsby.

"So it has come at last," said I, breaking the seal.

"Will it be an affair of knives or pistols?"

"Hush!" said I, as the waiter retired.

"Slugs in a saw-pit, and all that sort of thing--a triangular duel,
eh?  But an officer should have brought it."

"Yes, had it been that for which you seem so very anxious."

"Anxious! not I, believe me."

"Well, this is from a lady."

"The deuce--you quite interest me.  I can perceive that it is penned
on pink paper, a little flourished, but without signature.  It is
from Paulina, poor girl!  I can imagine her writing it, and as Byron
says--

  "'How tremulously gentle, her small hand--'"


"How can you run on thus?" I asked, imploringly.  "Fie upon you,
Jack, after all the misery we have wrought to these poor people."

"Well, perhaps you are right and I am wrong.  I beg pardon; but the
letter--what is it about?"

"Only the safety of our lives."

"Our lives--indeed--how so?"

"Read it."

The note ran thus:--


"SENOR DON RICARDO.

"In the name of the Blessed Mother of God, I implore you and your
friend to leave Seville on receipt of this, and to take the nearest
road for San Lucar de Barameda, where you can reach a steamer, which
sails direct for Gibraltar.  Don Joaquim vows to have a terrible
revenge for the death of our dear brother Hernan; and, last night,
was seen in conference with Fabrique de Urquija on the old Alameda.
The road you came will be beset--his band are, doubtless, now in hire
to waylay you.  El santo de los Santos, forgive you the misery you
have caused to those who never wronged you, and may it deliver you
from the snares of death that lie in your homeward path."


"More melodramatic than pleasant," said Jack.

"It is from Paulina, no doubt.--how considerate!"

"Kind and gentle too," added Jack.  "Well, all things duly
considered, I think we should take her advice--mount, and be off."

"Poor--poor Paulina!"

"Deuce take it, Dick, don't be faint-hearted.  'T will be all one
when the route comes for the Crimea, and sell or sail is the word."

"Not among "Ours," I hope."

"The San Lucar road be it."

"Then the sooner we leave the better, for we have much to lose and
nothing to gain by lingering here."

"For there is neither law, justice, nor honour among these
Spaniards," said Slingsby, making a smart application to the
bell-rope.

"What! you say so in the face of this charming letter?"

"Charming, indeed, to be told that a captain of robbers--a
picturesque ruffian in a steeple-crowned hat and red garters, has
been bribed to cut your throat--to 'do' for you in the flower of your
youth for a hundred pistoles."

The letter raised a glow of sad, of kind, and regretful emotions
within me; but I stifled them all, and, calling for the bill, settled
with the landlord in person.

"What manner of magistrates have you here in Seville?" asked the
unwary Jack.

"How, señor?"

"When they permit thieves to prowl about your streets at night."

"Thieves, señor--Ave Maria!"

"Yes, thieves, señor patron.  Fabrique de Urquija was on the old
Alameda last night with a well-known bravo from Portugal."

"Don Fabrique," reiterated our host, aghast at the name; "ah, he is
too great a man to be easily arrested, señor."

"Is he not a mere ladrone?"

"True, Caballero; but then his band is numerous.  Yes, señor; Ave
Maria purissima!--tiene con exercito de 10,000 hombres--all
determined men, and armed to the teeth."

"Ten thousand men--nonsense!  A hundred, more probably."

The host felt his veracity impugned, and he called upon all the
saints in the calendar to witness the truth of his assertions; and
while we had a decanter of wine before starting, he told us a vast
number of anecdotes, descriptive of the cruel and unscrupulous
character of the so-called Don Fabrique.  Two of these occurred to me
as being peculiarly diabolical in their nature.

On one occasion he plundered the house of a wealthy merchant near
Estephana, a town on the Grenada coast; and because the unfortunate
proprietor would not yield up the alleged treasures of his strong
box, and sign bills on his bankers in Seville, Fabrique snatched up a
camphine lamp from a marble side-table, and, with a dreadful oath,
poured the contents over the hair and whiskers of his prisoner.  He
then deliberately applied a lighted candle thereto, and in a moment
the whole face and head of the miserable man were enveloped in
flames.  His skull was roasted like a large castano, and he died in
great misery--his head being literally burned off!

Another amiable little trait of Don Fabrique was the strange way he
took to remove his predecessor from the command of the troop.  This
was a rough old guerilla, who in his youth had fought in the
campaigns of Wellington, under Don Julian Sanchez, the famous Captain
Harelip, as our soldiers named him, and latterly in the service of
the Carlists, under the banished Conde de Morella.

The robber captain--Gomes el Guerilla--having incurred the animosity
of Fabrique, that worthy procured some gun-cotton (which our patron
believed to be a preparation by the devil himself), from a
drug-chest, when investigating the shop of a botarico (apothecary) at
Castellar; and some of this he placed in the folds of Gomes'
neckcloth in the night, and for three days the old and unsuspecting
sinner wore this dreadful thing under his well-bearded chin.  On the
third, Fabrique, who began to lose patience, and vow to have
vengeance on the botarico, said, "Come, señor, let us make up a
little cigar;" so the cigar was made, and they proceeded to smoke,
until some sparks fell on the breast of the old guerilla; and then,
Madre de Dios! there was a dreadful flash and explosion like that of
a cannon; and to the consternation of all his band, the head of Gomes
was blown right off his shoulders, and not a vestige of it was ever
seen again.

"The noble Caballeros," continued our host, "have no doubt heard of
the great robber-chief, Manuel de Cordova, who in January, 1853,
killed the commandant of the civic guard of Bute?"

"No."

"He was betrayed by Don Fabrique, and shot to death by a platoon of
infantry, in the Plaza of Cordova.  Oh, señor, the saints deliver us
from the devil and Don Fabrique!"

"So say I," added Jack, as the landlord left us, and thus, being
impressed alike by these communications and that of Donna Paulina, we
resolved to change our route and avoid this formidable personage who
took such an interest in our proceedings.

To deceive any person who might be watching about the hotel, or be
bribed by Fabrique, or the major, we made particular inquiries of the
patron, the waiters, and stable-boys concerning the road to Gibraltar
by the way of Puerto Serrano; and having, as Jack said, "completely
thrown dust in their eyes," we took the route to San Lucar and left
Seville at a rapid trot about an hour after noon, pausing only to
give a peseta to a poor Franciscan who begged from us at the city
gate.

I looked back to Seville as we galloped away.

The tower of La Giralda and all its spires were sinking in the sunny
haze and lessening in the distance.

"So ends an intimacy that might have ripened into something better,"
thought I.




CHAPTER XI.

THE RATERILLO.

Passing Coria del Rio, a little province and partido, after a twenty
miles' ride we halted to dine at Lebrija, which is so famed for its
oil of olives, and there we got some prime Xeres, which bore the
private mark of the señores Gonzalez and Dubose, the famous wine
merchants; and now we enjoyed the hope that our acquaintance Fabrique
de Urquija and his "ten thousand hombres" (or whatever their number
might be) were sunning themselves on the mountains, and lying in wait
for us on the dusty road by Puerto Serrano; and any anxiety we might
have felt to reach the coast unmolested began to lessen when we set
forth again, while the evening sun was verging towards the western
sierras of the province, and pursuing an old and narrow path, so old
that perhaps the Christian knights of King Ferdinand might have
traversed it to battle with the Emirs of Granada, of Seville, and
Cordova, we rode on, amid varied scenery, where luxuriant creepers
almost veiled the granite rocks like natural curtains, where large
fields of maize surrounded ancient villages left ruined and roofless
in the late civil wars, where herds of half wild cattle browsed on
the green mountain slope; where the dead man's cross, the wayside
chapel, the groves of cork, of olive or orange trees bordered the
devious path, and the shattered atalaya that whilome watched the
frontiers of Mohammed of Cadiz, towered over all, a landmark to the
Guadalquiver.

Charmed by the scenery, we allowed the reins to fall on the necks of
our horses, and careless as to whether or not we found quarters for
the night in an olive wood or in Trohniona, which we were now
approaching, and the little spire of which we saw peeping above its
bright green groves and tipped with a fiery gleam, we rode on slowly
until near a well which flowed into a stone basin, under a rude
representation of our Lady of Assistance--a wayside chapel, in
fact--a turn of the path brought us suddenly upon two armed
Spaniards, who were seated on the sward playing with cards in the
twilight, for the time was evening now.

One of these, by his gay attire, his embroidered jacket with its
silver clasps, his sash of red and yellow stripes and his velvet hat,
as well as by the horse which stood near him, well laden with
packages, and having a long gun slung at its demipique saddle, I
perceived to be a professed smuggler; and on our nearer approach we
both recognised our old friend Pedro el Contrabandista, who supplied
our mess with cigars, and whose unlucky pursuit by the guarda costa
had been the source of so much travelling, turmoil, and inquiry to
Slingsby and to myself.

There was no mistaking the other as a raterillo--that is, "a little
rat," or pickpocket, on whose cloth the regular armed bandit who robs
convoys, fights the carabineros, and burns a village occasionally,
looks down as the line do on the militia, or as the militia do on the
yeomanry.  The only weapon of the raterillo is his knife, and perhaps
a concealed pistol.  Polite almost to servility to the armed man, the
raterillo is usually a bully to the peaceable, and to those who are
too poor to carry that long musket which is the constant companion of
the provincial Spaniard.

He doffed his threadbare sombrero and bowed with great humility as we
reined up beside them to greet honest Pedro, who received us with a
hearty shout of welcome.

"Well, amigo mio," said I, "we were not aware that you did business
by land as well as by sea."

"True, señor, I should have been a woman, for I am never constant to
anything; I am glad to meet two noble cavaliers of the garrison
travelling here--but why so far from Gibraltar, and without an
escort?"

"All owing to you, Pedro, my valiant contrabandista, and your
troublesome affairs."

"Pardon, señor, I do not comprehend."

"That devilish shot from the Mole fort."

"Oh, yes--ha, ha! it cut in two halves Don Hernan de Lucena, and
enabled me to run my little felucca safe into Gibraltar--eh."

"Yes, but we had to visit the captain general at Seville, and to
explain the affair to him in person.  So we are here."

"On your way back."

"Exactly so."

"I owe you a thousand thanks for that little piece of attention from
the Mole fort, señores; but for that, I should now, perhaps, have
been chained to an oar in the Queen's galleys at Barcelona, for I was
as sure of being taken as there is a saint in heaven.  Well, señores,
we shall sup together to-night at Trohniona--see, yonder is its spire
shining like a red star in the sunset; I have my guitar, and shall
sing to you the newest seguidilla and some jovial romances about the
Granadine Moors, the Castilian Caballeros, or the Carlists, and
enchanters; but, meantime, I must finish a game to which I was
challenged by this traveller, on whom I shall have, proper revenge,
for he has already won from me forty duros; and you the while will do
me the favour to accept some of my best cigars."

There was no resisting this jolly contrabandista; so, as we had
before arranged to halt for the night at Trohniona, we were the
better for the companionship of another man, who knew the country,
and was doubtless a favourite with the people, and who, moreover, was
well armed, stout, and determined.  We watched the game between him
and the raterillo, who won dollar after dollar with a facility that
soon left no doubt whatever in our minds that he was cheating poor
Pedro, so Jack and I exchanged frequent glances.

"Whose cards are these?" I asked.

"The señor travalero's," said Pedro, "and I begin to think he knows
the backs better than the fronts of them."

The raterillo, whose quick eyes rolled in a restless manner, laughed
as he pocketed three other duros of Pedro, who began to lose all
patience and to flush, while a dark gleam shot over his eyes; and on
detecting in his adversary some real or suspected piece of foul play,
he dashed the cards full in his face, crying,--

"You are a rogue and a thief--a pitiful little rat, and if you do not
yield back every peseta you have won, 'por el nombre de Dios,' I will
be at you with my Albacete knife!"

"Then the knife be it," retorted the raterillo, crushing his
well-worn hat over his eye-brows; "shall we have our feet tied
together?"

"No, we shall fight it out on the grass, and I will have your black
blood and my hard-won dollars together," cried Pedro, who was choking
with sudden passion; and quick almost as thought, they confronted
each other, their dark faces contorted by ferocity, their eyes
flashing fire, their feet planted on the turf, their bodies bent
forward ready to spring, and their cuchillos held firmly in the right
hand, the thumb being pressed upon the blade in such a manner as to
enable them to stab or to cut with equal facility.

Several blows had been given and skilfully eluded before Jack and I,
who had drawn our swords, could dismount and interfere; but just as
we pressed in between them, at the peril of our lives, we heard a
cheer like a yell ringing in the hollow, and saw a crowd of armed men
rushing down the sloping banks which bordered the road-way.

"Ladrones--ladrones--fly, señores!" cried Pedro, as he leaped on his
horse and dashed at full speed towards Trohniona, followed by several
musket-bullets, while the raterillo vanished in the twilight as if
the earth had swallowed him up.

In a moment we were surrounded by a crowd of armed banditti--oh,
there was no mistaking them!--I was collared and pinioned just as my
foot was in the stirrup, and poor Jack Slingsby was knocked off his
horse by the butt-end of a long Spanish gun; our swords and
revolvers, our watches, rings, purses, and cigar-cases; our horses
and valises, all in a moment became the spoil of the Egyptians, and
we found ourselves prisoners at the mercy of--Fabrique de Urquija!




CHAPTER XII.

LA RIO DE MUERTE.

Dark-visaged and black-bearded, with long sable hair hanging over
their collars from under their battered sombreros, or gathered up in
net-work cauls, the robbers presented every picturesque variety of
Spanish costume.  Some wore jackets of black or olive-coloured
velvet, richly covered with needlework on the breast and seams; their
waists were girt by bright-coloured sashes, and their legs encased in
velvet small-clothes and leathern gaiters; while others were sans
shirts and sans shoes; scantily attired in rough zamarras of
sheepskin, with tattered breeches--their brawny legs and muscular
chests being bare.  All were well armed with muskets, Albacete
knives, and pistols, and all were ferocious, resolute, and reckless
alike in spirit and in aspect.  A glance showed me all this, as we
were dragged by them through an olive thicket, where, upon the
prostrate column of some old Roman temple, we found their leader
seated.

The moon had now risen brightly above the mountains, and in the
sashed and armed figure before me, with a jacket glittering with
embroidery, his carbine resting in the hollow of his right arm, I
recognised our former acquaintance whom we had met by the wayside
between Castellar and Estrelo, and with whom we were hobbing and
nobbing over a cigar and bota, when poor sister St. Veronica came to
ask alms of us.

The cruelties of which, on that occasion, he had so freely avowed
himself guilty, and those other traits of character, such as the
affair of the camphine lamp and the neckcloth so pleasantly padded
with guncotton, occurred to us; and I must own, that when we found
ourselves bound as prisoners and confronting the cold, stern and
impassible visage of this celebrated Spanish outlaw, a restless
anxiety made our hearts throb with new and undefined emotions.  In
all things his bearing and disposition were similar to those of his
friend* whom he betrayed in 1853, and whose atrocities have been
published, like his own, at length in the columns of the "Heraldo de
Madrid."  Neither Slingsby nor I had ever been in such a desperate
predicament before, as the reader may easily conceive; thus we could
scarcely realise it, and, naturally enough, indignation was uppermost
in our minds.


* Francisco Manuel de Cordova.


The intellectual part of Fabrique's face, though exceedingly
handsome, was immovable as that of a statue, his two black eyes
remained fixedly regarding us, and even when his bearded mouth
relaxed into a grim smile, one-half of his face remained unmoved.  He
seemed calm and pale in the white moon-light--but the cicatrised
wound which traversed his cheek was of a deep and dusky red.

"Well, señor," said I, briskly, "are you fully prepared to answer for
the attack you have made upon us?"

"Answer," he reiterated, with something between a frown and
disdainful smile; "to whom?"

"The captain general of Andalusia."

"I have so many things to answer for already to that illustrious
Caballero of Seville, that he will be very apt to forget your little
affair among others."

"But the Governor of Her Brittanic Majesty's garrison at Gibraltar
will refresh both his memory and yours, rascal!" said poor Slingsby,
whose face was streaming with blood.

"Stuff, señores.  Our Lady Donna Isabella II. alone is Queen of
Gibraltar, whatever you may believe to the contrary."

"Then there is our ambassador at Madrid," said I, swelling with
passion.

"Let the Señor Embajador come hither to seek you, if he chooses,"
replied Fabrique, with a scowl, while his band made the wooded hollow
ring with their laughter.

"For what reason, and with what purpose, is this outrage committed
upon us?" asked Jack, more calmly.

"The reason is here," said Fabrique, throwing up a heavy purse.
"From the noble Don Joaquim, Major in the service of the young king
Don Pedro V., I have received one thousand duros to intercept you----"

"And the purpose?"

"To avenge his brother's death."

"In what manner?"

"By taking your lives, that is all; blood for blood, you know; an eye
for an eye, a limb for a limb, and a life for a life, are law and
justice all the world over.  If my friend the blind abagado of Jaen
were here, he could not explain the law better."

Zumalacarregui, when giving a light from his own cigar to the Carlist
prisoners he was just about to shoot, could not have spoken more
coolly.

"And so, fellow, you have received a thousand duros to murder us?"
said Jack, abruptly.

"One thousand, señor," was the quiet reply.

"Conduct us to the harbour of San Lucar, and I will give you my word
of honour that two thousand shall be sent to you."

"You would not break your plighted word?"

"I would rather die!"

"Then bear in mind that I have pledged mine; and that I also would
rather die than break it.  No, señores; all the gold in Madrid would
not save you."

After a pause,--

"How came you to discover us so readily on this road?" I asked.

"Easily.  I had spies planted at every gate of Seville.  A Franciscan
begged alms of you at the Puerto of the San Lucar road."

"To whom I gave a peseta."

"'T was I."

"You!  I wish that I had recognised you then."

"Muchos gratias, señor--my own mother would not have known me.  I
took care of that, and now I shall take care of you."

"It is incredible that a companion so jovial as the Major de Lucena
could contemplate this intended atrocity," exclaimed Slingsby.

"Have you not his sister's letter here?" asked Fabrique, displaying
that little document, of which his searchers had deprived me; "you
Inglesos would doubt the holy face of Jaen, even if it were placed
before you!  I received a thousand dollars to shoot you down like
dogs or wild pigs, and here we are chattering away like so many
magpies.  Vamos alla--to the mountains--cammarados, basta!"

"We are not, then, to be shot?" I asked, as a gleam of hope
brightened before me.

"No," said he, with an icy smile, as his dark fierce face came close
to mine, like that of a handsome spectre in the moonlight and as the
whole band began to move; "we will give you to drink of the Rio de
Muerte."

The River of Death!--our blood ran cold at these words; but no time
was left us for expostulation, as we were hurried up the hills, over
wild and furzy banks, where the laurel, the vine, and the fair yellow
paunch of the gourd grew together in luxuriance; and among rocks,
where the nimble goat browsed, and the untamed porker flew before us,
squeaking from his lair, among the aromatic plants, the long reedy
grass, the giant fern, and the broad-leaved dock.  Up, up we went,
alternately clambering, or being pushed and dragged, until we gained
the brow of a steep hill, from which we saw beneath us in the broad,
clear, liquid moonlight, the waters of the Guadalquiver winding away
between groves of the orange and the olive, to San Lucar, and in the
middle distance, but far down below us, the white houses of Trohniona
clustered round their little church.




CHAPTER XIII.

PEDRO THE CONTRABANDISTA.

After a painful and anxious hour elapsed, and we had traversed about
two miles of a steep and craggy ascent, until we reached a part of
the mountain range which was entirely covered by a little forest of
laurels.  Above us, in the dark blue sky, the moon was hanging like a
large silver globe, and the flood of clear cold light it diffused
over the distant landscape enabled us to distinguish objects with
great minuteness.  Thus I could trace the gleaming course of the
Guadalquiver, as it wound down from Seville past Borminos, the mouth
of the Guadamar, and the hills that overhang Dos Hermanos; while
other sierras in the distance undulated afar off, like the waves of a
petrified sea, if such a simile may be allowed me.  Light glinted at
times upon the river.  It came from a passing steamer.  Down there in
the valley was the civilisation of our own time; yet we were about to
perish by the hands of outlaws, whose bearing and character were
worthy of the middle ages, or the mistier time that lies beyond them.

Jack Slingsby and I had scarcely spoken during our steep and rapid
clamber, but our thoughts were the same; anxiety--intense
anxiety--for our fate; repugnance for our captors, and a natural
horror of dying a barbarous death at their hands, on these remote and
lonely mountains; far from help, far from justice and from
civilisation; a death, of which our friends, our relations, and our
comrades would never hear--would never know; for our fate would
become a mystery, which all the captains general, the ambassadors,
the chargés des affaires, and even the correspondents of the "Times"
would be unable to clear up or unravel,--as it was the purpose of
these wretches, whose prey we had become, to hide for ever our
remains, and the very means of our death, as completely as if we had
been flung into Mount Etna.

In this sequestered part of the mountain chain, hidden among the
thickly-twined laurels, the wild and straggling vines, and the
densely-matted jungle of gourds, and other luxuriant creepers, there
suddenly yawned a chasm in the granite rocks--a black profundity of
unknown depth.  The gaping rent was about twenty feet broad by some
hundred in length, but its mouth was greatly diminished by the
bordering foliage and wild plants that overhung it.  Far down,
perhaps five hundred feet below (for the bottom was unseen), there
rolled with a deep, hoarse, roaring sound the Rio de Muerte--the
River of Death--a subterranean tributary of the Guadalquiver; and its
strange and hollow voice as it gurgled, surged, and bellowed through
the clefts and fissures in the heart of the mountains, filled me with
a pang of horror.  Here we paused, and our captors muttered one to
another under their thick beards, smoked their paper cigaritos, and
leaned leisurely on their short escapetas, or long-barrelled muskets,
and seemed to await the approach of Fabrique de Urquija, who was some
yards behind us, and came up very much at his ease.

"My God!" said my friend, "if it be their purpose to--to----"

"To throw us down there, you would say?  My dear Slingsby, such seems
indeed to be their dreadful purpose, and I see here but little hope
of mercy or of charity, where bribes greater than those of that
infamous major have failed before a savage idea of honour and the
fulfilment of a villanous trust."

"Heaven help us!"

"If these are not your prayers, señores," said one fellow in Spanish,
with a slight Murcian accent, "you had better betake yourselves to
them, for in less than ten minutes you will be at the bottom of this
terrible place, and be swept through the bowels of the mountain
towards the Guadalquiver."

The man spoke gently and with some emotion; it was evident that his
dreadful life had not yet obliterated every remnant of civilisation
and humanity.  There was, moreover, something terribly impressive in
his words, when heard amid the hoarse rush of that deep and
subterranean torrent, whose waters came we knew not from where, and
traversed depths and caverns, of which we could have no conception,
in their way to the valley below.

There was a refined cruelty in bringing us to such a place, and to
die such a death; for the mind "shrunk back upon itself and
trembled," when contemplating the dark profundity through which this
mysterious torrent poured.

"Pray, good señores, pray," said this man, kindly again, as he
touched me on the shoulder, "down upon your knees, for here comes the
capitano, and he never tarries with his prisoners on the brink of the
Rio de Muerte, or the Cima de Cabra."

"What does the fellow say?" asked poor Slingsby, who looked a little
pale, and whose nether lip was tightly clenched.

"He bids us lose no time, but to pray."

"Pray!" reiterated Jack, fiercely; "I pray to Heaven only that my
hands were loose for one moment, that I might strike a blow for life
or for revenge."

"Threats are absurd, señor," said Fabrique de Urquija, throwing the
end of his cigar with perfect deliberation into the chasm that yawned
before us: "and bribes are alike useless----"

"Can it be, brave Spaniards," said I, becoming desperate, and
encouraged by the evident sympathy of one to endeavour to soften the
rest; "can it be that you will prove so cruel and so merciless to two
unoffending strangers, who----"

"Silence, señores!" exclaimed Fabrique, in a voice of thunder, while
drawing a pistol from his belt; "in attempting to tamper with my
followers you but anticipate your fate.  Iago Pineda--Stephano el
Corcovado, over with them! dost thou hear me? presto! or by the
mother of God, this bullet shall see the brains of some of you."

He ground his teeth; his eyes shot fire, and his broad nostrils
seemed to dilate as he gave this savage order.

Stephano the humpbacked, and the other who was named Iago Pineda, and
who was no other than our sympathetic friend, threw down their
escopetas and grasped me.  They were powerful and muscular men--aye,
men of iron frames and iron hearts, and a sickening emotion rose
within me as their hands were roughly laid upon my pinioned arms.
The moonlit mountains and the far-stretching Vega swam around me; the
forms of our murderers were multiplied a thousandfold; the
perspiration fell heavily from my brow, and a half-arrested cry to
Heaven for that pity which men denied us here, arose to my lips as
they were about to hurl me downward; when, lo!  Pineda paused, looked
back, and listening, relinquished my right arm.

"Do you think, do you dare to disobey?" cried Fabrique, as he
levelled a brass-barrelled pistol full at his head; "to work at once,
vile mutineer, or por vida del demonic----"

"Hold--para--detenedos!" cried a breathless voice, and a man mounted
on horseback, and armed with a long gun, dashed his jennet at full
speed through the laurel bushes into the midst of the free company.

"Who cries hold?" demanded Fabrique, almost choking with passion,
while turning his pistol against the intruder; and all his people
cocked or clubbed their muskets in high alarm.

"I do--I, your brother Pedro the contrabandista."

"Oho, and what seek you here?"

"The safety of these two Caballeros, who at Gibraltar saved me from
the guarda costa of Hernan de Lucena in the first place, and from the
chain and the scourge in Her Majesty's galleys in the second place."

"How! was it you, brother Pedro, whose felucca was concerned in this
business?" asked Fabrique, with an altered voice.

"Yes, Fabrique, it was my little craft, La Buena Fortuna, which the
Lieutenant De Lucena pursued till a shot from the Mole fort shortened
him by two feet.  I claim their lives, for they are my friends and
patrons, and would have supped with me to-night at Trohniona had not
your devilish fellows came upon us like a herd of wild cats, just
when I was kicking and cuffing yonder rascally raterillo, who has
made off with all my dollars.  So I fled from the wayside-well, for I
knew not whose free company your lads had the honour to be, and
feared they might relieve me alike of life and all care for my
packages."

Jack and I now began to breathe a little more freely; for as all this
took place in less time than I have taken to write it, there was some
difficulty in realising the conviction that we had been waylaid,
doomed to death and saved, with such rapidity: yet so it was, and so
ended the scene of that night to which I can never recur without a
chill of awe and horror, blended with a very decided sensation of
anger and just indignation.

Notwithstanding the alleged solemnity with which his word was
plighted to the malevolent major of the sainted regiment of Lagos,
"in the kingdom of Algarve," Fabrique relinquished his cruel purpose,
unbound us at his brother's request, and restored to us our arms,
horses, and little baggage--everything, in short, not even excepting
the letter of poor Paulina.  He gave us cigars, a hearty quaff from
his bota, and then a bow so low that his black velvet sombrero almost
swept the dewy sward.  He then drew off with all his band towards the
Sierra de Honda, and in two hours afterwards we were comfortably
seated by the kitchen fire in the posada of Trohniona, at supper with
his brother the contrabandista, who was en route for San Lucar.

For some time after, throughout the night in which these startling
events occurred, in fancy I saw before me the cold, stern visage and
fierce glaring eyes of Urquija, and above all other sounds I seemed
to hear the deep hoarse rush of the subterranean Rio de Muerte.




CHAPTER XIV.

THE SPANISH STEAMER.

Whatever may have been the emotions with which we regarded the
formidable relative of our contrabandista, we spared him the
humiliation of listening to the just appreciation we had of the
character of Fabrique; and enlivened by those songs and stories with
which the honest fellow endeavoured to raise our spirits and efface
the terrible recollection of that hour upon the hills of Trohniona,
we supped upon a guisado and bottle of valdepenas.

Now I may inform the uninitiated that the aforesaid guisado was a
stew, such as can only be made in a real Spanish pipkin.  It
consisted of two chickens, a plump partridge, and a hare, well
seasoned with oil, garlic, pepper, and saffron all simmered together
When hot and steaming, the giblets, &c., are fished up from the
depths of the savoury pipkin, with just such a wooden spoon as
paunchy Sancho used, when diving therewith into his beloved
flesh-pots at the wedding of Camacho.

Supper over, and a fresh bota ordered, Pedro assumed his guitar, and
while we cleaned and examined our swords and pistols, and all the
people of the posada, the patron and patrona, the waiteresses, the
stabler, and the little half-naked muchaco who cleaned the boots and
turned the spit, crowded near, he, the jovial contrabandista, turned
his dark eyes and well-bearded visage towards the dusky wooden
ceiling, and while his swarthy cheek glowed in the light of the
kitchen fire, struck up one of those lively seguidillas which are the
delight of the Spaniards, and skilfully he brushed the strings with
his finger-points in a manner which I believe is peculiar to the
Andalusians.

A very amorous love ditty succeeded, and when the roguish eyes of
Pedro wandered knowingly from one person to another, the patrona
blushed with pleasure, and all the waiteresses simpered and spread
out their short but full-flounced skirts, or displayed their handsome
red stockings, to let their well-shaped legs be seen, as well as
their pretty zapatas; for the roving and romantic contrabandista,
whose habits are so full of life and energy, is ever a welcome guest
at the wayside inns of Spain, and to none more than their fairer
inmates.

Now Pedro's gaudy brown jacket, all covered with silver bell-buttons,
bright silken lace, and spangles; his ample breeches of gay
velveteen; his brilliant sash and broad hat placed a little over the
right eye, made him a welcome visitor to all the women, while the
stories, news, or fibs which his incessant perambulations afforded
him ample means of collecting, made him equally acceptable to the
men; thus, like other bold contrabandistas, who by sea and land set
the laws of the Cortes at defiance, Pedro was always sure of the
brightest smiles, the oldest wine in the cellar, the best fowl in the
larder, the warmest corner by the kitchen fire, and the most snug
cama in the posada, while pretty hands stroked his docile jennet, and
readier ones removed his corded packages, and placed his guitar and
loaded gun by his bedside for the night.

Pedro's songs, and the stories he told during the single night we
spent with him, would fill a volume; but the time passed rapidly
away; we were up betimes, mounted and armed to ride; and with
something of real satisfaction, Jack and I turned our backs on those
hated mountains, where a thicket of green laurels, diminished to a
black speck by the distance, indicated the locality of the Rio de
Muerte.

Trotting pleasantly, we passed Isla-mayor, which lies about twelve
miles from the mouth of the Guadalquiver, and abounds in fruit-trees,
which were then in full blossom.

By this time, Paulina, her dark eyes, and her witchery were alike
forgotten, and her little note on pink paper had been smoked away in
cigaritos.  The keen interest taken in our affairs by the major had
completely cured me; so much for Spanish romance contrasted with
Spanish reality.

"And you have decided on taking the steamer at San Lucar, señores?"
said Pedro.

"Yes, and happy shall we be to find ourselves safe on board of her,"
said I; "we have had too many devilish scrapes among you Spaniards to
wish for more travelling in the saddle.  It is no joke to escape
being hanged as a spy by a blundering alcalde one day, and a terrible
death the next by drowning, at the hands of----"

"My brother Fabrique," said he, good-humouredly, closing a sentence,
the termination of which might have proved unpleasant.  "Well,
señores, my little felucca the 'Buena Fortuna'--you know her, with
her long brass gun and lateen sails--is lying concealed in a solitary
creek near Carbonera.  I have run her in there, because a fleet--yes,
maldito--a whole fleet of guarda costas are at anchor in the harbour
of San Lucar; but we must put to sea to-morrow night, and if you will
so far honour me, Caballeros, as to accept a passage with me to
Gibraltar, the best valdepenas and the noblest Xeres that ever came
out of a madre-butt shall be at your service.  Ah, you shake your
head, Señor Don Ricardo, and think you have had enough of me and my
poor little craft----"

"Right, Pedro, and wish to have no more affairs with a guarda costa,"
said Slingsby; "besides, if you were attacked and taken at sea, after
a fight, you would fight, of course----"

"To the death, Señor, guerra al cuchillo, as the old guerillas say."

"Well--what would be our fate?"

"True, señor.  If not killed, you would be sent to the galleys at
Barcelona, and so might as well have taken a dip in the Rio de
Muerte.  Well, I will cease to urge you.  Here is the gate of
Bonanza, which may be termed the port of Seville, though the city is
fifteen leagues distant; yonder is its castle, with the Spanish flag
flying, and here is the quay, where all large vessels laden with
goods discharge their cargoes, as the shallowness of the Guadalquiver
will not permit them to ascend higher--you understand, señores?"

Here at this small town we bade farewell to Pedro, who promised to
visit us as soon as he came round to Gibraltar; and pushing on, after
a trot of a mile or two over a dreary and sandy waste, we found
ourselves amid the sunny and bustling streets of San Lucar de
Barameda, where we sought at once its harbour, the quays of which
were, as usual, piled chin deep with boxes of oranges, of raisins,
and of prunes, casks of salt, of wine, and of brandy; while the flags
of all nations--the stars and stripes of North America, the eagles
and tricolours of the South, the union jack and the crosses of
Scandinavia--were waving among a forest of masts; in short, we found
ourselves amid all the noise and lively stir of a Spanish seaport,
where the splash of the screw propeller furrowed the waters of the
Guadalquiver, and the steam, as it escaped at times, was like music
to us, who had just eluded the fangs of Fabrique's mountain wolves.

We soon found the boat for Gibraltar, "Neustra Señora de
Assistencia," and embarked ourselves and our horses, which were taken
on board in stalls, that were slung from a whip at the yard-arm; and
in an hour after, muffled in our cloaks, with choice cubas to solace
us, we lounged on the paddle gangway as the vessel steamed out of the
harbour between the two castles of San Lucar--the same fortresses
which saluted the little fleet of Columbus, when departing in search
of a western world--and passed the roadstead and the dangerous
entrance, where the wild waves are ever beating in tumult; and thus
we left the port enveloped in a golden haze and diminishing astern,
as the sun set behind the mountain peaks of Seville.

The bay of Cadiz soon opened on our larboard bow, and the city
itself, with all its lights and spires, and then the Isla de Leon
arose before us, white and glimmering in the moonlight.

The silver waves seemed to toy with the golden sand, as their coy
riplets chafed the beach; but in other places the moonlit sea dashed
its spray like showers of diamonds and prisms against the abutting
rocks.

Overhead, the dark blue sky was clear and cloudless, save where a
long black pennon of wavy smoke streamed far astern from the glowing
funnel of "Our Lady of Assistance," and all was still save the
ceaseless and monotonous dashing of the paddle-wheels, and the
measured clank of the engines, as we ploughed along the lovely
Spanish shore, and towards midnight saw that point of land on which
no Briton can gaze without an emotion of pride, the Cape of Trafalgar.




CHAPTER XV.

THE CIRCASSIAN CAPTAIN.

On board the steamer our attention had been repeatedly attracted, and
our interest--mine, at least--excited by a fellow-passenger, whose
manner, costume, and bearing were too remarkable to escape notice.

His figure was tall and handsomely formed; his features, pale and
like marble, were cast in the most pure and severe model of classic
beauty; his nose was long and straight; his black eye-brows nearly
met over it in one unbroken line; a fierce mustache stuck out on each
side, giving great expression to a mouth, the lips of which were
generally compressed, and in expression stern.

Altogether, his face had in it more of pure intellect and pictorial
manly beauty than any I had ever seen.  His costume was a scarlet
forage cap, the tassel of which drooped on his right shoulder, and a
loose tunic of dark green cloth, the cuffs, collar, and skirts of
which were trimmed with sables; but this peculiar garment, like his
long military boots, seemed well worn, or as Jack said, "decidedly
shabby."

He remained very much aloof from the passengers, and either sat or
walked apart, communing apparently with himself, and smoking a huge
pipe, the aspect of which was as foreign as his own.

A figure so melo-dramatic on board of a steamer--even a Spanish
one--was too remarkable in the present day to escape notice, and I
repeatedly drew Slingsby's attention to him; but honest Jack had not
quite recovered the effect of the start given him last night on the
hills of Trohniona, and replied briefly,--

"An interesting foreigner, eh! that will sound very well to the ears
of a novel-reading miss at home; but such personages excite a very
different feeling in me.  A seedy sharper!  I am sick, Ramble, of
your interesting foreigners; they are invariably swindlers, refugees,
and all that sort of thing, unless we except the poor monkeys in the
Zoological gardens," and so Jack assumed a sulky air of reserve,
while our voyager in the furs and long boots smoked his huge
meerschaum to leeward, and all unconscious that he was an object of
remark or interest to any one.

On visiting our horses in the stalls, we found that our
fellow-traveller had also a nag, and that this animal seemed the
object of all his cares; for he was by its side almost every half
hour, stroking its sleek coat and slender legs; tickling its square
nostrils and pointed ears, or wiping its fine liquid eyes with his
white handkerchief, and feeding it from the palm of his hands, which
were white and muscular, while he spoke caressingly in a barbarous
language, which the horse--a noble Arab-steed, with a magnificent
head, and limbs as slender as a girl's wrist--seemed to understand.
There was something so peculiar in all this, and especially in the
man's strong and tender regard for his horse, that Slingsby's John
Bullism began to relax, for the proverbial crustiness of his country
little became a frank fellow like him; so he ventured a few remarks
in English on horses in general, and this fine barb in particular.

The foreigner shook his head, and smiled pleasantly, as he
articulated with difficulty that he scarcely knew a word of English;
whereupon Jack turned his remarks into very choice Spanish.

Again the stranger smiled and bowed, showing under his close and
thick mustache that he had a set of teeth our brightest belles might
envy, as he said in the language of our allies,--

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I speak only French with my native
language; and it maybe a little--Russ."

"Russ--indeed!" said I, with fresh interest; "are you a Cossack?"

"No," said he, with a sudden air of haughty reserve, "do I look like
one?"

"I cannot say," said Jack, "as I never saw one."

He was about to withdraw, as if our notice was displeasing to him,
when it chanced that a puff of wind opened my cloak, and below it he
perceived the scarlet shell jacket, which was the undress of "Ours."
Then his bold dark eye lighted up with new animation, and raising his
forage cap, he said, smilingly, in French, which he spoke with great
fluency and a good accent,--

"Officers, I perceive, and, better than all, British officers!  Would
that I had known this sooner, we might have had a pleasant evening
together; but now our voyage is nearly half over, as the captain has
just told me.  I am so glad to meet you, gentlemen, for I, too, have
had the honour to wear a sword."

"May I ask in what service?" said Jack.

"The Russian, latterly."

"Indeed!"

"You are surprised," he said, with a sigh.

"Rather."

"It was the result of fate, or rather the fortune of war, that placed
me in their ranks.  I was taken in battle, and had no alternative but
to serve in the imperial cavalry, or drag a chain over the snows of
Siberia; and thus I accepted the former, resolving to escape to my
own dear mountains on the first opportunity.  I am a Circassian, and
fought under the heroic Schamyl, though latterly I held the rank of
captain in the Tenginski hussars; but tyranny and misfortune drove me
from the Russian ranks before a proper opportunity for escape had
come; and I have wandered over many lands with no companion save my
horse--my dear Zupi," he continued, caressing the Arab, which rubbed
its fine head upon his cheek, as if understanding the reference its
master had just made; "my beloved Zupi, who has shared with me many a
day of peril, and has thrice saved my life from Russian bullets and
from drowning; for there is no horse like thee, Zupi, between the
Kuban and the Caspian Sea."

"He is quite a Mazeppa, this," said Jack, in English.

"And you are now going to Gibraltar?" I asked.

"Yes, gentlemen; but I merely make a visit there, and at Malta, on my
way home through Turkey; as I have a letter of introduction to an
officer of your garrison."

"May I ask his name?"

"It is here: John Slingsby, Esq., Lieutenant, H.M. --th Foot--perhaps
you know him?"

"The deuce!  It is for me; I am Slingsby of the --th," said Jack, in
astonishment, for he was puzzled to remember what friends he had
among the Tenginski hussars, or on the shores of the Caspian Sea;
"devilish odd, sir!  I really don't know any one in Circassia, or any
one who ever was there, or likely to be so."

"I received this letter in London," said the stranger, with a soft
smile; "at a clubhouse of the Guards, for the officers of the
Household Brigade were more than kind; being, indeed, as fathers to
me, and treating me as if I had been their own son, instead of what I
am--a poor waif, floating on the current of events."

"I am the man," said Jack, tearing open the letter which the
Circassian produced from his breast-pocket, and delivered; but with
the slightest possible shade of anxiety on his fine but saddened
face.  Poor fellow! he had doubtless been so often deceived and
misused, that he was learning to mistrust every one, and his eyes
were riveted on the face of Slingsby, who suddenly shook him by the
hand, saying,--

"This meeting is most remarkable; your letter of introduction to me
and to our mess is from my brother."

"Bismillah, is it possible!"

"From my brother, Sir Harry Slingsby, of the Grenadier Guards.  I am
most happy to meet you, Captain Rioni, and with my friend, Captain
Ramble of "Ours," will do all in my power to assist you."

Jack handed his brother's letter to me.  It ran thus:--


MY DEAR JACK,--

Allow me to introduce to you and to your brother officers of the old
--th Captain Osman Rioni (late of the--I am sorry to say it--Russian
service), who has been for some time in London teaching our Life
Guards the lance exercise, and who for the last three months has been
the lion of the club-houses.  He arrived among us a staid and
respectable Mohammedan, very prone to sit cross-legged on the floor,
to dip his fingers in the gravy, and to grasp his knife if you gave
him a slice of ham with his fowl; but he leaves us much addicted to
balls, vingt un, champagne suppers, the polka, and the waltz.  In
short, in one season, we have polished him up in good style, and
completed an education which had been somewhat neglected during his
rural life among the Caucasus.  You, perhaps, know the history of
himself and his horse--for the morning papers get hold of everything.
Conyers of the Blues offered him £500 for the nag; but he won't sell
it for any known amount of the ready.  Look at its legs and chest; I
never saw such an animal!  The captain has been an honorary member of
our mess while in London--a hint this, for your fellows.  He is now
on his way home to the Kuban (wherever the devil that may be), and so
you gentlemen of the Line in Gibraltar must look to the state of his
exchequer, and pass him on to the next station, as Conyers has given
him letters to some of the Rifles at Malta.  I could easily have
procured him a troop in our new Turkish contingent; but home he must
and shall go, he says, and his own story will best let you know why.
To-morrow our battalion will change its quarters, and commence the
arduous march from St. John's Wood Barracks to those in
Portman-street, and from thence to Trafalgar-square, and I shall
follow in my cab; but you may see me ere long, for I am to sail with
the next draught of ours for the Crimea, where the shiny splendour
will be taken out of our Brahmins in the muddy trenches--ugh!  Give
my remembrance to Dick Ramble--ask him what his next book is to be
about; and so, my dear Jack,

I remain, &c., &c.


The wishes of Sir Henry, and the efforts he and his brother officers
of the Grenadier Guards (most of whom will remember the affair I
allude to) made it imperative upon "Ours" not to be behind them in
kindness to this stranger.

Jack and I promised to leave nothing undone to serve him on our
arrival at Gibraltar, and assured him that we would see sufficient
funds raised to send him either to Malta, or by steamer straight to
Constantinople.  His ignorance of English and Spanish had sadly
puzzled the brain of our poor Circassian, who had landed with his
horse and baggage at San Lucar, believing it to be Gibraltar, and had
thus lost several days, and, what was of more consequence, much of
his money; so that his mind was full of anxiety as to the future, and
how his horse--his Zupi--for they seemed one, like a centaur, were to
reach that mighty mountain range that lies between the Euxine and the
Cape of Alpcheron; and which, with all its black forests, wild rocks,
and snowy peaks was his beloved home; the altar of oriental
independence--the barrier of the Eastern world against the
encroaching Kuos.

We supped together in the cabin; and while the Spanish passengers
were all smoking or asleep on the benches and lockers, we prevailed
upon the Circassian, over a bottle of good wine, to inform us how he
came to serve in the Russian cavalry, and why he declined Sir Harry's
apparently advantageous offer of a Captain's commission in our
Turkish contingent--a service for which he seemed so admirably
fitted, and in which he might have won honour and distinction; at
least such distinction as John Bull awards to those who are not on
the staff, and have no ministerial interest.

He shook his head sadly, as I said something to this purpose, and
bowing, gave me a pleasant smile.

"When you have heard me, you will understand more fully that the only
place for me is my native land--that home which is now so far off,
that when I trace upon a map the extent of sea and shore that lie
between its hills and me, my heart grows faint and sick; but patience
yet awhile, and one day I shall stand again an the black rugged
mountains of Kushaa, and see at my feet far down below, the fertile
plains of Georgia and Mingrelia.  Zupi will snuff the pure air of
these Alpine peaks, and toss his proud mane on the wind; strong
warriors, in their shirts of mail, will be riding by my side; the
Albanian musket and the Tartar bow will be there, as we survey the
long dark lines that mark upon the green summer fields, or it may be
the winter snow, the columns of the Russian Emperor--columns that
advance but to defeat and death; for in thousands, yea, hundreds of
thousands, have they come to war against us, and to perish on the
Circassian hills, until the very soil has been drenched in their
blood, and fattened by the bones of men and horses!  But my emotions
carry me away, gentlemen, and I am forgetting my own story."

"Ah--yes, the story," said Jack, refilling the stranger's glass, and
pushing the decanters towards me, while our new friend began, as
nearly as I can remember, in the following words.




CHAPTER XVI.

OSMAN RIONI

Bismillah! there is but one God, and Mohammed is His prophet; and on
earth He is the powerful hand of Him who moveth the stars, who giveth
light to the sun, and throweth darkness on the souls of the Russian
unbelievers.

I am a Circassian, and, consequently, a Mohammedan, being a native of
those districts of the Caucasus which have waged a ceaseless war with
Russia--I mean that portion of our mountains which lies between
Tamrook and the strong fortress of Anapa, whose ramparts are washed
by the waves of the Euxine Sea.  We are all soldiers from our birth;
thus, out of a population of three hundred thousand souls, our tribe
can at any time muster fifty thousand warriors, well mounted on fleet
Caucasian horses, and well armed, after our own fashion, in coats of
mail, with musket, bow and pistol, sabre, dagger, and cartridge box;
men, brave and handsome, and stubborn as their native rocks--men to
whom danger is a pastime, and death but the door to Paradise.

Thus the mountaineers of the Caucasus, though mustering only about
two millions of souls, have never stooped before a conqueror; but, in
the face of all the world, have hurled back the legions of the
Russian Empire, and maintained against it a struggle for fifty
years--a struggle which, when our valour and disparity of numbers on
one side are contrasted with the ferocity and overwhelming force on
the other, has no parallel in the history of the modern world.  The
Russians name us the Tcherkesses, which means literally "those who
bar the way;" for never did a foreign host leave their cursed
foot-prints, on the summits of the Caucasus.

Our mountains have become the ramparts of Turkey and of Persia, as
our Declaration of Independence asserts; but they will become--unless
we are supported by Western Europe--the avenue to both!  We
voluntarily submitted to the khans of the Crimea, and afterwards to
the sultans of Constantinople; but, alas! we have lost the chiefs,
whose banners could have summoned a hundred thousand warriors; yet
now are we all, as one man, united in a deep and undying hatred of
Russia!  She has built forts on our territory, but dare her soldiers
venture a foot beyond their cannon?  In short, sirs, Circassia is
free and independent; for neither the lying maps of Russia, which are
spread throughout the world, and which mark the Caucasus as her
territory, nor words, nor arts can enslave us.  Arms may do it, but
the steel has never yet been forged, nor the cannon cast, that will
make the proud Circassian stoop his crest before the barbarous Russ!
Bismillah!  The wild Tcherkesses are still free as the stormy wind
that sweeps from Azov down the Euxine.

My father Mostapha was a chief; the head of one of those princely
houses which are of Kabardian descent; his will was a law to his
people; and the booty he took in his wars with the fierce Tartars and
faithless Muscovites was the reward of their fidelity.  We were
Christians once--many ages ago--but it pleased God to open our eyes
to the blessed precepts of Islam, and now we turn our faces to the
Kaaba when we pray.  Many nobles followed the banner of my father,
whose territories extended along the base of the mountain steppes,
from Marinskoi to the banks of the Kisselbash River; but one night,
in the year 1807, the Russian General Goudivitch, with ten thousand
cavalry, burst among us; stormed Anapa, and gave our men to the
sword, our roofs to the flames, and our children to the wolf and the
eagle.

My father fought long and nobly; the war was desperate; the Russians
impaled their prisoners, and my father roasted his; but the tide of
battle turned against us.  All our possessions became a prey to the
Russ, and our most beautiful damsels were given as wives or
handmaidens to those brutal Cossacks, whom the merciless Goudivitch
had brought from the banks of the Don.  Azrael spread his dusky wings
over our beautiful country; all the land was burned up, and black as
night--being waste as a garden whose fruits have been gathered.

Then the new chain of forts was built along the Kuban.  These marked
the extended boundary of the Russian territory, and the land of my
father was lost for ever; his bones lay unburied, where he had
fallen, sword in hand, on the threshold of his own door, pierced by
the same bayonets that slew his faithful wife; and their three
children, myself and two brothers, sole heirs to his hopes and his
harvest of vengeance, received the bread of charity from another
Circassian tribe, the friendly Abassians, who dwell between the
mountains and the Euxine.

Time rolled on, and from tending the flocks of the Abassians as
shepherd boys, my brothers Selim and Karolyi grew strong and hardy
men.  The Abassians told us of our father's fate, and we longed to
avenge it, and to recover our lost patrimony.  Day after day we spent
our time in acquiring the perfect use of arms, in talking of our
hopes, our projects, and desires; and often we looked with kindling
eyes towards those mountains, from whose summits the Muscovite
outposts were visible by the waters of the Kuban; for dear as war and
vengeance are the honour of his race and country to the proud and
free Tcherkesse.

We could soon ride the wildest Arab steeds, and gallop them without
bridle or saddle along giddy rocks, and through the untrodden forest.
None surpassed us in the use of the sabre, the poniard, or the
pistol; few equalled Selim in handling the heavy Albanian musket;
while Karolyi was matchless in the use of the Circassian sling; and
in my hands, the bow was as unerring as the best Frankish rifle.  I
was older than my brave brothers by a few years, and thus became, in
somewise, their preceptor.  We were poor, but ardent and full of
enthusiasm; we worked, begged, and bartered--we were never satisfied
until each of us was possessor of a fleet and active barb, a bright
steel coat of mail; a helmet of tempered iron, such as our warriors
wear, and which covers all the face, except the eyes and nose; a
curved sabre of keen Damascus steel; an Albanian musket; breast cases
to receive our cartridges; a sharp Circassian dagger, and a Tartar
bow: and when thus accoutred, our hearts would swell with fierce
emotion, as we reined up our steeds upon the hills above Anapa, and
shook our lances in defiance at the Russian steamers and frigates in
the Euxine, while we longed for the time when the war-cry of Islam
would ring among the hills, and we should behold the Sangiac Sheerif,
the green banner of our confederated princes, with its three golden
arrows and twelve white stars, unfurled against the barbarous Emperor
Nicholas Romanoff.

We loved each other strongly, dearly, and devotedly, my two brothers
and I, for we were alone in the world, the last of all our race.
Being the eldest, they frequently importuned me to marry, that I
might have children, and perpetuate our family; but I told them to
remember that it was the custom of our people for a prince to wed the
daughter of a prince; a noble to wed the daughter of a noble; a tocar
to wed the daughter of a tocar; and the poor serf to wed the daughter
of a serf.  That I was neither prince nor tocar, noble nor serf, and
could not marry, being too poor to wed one in the rank of my father,
and too proud to stoop to a maiden beneath it.  "Besides," I told
them, "we have other duties to perform than espousing wives, which
are ever a barrier to freedom of thought in peace, and bravery of
action in war; for the blessed Prophet said, that wives and children
were barriers to the performance of great deeds.  God knoweth all
things, and will direct the heart of Osman.  I will not marry yet
awhile, my brothers; for it is written that marriage disturbs a man
from his duty--the wedded care for the things of this world, even as
the unwedded care for those of heaven; and so we must watch and pray
for our country, to defend her from the infidel Russians, who, like
accursed locusts, blacken all the shores of the Kuban."  Then my
brothers Selim and Karolyi kissed me on both cheeks, applauding my
resolution; and once more we shook our gauntletted hands in fierce
menace towards the ramparts of Anapa.

But ere long there occurred circumstances which altered my
resolution; for before the eyes of a beautiful woman the strongest
heart is weak as water.

One evening I was riding on the mountain slopes that overlook the
waters of the Euxine.  The last rays of evening were lingering on
their peaks, and shedding a golden tint upon the waves that rolled
away towards the cliffs of the Crimea.  At my feet lay Sundjik Bay,
glittering in the blaze of light that steeped sea, sky, and shore.
The snow-white walls of Anapa, which crown rocks a hundred feet in
height, were gleaming in the yellow sunshine, and grimly the black
iron cannon peered through the stone embrasures, or over the ramparts
of smoothly-shorn grass.

The flat-capped Russian sentinels, muffled in their gray great-coats
walked to and fro upon their posts; and each time they turned I saw
their bayonets flash above the two square towers that guard the great
arched entrance.  Over all was the white flag with the Muscovite
cross, but there was no wind to spread its folds upon the evening
sky, and it hung about the staff listlessly and still; not a blade of
grass stirred on the mighty plain of the Kuban, which spread far away
towards the north, silent as a land of the dead.  Under my iron
helmet, grimly I surveyed Anapa and the rocks of Taman, and panted
for the time when the standard of the twelve confederated princes of
Circassia would be planted there, and when the black cross of the
God-abandoned Russ would be torn down and steeped in the blood of its
defenders.

My heart was full of fierce and fiery thoughts, when suddenly the cry
of a woman, ringing upon the clear air of the hot summer eve, fell on
my ear, and I reined up my horse--the same winch I have now on board
with me--my noble Zuyi, to listen.

"Yani, Yani!" cried a despairing voice, which in our language means
"mother, mother!"

I spurred Zupi over a hillock, and perceived four Russian soldiers of
the Tenginski infantry, then garrisoning Anapa, dragging along a
Circassian woman, who made no resistance, but cried piteously for
mercy.

Uttering a shout of anger and defiance, I lowered my lance, and
rushed upon them without a moment of hesitation.

They immediately relinquished their prey, who sank senseless on the
ground, while they betook them to their muskets, crying,--

"Death to the Tcherkesse! down with the unbeliever!" and all four
fired upon me at once; but God, the common father of all mankind
(except the Russians) protected me.  One bullet tore the plume from
my helmet, another was turned by the fluted pockets which (in lieu of
cartridge boxes) we wear across our breasts, the others whistled
harmlessly past me, and before one of these soldiers could reload or
club his weapon I was upon them.  The first two I speared, and hurled
to the earth like ripe pumpkins; a third, I trampled under the hoofs
of Zupi; and afterwards slew at my leisure; the fourth sprung over a
ruined wall and escaped me, but for a few minutes only, as I pinned
him to the earth by an arrow, but he rose and staggered away.  This
man was named Archipp Osepoff, of whom more anon.

I now dismounted, and, throwing the bridle over the neck of my docile
Zupi, approached the insensible female I had rescued.

She was attired in the richest fashion of our Circassian damsels.  A
robe of costly silk open in front, and confined at her slender waist
by a glittering girdle of silver; trowsers of the finest pink muslin;
and the red slippers on her pretty feet were embroidered with gold; a
turban, composed of the most delicate shawl, fell in graceful folds
over her small and beautiful neck, and a large veil of lace entwined
with silver, enveloped her whole person, and floated like a white
mist about her.

This I dared to draw aside that the air might play upon her face, and
so revive her.  Oh, Mahmoud resoul allah! the beauty of our women is
proverbial, and as you know, gentlemen, the world acknowledges it;
but how shall I describe the loveliness of this Circassian damsel,
who proved to be the flower of the Abassian maids?  Her complexion
was of the purest white, the result of excessive delicacy, and
perhaps of that seclusion which was necessary to conceal her from the
prying eyes of the Russian soldiers, or of the trading Turks; and
this paleness of skin, when contrasted with the blackness of her
massive braids of hair, was almost startling.  Her eyes were also
dark, but beautiful and dove-like in expression, for a languishing
gentleness was in every feature, and over all her form.  She was but
a girl; yet so full, round, and tall, that for the house of the
sultan I had seen many thousand piastres paid for an odalisque, who
was unfit to kiss even her slipper.  Basilia was among the most
beautiful of our Circassian maids, or, as Schamyl calls them, the
daughters of the rocks and streams.

She soon recovered on perceiving that she was free and that the
protecting arm of a Circassian was around her; but she tremblingly
drew the veil over her face, as I led her by the hand from the spot
where her late capturers lay dead on the sward, with their blood
congealing beneath them.

"It pleased the Prophet to send me to your aid, fair damsel," said I;
"are there any other means by which I can serve you?"

For a time she could only reply by incoherencies and with profuse
thanks, for her mind was bewildered by terror and agitation.

"Fear nothing, maiden," said I, "for a strong hand and a stout heart
are at your service.  I am Osman, whose people dwelt by the
Kisselbash River; you have heard of me, perhaps?"

"Yes, Aga----"

"Alas! no Aga am I; but a poor outcast, whose sword and bow are his
sole inheritance; yet you have heard of me?"

"Yes, and of your two brothers, Selim and Karolyi, for to them and to
you the people look as leaders when war is made on the Muscovites."

"As soon it must be, maiden; and then I hope to see the ramparts of
yonder fortress of Anapa flung into the Euxine.  But may I ask your
name?"

"Basilia," she replied, in a low voice, and drew her veil yet closer.

"Basilia, the daughter of Abdallah ibn Obba, the rich merchant of
Soudjack Kaleh, who is said to be making pyramids of gold by trading
with Tartars of the Crimea, and exporting from Sampsoon the copper of
Tocat, and the silks and fruit of Amasia?"

"I am the daughter of Abdallah, and, rich though he is, I assure you
he is yet poor in his own idea; for neither the Prophet nor the
santons can bound my father's idea of wealth; but convey me to him,
and for the good deed of to-day, he will reward you, noble Osman, by
the most gorgeous suit of armour, the richest weapons, and the
noblest horse a Tcherkesse warrior ever possessed."

"I seek no reward; let the horse and armour be given to some poor
patriot who is without them; I seek no reward, Basilia," I continued,
with enthusiasm, "beyond your own approbation and the memory that I
have this day done a kind, and, it may be, a gallant deed, in
rescuing you from the fate which those sons of the devil had in store
for you; but how came you into their hands?"

"We had gone on a pilgrimage to the tomb of the Santon Seozeres among
the mountains, when we fell in with these marauders; my father's aged
hands were unable to protect me; he was struck to the earth; his
reverend beard was spat on, and his turban torn off and flung in his
face, while I was dragged from the arms of my terrified attendants;
but see, Osman Rioni, they are now approaching us, and behold my
father."

She uttered a cry of joy, and rushed to meet the old merchant
Abdallah ibn Obba, who now came forward on horseback, with rage,
alarm, and grief in his eyes, and his great turban awry.  He
corroborated her story, saying, that having a large ship, which had
long been delayed on her voyage from Stamboul, he had paid a
propitiatory visit to the tomb of Seozeres, the most famous and
powerful of Circassian Santons, and the object of especial reverence
by all merchants, seamen, and dwellers on the coast; for the waves
and winds are reputed to be under his subjection, and the storm and
the thunderbolt are alike at his disposal; thus we celebrate his
festival in the early days of spring, and when on this mission had
Abdallah and his daughter fallen among the Russians.

He gave me innumerable promises of remembrance and regard (which he
took especial care to forget), and made his horse curvet several
times over the dead Russians, which seemed to console him mightily,
and smoothing his ruffled beard, he muttered,--

"Death to them! death to them! the unbelievers, the dogs, the
infidels!  They shall be destroyed like the wicked people of Noah and
of Lot, and like the army of Abraha, lord of the Elephant; and their
false gods and pretended saints of brass and of silver shall perish
with them!  Unless a fear of the Russ prevent thee, Osman Rioni, I
shall be glad to see thee in Soudjack Kaleh, where a carpet and pipe,
with a cup of such coffee as Basilia alone can prepare, will be at
the service of her preserver; and so, God and Merissa take thee into
their holy keeping."

With these words we separated; the old merchant and his daughter
remounted on her own horse, rode slowly away until they disappeared
in the deepening shades of evening; while I remained motionless, and
watching them, with a wild, sad beating in my heart, for the face of
Basilia seemed yet before me, and her voice was lingering in my ear.

She was gone, but my soul went with her.

Full, round, and red as a Tartar shield, the moon rose above the Isle
of Taman to light the waters of the Euxine; the mountains flung their
black shadows upon each other; the lurid glow-worm glittered on the
dewy grass, and the snakes began to hiss among the long reeds; while
the fierce vultures hovered in the starry sky, with their keen eyes
fixed on the grim banquet I had made for them; and I heard their
hoarse croak of impatience, for I lingered long on the spot where
Abdallah and his daughter had left me.

Several days passed away.  Men spoke much of the coming struggle with
the Russians; my brave brothers were as usual training their horses,
tempering their weapons, casting bullets, and pointing arrows; I
alone was silent, and full of soft, sad thoughts--melancholy, happy,
and anxious by turns; for my whole breast was filled by the image of
Basilia.

I visited her father by stealth, for this old man was one who had
temporised with the Russians, and paid them a tribute that he might
dwell in peace under the cannon of Soudjack; but I found him gloomy,
thoughtful, and discontented; his ship had been stranded on the Isle
of Serpents, in the Black Sea, and sunk with all her crew, and what
was of more importance to Abdallah, with her rich bales of Indian
silks, of cashmere shawls, of amber pipes, and other valuables with
which she was freighted.  This isle, the only one in the Euxine, is
infested by serpents of enormous size, say our voyagers.  These guard
its boundless treasures and devour all who attempt to land; thus
Abdallah ibn Obba abandoned in grief all hope of recovering a vestige
of his property.

He received me morosely, and after smoking a pipe and drinking with
him a cup of coffee, which we received from the white, gentle hands
of Basilia, who was enveloped as before in her veil of lace, I
departed, happy that I had seen but the tips of her dear fingers once
again; happy that I had been under the roof of her father, and happy
that for one brief hour I had shared a corner of his carpet, and
breathed the same atmosphere with one so beautiful and so
well-beloved as she.

Again and again I came to visit Abdallah; for alas!  I no longer
sighed for the unfurling of our green standard against the Russ; I
only counted the days and hours till again I should visit the house
of the merchant at Soudjack.

Secluded as the old man kept Basilia--for he deemed her his last and
most valuable estate--a piece of property on which he could at any
time realise a thousand piastres in the Stamboul market--we had
nightly interviews; for what are the difficulties that love cannot
surmount?  I had discovered that her chamber window opened into old
Abdallah's garden; its wall was easily crossed, and then three notes
on my lute were the signal which brought Basilia to me; but she was
beyond arm's length, and I never dared to climb, though, had the
wealth of Ormuz been mine, I had given it all to have kissed but once
her hand.  Yet, until she was bestowed upon me by her father, what
hope had I of ever doing so?

In the wild and half-civilised countries of the East, a lover invests
his mistress with a thousand imaginary attributes, such as a lover of
Europe or the West can never do.  The seclusion in which we keep our
women, the danger and risk of approaching or even speaking of them to
their nearest relations, all enhance the charm, the secresy, and the
romance of an Oriental love; and thus, with such a heart as mine, it
became an all-absorbing and engrossing passion, in which to be
without hope was to be without life.  Hourly I exclaimed to myself,--

"Bismillah! oh, Osman, happy thou to win a heart like hers!" for
Basilia responded as warmly as she dared, or as I could have desired.

Nightly we conversed in whispers, and had our interchange of
love-letters; not that poor Basilia wrote, or that I then could
write; alas, no!  Our letters were simply flowers, tied together with
a ribband, and in this symbolical language we conferred.  It is a
language lovers easily learn, and the Circassian sooner than all.  I
ransacked the bazaars of the Armenians and Muscovites for gaudy
trinkets and perfumes, as presents for Basilia; and fearless of the
Russ, I daily caracoled my horse--my Zupi--before her father's house,
that she might see me attired in the glittering arms and splendid
costume of a Circassian cavalier; and happy was I--oh, how happy! if
but once I saw the muslin-veiled form of my beautiful Basilia.  At
her feet I laid the shawls of Cashmere and the beads of Bokhara.  She
gave me a waist-belt embroidered by herself, and a morocco
breast-pocket to hold my cartridges, in return.

Summoning up courage, I one day put on my most splendid habiliments;
my coat of mail, which shone like water in the sun; a helmet of
steel, damascened by my own hands; and I armed myself with weapons
which, like every Tcherkesse warrior, I had tempered and ornamented
with silver and precious stones, all by my own skill.  Bathed,
perfumed, and anointed, I rode up to the door of Abdallah ibn Obba;
and while my heart trembled and died away within me, and my colour
came and went like that of a woman under the bowstring, I asked his
daughter in marriage.  He heard me in ominous silence.

"May God be with thee, Abdallah," said I.

"With thee be God," said he, and paused again, on which I timidly
rehearsed all I had said.

The old merchant, who was seated on a rich carpet, with his legs
folded under him, and a split reed, ink-horn, and piles of papers and
accounts on one side of him, and his fragrant narguillah on the
other, heard me without moving a muscle of his solemn visage; and
after smoking for some time, drew the yellow mouthpiece from his
mustachioed lips, and shaking his bushy beard, replied to me,
slowly,--

"May you be saluted, O Osman Rioni!  No--no, Osman, this cannot be!
The son of a prince weds a prince's daughter, even as a slave weds
the daughter of a slave.  Thus, the rich give their children in
marriage only to the rich, and thou, Osman, art very poor.  Remember,
that this daughter may yet be a mine of wealth to me."

I knew what the old wretch meant by these words--the market of
Stamboul--and my blood ran cold.

"Her beauty," he resumed, "is a miracle, and her birth was also a
miracle; hence sho was born for great purposes, and may yet be a
source of delight to him who wears the sword of Omar, our Lord the
Sultan Abdul Medjid--who can tell?  She was born of my first wife,
Tsha; when she was old, stricken in years, and hopelessly barren, on
seeing a hen feed her chickens one day, her heart was moved; she wept
and prayed the holy Prophet to give her a little child in her old
age, whereupon she had Basilia in the fulness of time; so thus I tell
thee, she was born for great things.  Enough, enough, Osman Rioni, go
thy ways, for thou art very poor."

"True, father," said I, while my heart became chilled with despair;
"I am poor, and my brothers Selim and Karolyi are also poor, for we
have no inheritance but the name of our father, and what we can
wrench in combat from the enemies of our country, and for every meal
of food we have to fight the convoys of the Russ on the mountain, or
the wild beasts in the forest; but a time is at hand when I shall
have all my father's patrimony again, when the forts of the Kuban
shall lie in ruins by its shore, while the wolf shall batten on the
bones of their defenders.  A time shall come when I may ride from the
grassy steppes of Marinskoi to the reedy flow of the Kisselbash
River, lord of all the land my father bequeathed to me, with this
sword, when the Russian bayonets were clashing in his heart!"

"God is great," replied the merchant, calmly; "when that time comes
return, and seek my daughter, but not till then."

He replaced the amber tube of the narguillah in his mouth, waved his
hand to indicate that he wished to hear no more on the subject, and
dismissed me, with a heart swollen by grief and mortification.  I
felt how low the son of Mostapha was fallen when a miserable trader
despised his alliance!  God of Mohammed, had we come to this?

As I rode slowly back to the poor village where with my brothers I
dwelt on the hills above Anapa, I revolved a thousand schemes of
daring and conquest; for Basilia was now to me a light--a star--a
guide; but between us I saw the dark battalions and the strong
ramparts of the abhorred Russians, and worse than all, the cunning
and the avarice of her selfish father.  Could I repel one, or bound
the other?

When riding slowly on I saw a raven in my path, and shuddering at the
bird of ill omen, turned aside, for I knew it was a sign of coming
evil; because there is an old tradition in the countries of the East,
that Cain, after committing fratricide, became sorely troubled in
mind, and bore about with him for many days the dead body of his
brother, until Heaven taught him how to bury it, by the example of a
raven, which after killing another in his presence dug a little pit
for it by beak and talon; and so scraping a hole with his hands, Cain
interred his brother at the foot of a palm, whose branches heretofore
erect drooped mournfully for ever after.  Then the murderous raven
which had perched itself on a branch thereof flew away to Adam, and
croaked huskily in his ear that his youngest born was now slain and
buried, and from that hour the raven has been a bird of evil augury
to all the world.  And now my heart became a prey to a thousand dark
and gloomy forebodings.  The bird had not come to me for nought.

I prayed Merissa, the mother of God, to take Basilia under her
protection, for, like the Christians, we believe in the intercession
of a woman, though, perhaps, her name is but a remnant of the faith
that was first preached to the Circassians before the banner of the
blessed Prophet swept the gods of error from the shores of the
Caspian Sea.

Night was closing as I ascended the mountain, when suddenly from a
gorge there rose that wild and terrible yell which is the war-cry of
Circassia; and led by Schamyl, the conquering, the holy Murid
Schamyl, a host of mounted warriors, all clad in shirts of shining
steel and round helmets, armed with lance and musket, bow and sabre,
each with a bag of millet and bottle of skhou slung at his saddle for
service, dashed their fleet horses through the narrow way, and above
their heads waved the green standard of the confederated princes with
its three golden arrows and twelve white stars--the Sangiac
Sheerif--the sacred banner of our people, for green is the colour of
the Prophet.

Selim and Karolyi were among them, and they sprang to my side with
joy and ardour.

A vast Russian army of horse, foot, and artillery, they told me, had
just passed the shores of the Kuban, and entered among the mountains;
Schamyl, the holy murids who devote themselves to death, and all our
confederated princes, had summoned the land to battle, and every man
between the straits of Yenikale and the Mingrelian frontier was in
arms for Circassia Thus opened the Christian year 1840, so memorable
to us by the capture of all the frontier forts of the Russians by our
arms, but chiefly those of Mikhailov and Nikhailovska.

The excitement, the glory, and the splendour of our mountain host
equipped for war, with the hopes of conquest and of triumph, filled
my soul with such ardour and exultation that my emotion nearly
overcame me.  The hope of winning back in this war, if it was
successful, the land, the home, and the grave of my forefathers, and
with these the flower of the Abassian maids for my bride, made me
pant for the hour of battle with such ardour as never bridegroom
awaited the unveiling of his new-made wife.

The great Dervish Mohammed Mansoor, from the misty land of Daghestan,
had foretold our triumph when he died at Anapa, and we never doubted
we should be victorious.

Over my father's fugitive people a command was assigned me by the
confederated princes; my brothers, Selim and Karolyi, rode by my
side; all who followed us shared our ardour, and we were brave even
to ferocity: thus, pouring down from the snow-capped Alps of the
Caucasus towards the hosts of the Russ, then blackening and
desolating the banks of the Kuban, while their fleets of three
deckers and steamers scared the golden dolphins from our shores, we
commenced the desperate war of 1840.

I was full of delicious hope, and the last words of Basilia, for I
had visited her in secret before we marched, were ever in my ears,--

"Hope for everything from Heaven, O Osman.  The angels of Mohammed
will deliver you from the swords of the Russians, and like all, my
beloved, who fight against the spirit, they shall wither and perish!"

Her prophetic words inspired me with new ardour.

"Farewell, Basilia," I exclaimed, as I grasped the mane of Zupi; "we
go to teach those Muscovite liars who mark our country in their maps
that the Circassians have no masters save God and the Prophet."




CHAPTER XVII.

THE HUSSARS OF TENGINSKI

How we swept the land of Kisliar, continued the Circassian captain;
how we baffled the foe beneath the towers of Dargo; how Schamyl the
Immortal did prodigies of valour at Unsorilla and destroyed the army
of Count Woronzoff, the Governor of New Russia, one hundred and fifty
thousand in number, whose bones yet lie in the forest of Itzkeri; how
we fought with desperation, neither asking nor giving quarter, and
how we hurled the Russians from the slopes of the Caucasus back upon
the shores of the Kuban, where they lay unburied save by the jaws of
the wolf and eagle, torn and disembowelled by hungry dogs, all Europe
knows full well; and how successive armies, full of barbarous pride
and military and religious enthusiasm, horsemen, artillery, and
infantry--hussars and Cossacks, Kurds and Tartar hordes, who had
stooped their necks to Russia's iron yoke, entered the valleys of
Circassia, valleys which seem but dark chasms or fissures where the
branches of the Koissons roar and leap from rock to rock in northern
Daghestan, and there they perished, too, beneath the bullet and the
arrow, the spear and sling of the unconquerable Tcherkesses.  It was
my brother Selim who slew General Woinoff; it was Karolyi who stormed
the redoubts and spiked his cannon: and it was I who hewed off the
head of the gallant soldier Passek, and bore it for three days on my
spear.

In this year of the Christians, 1840, I commanded that portion of the
Circassian troops which besieged the Russians in the fort of
Mikhailov.  They defended themselves with the blind fury of men who
foresaw their doom was death!  Selim pressed them with three thousand
men on one side; Karolyi, with the same number, pressed them on the
other; while I, with a chosen band of four thousand archers,
slingers, and musketeers, plied them from every quarter with
incessant missiles.  Selim cut off the sluices which supplied them
with water, and Karolyi stormed their outworks, tore down their
stockades, and beheaded every defender whom they caught by the lasso.

But Heaven has put much valour into the hearts of these infidels;
hence, though reduced to the verge of starvation (having picked the
bones of their last horse, and stewed their boot-tops and leather
shakoes), their commander, Ivan Carlovitch, colonel of the Tenginski
Hussars, resolved to make one gallant effort to escape, for his
soldiers had with them several old standards, which the Russians
regard as almost holy.

His garrison was composed of the 37th or Tenginski Grenadiers; the
38th or Novoginski Regiment, which carried the famous banner of St.
George, the same that had been with their predecessors at the passage
of the Alps, and which waved on the field of Trebbia, where they
fought under Suvaroff.  He had also two battalions of the Imperial
Guard, whose tattered and shot-riven standards had waved on many a
bloody plain, and been clenched in the dying grasp of many a gallant
man.

Their desire of preserving these trophies was only second to the hope
of escape; for the standard is ever the palladium of a regiment, even
as the National Insignia are the palladium of a free people, and, as
such, should be preserved from degradation.

Perceiving that, fearless of his cannon--those terrors of the simple
Circassians, who name them the great pistols of the Czar--I had made
every disposition for an assault, which must have been successful,
the valiant Ivan Carlovitch led out his shattered garrison among us,
sword in hand; and, favoured by a dark and tempestuous night, escaped
with a few, but a few only; for by sabre and by musket we made a
fearful slaughter among the soldiers of the Novoginski Regiment, and
taking their famous banner of St. George, tore it to fragments, and
spitting upon these, trampled them to the earth in blood and mire.

Thanks to the Prophet and to my coat of mail, uncounted balls and
bayonets touched me without harm.  Above the roar of that red
musketry which lit the darkness with its streaky gleams; above the
howling of the wind, which tore through every mountain gorge; above
the cheers of the desperate, and the shrieks of the dying, the wild,
shrill, and unearthly war-cry of the Circassians ascended to the
throne of Mohammed; and the approach to the breach was like the
bridge of hell, as we rushed through the battered gates to take
possession of the fortress; but at the moment that the 'enceinte,' or
interior wall which surrounded the place, and was composed of
bastions faced with brick, was crowded by our flushed and exulting
warriors, a tremendous explosion was heard the earth gaped, and
rocked, and rent; then it rose beneath our feet; a broad, hot,
scorching blaze of fire surrounded me, and blown up by a concealed
mine of powder, the whole fort of Mikhailov, with more than two
thousand Circassians, was torn from its foundations, and swept on the
whirlwind along the mountain slopes.

Struck down by a stone in the moment of victory I became senseless,
and remember no more of that night of horrors!

Heaven, I have said, has put great valour into the hearts of these
unbelievers.

Archipp Ossepoff, the same grenadier of the Tenginski Regiment whom I
had wounded by an arrow and from whom I had rescued Basilia,
volunteered to remain behind his comrades; and in order to prevent
the fort from being of service to the confederated princes, laid his
hands solemnly on the standard of St. George, and promised to Ivan
Carlovitch, that he would fire the magazine--a noble act of
self-sacrifice and military enthusiasm.  This man of course perished
with Mikhailov, and with our people; but in order to commemorate this
act of valour and devotion, the Emperor Nicholas ordained that his
name should be continued on the muster-roll of the Tenginski
Grenadiers; that it should be called daily on parade, and that on the
sergeant summoning "Archipp Ossepoff," the next grenadier on the list
should answer--

"Dead at Mikhailov for the glory of Russia!"

When I recovered, I found myself lying on the hillside, many yards
from the fort, the site of which resembled the crater of the volcano;
for it seemed as if the powder had rent, torn, and blackened the
bosom of the earth, in its efforts to efface the fort for ever.  The
free soft wind of the Caucasus was passing over the ruins; above me
the sky was bright, and blue, and sunny; the birds were twittering
among the mangled bodies of the slain; and about those ghastly heaps,
or between their piles of arms and limbered field-pieces, the Russian
soldiers (whom the flight of our people had left in possession of the
locality) were laughing and singing, as they drained their canteens
of sour quass, and prepared to cook their breakfasts, and to bury the
dead.

Around us, the scenery was beautiful; there were summer woods in all
their heavy foliage; the terraced vineyards of lighter green,
screened by the dense and wiry pine; little cottages and pretty
mosques, with gilded minars shining in the sun; bright streams
dancing down the rocks; the sea, blue as the sky and rippling gently
in the wind; while in the back-ground of all, rose hills piled up on
hills, until their steeps reached Heaven, and every peak was capped
with pure white snow, or tipped by a golden gleam.

Close by me a group of Russian officers were seated around one, who,
by his dark green uniform, his heavy silver epaulettes and
jack-boots; his varnished leather helmet surmounted by an eagle; his
enormous mustache and cruel expression of eye, I knew to be Ivan
Carlovitch; and I lay still and feigning death, believing that my
fate would be sealed, if life was discovered in me.

They were loud in their praises of the Circassian leader--myself--and
expressed a great desire to capture me; others added their less
friendly hopes that I had perished in the explosion.

"It is fortunate, however," said Carlovitch, "that we have taken his
two brothers, Selim and Karolyi; they, at least, have a long march
before them towards the north; and, believe me, that among the snows
there, with a chain to drag, and the occasional prick of a Cossack
lance in the rear, their hot rebellious blood will soon be cooled in
Siberia, and rendered mild as commissariat quass."

Under their shaggy beards the officers laughed at this poor joke,
which made my heart almost die within me, for it acquainted me, that
my two brothers, Selim and Karolyi, were captives, and that Siberia
would be their doom.

A soldier now approached to announce that the body of Archipp
Ossepoff had been found, shattered, scorched, and sorely mangled, but
still recognisable by the medals which he had won in the Polish war.

"Then let him be buried apart from all the rest," said Carlovitch,
"with all honour, and let a cross mark the spot; but first, let us
put all these fellows who are lying about here under ground, before
the sun attains its noon-day heat."

While lying there, receiving an occasional kick from the passing
soldiers, who had long since stripped me of my splendid arms, armour,
and ornaments, how terrible were my thoughts when the fierce, rough,
and merciless Cossacks proceeded to open a trench beside me, and dug
it deep to receive the dead.  I endeavoured to stifle reflection,
believing that my last hour had come; and after praying--for prayer
is the pillar of religion, even as the sword is the true key of
paradise--I bent my thoughts upon Basilia, who was far away at
Soudjack Kaleh, and seated then perhaps in her rose garden, fanning
herself with feathers, and weeping for the poor Osman she would never
again behold on earth.

At last the grave was finished, and one by one the dead were flung
therein, and laid in rows head and foot alternately; how heavily they
fell, with their lifeless limbs and clanking accoutrements!  Suddenly
I felt myself seized by the neck and heels, and before I could utter
a sound, they flung me into that ghastly trench on the gashed and
bloody heap below, and then the shovelled earth flew fast over me.

"Stop--halt!" cried Ivan Carlovitch, who was sitting on the sward
close by, smoking a magnificent pipe; "by St. George, that uppermost
Tcherkesse is alive yet!"

"A matter easily repaired, my colonel!" said a Russian, raising his
shovel like a battle-axe to cleave my head.

"Beware, I say!" thundered Carlovitch, and at his voice the bearded
soldiers cowered like slaves before a king; "fling him out, lay him
on the sward, and bring here a canteen of quass."

This sharp, bitter draught revived me, and my native pride coming to
my aid, I stood erect, and boldly confronted the imperialist.

"Who the devil are you?" he asked

I replied, proudly,--

"Osman Rioni, the son of Mostapha.  I might have concealed my rank,
but I scorn to lie, even unto a race of liars."

Joy flashed in the cruel and cunning eyes of Carlovitch at this
announcement; his surprise and satisfaction at the importance of his
third prisoner were too great to leave space for anger at my speech.
He smiled, and said,--

"Tcherkesse, your wants and your wounds, if you have any, shall be
faithfully and kindly attended to; when in better humour I shall see
you again, having a little message to you from the emperor.  Take him
away."

I was conducted to an ancient tomb, under the dome of which I found a
Cossack guard, surrounding my two brothers Selim and Karolyi, with
several other Circassians, who were all suffering more or less from
wounds or scorches ha the explosion.  All were dejected, and my
appearance among them increased their unhappiness.  We communed in
whispers, and formed our plans for flight on the first opportunity.

All that night we remained in the cold and dreary tomb, which before
morning some of our poor companions exchanged for an actual grave,
for they died of their undressed wounds; but about sunrise, we were
drawn out by the Cossacks, who truncheoned us with their lances,
driving us like a herd of cattle; and then their pioneers proceeded
to dig a grave under the dome, which was the resting-place of an
ancient king, a proceeding which we beheld with horror, for every
strict Mussulman deems sacred for ever the little spot of earth which
forms the last resting-place of a departed being.

Then the sound of muffled drums rolled upon the wind and the wail of
the Muscovite dead march, as the funeral of Archipp Ossepoff
approached; the solemnity of the scene impressed us deeply, and we
forgot that it was by the mingled treachery and stern devotion of
this determined soldier we had lost Mikhailov and our liberty
together.

Six grenadiers of the Tenginski Regiment bore on their shoulders the
coffin, the lid of which was off; a veil of fine linen covered the
body, which was dressed in uniform, with cross-belts, boots, gloves,
epaulettes of red worsted and copper medals.  The head was borne
forward, not the feet, as in other countries.  Then came four
soldiers, bearing the coffin lid, on which lay the leather helmet,
the musket, and knapsack of the deceased; then followed the regiment
of Tenginski Grenadiers, marching with their arms reversed, and
preceded by a grand military band of brass trumpets and muffled
drums.  In front of all marched a priest of the Russian Greek Church,
attired in magnificent vestments of muslin, gold, and embroidery.
His aspect was venerable; his white beard was full and flowing; he
chaunted as he went, and sprinkled frankincense upon the path.

A prayer, a roll upon the drums, and a flourish of instruments with
three volleys closed the ceremony, and there lies Archipp Ossepoff in
the tomb of a Circassian prince; but his memory as a brave grenadier
is still cherished, as I have related, by the orders of the emperor,
and in the traditions of his comrades.  God rest that gallant spirit;
he died for his country, even as I would have died for mine.

Pining for freedom and for the presence of Basilia, dreading I
scarcely knew what--but banishment to Siberia more than anything
else, for that had been but a living death and a separation for ever
from my country and my love--three dreary months rolled over me, and
with my two brothers I still found myself a prisoner with the Russian
army of the Caucasus, which marched along the left bank of the Kuban
towards the Sea of Azov, and consequently nearer to my home.

One day Colonel Carlovitch sent for me, and again his face wore that
deep and cunning smile which so closely resembled a leer; for his
eyes were cold and snaky, even as his heart was stern and cruel.

"I have sent for you, my valiant Tcherkesse," said he, politely, "to
make you a tempting offer from our beneficent father the emperor.  It
is this.  If you will enter the Russian service, all your father's
possessions from Marinskoi to the mouth of the Kisselbash River will
be restored to you, with the title of prince--neither of which can
you ever hope to regain by the impious sword you have drawn against
the house of Romanoff and the cause of Holy Russia."

I rejected the offer with the scorn it merited, and reminded the
tempter, in the words of our "Declaration of Independence," how many
of our children had been stolen; how many of our princes had thus
been lured away; how many sons of nobles taken as hostages, and then
butchered in cold blood; how many noble houses had been reduced and
crushed by Russian treason and by Russian treachery; and lifting up
my hands, while I turned my face towards Mecca, I was about to take a
solemn vow, when interrupting me, he said, with an icy smile,--

"Enough, Osman Rioni--swear not--'t is needless!  To-morrow you and
your brothers will commence the long, long march to Siberia."

At these words my soul trembled, and my head fell upon my breast.
The Russian officer still smiled and continued to polish the eagle on
his helmet, with his leather glove, while whistling the popular waltz
of the Duchess Olga.

Siberia!

With that name, hope, love, liberty, my country and her cause sank,
and snow-covered wastes, with chains and stripes, despair and death,
rose up before me.

If once I reached Siberia, I should live the life of the hopeless,
and die the death of the despairing; and my brothers--my poor
brothers!  The alternative was terrible, but in the Russian service
we should daily have chances of escape to our native mountains; so I
accepted his offer in the name of myself, Selim, and Karolyi.

"I knew that you would think better of it," said Carlovitch, sitting
down in his tent, and writing a memorandum; "thenceforward from this
day, you are a captain in the Tenginski Hussars, and your brothers
shall be the lieutenants of your troop.  Allow me to present you with
a horse which was taken at Mikhailov.  You shall fight against the
Tartars, not your own people; but to-morrow I have a piece of service
to propose to you.  Come here after morning parade or at noon, and I
shall tell you all about it--meantime adieu."

With a heart full of bitterness I left him, and careless of the
Cossacks, who still watched me, I took up a handful of gravel and
flung it towards his painted tent, spying, as Mohammed did at Bedr,--

"A curse upon thee, Muscovite--and a curse be on every hair of the
cur that begot thee!  May thy face be confounded for ever!"

Whichever way I turned, his cold smile seemed before me; but when I
reached the tent in which my brothers were confined, great was my
pleasure to find my favourite charger Zupi led up to the door by a
hussar, and I kissed and embraced my old friend, for we Mussulmen
deem the horse as the noblest of animals next to man; and the Koran
says, that the beasts which traverse earth and air are creatures like
ourselves--they are all written in the Book, and shall appear at the
last day; so when I die, I hope to take my faithful Zupi with me to
paradise, even as Ezra took his ass, after she had ceased to bray for
a hundred years.

Like myself, at the first proposition of taking service under the
abhorred emperor, my brothers were full of fierce scorn; but when I
had calmly placed my views before them, showing that we had no
alternative but military service, with its chances of escape on one
hand, and perpetual slavery, with its stripes on the other, they
condescended to accept the lieutenantcies of my troop; and the next
day--oh, may it be accursed!--saw us attired in the green uniform of
the Tenginski Hussars, and on parade with Menschikoff's division of
the Caucasian army.

In camp around us were bivouacked thousands of the Russian infantry
in their long great-coats and flat round caps; the Cossacks of the
Don with their fleet, rough, and active horses, and all armed with
long lances; the horse regiments of Tchernemorski glittering with
jewels and embroidery, and the Imperial Guard in their magnificent
uniform.  Around us rang the clank of the armourer's anvil, the
springing of ramrods and fixing of flints; the limbering of artillery
and powder-waggons; the galloping of aides-de-camp; the hewing down
of palisades, and the plaiting up of fascines, all of which told us
of preparations making for the subjugation of our country, and we
were amid it all, attired in the Russian uniform!

At noon I sought the tent of Carlovitch.

"My colonel," said I, veiling my boiling hatred under a calm
exterior, as with a solemn salaam I raised a hand to the front of my
fur hussar cap; "you had a duty to propose to me?"

"Yes, my stubborn Tcherkesse; I am glad to find that you have so
easily learned the task of obedience, as without it an army sinks
into a rabble.  Well, the duty is this.  There is an old fellow at
Soudjack Kaleh, who for some time past has traded with the Tartars in
various ways, and latterly with Turks in salted fish and pretty
women, both of which commodities he exports largely to Stamboul, to
the ancient city of Trebizonde, and to Sinope."

My heart began to leap at these words.

"You mean Abdallah ibn Obba."

"The same; but you start--do you know him?"

"Intimately," said I; "and your purpose, O son of a slave!" I had
almost added.

"Well, Captain Rioni, this respectable old Tcherkesse is now
bargaining for the sale of a cargo of slave girls for the Turkish
market, and a small Stambouli craft, which has long baffled the
pursuit of our steam corvettes and the row-boats of our Kreposts, is
now concealed in some creek near Mezip.  Unfortunately all our
vessels are over on the Crimean side, otherwise they would soon have
found those Turkish swine, who come to steal the subjects of our
father the emperor."

Carlovitch gave another of his cold smiles, for he perceived how my
hot Circassian blood revolted on hearing my people called the
subjects of his emperor I asked haughtily,--

"Your orders, Colonel Carlovitch?"

"You will select fifty of the Tenginski Hussars, and as you and your
brothers must know the country well, search every creek and cranny of
the coast until the Turkish ship is found.  She will be safely
beached somewhere, and when discovered, burn her; cut the throats of
the Turks, and bring the cargo of girls here.  You shall have a
couple of the prettiest for your trouble.  The daughter of old
Abdallah is among them--Basilia, commonly known as the flower of the
Abassians.  Archipp Ozepoff nearly brought me that girl once before,
but some rascal pierced him by an arrow.  Take especial care of her,
for I am resolved that no great bison of a Turk shall ever call her
slave.  No, no, her bright eyes will sparkle all the brighter among
the green uniforms and silver epaulettes of our Tenginski Hussars.
See to all this; you march in an hour, and till you return, farewell."

Taking up a pen he resumed a dispatch which my arrival had
interrupted; and after standing for some time, overwhelmed by
confusion and the misery of my own thoughts, I withdrew to the foot
of a tree, and sat down to reflect on the strange duty I had to
perform, and the startling tidings I had just heard.

The image of my beautiful Basilia--for I assure you, gentlemen, that
the Circassian maid is the most perfect and lovely creation of God--a
prisoner, a slave on board of a slave ship, and consigned a helpless
victim of the lust of the licentious Osmanli filled my soul with a
horror so great that I forgot my present situation in my anxiety to
discover this secret ship, to free her, and to put to the edge of the
sword all who were concerned in a transaction so infamous.  I saw the
whole affair now.  The loss of the rich argosy on the Isle of
Serpents had brought the difficulties of Abdallah to a crisis, and to
retrieve his broken fortune he had sold his only daughter to the
Turks!  I invoked the curse of the Prophet, and of the twelve Imaums
on his avarice; and now my only fear was great that the Turks might
launch their boat and escape me: thus it was that with an ardour such
as I never thought to feel at the head of Russian troops, I rode from
the camp at the head of fifty hussars, with my two brothers by my
side; and we galloped along the sea-shore, with all our brilliant
appointments glittering in the splendour of the setting sun of Asia.

"Basilia, my pure, my beautiful! this night may make thee mine,"
thought I; "one stroke of a sabre may give what thy father would not
have sold to me, perhaps, for a million of piastres."

I am ashamed to own that our Circassian beauties too often exchange
with joy the penury of their fathers' cottages and the hardships of
their frugal mountain homes, for the luxury and delight of the
Stambouli Kiosks and seraglios.  From early childhood their ears are
filled, and their warm imaginations fired, with ideas of the riches
and pleasure of these places, and by the stories of their mothers, or
more generally their aunts, who have returned (when their Osmanli
lords grew weary of their faded charms) loaded with magnificent
jewels, with purses of sequins, and wardrobes of the richest stuffs
the world can produce, and with many a tale to tell of the
distinguished part they had played by their native superiority of
intellect over the ponderous and dreamy Asiatic.  To purchase our
girls the Turkish vessels row by night along the shore, and seek some
wooded creek where they lie concealed from the steamers and cruisers
of the Russian Black Sea fleet, and from the squadrons of Cossack
row-boats attached to the Kreposts; then the bargain is concluded,
and the girls, who are always the most beautiful daughters of serfs
and freemen, are embarked, after a month, perhaps, has been spent in
bartering and chaffering between the merchants on one hand, and their
parents on the other.*


* It is calculated that one vessel out of six is taken.  In the
winter of 1843-4, twenty-eight ships left the coast of Asia Minor for
Circassia, to purchase girls; twenty-three returned safely; three
only were burned by the Russians, and two were swallowed by the
waves.--WAGNER


As the distance increased between us and the Russian camp my brothers
looked with longing eyes towards our native hills, between whose
misty peaks a flood of golden light was falling on the waving woods
and on the rolling sea; and now they began to whisper and exchange
glances of intelligence.  Their minds were full of the pledge we had
lately made to ourselves, that we would fly the hated yoke of Russia
on the first opportunity; but this was no easy task, believe me,
watched as we were by our own suspicious soldiers.  At this time my
whole soul was full of Basilia, and in the hope of freeing, of
winning, and of loving her, even Circassia and her wrongs were
forgotten for a time--God of the Prophet, but only for a time!

By a telescope I could see afar off the wild woods in which I had
wandered when a boy, and the familiar mountain peaks up which I had
clambered when fighting with the Muscovite riflemen, or hunting the
boar and jerboa.  I could see the bright gleam of steel and the
flashing of chain armour between the shady oaks; for there armed
bands were hovering, and there the Tartar bow, the Albanian gun, the
Circassian lance, and the crooked sabre, awaited the Muscovite
invader; and there the holy banner of the twelve stars waved above
the tent of the glorious Schamyl.  Watched as we were by the very men
we led, flight, as I have said, was hopeless; but then I had no
thought of flight even when within a cannon-shot of armed Circassian
bands which we could see with their camels laden with women,
children, and household goods, clambering up the hills to avoid the
Kalmuck scouts and Cossack foragers.

As the night darkened we saw lurid flames shooting up between the
mountain clefts; and while our fierce hussars muttered in guttural
Russ and laughed under their matted beards, the hearts of my brothers
and myself grew sad, for we knew that the Tchernemorski lances were
spreading woe and desolation in the homes of our people.

We searched every little bay, inlet, and river as we passed along the
beautiful coast from Anapa to Soudjack Kaleh, a fortress which was
then half in ruins, as General Williamoff had left it after storming
its defences at the head of fifteen thousand men.  It seemed now so
lonely and so silent that no one could imagine the roar of war had
once awoke its echoes, for the flowers of the arbutus, the
rhododendron, and many other plants, most of them aromatic, filled
the air with perfume as they grew in luxuriance on its battered
walls, or twining round the old cannon's mouth as it lay half sunk
among the stones and grass, or wreathing the bare skulls and white
ribs of the dead on whose unburied bones, bleached by the sunshine
and the storm, devouring dogs and mountain wolves had battened.

Evening had closed when we bivouacked near the beach, unbitted our
horses, lighted our pipes, and sent round our cups of quass to wash
down the black ration, bread and salt beef broiled among the embers
till it was encrusted with ashes and brine; and we were just
composing ourselves for the night, when my sergeant, a cunning and
active Cossack, who had crept a mile or two along the shore alone,
announced to me that he had seen some suspicious lights in a little
creek of the bay of Koutloutzi.  "Mount and march," was the order,
and favoured by a brilliant moon, beneath whose light the Euxine
rolled like a flood of silver at the base of the steep Circassian
hills, we rode round the margin of this circular bay, and ascended
the beautiful vale of Mezip, towards where my sergeant asserted he
had seen the lights.

Halting our party he and I dismounted, and, taking only our swords
and pistols, crept cautiously through a thicket towards where a river
entered the bay, and such a place we knew would be the most probable
rendezvous of the Turks with the slave merchant.  The foliage was
dense and dark overhead, for in this district the sturdy oak, the
beech, and the chestnut grew to the water's edge, and the
cherry-tree, the fig, and the wild olive were all in full bloom.  It
was a savage place.  Toads croaked among the reeds, and rearing
serpents hissed among the sedges of the river, which brawled over a
ledge of rocks and fell into the bay, while the yellow-coated and
weasel-like suroke whistled on the branches of the pine, and the
fleet jerboa fled before us from its lair like an evil spirit.

Suddenly we saw a gleam of light, and heard the sound of voices.  A
few paces more brought us to the brow of a wooded bank, at the base
of which we saw a number of Turkish sailors seated round a fire,
smoking, drinking raki, and making merry, while one of their number,
a little humpbacked fellow, with a hooked nose and enormous beard,
sang to them, and twangled on a lute.  They were sixteen in number (I
counted them carefully), and all fierce-looking fellows, with
enormous noses and mustachoes.  Large trowsers, dirty red tarbooshes,
and red shawl-girdles stuck full of daggers and pistols.  Most of
them had cuts and scars or patches on their dusky faces, and all had
a savage and sinister aspect, as the red gleams of the pinewood fire
fell on them.  The captain was particularly happy; as he believed,
that if the Sultan Abdul-Medjid did but once see Basilia, the
fortunes of all who had a share in bringing such loveliness to
gladden his sublime eyes would be made for ever.

In the back-ground, and drawn far up on the beach, lay their vessel,
with its large angular sail stowed on deck; the yard struck, and the
mast and rigging covered by green pine branches, the better to elude
the observation of scouts, and to blend its outline with the
surrounding trees, while heaps of branches, with dry leaves spread
over all, were piled against the sides.  But over the gunnel we saw
several Circassian girls sitting very quietly, gazing at those rough
and noisy guardians, who were to convey them to that brilliant
Stamboul, which they had been taught to believe was an earthly
paradise.

On that little deck, and apart from all the rest, sat one who did not
seem to share the placidity of her companions, or to share their
joyous anticipations.  Her form was enveloped in her veil, and her
head was bowed upon her hands, her eyes were sad, and fixed on
vacancy.  My breath came thick and fast.  There was a swelling in my
throat, as if my heart was there, for I knew that lonely weeper was
Basilia.

As thirty or forty girls are usually deemed a good cargo and only ten
were visible, it was evident to us that the Turks had no intention of
putting to sea for some days; thus my sergeant, who had frequently
been on expeditions of this kind, politely suggested--as we had
ridden a long way--the expedience of sleeping quietly for that night,
and slaughtering the Turks at our leisure in the morning; but my
impatience would brook of no delay.

Again we mounted: I divided my party into two troops, and ascending
the valley of Mezip for a mile or so, descended from different points
towards the head of the Bay.

"Spur and sabre!" was the cry.

There was a brief but sharp discharge of pistols, a gleaming of
knives and flashing of sabres, and in five minutes the surrounded
Turks were all trampled under hoof, shot and headless beside the fire
which had lit the scene of their jollity, not one of them escaping
save their deformed messmate, who dashed his lute at the head of
Selim, sprung into the sea, and disappeared.  The captain I sabred
with my own hand; but not before he gave me this wound by a pistol
shot, which grazed my left cheek like a hot iron.

Inspired anew by love and triumph I sprang up the side of the vessel,
and sought the lonely figure--it was as my heart divined--Basilia.  I
knelt before her, and took her hand in mine, trembling as I did so,
for never until that moment had I touched even the hem of her
garment.  My soul was in my tongue, and weighed it down with words of
love and joy, but one alone found utterance,--

"Basilia!"

She gave a cry of wonder, and as she gazed at me, her large black
eyes dilated and flashed with anger.

"Basilia," said I, "do you not remember me?"

"No," replied she, while trembling; "who are you?"

"Osman, the son of Mostapha, your own Osman, who saved you at Anapa."

"It is false," she answered, with eyes full of anger and sorrow;
"Osman was a brave Circassian warrior, and I loved him; oh! how
dearly and how well; but he fell in battle at Mikhailov.  Thou art
either a base Muscovite, or some fiend in the shape of Osman; a ghoul
it may be, a son of Ifrit; begone, and leave me."

I could have wept at these stinging words, which sank like poisoned
arrows in my heart, and I feared that grief had disordered her
intellects; but I did injustice to Basilia, for her language was the
first prompting of honest grief and indignation to find me in the
uniform of the Tenginski Hussars, and false, as she deemed, to my
country and to her.  For so she told me, when more composed, and when
she heard my story, as we sat side by side under a broad chesnut tree
with the plunder of the Turkish ship around us, and the flames of its
burning timbers to light our little bivouac.  When we fired it, with
all the branches and withered leaves that were piled over it, the
flames burned bravely, and shot above the copse-wood, as they licked
the mast and its well-tarred cordage.

I sat at the feet of Basilia, my heart teemed with joy, half the
objects of existence seemed accomplished now, and I could no longer
believe that fortune had greater favours in store for me.

In the language of our own beloved country, we formed innumerable
projects of happiness, or whispered plans of escape from the toils of
the Russians, and I had resolved in the night, if possible, to elude
my own sentinels, to mount Basilia on Zupi, and to depart by the vale
of Mezip towards the wilderness of mount Shapsucka, when my sergeant,
with a dark and singular expression in his eye, came to inform me
that my brother "the Lieutenant Selim was nowhere to be found."

Karolyi, who was sitting beside us, looked up, and gave a deep smile
as the Cossack spoke.

In short, after seeing the last Turk cut down, Selim, while our
dismounted hussars were overhauling the ship, had turned his horse's
head towards the mountains and escaped.

I rejoiced at this for a time.

"But brother Osman," said Karolyi, "Selim has done us a wrong in
this; we should all have fled together, for thou and I will now be
watched with double suspicion, and have our simplest actions
subjected to the severest scrutiny."

"Remember, there is the maiden, whom I cannot leave behind; so let us
rejoice that Circassia has one brave warrior more."

Karolyi made a gesture of impatience.

"Circassia," said he, "has maidens enough and to spare; but for every
warrior on her hills, she requires at least a hundred.  This is no
time for wedding or acting the lover, for twangling on the lute and
kneeling on the verge of a pretty maid's carpet."

"These were my own words, Karolyi, when urged by you and Selim to wed
ere Schamyl rose in arms."

"True, brother, true," replied Karolyi, "and in truth, this little
maiden is a miracle of beauty.  My soul and sword are at her service,
command them; but in the name of Merissa think not of escape
to-night.  Another and perhaps more favourable opportunity may soon
occur."

The night passed quickly away.  I watched Basilia while she slept in
my mantle.  I was sleepless, but silent and happy, for my mind was
full of love and her.

Next day I placed her on Zupi, and we set out for head-quarters amid
the maledictions of the ten rescued slaves, who saw all their
anticipated delights of a seraglio life suddenly cut short, and who
knew that fate would now consign them to high-cheeked Kalmucks, or
the rough, greasy Cossacks, in lieu of the wealthy Osmanlis, the
luxurious Pashas, and turbaned Agas, whom they had hoped to have as
masters; and they consoled themselves by reviling me as a renegade,
and invoking on my head all the ills that fell on the God-abandoned
Thamudites, and on the offspring of Saba, the son of Yarab.

On arriving at head-quarters, I presented my prisoners, and the right
ears of fifteen Turks to Colonel Carlovitch.  The ears he flung to
his dogs, and the ten girls, not finding favour in the sight of the
officers who crowded about them, were given to Cossacks, to make
wives or whatever they pleased of them, for such is the law of the
Russian military colonies on the Kuban; and to himself, despite my
prior claim by love and capture; despite my rage and grief, my
entreaties and ill-smothered threatenings--to himself--this accursed
Muscovite assigned Basilia as a hand-maiden!

* * * * *

(Here the Circassian, who had related this part of his narrative in
short and broken sentences, paused, and ground his teeth, while the
veins of his fine pale forehead swelled like rigid cords, and his
keen dark eyes became glazed with the ferocity, fire, and grief that
filled them.)




CHAPTER XVIII.

ZUPI.

Ivan Carlovitch, he resumed, was a soldier insensible alike to pity
and to danger.  His cold and rigid sternness had first brought him
under the notice of his imperial master, who raised him from the
humblest rank in the army.  He had a strict and almost absurd idea of
the implicit obedience which should be rendered by the soldier to his
superior; and wild as I was then with passion and grief on finding
that I had only saved Basilia from one degrading condition to deliver
her over to one still more cruel and terrible--to be the mistress,
the plaything of a wretched Russian--I had sufficient tact to see
that resistance would only serve to destroy my own hopes of a
dreadful vengeance, and of achieving her freedom.  On the first
symptom of disobedience, Carlovitch would have brought me before a
general court-martial.  From this tribunal in Russia, the way to the
knout or the grave is short and rapid, especially to a poor Pole, or
a captive Tcherkesse warrior.

It is related that early in life, Ivan Carlovitch, the son of Carl, a
porter of Moscow, was a soldier in General Ouchterlony's battalion of
the Imperial Guard, and was one day a sentinel on the private gate of
the palace at St. Petersburg, when a sudden inundation of the Neva
spread terror among the inmates of the edifice, and forced them to
retreat to the upper stories.

The Empress Alexandrina was surveying the rising waters from a
balcony, when she perceived Carlovitch standing at his post
motionless, and mid leg in the water.  In great alarm she desired him
to retire within doors.  He "presented arms" when Her Majesty
addressed him, but respectfully declined.  The flood increased.
Trees were swept away, railings and balustrades, vases of flowers,
dead cattle, boats, and logs of wood were surged and dashed against
the palace walls; again and again the Empress and her ladies called
in great agitation to the sentinel, desiring him to abandon a post so
perilous; but with admirable coolness he replied, that he "dared not
until properly relieved or withdrawn by an order from the captain of
the guard."  That officer had by this time clambered to the roof of
the guard-house, from whence he sent the corporal, a good swimmer, to
bring off this obstinate sentinel, who was now up to his neck in
water.

For this act of bravado or insensibility to danger, Carlovitch was
appointed a captain in the Infantry Regiment of Tenginski, and
marched with it against the Circassians.  In due time he was
appointed colonel of the Tenginski Hussars (for there are two corps,
one of horse and the other of foot, so named), and as such I found
him when misfortune cast me in his way.

He was a man without mercy, and often brought his bravest soldiers to
the knout for the most trivial fault; but he never broke into gusts
of passion, and though constantly using among the soldiers, the
serfs, and prisoners a heavy rattan, every blow of which brought away
a stripe of flesh, he always addressed them with a cold and cruel
smile, which filled those who knew him with fear and repugnance.

Oh, how I loathe his memory and the recollection of that fiendish
leer, which I can picture so distinctly at this moment!

But what of Basilia, you would ask me?

Fain would I draw a veil over her fate; but a few words will relate
it.

The insulting advances, the bold declarations of a love the most
repugnant to a heart so pure, the caresses and the presents of
Carlovitch she received with disdain.  For three days and three
nights tears were her only protection; entreaties for mercy her only
weapon; but at last even they failed her.  One night Carlovitch,
flushed with wine and fury on leaving a banquet given by Prince
Merischikoff, assailed her in his own tent, and to escape him, the
miserable Basilia pierced her throat with a poniard, and died at his
feet!

Her pure, fair, beautiful form was wrapped in a horse-rug, and buried
by the rough hands of Cossack pioneers, at the foot of a rock on the
left bank of the Kuban.

The grave of my love lay but a pistol shot distant from the tent of
her destroyer; yet his iron heart never smote him, and never
reproached him with his cruelty; he smoked, he drank the wine of the
Tcherkesses, and played at cards and chess, and with his brother
officers sang as merrily as ever, and no more regarded the death he
had caused and the misery he had wrought, than the ashes of his last
cigar.

Where then was I?

Forced to lead my troop against my own people, and watched by a
chosen few of my own soldiers, I had been sent towards Azov in
pursuit of fugitive Circassians.  One whom we had tracked the
livelong day, riding over steep mountains, through pathless forests
and deep rivers, was taken at nightfall by his horse falling under
him.  He was brought in, exhausted with fatigue and faint with
hunger, covered with blood, with scars, brambles, and heavily
fettered.  The poor fugitive we had pursued so long, and taken at
last, proved to be my brother Selim, who had failed to reach the camp
of our confederated princes, and had wandered long on the Russian
side of Mount Shapsucka.

I was filled with new dismay.  It seemed that I required but this to
complete my misery.  I rent my beard, and threw myself on the ground;
I cursed myself and Ivan Carlovitch in the same breath, and daringly
upbraided the Prophet with injustice to a Mussulman so devout as I.

Poor Selim heard my words with terror.  He raised me from the ground;
he kissed me on both cheeks, and besought me to be composed, and then
we were separated.  I had to continue my march towards the shores of
the sea of Azov, while Selim, the miserable Selim, was dragged before
Carlovitch, who tried him as a deserter, had him degraded, and his
sword and commission trodden under foot; after which he was sentenced
to die--to die under the knout--"a terror to other Tcherkesses who
trifled with the service of their beneficent lord and father the
emperor."

Three weeks afterwards I heard of his fate, and to nerve my soul for
the coming vengeance, I drank in the terrible description of the poor
boy's dying scene.  I was told by my sergeant how the troops were
formed in a hollow square--ten thousand Russian slaves, misnamed as
soldiers, with bayonets fixed and colours flying; I was told how the
noble prisoner stood amid them, with the kingly air of a true
Circassian cavalier, though stripped of every article of attire, save
a pair of tattered drawers; how he was bound by the wrists, the neck,
and ancles, to a large gun-carriage, and how the executioner, a
gigantic Kalmuck, stood six feet distant to give his infernal weapon
a swing more full and heavy.  I was told how Selim--for he was the
youngest of us--screamed in agony as each successive blow fell on his
bare and quivering shoulders, from which the flesh was torn in pieces
by every lash of the dreadful whip; how between every stroke this
giant Kalmuck dipped its bloody ends in brimstone, and how the victim
sank beneath the strokes, until at last their sound came dull and
dead, for poor Selim had expired with four words on his lips; they
were, "My brothers--my brothers."

I did not shed a tear for him; a fiend seemed to possess me; a
devilish joy swelled within me, as I lay that night in the bivouac
beside the feet of Zupi, rolled in my mantle, with my sword and
pistols at my side.

"Woe to thee, whining cur of the Czar, woe!" I repeated again and
again; "to-morrow I will see thee, Carlovitch--to-morrow shall thy
soul answer to heaven and to hell for these atrocities; and to-morrow
Mostapha's son shall cease to be the serf of this dog Emperor,
Nicholas Paulovitch!"

The sunny morrow came, and loud and shrill rang the trumpets which
summoned the Hussars and Grenadiers of Tenginski to a general parade.
I examined my saddle girths, my bridle, and my arms, with scrupulous
exactness, for this would be the last parade I was ever to attend.  I
threw away everything that might serve to encumber my motions or
overload my horse, and by my advice Karolyi did the same.

We were now with that portion of the Russian army which had fallen
back from the Circassian Mountains to recruit and reform after their
defeats by Schamyl; and which, after recrossing the Don, was cantoned
principally in the Ukraine.  The division to which we belonged
occupied Poltava, one of the richest and best parts of the adjoining
province for pasturing cavalry horses.

On the very day after we halted at Poltava, a grand parade was formed
before Prince Menschikoff, and as I had marched with the baggage
guard, I saw Carlovitch for the first time since these atrocities had
cast a horror on my soul.  The Prophet alone knows what were my
emotions at the sight of him.  The voices of Basilia and of Selim
were rising from their graves--they were ever in my ears whispering
"vengeance," and I rode amid the troops like one in a stupor.  The
parade was a magnificent one.

There were present the Imperial Guard, under General Ouchterlony, a
Scotsman, and his three sons, all colonels of battalions; these men
were the flower of the Russian army; the six Grenadier battalions of
Prince Frederick of Hesse Phillipesthal; the veteran regiment of
Moscow, commanded by Prince Frederick of Mecklenburg; the Cuirassiers
of the Grand Duchess Olga, and the gorgeous Hussars of the Princess
Maria Paulowna (sister of the Emperor), whose trappings far eclipsed
those of the two Tenginski corps of Hussars and Infantry.  But
Karolyi and I laughed at the splendour of these idolaters, and scorn
grew with hatred in our hearts; for it is of these, and such as
these--eaters of hogs'-flesh and drinkers of brandy--that our Prophet
spoke, when he said, "lo! they are like no other than brute cattle,"
and they shall perish like the people of Irem, of Thamud, and those
who, as the Koran tells us, dwelt in al Rass.

The review passed before me like a dream, for my mind was full of
other thoughts, and I saw only the mangled and bleeding body of Selim
bound to the field-piece, and the poor remains of Basilia asleep in
that uncouth grave where the Russian pioneers had buried her, when
suddenly my name resounded along the glittering ranks; Carlovitch
summoned me to the front, when all the cavalry were formed in line to
deliver a general salute.

Something had gone wrong.  I know not what, but I had neglected my
troop when deploying from close column into line, and Carlovitch,
usually so grave and impassible, was choking with passion.  He called
me "a dog of a Tcherkesse," and smote me on the face with his rattan.

The blow went straight to my heart!

For a moment I felt as if a thunderbolt had struck me; but
transported with fury, I uttered the yell-like war cry of Circassia,
and buried my sharp sabre--the noble steel of far-away Damascus--in
his dastard heart!

Again I thrust it to the hilt, as tottering he drooped upon his
holsters, dying and gushing of blood, and then I spurned the corpse
with my feet as it fell.  I slew him on the spot, in the face of
fifty thousand men!  May the curse of mankind fall upon the turf
which wraps the dog who begot him!

I brandished my sabre, and shouted wildly to Karolyi,--

"To the hills--away, away!  Tcherkesse!  Tcherkesse!"

Goring his horse with the spurs, he sprang from the ranks, as the
roar of a thousand voices ascended from them, on witnessing this act
of justice; together we dashed at a furious pace towards the nearest
mountains, and had already placed a deep and rapid torrent between us
and the Russians, before they had recovered from their astonishment,
or made proper arrangements for a pursuit.

The most accomplished rider in Europe is acknowledged to sit his
horse like a clown when contrasted with a Circassian cavalier; and
fortunate it was for Karolyi and me, that we--both men and
horses--were bred and reared on the slopes of the Caucasus; as we
were hotly and fiercely pursued by relays of mounted men despatched
fresh and lightly accoutred from the innumerable military posts we
passed.  The wild Tchernemorski Cossacks, with their long lances, and
wiry little horses; the Tenginski and Paulowna Hussars, and even the
heavy, helmeted, breast-plated and jack-booted Olga cuirassiers
spurred after us; but among the deep rocky gorges, the tangled
brakes, the shifting mosses, and the fordless rivers, we soon rid
ourselves of the latter, and most of the others, save the Cossacks,
who followed us like spirits of evil, unrelenting and unwearying, for
many a day and many a night.

In desperate hope to reach the Prussian frontier, we had already
crossed the Dnieper, and traversed the palatinate of Minsk, where for
days we rode over a flat country, of which we were ignorant, and
where, in despair, we were frequently about to abandon the hope of
escape, when we found ourselves involved in the mazes of a wild
forest and dreary morass that lie on the banks of its rivers.  But
our native hardihood preserved us; for a cleft in a rock, or the
branch of a tree with a sword for a pillow, is home enough at any
time for a Tcherkesse warrior.

However, we now began to experience a serious difficulty in procuring
a knowledge of the route to be pursued.  We knew little of the
language; our aspect was jaded, wan, and terrible; our uniform hung
about us in rags; our horses were sinking, and that we were deserters
was evident to every observer.  And now the people of Lithuania
joined in the pursuit, and one evening, just as we were about to
cross a river named the Swislocz, our Tchernemorski Cossacks came
upon us, and their wild shout of joy at the termination of that
flight, which to them had been a long and exciting chase, rang in the
air above us, as they reined up their horses on the rocks that
overhung the stream, and brandished their spears.

We were about to plunge in, when one more bold or more freshly
mounted than his comrades, wounded Karolyi by a lance thrust.

"May demons defile thy beard, and their plagues fall on thee and
thine!" exclaimed my brother in a gust of fury; but now he had
dropped or broken every weapon save his dagger, so with that
quickness which is peculiar to the Circassian, he dismounted, rushed
upon the Cossack's horse, drove the weapon into its breast, and
bearing it back at the same time by the bridle, he hurled the
snorting steed over upon its rider, and crushed him to death in an
instant.

Vaulting again into his own well-worn saddle, he plunged with me into
the stream, and gallantly we breasted it--while the carbines of the
Tchememorski Cossacks--the only soldiers in the Russian service who
can at all compete with our people--rang on every side, as they
commenced a simultaneous discharge upon us, and their bullets
flattened on the rocks, or raised incessant water-spouts around us.

Suddenly I heard a low cry and a choking gurgle that filled my heart
with misery.  I looked back; Karolyi, struck by a bullet, had sunk
from his saddle, and a spurred boot alone was visible, as horse and
rider was swept over a cataract, and borne away towards the Dnieper.

So perished my second brother!

Forcing Zupi up a bank where the reeds grew at least twelve feet
high, I still rode recklessly on; but brave as they were, not one of
the Cossacks dared to cross that foaming torrent in pursuit.  Night
came down to shroud my flight; there was no moon.  I reached a wood,
and flung myself down exhausted in mind and body.  I was now dead to
the fear of discovery, and I cared not for wolves, or other wild
animals.

The presence of Karolyi, his companionship and our brotherly love,
had alone sustained me thus far; now he was gone, and I was alone in
the world; but there was at least one consolation: he had died the
death of a warrior, with one hand on his bridle, and the other on his
weapon; he had fallen, like his father's son, in battle with the
enemies of his country, but he had found a tomb far from his father's
grave, and far from the banks of the Kisselbash River.

Three days I lay without food, save a little wild honey, and without
repose in that Lithuanian forest, and careless whether I lived or
died; for want, misery, privation and mental agony had broken my
spirit, and destroyed alike every purpose, hope, and reflection.
There I prayed to the only Prophet of God, and remembered with
growing trust that in the blessed Koran, he enjoins us to seek aid
with perseverance; and I implored him to deliver me, even as the Lord
divided the sea of Kolzom with his hand to let his people pass, and
thereafter drowned the Egyptian host; and the Prophet heard me; for
even while I prayed with my bare head in the dust, there chanced to
pass that way a poor Tartar who dwelt on the skirts of the forest,
and who had come hither to cut wood.

He heard me address the Prophet, and remembering the faith of his
fathers, felt his heart moved within him; so he had compassion upon
me, and took me to his hut, which, like all the Tartar dwellings, was
little better than a rabbit-hole, burrowed on the face of a hill,
with a rude verandah in front.  Fortunately it lay in a wild and
secluded place; so I dwelt for some days in safety with this good
man, who guided me across the plains of Grodno, until I passed the
Prussian frontier, when I knelt with my face to the east, and gave
thanks to Heaven--thanks that I was safe from Russia, although eight
hundred miles lay between me and the hills of my beloved Circassia.

Zupi, my horse, the noble animal which had borne me this incredible
distance, was my first care, and to procure new garments in lieu of
the tattered uniform of the Tenginski Hussars was the second; and
intent only on reaching Britain, which was about to declare war
against Russia, I travelled through part of Prussia by railway, a
mode of locomotion, which I there saw for the first time, and which
filled me with wonder and awe.

On reaching that kingdom, I thought my troubles were at an end; but
there, alas!  I found myself accused of a murder, stripped of the
little sum I had about me, separated from Zupi, cast into prison, and
in danger of being hanged; or what was worse, sent back to the
Russian General Todleben, who commanded at Grodno.  It happened thus.

I travelled towards Dantzig in a second-class carriage, in which the
only other passenger was a pale and careworn young man, whose
profusion of beard, braided coat, and small cap, with its square
peak, gave him somewhat the aspect of a student.  Taciturn and
thoughtful, and being full of astonishment at the speed with which we
swept over plain and valley, across rivers and under
mountains--travelling as it were on the skirts of a whirlwind--I did
not address my companion, who after smoking a large pipe for some
time, covered his head with his cloak, and threw himself at full
length along the seat, where he lay, long, as I thought, asleep.  A
jolt of the train threw him on the floor, and perceiving that he lay
motionless and still, I hastened to lift him; but how great was my
emotion, to find my hands covered with blood--for this silent
fellow-passenger was a suicide, who had cut his throat from ear to
ear, by a knife, which he grasped in his now rigid hand.

I endeavoured to lower the windows, but I knew not the way; so I
dashed one to pieces, and cried aloud to the guards or drivers--I
know not which you name them; but I was unheeded, and still this
apparently infernal vehicle, in which I was enclosed with the bloody
corpse, swept on, screaming, whistling, jarring, clanking, smoking,
and whirling over wood and plain, over the roofs of towns, past the
weathercocks of churches, and the tops of lofty trees, with a speed
and din that would have carried terror and dismay to the hearts of a
Circassian host, and would have swept Kurds and Kalmucks to the
furthest confines of Asia.

At Dantzig the train arrived in due time, and the doors were opened
by the conductors.  I was found with "the murdered man;" my recent
cries were attributed to him; the broken windows to his dying
struggle, for my hands were cut and covered with blood!  The Prussian
gallows threatened me on one hand and the Russian knout upon the
other.  I was a poor unfriended foreigner, in a land of spies,
suspicion, and police agents; and in my own defence had not one word
to urge, for I was ignorant of the language.  But fortunately next
day, a letter was found on the person of the deceased, who proved to
be a French artist, announcing his intention of destroying himself,
and adding, that "when he had no longer a sou, it was thus a
Frenchman should die--Vive la France!  Vive le diable!"

This relieved me, and explained the whole affair; but the Prussian
gens-d'armes kept my purse, as they said, to pay "all contingencies;"
and had not the captain of a large French ship taken pity upon me,
and brought me and my horse to London--the capital of Europe--I must
have begged for bread in the streets of Dantzig, and had to sell my
beloved Zupi to save the noble animal from starvation.

Finding myself in the great city of London, I was likely to be in
greater distress than when in the vast forest of Lithuania; for in
London the whole population live in an atmosphere of snares,
suspicion, and mistrust, every man viewing his neighbour as one who
has a design upon him.  Again I was starving, for the little sum with
which the French captain supplied me was spent upon Zupi, by whose
side I always slept at night in an old cart-shed.  But remembering
that by birth and habit I was a soldier, I applied to the officers of
the Household Brigade; some of these smiled, and shook their heads
doubtfully, until Sir Henry Slingsby laid before them my commission
in the Tenginski Hussars; it was fringed with silver, and signed by
the Emperor Nicholas Paulovitch.  Then they had a fellow feeling for
me, and treated me with a kindness, the memory of which fills my soul
with gratitude; for never, to the last hour of my life, shall I
forget it, or omit to pray for the good and brave Ingleez.




CHAPTER XIX

WE REACH HEAD-QUARTERS.

Such was the story of the Circassian captain, and it occupied the
greater part of the time during which the San Lucar packet steamed
along the south-west coast of Andalusia, passing Cape Plata, and
entering the Straits of Gibraltar, had rounded the promontory which
is crowned by towers and ramparts of Tarifa, after which a run of
seventeen miles brought us into the harbour of the great rock, where
the babble of Spaniards, Moors, Italians, French, and Gitanas was
ringing in our ears again, as we landed with our horses on the quay.

Taking our new friend with us--for we could not but have a lively
interest in a brother patriot of the valiant Schamyl--the Washington
of the Caucasus, the Wallace of Circassia, we repaired at once to
headquarters, and related the success of our visit to Seville,
reserving future relations until we went to mess in the evening.

We introduced Captain Osman Rioni to Morton, our colonel, who
immediately spoke to him of service in the Turkish Contingent, urging
it upon him the more vehemently, as there were then in the harbour
six transports full of French and British troops en route to
Sebastopol.  But Osman thanked the good colonel, and shook his head,
saying,--

"Mohammed was the first Prophet of God, and the holy Murid Schamyl is
the second!  Our destiny is written on our foreheads; may it be mine
to die in the ranks of war!  Every man hath his part in life allotted
to him; may it be mine to fight for my country, and fight again I
shall!  Is not her blood red on the Russian bayonets?  I will carry a
lance under no flag but the green Sangiac Sheerif of Circassia.
Would to heaven I saw it now with the twelve stars of the
confederated tribes, for then I should see the Abassian peaks and the
wilds of Daghestan, the warriors in their mail of links, and the
linden trees that shade those cottage doors from which our women
bless us, and we ride to war against the Buss.  Yes, yes; I will
return to Circassia on her shore alone to fight with Schamyl against
the foes of God, and to see once more the snowy rocks of Elbrus,
where the ark of Noah first rested before it lay on Ararat."

His story, his peculiar language and bearing, his horse Zupi, and his
love for that gallant animal made him quite a seven days' wonder with
"Ours," and he was the lion of the mess table.  Every one who had any
pretension to be a connoisseur in horse-flesh had visited,
criticised, and caressed Zupi, which was a long-bodied, wiry, and, to
our taste, somewhat short-legged nag, with small ears, a noble head,
full chest and flanks, compact and close.

"A hundred times and more he has stood still as a stone wall, and
allowed me to fire my long Albanian gun between his ears, using his
head as a rest," said Osman; "courage, brave Zupi--courage!  Ere long
thou shalt snuff the air in woody Daghestan, and drink of the foaming
Koissons."

We raised a handsome subscription for him in one night at our mess
table, and procured him a passage in a French cavalry transport; so
he left us, with lips that quivered as he said "farewell," and a
heart that yearned with gratitude.  He said that one day we should
hear of him when Schamyl and his host marched towards the shores of
the Sea of Azov.

Whether Osman reached his own wild and war-like country we have yet
to learn; for since the day on which the "Napoleon III." steamed away
past the New Mole fort, with her deck crowded by Zouaves, and our
Circassian among them waving his red cap in adieu to us, we have
heard no more of him; for the tidings of the Caucasian strife that
reach Europe are meagre, doubtful, and vague, as those that came from
the Holy Land of old.

Slingsby and I were complimented in garrison orders for the manner in
which we had accomplished our little diplomatic trip to Seville, and
were praised for the dangers we had encountered and escaped.

Our adventures, with those of Osman Rioni, infected the mess with a
desire to "spin yarns," and the result was, that from being the most
matter-of-fact fellows in the world, every one of "Ours" had a
romantic story to tell.

"Now, gentlemen," said the colonel, one evening when I had brought my
narrative down to the happy epoch of our embarkation on board the
steamer at San Lucar de Barameda, "how much more pleasant and
entertaining has all this been to us than the usual absurd chit-chat
which reigns supreme at a mess table; the everlasting quiz about the
curl of Ramble's mustachios; the banter about Bob's whiskers, or
Slingsby's bay mare, and how Shafton craned at the hedge in the
steeple-chase; the odds on the Derby; the last new singer; the latest
ballet importation, with the shape of her ancles, and so forth; the
last novel or polka, or belle, or piece of humbug; now is it not so?"

Hereupon all those whose constant topics the colonel had just
enumerated, warmly assented that it was, and that the narrative had
proved immensely interesting.

"Deuced instructive, too!" yawned the most stupid fellow at the table.

"Might spin three volumes out of it, Ramble.  'Men and Manners in
Andalusia!'" said another.

"No banter now, gentlemen!" said the colonel; "pass the bottles,
Shafton.  Mr. Vice-President, another allowance of wine; I have a
proposal to make.  We have been--that is, the most of us--have been
in all the quarters of the globe, and have seen life in all its
phases and varieties.  Therefore, I beg to move that each of us who
has a story to tell should forthwith tell it for the amusement of the
mess, under the penalty of a dozen of wine."

"Bravo," said every one.

"I beg to second the motion," said Jack Slingsby.

"With an amendment," added Shafton, "that the colonel should tell the
first story himself, the said amendment to be inserted in the minutes
of the mess committee."

It was carried unanimously, amid much fun and laughter.

Our colonel, who is a fine, frank, and brave-hearted old fellow, had
no idea that he was so suddenly to find himself in his own trap.  He
laughed and reflected a little, as he stroked the wiry, grey mustache
which, in compliance with the late general order, he had just begun
to cultivate after forty years of close shaving; and then he smoothed
his thin white hair, for he was an old soldier, and (but for the
favouritism of the Horse Guards) would have been a general twenty
years ago, being one of the few survivors of that army which gave
battle to France on the shores of Aboukir, where, as he was wont to
say, "he had carried the colours of Geordie Moncrief's lambs--the old
Perthshire Greybreeks."  He had also been through the whole
Peninsular war, and served in the Fifth Hussars, with Sir Colquhoun
Grant's brigade under Wellington in Flanders.

"I have seen much in my time, gentlemen," said he, good humouredly,
as he tossed off a glass of claret, "but have no adventures of my own
to relate--at least none that are at all worth your attention.  I
can, however, tell you the story of another, whose scrapes were
somewhat remarkable, and were in some respects--as far as Spanish
robbers were concerned--like those of Ramble and Jack Slingsby.  They
were told me by a French officer, a gay fellow, but a regular
candle-snuffer at twelve paces, whom I met at Paris when the allies
were there; by this you will perceive that the affairs I refer to
happened many a year ago."

The glasses were filled; the cracking of nuts ceased; the heavy
crystal decanters were slid noiselessly over the long smooth
mess-table, the well-polished surface of which reflected the red
coats around it, and all was hushed as our grave and gentle old
colonel began the following narrative, to which I beg leave to devote
my next three chapters.




CHAPTER XX.

ST. FLORIDAN; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT.

The night was dark, and the lamps of the Rue du Temple had nearly all
been extinguished by a high wind; there was no moon visible.

It was in the month after the capture of Paris, in 1815, that the
adventures I am about to relate occurred.

The defeat at Waterloo, the rapid advance of the British troops, the
capture of Cambray by Sir Charles Colville, of Peronne, by the
Brigade of Guards under Major-General Maitland, and, last of all, the
seizure and military occupation of the great and glorious city of
Paris--the citadel of Napoleon--the heart of France, had exasperated
the French, and excited their animosity against us.  Every citizen
greeted us with darkened brows and lowering eyes.

No officer of the allied army could pass through the streets of Paris
in perfect safety without being armed, and few went abroad from their
billets or cantonments after nightfall, unless in small parties of
three or four, for mutual protection.  On many occasions we were
openly insulted and severely maltreated in the more solitary streets
or meaner suburbs of the city; while in the taverns and restaurateurs
our quarrels were frequent with the old men of the Revolution, who
had witnessed the decapitation of Louis, and the demolition of the
Bastile; but still more so with the soldiers of Buonaparte, who were
swarming in every part of Paris, in plain clothes, or in the rags and
remnants of their uniform.

Those French officers whom we met at the promenades, on the
Boulevards, in the Jardin des Plantes, at the theatres, or in the
salons and billiard rooms, sought quarrels with us quite as
frequently as their men; but these, of course, ended in hostile
rencontres, and for the first weak or two a morning seldom passed
without a French, or British, or Prussian officer being borne dead,
or wounded, through a mocking crowd at the barriers, from the Bois de
Boulogne.

In all these wanton quarrels and street assaults the republicans
eminently distinguished themselves, and often vented their pitiful
spleen by spitting at us from the windows; by hissing and railing at
us in language that would have disgraced the denizens of the infamous
faubourg St. Antoine; but after a time, when it became generally
known that their great emperor had surrendered himself to Captain
Maitland, of the Bellerophon, and submitted to the clemency of
Britain, their virulence abated, and their manner became somewhat
changed towards us: though their hatred of the Russian troops,
sharpened by the bitter memories of the retreat from Moscow, was
undying and inextinguishable.

It is an old story now; but Lord Wellington had taken every means to
insure the tranquillity of the city, and to repress any armed
outbreak, which must assuredly have ended in its utter destruction;
for the Black Eagle of Hapsburg soared above Montmartre, and the
Union of Britain waved over the splendid garden, the winding walks,
and leafy groves of the Champs Elysées; the brass cannon of Blucher
were planted at every barrier-gate, loaded with grape and canister,
to rake the streets at a moment's notice; while by night and by day,
his artillerists, in their blue great coats and bearskin caps,
remained by their guns, with swords drawn and matches lighted.  A
regiment of Scottish Highlanders occupied the Tuileries; the Prussian
advanced guard was in position on the road to Orleans, cutting off
the remnant of the French army who had survived the 18th of June, and
still obeying the baton of Davoust, were lingering on the banks of
the Loire.  Every approach to Paris was guarded by our infantry, and
a strong division of the Allies were encamped in the Wood of
Boulogne, and along the right bank of the Seine, so far as St. Ouen.

Never was Paris, the glory of France, more completely humbled since
Henry of England unfurled his banner on its walls!

My regiment, the Fifth Hussars, were in the third, or Sir Colquhoun
Grant's cavalry brigade.  We were quartered at Ligny, a small town on
the Marne, about fifteen miles from Paris, where we occupied the
ancient Benedictine monastery, which had been founded in the eighth
century by St. Fursi, a Scot, as the old curé of the place informed
me; and there, with an irreverence for which the public utility, the
chances of war, and the orders of the quartermaster-general must
plead our excuse, we stabled our horses in the church, and stored our
rations and forage in the chapel of Our Lady of Compassion.

It was while matters at Paris were in the state I have described,
that I obtained leave from parade one day, hooked on my pelisse and
sabre, and rode from Ligny to visit the city of sunshine and gaiety,
bustle and smoke, music and wine, intending to return to my billet,
which was in the house of the curé near the bridge over the Marne.

I was in time to see the Russians reviewed by the Emperor Alexander,
and passed the day very agreeably, visiting the Champ de Mars, the
Tuileries, where the soldiers in the garb of old Gaul were keeping
guard, as in the days of the Ancient Alliance; the site of the
Bastile, the Hotel des Invalides, where many an old soldier of the
Empire saluted me with more of sternness than respect in their
aspect: the temple where the hapless Louis had been confined, and the
noble gallery of the Louvre, on the lofty walls of which were many a
blank where the officers of the Allied army had torn down and
conveyed away the artistic spoils of their several nations--spoils
wrested from every city in Europe by the invading armies of Napoleon.

I dined at a restaurateur's on a beefsteak à l'Anglais and kickshaws,
a bottle of tent dashed with brandy, and walked forth to enjoy a
cigar on the Boulevards, where several of our bands from the Champs
Elysées, and those of the Austrians from Montmartre, were playing
divinely for the amusement of the thousands crowding those
magnificent promenades, which, as all the world knows, or ought to
know, encircle the good city of Paris, and were shaded by many a
stately plane and lime tree, that was levelled to form the barricades
of the last revolution.

There were the officers of the Allies in all uniforms, the scarlet of
Britain, the white of Austria, the blue of Prussia, and the green of
Russia, with all the varieties of their different branches of
service, horse, foot, artillery, and rifles; Calmucks, Tartars,
Scots, Highlanders, and English guardsmen, jostling and mingling
among moustachioed students of l'Ecole de Medicine, French priests in
their long plain surtouts and white collars, and Parisian dandies in
their puckered trousers, short frock coats, and little hats; while
the ladies, seated on camp stools, formed each the centre of a
circle, in which revolved a little world of wit and chat and
laughter; and the vendors of cigars, of bon-bons, hot coffee, and
iced lemonade, pushed their way and a brisk trade through the crowd
together.

I had tired of all this, and was thinking of my fifteen miles ride
back to Ligny, through a rural district to which I was a stranger,
though I had my sabre and pistols, and luckily the latter had been
loaded by my groom.  Nine o'clock was tolling from the steeples of
Paris; the crowds on the Boulevards were dispersing; the bands had
all played the old Bourbon anthem, 'Vive Henri Quatre!' and with the
troops had repaired to their several cantonments.  The trumpets of
the Austrians had pealed their last night call from Montmartre, and
the English drums from the Champs Elysées, and the shrill Scottish
pipes from the Tuileries had replied to them.  The lighted portfires
of the Prussian artillery were beginning to gleam at the barriers.
The streets were becoming deserted and still.

Turning down the Rue du Temple, as I have stated, from the Boulevard
St. Martin, I endeavoured to make my way to the stables of the hotel
where I had left my horse.

The darkness had increased very much, and the oil lamps in the
thoroughfares were few and far between, and creaked mournfully in
concert with many a signboard as they swung to and fro to the full
extent of the cords by which they were suspended in the centre of the
way.

Aware that the streets of Paris were then far from safe after
nightfall, and that the knife of the assassin was used as adroitly
within sound of the bells of Notre Dame as on the banks of the
Ebro--with my furred pelisse buttoned up, and my sabre under my arm,
I hurried on, anxious to avoid all rencontres with chevaliers
d'industrie and other vagrants, who from time to time, by the
occasional light of the swinging lanterns, I could perceive lurking
in the shadows of porches and projections of the ancient street.

I soon became aware that two of these personages were dogging or
accompanying me, on the opposite side of the way; increasing their
pace if I quickened mine, and lingering when I halted or stepped
short.  Anxious to avoid brawls, for on that point the orders of the
Duke of Wellington were alike stringent and severe, I continued to
walk briskly forward, keeping a sharp eye to my two acquaintances,
whose dusky figures seemed like shadows gliding along the opposite
wall, for the cold and high night-wind had extinguished so many of
the oil lanterns, that some of the streets branching off from the
Boulevard du Temple and the Rue St. Martin, were involved in absolute
darkness and gloom.

I was somewhat perplexed after wandering for a considerable distance,
to find myself on the margin of the Seine, which jarred against its
quays, flowing on like a dark and waveless current, in which the
twinkling lights of the Quai de Bourbon, and the gigantic shadows of
the double towers of the church of Notre Dame were reflected.

My followers had disappeared; but my uneasiness was no way
diminished, being well aware that the clank of my spurs might mark my
whereabouts; and I was conscious that the gorgeously-laced hussar
pelisse and jacket of the Fifth were more than enough to excite
cupidity.  I shrunk back from the Seine, on thinking of the ghastly
Morgue (with its rows of naked corpses spread like fish on leaden
trays), and the five francs given by the police of Paris for every
body found in the river at daybreak.

A low whistle made me start.

I turned round, and at that moment received a blow from a bludgeon,
which would infallibly have fractured my left temple, had not my
thick fur cap, with its long scarlet kalpeck, saved me.  I reeled,
and immediately found myself seized by four ruffians, who flung
themselves upon me, and endeavoured to pinion my arms, and wrench
from me my sabre, while they dragged me towards the edge of the Quai
de la Grève.

Strong, young, active, and exasperated, I struggled with them
desperately, and succeeded in obtaining the hilt of my sabre, which I
immediately unsheathed, for the fellow who had been endeavouring to
drag it from my belt, grasped it by the sheath only; and an instant
sufficed to level him on the pavement, with his jaw cloven through,
and there he lay, yelling with rage and pain, and blaspheming in the
style of the Faubourg St. Antoine.  Upon this his companions fled.

Solitary as the quay had appeared, the cries of the wounded bravo
brought around me a swarm of vagrants from house stairs, from nooks
in the parapets of the Pont Notre Dame, and from all the various
holes and corners, where they had been nestling for the night, or
hiding from the patrols of the gensd'armes; and recognising me at
once as an officer of that detested Allied army, which had swept
their vast host from the plains of Waterloo, and prostrated the eagle
and tricolour, they assailed me with every epithet of opprobrium that
hatred and malice could suggest; and there was an almost universal
shout of "A la lanterne! à la lanterne!" in which, no doubt, my first
assailants joined; and immediately I saw a lamp descend, as the cord
was unfastened from the wall of the street, and lowered for my
especial behoof.

Alarmed and exasperated by the danger and insult with which I was
menaced, I endeavoured to break through the press, by threateningly
brandishing my sabre, but though the circle around me widened, still
I was encompassed at every step, and made the mark at which a
pitiless shower of mud, stones, and abuse poured without a moment's
cessation.

While some cried "à la lanterne!" others shouted for the gensd'armes
and accused me of murder.  I could perceive, to my no small concern,
that the knave I had cut down lay motionless upon the pavement; and
most unpleasant ideas floated before me, that even if I escaped
immolation at the hands of these enraged Parisians, I might have to
encounter the greater humiliation and graver terrors of Monsieur le
Duc de Quiche--the Cour Royale de Paris--the Chamber of Appeals--the
Correctional Police, and heaven only knew what more.

At this perplexing crisis, a young French officer, in the scarlet
uniform of the Garde du Corps of Louis XVIII., broke through the
crowd, exclaiming.--

"Halt! hold--in the name of the king--down with you, insolent
citizens!  Is it thus you treat our allies?  Nom d'un Pape! but I
will sabre the first that lays a finger upon him.  Permit me--this
way, Monsieur Officier;" and he put his arm through mine.

We were now in a low quarter of the city; the crowd of squalid
wretches was increasing around us every moment; lights flashed at the
opened windows of the neighbouring houses, and I could perceive the
glittering bayonets, and the great cocked hats of a sergeant and six
gensd'armes hurrying along the lighted quay, either to my rescue or
capture, but which was dubious, for the vagabond women and
rag-pickers continued to yell incessantly,--

"Arrest! arrest!--seize the English murderer! away with him to the
concierge!"

My heart beat quick; but my new friend of the Garde du Corps seemed
to be quite 'au fait' in the management of such affairs, by the
admirable tact and decision he displayed.  Calling lustily for the
gensd'armes, he suddenly grasped half-a-dozen of the foremost men in
succession, and rapidly--for he was a powerful fellow, threw them in
a heap over the wounded man, thus increasing the tumult, the rage,
and the confusion.

Then seizing me by the hand, he said hurriedly, "Monsieur will pardon
me--but come this way, or you will be torn to pieces!" and half
leading, half dragging me, he conveyed me down a dark and narrow
street.  "Nom d'un Pape!  I could not see a brother of the epaulette
maltreated by these rascally citizens," he continued, laughing
heartily at the rage and confusion of the bourgeois.  "Ha! ha! follow
me!  I know how to escape.  There are deuced few outlets, holes or
corners, byeways or sallyports in Paris, that I don't know.  Ah
corboeuf! didn't they all tumble delightfully over like so many
ninepins?  Ha! ha! but hark! they follow us.  Hasten with me,
Monsieur Officier, and remember that a brawl in this neighbourhood
may prove infinitely more dangerous to you than to me."

I was too well aware of that to resist his guidance and advice; and
having no ambition to suffer, like St. Stephen, at the hands of a
mob, or (escaping that) to figure next morning before the
correctional police, and in the evening endure a reprimand from
Wellington, I fairly turned, and, accompanying my guide, ran at full
speed along the dark alley, laughing heartily at the affair.
Gathering like a snowball, as it rolled along, the multitude came on,
puffing and shouting, and swearing and yelling behind us.

"This way," cried my guide, who laughed uproariously, and seemed one
of the merriest fellows imaginable; "this way--Vive la joie! we are
all right now!"

"Where are you leading me, in the name of all that is miraculous?" I
exclaimed, as my companion, laying violent hands upon my sash, almost
dragged me down a flight of steps, which apparently led into the
bowels of the earth.  The appearance of the vast depth to which they
descended being increased by a few hazy oil lamps that twinkled at
the bottom.

"Excuse me, Monsieur," said I; "what the mischief--'t is a strange
den this!  I will go no further!"

"Courage, mon brave! courage! why we have only descended about a
hundred steps or so;" replied the Frenchman, still continuing to
descend.  "You will find this an old and odd place too; but if you
would escape an enraged rabble, the claws of the police, the maison
de force, the prison, and the devil, follow me, and trust to my
honour.  I am Antoine St. Florian, Captain of the Garde du Corps, and
late of the 23rd Grenadiers under the Emperor.  You are safe--I know
every nook in this subterranean world, for I have found a shelter in
its ample womb many a time before to-night."

He still continued to speak as he descended, but the sound of his
voice became lost in the vast space of the hollow vaults; my
curiosity was excited: I still kept my sabre drawn, prepared for any
sudden surprise or act of treachery, and continued to descend some
hundred steps, to a depth which I afterwards ascertained to be 860
feet.

"This way, Monsieur; on--on yet!" exclaimed my conductor, hurrying me
forward through a gloomy vault, and at that moment I heard the uproar
of the multitude, and the buzz of their mingled voices resounding
afar off, and high above us at the mouth of the lofty staircase.

The aspect of the place in which I so suddenly found myself was so
strange, so novel, so grotesquely horrible, that for some moments I
was unable to speak, and gazed about me in astonishment.  The whole
place seemed hewn out of the solid rock, and the height of its roof
was about twelve feet from the floor, which was uniformly paved.  In
every direction caverns were seen branching off lighted by lamps
which vanished away in long lines of perspective till they seemed to
twinkle and expire amid the noxious and foggy vapours of this
wonderful place, which appeared like a vast subterranean city, or the
work of enchantment.  The atmosphere was cold as that of a winter
day, and I was sensible of the utmost difficulty of respiration.

Myriads of human skulls, grim, bare, and fleshless, with grinning
jaws and eyeless sockets, piles of human bones, gaunt arms and
jointed thighs, basket-like ribs and ridgy vertebræ, were ranged in
frightful mockery along the sides of the vaulted alleys or avenues of
this subterranean city of Death.  The ghastly taste of some grim
artist had arrayed all these poor emblems of mortality in the form of
columns with capitals and arcades of intertwisted arches, but from
every angle of which the bare jaws grinned, and the empty sockets
looked drearily down upon us, producing an effect that, when viewed
by the dim and uncertain light of the oil lamps, was alike wondrous
and terrible.  I was now in the Catacombs of Paris, that place of
which I had heard so much.

To me, who had but recently left the Peninsula, the appearance of
these remnants of the men of other years was less striking than it
would prove to visitors generally; for many a time and oft, I had
bivouacked where the dead of France and Britain lay unburied; and I
thought of Albuera and the plains of Salamanca, where we had encamped
within twelve months after battles had been fought there--and pitched
our tents and lighted our camp fires on ground strewn, for miles and
miles, with the half-buried skeletons of the brave who had fallen
there, producing an effect that was never to be effaced from the
memory.  There the triumphs of death were calculated to impress the
mind with melancholy; but here it was too grotesquely grim and
horrible.

Scraps of verses from Ovid, Virgil, and Anacreon, appeared over the
entrances of these caverns or crypts, in gilt letters that glimmered
through the gloom; while, with a strange incongruity, but in true
keeping with the morbid taste of the French, large red and yellow
bills, the advertisements of the theatres, the fashionable hotels,
concerts, and tailors, &c., appeared on different parts of the walls.

At a little distance there bubbled up a sparkling fountain, the plash
of which rang hollowly in the vast vaults, as it fell into a large
basin, where a number of gold fish were swimming.  Over it shone the
legend, in gilded letters--

  "THIS IS THE WATER OF OBLIVION."


"They are strange and frightful places, these Catacombs, Monsieur St.
Florian," said I.

"True, mon ami," he replied, pausing to take breath; "but famous for
the growth of asthmatic coughs, and all diseases of the lungs.
Peste!  What an uproar these bourgeois make.  The affair has quite
sobered me, for I was somewhat unsteady before.  My face is
scratched, I think.  Does it seem so?"

"Rather."

"Mille baionettes! do you say so? and I shall be for guard to-morrow
at the chateau--and with this swollen face.  Morbleu! what will the
ladies think?"

"I regret very much, Monsieur le Capitaine, that for me----"

"Pho! my dear fellow, no apologies; I care not a sous about it," said
my new friend, whom I could now see to be a tall and handsome fellow,
whose scarlet uniform, faced and lapelled with blue, fitted him to
admiration.  His face was prepossessing in its contour, and was very
much "set off," or enhanced, by his sparkling dark eyes, his jet
moustache, and smart red forage-cap; but he had quite the air of a
'roué,' and the unmistakable bearing of a man about town.  "Ha! ha!"
he continued, "how messieurs the bourgeois were rolled over each
other; that was indeed a coup de grace--the trick of an old routier!
Ah! 't was poor Jacques Chataigneur taught me that."

"How hollow our voices sound in these vaults," said I, after a pause;
for the Frenchman's merry tones and light remarks seemed strange to
me amid the deathlike stillness of a place so sad, so gloomy.  "The
echoes seem to come from an amazing distance."

"Oui: I will vouch for it, Monsieur never saw a place like this
before.  The Parisian dead of a dozen centuries are piled about us,
and afford fine scope for philosophy and moralising.  Diable! what an
uproar there will be among all these separated heads, legs, and arms,
when the last trumpet sounds; and many a hearty malediction will be
bestowed on Monsieur Lenoir, of the Correctional Police, who, to
please the morbid taste of the good bourgeoisie of Paris, made all
this ghastly display.  Corboeuff! the skulls are all piled up like
cannon balls in the arsenal--there were more than two millions of
them at the last muster.  But, hark!"

At that moment we heard a distant cry of "A la lanterne!  Death to
the Englishman!" and a rush of footsteps down the long staircase
followed.

"We had better secure our retreat," said the French captain; "all the
avenues are closed, save that at the Val de Grace; and if messieurs
the gensd'armes possess themselves of it, we shall be captured like
mice in a trap.  The lieutenant-general ordered all the other outlets
to be closed, because they afforded safe and sudden retreats for
chevaliers d'industrie, and other worthies, who, after nightfall,
become thick as locusts in the streets of this pious and good city of
Paris.  Nombril de Belzebub! behold! our friends have been
reinforced."

I looked back, and could see a party of about twenty gensd'armes
advancing, but at a great distance, and their fixed bayonets flashed
like stars in these misty caverns.  The mob were in hundreds behind
them, and the clatter of their feet and their cries rang with a
thousand reverberations through the vast vacuity of these echoing
catacombs.  We could see them all distinctly; for though a quarter of
a mile distant, the lamps burned brightly where they were passing.

"I have my sabre, and will confront these rascals," I exclaimed,
becoming inflamed with sudden passion; "they dare not lay hands on
me, as a British officer."

"Peste!" he replied, laughing; "I think you have seen whether they
will or not.  'T is better not to trust them; a bayonet stab I do not
mind, but think how unpleasant for a gentleman to be captured at the
instance of a few rascally citizens.  'T will never do!  We are not
far now from the Val de Grace.  This way, up the steps, and I will
lead you to a secret doorway, near a nice little house that I know
of, and where a pretty face will welcome us with smiles."

By the hand he conducted me up several flights of steps, along an
excavated corridor, where the cold wind blew freely in my face, and
from thence by a doorway, the exact locality of which seemed well
known to him, ushered me into a dark and quiet street, in a part of
Paris quite unknown to me.

"My friend, we are safe; that is the Val de Grace," said my frank
captain, pointing to a large mass of building; "there is the Rue
Marionette, and that large street still full of open shops, light,
and people, is the Rue du Faubourg St. Jacques, which leads straight
across the river.  We can mingle with the crowd, and there all traces
of us will be lost."

"Any way you please," I replied; "never having been in this part of
Paris before, I am quite bewildered.  Lead on, if you please; it is a
dark place, this."

"The Russians have probably been passing this way.  It is well known
in Paris that these piggish Muscovites never return to their camp
from a ball or café without drinking up the contents of every lamp
within their reach; nor can all the alertness of the gend'armerie
prevent them."

On gaining the main street of the faubourg, the blaze of the lighted
shops, the long lines of lamps, the gaiety and bustle which were seen
on every side, together with the free healthy breath of the upper
air, were a pleasant exchange for the dark and silent caverns we had
quitted, where breathing was almost impossible, and the mind was
oppressed by the gloom of surrounding objects.

"Vive la joie!" exclaimed Captain St. Florian, almost dancing as he
took my arm; "how delightful is the free air of the streets after
leaving that pestilent pit.  Ouf!  I shall never trust myself down
there again.  But now we must sup together at a restaurateur's.  Come
to the Oriflamme; 'tis down the Rue de Bondy; Merci! there is a
pretty waiteress there--a perfect Hebe.  Her smart lace cap and
braided apron--her red cheeks and roguish eyes will quite vanquish
you."

"Well then, the Oriflamme be it."

"You will behold teeth and eyes that some of our dames in the great
world of fashion would give fifty thousand francs to possess."

Turning down the street, we entered a restaurateur's, on whose sign
the Eagle of Napoleon had lately given place to the ancient ensign of
the Bourbons.

A very pretty girl who sat within the bar with a handkerchief over
her head, tied en marmotte, arose and welcomed us with a smile.

"Ah, entrez Antoine St. Florian," said she, raising her arched
eyebrows with a true Parisian expression of pleasure and familiarity;
"entrez, Monsieur."

St. Florian called her his 'belle Janette,' and saluted her cheek
with all the freedom of an old friend, as she ushered us along a
corridor, on each side of which were neat little chambers, or
cabinets, each having a single table and two chairs.

That appropriated for us, had a lustre with two lights, and the walls
were decorated with coloured prints of Jena, Marengo, Leipsic, and
other hard-fought battles, on which St. Florian soon began to comment
with all the ardour and enthusiasm of a French soldier; and by his
sentiments soon revealed, that though poverty or policy had compelled
him to assume the scarlet trappings of King Louis' guards, his heart
was still with the fallen Emperor--the idol of a hundred thousand
soldiers.

"And so your old regiment was the 23rd?" said I.

"Ah, the 23rd of the Emperor," he replied with a sigh, while his eyes
lighted up at the name.

"I remember that we charged your regiment at the passage of the Nive,
where I was on the very point of sabreing a young officer, before I
fortunately perceived that the poor fellow's sword arm was tied up in
a sling, and that he was quite defenceless."

"Indeed, how singular! and you saved him from your troopers, and
conducted him out of the press----"

"For which he gave me a draught of country wine from his canteen."

"The same.  Ah, monsieur, my friend, I am that officer, and I owe you
eternal thanks."

We shook hands with ardour.

"I had been severely wounded by the poniard of a villanous Spanish
peasant, and was still suffering from its effects.  Ah, it was quite
a story, that affair; my evil eye brought it all about."

"Your evil eye?"

"Ah," he replied, laughing; "you would not think I had one, to look
at me--I seem so innocent; but so I have, or, at least, had when I
was in Spain; ha! ha! You have often heard the Spaniards speak of the
Evil Eye--the Malocchio of the Italians? and how the women will veil
themselves, cover up their children, and mutter a prayer if a
stranger but glances at them."

"I have heard of that superstition, when on the borders of
Estremadura; but your affair--"

"Listen, and fill your glass with the champagne--I call it 'The Evil
Eye.'--'T is a perfect romance, and was well known to many a brave
fellow of the 23rd, who has found his grave at the foot of Mont St.
Jean."




CHAPTER XXI.

THE WIDOW; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT.

"I was quartered with my company of grenadiers at El Puerto, a
wretched village in Andalusia; a poor place it was, that had been
rifled by our foragers a dozen times, and we very unwisely made it
still more miserable, by burning the best cottages before we were
ordered to quit it.

"I quartered myself on the best casa in the village, a red-tiled hut,
that belonged to a strange-looking fellow, whose long visage and long
legs, great black eyes, yellow trunk breeches, green doublet, and
sugar-loaf hat, made him seem half muleteer, half gitano.  I believe,
from his superstitious observances, that he was the latter wholly.
You will know, doubtless, how famous Andalusia is for its women and
horses.  Ha!  I wish you had seen the wife of my long-legged patron.
She had the beautiful eyes and olive skin of her native province,
with teeth like pearls, lips like cherries, and a face full of the
sweetness of the mildest Madonna.  Ha! ha!  I am growing quite
poetical! but wine or love always make me so.  You will never see,
even on our Boulevards, and that is a bold assertion, a pair of more
superb ankles, than the short red petticoats of that Andalusian woman
revealed to the pure gaze of your most obedient servant.  Peste!  I
was quite enchanted with my pretty patrona, and determined on sending
her husband, tied across a mule, as a spy to the British lines, that
so I might be rid of him for a time, or for ever.

"They had a child, too, a merry little brat, with which I often
played and toyed, to please its mother, whose heart was quite won by
the bonbons I gave it; while her tall ghostly don of a husband stood
sullenly aloof, smoking a paper cigar, and regarding me from beneath
his broad sombrero, with eyes full of jealousy and malice.  Now, as
the devil would have it, the little brat had long been ailing, and
seemed very likely to die at the time we came to El Puerto; and as
she watched her sleeping infant, the mother's eyes were often
suffused with tears.  This, you may be aware, served but to make the
charming Spaniard more interesting; for her melting black orbs seemed
to be ever steeped in the most delicious languor.

"One evening I became very much aware of this; and after toying a
little with the sickly infant, by tickling its neck with a braid of
the mother's long black hair, while I lisped soft nothings from time
to time, I departed to look for Jean Graule, my sergeant, to hold a
consultation about the safe transmission of the señor patron to the
British lines, and with my compliments to the officer commanding the
nearest out-picquet.

"The evening was rather gloomy; I missed my way, and strolled into
one of those underground vaults, bodegas, as they are called, where
the peasants keep their wine in Andalusia.  There I amused myself
probing the pigskins with my sword, and imbibing the cool balmy wine
from the orifice, till, somehow, a heaviness stole over me, and I
fell fast asleep.

"About midnight I awoke, and found myself alone in the dark bodega,
drenched with the wine that had flowed from the wounded skins; and
feeling very cold, with the agreeable accompaniments of an aching
head and sore bones.

"By the moonlight which struggled through a grated window, I sought
my way out of the vault, up the stair, and gained the street of the
silent Puebla, where I stood still for some time to rally my
scattered faculties, and recollect where I was.  While this passed, a
man, who had been concealed under the shadow of a vine trellis,
rushed upon me, and furiously struck at my breast with a knife or
dagger.  My shoulder-belt saved me from the stroke; 't was lucky that
I had it on, otherwise I should not have been enjoying monsieur's
society, and this glorious wine, to-night.

"'Ah, mouchard, vagabond!' I exclaimed, and closing in a desperate
struggle with the would-be assassin, succeeded in striking him to the
earth; where, holding my sword at his throat, I demanded his reasons
for assailing me thus.

"'To have slain you!' he growled.

"'For what, you base rascal?'

"'To have revenged the loss of my child,' replied the fellow, whom I
now recognised to be no other than my worthy patron, the long-legged
paisano.

"'Ouf!' said I.

"'Dog of a Frenchman! on the day you first came into my poor cottage
the child was well and strong, for it was under the protection of the
Blessed Virgin; but you turned an evil eye upon it, and, lo! it
sickened; day by day it grew worse, and to-night it died: not even
romero at its neck, nor the agua bendita on its brow, could shield it
from your evil influence.  Son of Satan, I spit upon you!'

"'A pest upon your brat, you insolent madman,' said I, almost
laughing, for the wine of the bodega had still its influence over me:
'had you said that I cast evil eyes on your wife, there might have
been some truth in the matter; but your child--ha, ha!' and I laughed
till the street of the Puebla rang again.  'Halloo, Sergeant
Graule--quarter guard--ho, there!' and a dozen of my grenadiers
rushed from a tavern to my assistance.

"To Jean Graule's care I recommended the señor, and in five minutes,
at the end of a tent cord, he swung from the chimney of a
neighbouring house.

"'Now, señor rascal,' said I, making him a mock bow, on leaving him
in the grasp of the soldiers, 'I will go and console your pretty wife
for the loss of her child, and more particularly that of her amiable
spouse.  Both are so easily replaced, that I would recommend you to
die in peace, my jovial pagan.'

"'My wife, my wife!' said he, in a terrible voice, striking his
breast and looking upwards.  'El Santo de los Santos--Holy of Holies,
forgive me.'

"'Console yourself, my friend,' said I, while Jean Graule and the
soldiers laughed till their belts nearly burst.  'Console yourself,
señor paisano, for your little wife shall laugh and be merry
to-night.'

"'She waits you,' said he, with a frightful smile.  Diable! methinks
I can see his white face, as he grinned, like a shark, in the
moonlight; 'She awaits you.'

"Graule dragged him off.

"I hurried to the cottage of the paisano; but, mon Dieu, what a sight
awaited me!

"On her bed, a miserable mat, lay the beautiful Andalusian girl,
stone dead; stabbed by a poniard thrice in the neck, and her little
infant, also dead, lay in her arms, pressed to her crimson bosom.  In
the first gust of my fury I rushed out to slay the jealous
perpetrator of this horror; but he had, as I have already said, paid
the debt of nature, and his dying form was wavering in the moonlight
from the gable-end of a neighbouring house.

"Bah! there is always something in this reminiscence that makes me
dismal--but let me think no more of it."

And draining his glass of champagne, the gay St. Florian began to hum
an old camp song, beating time with his fingers on the well-polished
table.  Though this episode of his life rather decreased my
admiration for this gay fellow, still the jaunty manner in which he
related it somewhat amused me.

With the pretty Janette he appeared to be an old-established friend;
and a great deal of flirting, and that kind of conversation which
consists of pretty trifles, ensued each time she appeared on the
ringing of the bell.  But the ci-devant grenadier of Napoleon was
doubtless on the same easy footing with all the waiteresses and
shop-girls in every warehouse, cabaret, and café in and about Paris.

As the night was rather chilly, I proposed that we should have some
mulled port, spiced with cloves and sugar, in a mode I had often had
it prepared at Madrid by an old patrona on whom I was billeted.

St. Florian's countenance changed at the mention of the mulled wine,
and with ill-concealed disgust and precipitation he protested against
it, swearing by the head of the Pope, that although he never drank
water when anything better could be had, he would rather drink it out
of a ditch, after a brigade of horse had passed through it, than
taste mulled wine of any kind.

"And why so?" I asked, astonished by his vehemence.

"Sacre nom--'tis another long story; but Chataigneur, of the 23rd,
and I, were as nearly brought to the threshold of death as may be by
some muddy liquor called mulled port, and I never could look upon it,
or think of it, with any degree of patience.  You will find the story
in all the French and Spanish newspapers.  Ouf! it made a devil of a
noise in the army."

"I should be glad to hear it," said I, touching the bell-rope; "but
in the meantime----"

"We will have some more champagne.  Yes, the champagne of the
Oriflamme is delicious.  I have drunk a tun here, I believe--aye, in
this very room, with Jacques Chataigneur.  There are some caricatures
of Monsieur Vellainton which he chalked on the wall.  Poor Jacques! a
shot from that cursed Chateau of Hougomont passed through his heart,
when, sword in hand, he was leading on the grenadiers of the great
Emperor to conquest or to death.  He fell within a yard of me, prone
over his horse's crupper, and his last words were--'To the charge, to
the charge!  Vive l'Empereur!'  If true courage and bravery are
rewarded in heaven--but, ma foi!  I am growing quite pathetic.  Where
is the wine?  Janette," he cried, down the passage, "Janette, my
princess!"

"Ah oui, monsieur--me voila!" replied the girl, running in.

"My dear girl, let us have some champagne, a few more cigars, and a
nice little tray of grapes, or bon-bons; but let the wine be bright
as your own eyes, my wanton."

The girl was tripping away.

"But halt, Janette," he added, catching her by the skirt; "how long
is it since a rough moustache has been pressed to that pretty cheek
of yours?"

"Monsieur St. Florian, you are pleased to be very rude."

"Come, coquette, do not affect to mistake pure admiration for
rudeness.  Now you owe one salute, my pretty Janette, for remember
how you fled from me last night on the Quai de la Conference."

"Well, then, one only," said she, tendering her cheek, which was
slightly rouged.

St. Florian stole three.

"Ah treacherous!" exclaimed the girl, striking him playfully with her
hand, and skipping away.

"Peste!" said the captain, twirling his moustache; "but your little
fingers smart, my pretty one."

"Now for the other story, Monsieur St. Florian," said I, when the
bright wine sparkled in the tall glasses, and our fair attendant had
withdrawn.  "I would fain learn why an old soldier dislikes any sort
of wine.  I have often drank ditch-water on the line of march, and
have gladly filled my canteen from the ruts of the artillery
wheels----"

"And so have I a thousand times, but my dislike to mulled port arises
from something more than mere prejudice--bah! this is worth an ocean
of a muddy drench, boiled in a kettle with sugar and cloves.  See how
it sparkles when the glass is raised to the light.  Ma foi! 't is
like a glass full of diamonds.  We shall drink to the emperor."

"I have no objection."

"I hope the door is closed, though.  Paris is such a city for
espionage, police, and informers: Ouf! but 'Vive l'Empereur
Napoleon!'" and he drained his long glass, while his dark eyes
flashed with enthusiasm.

"Long life to him!" said I, with a frankness that won the Frenchman's
heart; "and now let me know the cause of this horror of mulled wine."

"Perhaps you have already heard it.  I well remember that it made a
deuced noise at the time it occurred, and, save the maid of
Zaragossa, there never was a woman so extolled by the Spaniards as
she of whom I am about to speak,--

  "THE WIDOW OF MADRID;"

for so he named the following story.

"It was in the month of December, when the immortal emperor and the
victorious army of France captured Madrid, that Jacques Chataigneur,
four officers of the Imperial Guard, and myself, were quartered, or
rather, according to the unceremonious custom of war in the like
cases, took the liberty of quartering ourselves, on a house in one of
the most fashionable streets in the city.

"Every place within the walls was full of our troops; horse and foot
were swarming in tens of thousands; the red rosette and the banner of
Castile and Leon had disappeared; the French eagle soared in triumph
over the capital of the Spaniards.  Every house, from the great
palace of the Duke d'Ossuna to the poorest casa on the margin of the
Manzanares, was undergoing a strict investigation, to discover where
Messieurs the Spaniards had hid their doubloons and other valuables,
for which the pouches and haversacks of our soldiers were yawning.

"Our fellows were rather riotous, especially about the cafés and
wine-houses, where every man drank his fill, without being at the
expense of a single sou.  The city was involved in chaos and uproar.
Merci! 't was such a hubbub as you in all your service can never have
witnessed; for, what with disarming the men, and running after pretty
women, searching for wine, provisions, and plunder, our soldiers had
quite enough of business on their hands.

"The house which we honoured with our presence, on this auspicious
occasion, was a handsome mansion, with broad balconies, and lofty
saloons, having gilded ceilings, tiled floors, and rich furniture;
and you may imagine how acceptable the splendid bed-chambers were to
us, who had been under canvas for months.

"It belonged to Donna Elvira de Almeria, whose family had just been
reduced to one daughter, by the unexpected deaths of her husband and
three sons, who had fallen on the previous day sword in hand, as she
told us, like true cavaliers, defending the palace of the Betiro,
which had been breached by the cannon of the Marshal Duke of Belluno;
but the ghastly gap had been defended with admirable resolution and
bravery by the Spaniards; so the soldiers of the emperor, petulant at
all times, were somewhat exasperated in consequence.

"We, ourselves, were ripe for mischief, and I cannot rehearse all the
fine things we did in our ramble through the city that night: I
beseech you to suppose them.

"The household of the Donna Elvira were, as may be imagined,
overwhelmed with terror and grief by the misfortune which war had
brought upon them; and their condition was in no way soothed or
ameliorated by our appearance among them, blackened with powder and
smoke, and bespattered with blood and dust, for we had hewn our way
in by the breach at the Retiro.

"The ladies were both handsome, but more especially the daughter
Virginia, a timid girl of about fifteen; and at these years a
Spaniard is almost a woman.  Her tears, I blush to say, made little
impression on me, but her beauty had a great effect on as all.
However, drunk as we were, we remembered Chataigneur was our senior
officer, and that his pleasure must be known before the officer next
in rank presumed to open the trenches; or, in other words, address
the ladies in the language of gallantry.

"Jacques was a child of the revolution, an iron-hearted soldier,
penetrable only to steel and lead--half fox, half wolf; to anything
soft or sentimental, he was immovable as a cannon-ball.  It was said
in the 23rd, that he had done some terrible things in La Vendée, and
certainly his more recent campaigns in Holland and Italy had taught
him to view with the coolness of a stoic the blood of the bravest men
and the tears of the most beautiful women.

"Peste! he was a true philosopher, and one might march from Dunkirk
to Damascus without meeting such another.  He was never troubled with
any unpleasant qualms of conscience--not he, because, like most of
those fierce soldiers, who had been trained and nurtured amid the
horrors of the revolution, he believed in neither God nor devil,
heaven nor hell, and, consequently, cared not a straw for any of
them."

"A pretty picture of your friend and comrade," said I, with a smile.

"Peste! yes.  He should have appointed me to write his epitaph.
Chataigneur was the man it was a pleasure to follow to the breach or
battle-field; for he cared as little for riding headlong on the
charged bayonets of a solid square, or manoeuvring his regiment under
a storm of grape-shot, as for handing his partner through the figures
of a quadrille.  But, to return.  The ladies, on perceiving us enter
their mansion uninvited, gave us a specimen of Spanish hauteur, by
retiring to a distant apartment, and leaving us to provide for
ourselves.

"This we were not long in doing.  The servants had fled; but
Chataigneur ordered three grenadiers of the 23rd, who were in
attendance upon us, to break down the doors of the cellars and other
repositories: thus, in the twinkling of an eye, we had the sherry,
the Malaga, and the Ciudad Real of the old beldame in abundance.

"We installed ourselves in the finest saloon of the mansion, while
messieurs our servants possessed themselves of the kitchen, where
they stripped off their accoutrements and coats, piled half-a-dozen
shutters, a door, and a chair or two on the hearth; and so zealous
were they in preparing a repast for us, that the rascals nearly set
the house on fire.  All the pantries were laid under contribution,
and large conscriptions were levied on the poultry-yard, and we were
soon as merry as magnificent quarters, a plenteous supper, and wine
ad libitum, without having a sou to pay for them all, could make us.
We drank deadly bumpers in honour of the emperor, to the success of
his armies, to ourselves, to the continuation of the war, to the
girls we had left behind us in beautiful France, and the devil alone
knows what more.  Oh, the exquisite delights of living at free
quarters in an enemy's country!  Vive la joie!  I need not expatiate
upon them to you, for I heard of your pretty doings after Badajoz
fell."

"They could not compare with yours at Madrid."

"You shall hear.  'In the ardour of our attack upon the savoury
viands,' said the Chevalier de Vivancourt, a gay sub-lieutenant of
the guard, 'we are quite forgetting the ladies!'

"'Mon Dieu! yes--what negligence!' said one or two ironically.

"'I shall make amends for our ungallantry,' said Chataigneur,
starting up and staggering unsteadily; for he had enough of Ciudad
Real under his belt to have served even a German.  'Hola!  Pierre,
Jean Graule, where are the ladies, just now--eh? the sour-visaged
madame and plump little mademoiselle?'

"'Shall I have the honour of conducting them to the presence of
monsieur?' said our sergeant, giving his military salute.  'The
mother----'

"'Oh the devil take the mother, or you may have her yourself, honest
Jean.'

"The sergeant bowed, and grinned.

"'But sabre de bois! 't is the little daughter I want,' said
Chataigneur.

"'They are at prayer in their little oratory, I believe,' urged the
chevalier, who was the least wicked among us.

"'Praying!' reiterated Jacques with intense disgust; 'I shall soon
change their cheer.  Are there any guitars or mandolins here?  The
girl--what's her name?  Virginia shall bear us company in a merry
chorus, or shall ride the cheval de bois with a vengeance.'

"'Let us have her by all means,' said one of the Imperial guardsmen;
'we must teach this young creature the first rudiments of love and
coquetry.'

"'Will some of you lend a hand to undo the clasp of this infernal
sword-belt?' grumbled Jacques, who was very tipsy.  'Avaunt, Jean
Graule, thou art drunk, man!  Vivancourt, most redoubtable chevalier
of the immortal legion of honour, lend me thine aid.  Corboeuf!  I am
swollen like a huge tortoise with Ciudal Real.  Now, messieurs,
remember that I am the senior officer here, and that whoever follows
me does so at his peril.'

"And half-dancing, half staggering, he swaggered out of the room
accompanied by Jean Graule.

"We continued to enjoy ourselves with supreme nonchalance, for the
Imperial Guard and the 23rd Grenadiers were the most reckless
routiers in the army.  Believe me, we were too much accustomed to
storming to trouble ourselves much about the little Spanish girl; but
I am forgetting that you are not a Frenchman; so, fearing to shock
your cold British prejudices, I will, as the novelists say, draw a
veil over what passed;" and M. de St. Florian smiled complacently as
he emptied and refilled his glass.

"Is it possible!" I exclaimed, with something of incredulity in my
manner; "is it possible that brave soldiers, and gentlemen of
France--France, once so famous for its spirit of honour and
chivalry--could behave thus?"

"Monsieur, my word is never doubted," replied the other
good-humouredly; "how could you expect us to behave like saints or
apostles, or perhaps like the cool stoics that compose a regiment of
kilts?

"Chataigneur was absent with Jean Graule about an hour, during which
time we scarcely missed him, so closely did we pay court to the
glittering decanters and bloated pig-skins, which we laid under
contribution without mercy.  The wax lights, were becoming double;
the saloon was beginning to swim around us; and we were in the very
midst of singing the carmagnole in full chorus, at the utmost pitch
of our lungs, each having his drawn sabre in his right hand, and a
mantling cup in his left, when the door was dashed open and Jacques
Chataigneur entered, with Donna Elvira supported on one arm, and her
daughter Donna Virginia on the other.

"With a triumphant and scornful air, he led or rather half dragged
them in, and forced them to sit down at table with us.

"Although being so tipsy that I could scarcely know whether my head
or heels were uppermost, I can still remember the terrible expression
depicted in the faces of these two ladies.  The mother's wore the
fury and rage of a tigress; the blood seemed to boil in the swollen
veins of her temples, and her large black Spanish eyes shot fire from
time to time as she surveyed us.  Her daughter's appeared the very
reverse, and her face expressed only the darkness of despair.

"She was very beautiful; her long black hair was loosened from its
braids, and hung matted in disorder about her shoulders, and half
concealed her face, which was pale as death.  Her eyes--you will
remember the splendid eyes of the Spanish girls--her eyes were
bloodshot and red with weeping; their expression was wild, wandering,
insane; and there was a chilling air of desolation and abandonment in
her grief that had, indeed, a very considerable effect on me (for I
am not altogether such a bad fellow as monsieur may suppose me),
although her utter despair had none on Chataigneur and my more
intoxicated companions.

"Her lips were quivering, and her graceful Spanish dress, her long
veil particularly, was torn to ribands.

"'Messieurs,' said Chataigneur, bowing with an air of mock
politeness; 'I am permitted to have the high honour of introducing
you to the notice of Donna Elvira de Almeria, widow of a very brave
Caballero y Procuradore of new Castile, and her daughter the
enchanting Virginia, whom, as I have two ladies who equally claim the
title of Madame la Colonel, I shall advance to the ancient Spanish
dignity of being my Barragano,* which will square all matters between
us, so Vive la joie! let us drink and be merry!'


* See "Essayo Historico Critico on the Ancient Legislation, &c., &c.,
of Castile and Leon," 4to., Madrid, 1808, for this term.


"The eyes of the Spaniards absolutely glared as he spoke."

"The scoundrel!" I exclaimed, becoming excited by this revolting
narrative.  "Would to heaven that I had been there with a few of my
English hussars."

"That would have availed little," replied St. Florian, pouring out
his wine with slow sang froid; "every street and house within the
trenches was swarming with our soldiers; and such scenes as that I
have described were innumerable."

"Excuse me, Monsieur le Capitaine; but I must pronounce your comrade
to have been a finished rascal."

"Peste!" muttered the Frenchman, half angrily; and then he continued,
while laughing and twirling his moustache, "Opinion is the queen of
the world--'t is a proverb we have, and a true one.  But poor
Chataigneur is gone now, and I must not hear him abused.

"But, to continue.  The excitement of the preceding day's fighting,
and the quantity of wine we had drunk, rendered us insensible to the
distresses of these poor women; and with shame and sorrow I now
remember that we permitted Chataigneur, by dint of many a savage
threat, to compel them to assume their guitars and sing in
accompaniment, while we chaunted a bacchanalian ditty suited only for
the meridian of the lowest cabaret in the faubourg St. Antoine.

"What they sang Heaven only knows, for, nom d'un Pape! my comrade,
the horrible catastrophe to this little supper has fairly driven all
minor incidents from my memory.  And there they sat and sang to
us--sang with shame on their brows, and rage, and grief, and agony in
their hearts--while a husband and three sons, a father and three
brothers, were lying dead in their harness by the walls of the Retiro.

"We drank bumpers to Virginia, and made the ceiling shake with our
mad laughter and revelry.  In the midst of this, unluckily, the
Chevalier de Vivancourt called for a bumper of mulled port.  What
fiend prompted a request so useless I cannot imagine: but we all
joined in his demand vociferously; and the old dame, who appeared to
have somewhat recovered her equanimity, desired her daughter to
prepare it.  She spoke in Basque Spanish, which we did not
understand, but which should have been sufficient to kindle our
suspicions; and I could perceive that a wild and almost insane
expression flashed in the eyes of the little Donna Virginia as she
flung aside her guitar and rose to execute the order.

"With some trouble she extricated herself from Chataigneur, whose arm
was round her waist.  He was very angry, and growled like a bear at
the chevalier, swearing by the sabre de bois that he would put him
under arrest for the trouble he occasioned.

"While he was yet speaking, Virginia returned with the prepared wine
in a crystal vase, from which, with her own fair hands, she filled
our long, carved glasses.  We drank to her, draining them to the
dregs; and, with a grim smile on her pallid lips, our youthful
cupbearer replenished our glasses.  The flavour of the wine was so
exquisite, that Chataigneur embraced Virginia with drunken ardour,
and desired her to bring us more.

"'You will require no more!' she cried, with a shriek, as she flung
the vase from her hands, and it was dashed into a hundred pieces.

"We rose in alarm, but instantly sank again on our seats; and at that
moment a peculiar and horrible sensation came over me.  Sacre!
methinks I feel it yet.  I looked upon my companions of the carousal,
but read in their faces an expression that yielded me anything but
comfort.  Three had dropped their glasses, and reclined upon their
chairs, with open mouths and fixed eyes, which gleamed with the
vacant wildness of insanity.  The Chevalier de Vivancourt sank
prostrate on the floor, while Chataigneur, who seemed also about to
sink, turned and stared with a powerless aspect of rage and alarm at
Donna Elvira.

"Virginia had sunk upon her knees and hid her face in the skirt of
her torn dress; but her mother stood erect, and, with her arms
outstretched towards us, shrieked in a frightful voice between a moan
and a yell, while a murderous rage, alike fiendish and terrible,
caused her tall form to tremble, her proud nostrils to dilate, and
her large dark eyes to gleam like those of a rattlesnake.

"'At last we have avenged ourselves!  Perros y ladrones!  Frenchmen,
dogs, and murderers, let me scream into your dying ears, that we are
Castilian women, and have avenged our wrongs!  I have lost my brave
husband and his noble sons--by numbers you destroyed them, and side
by side they fell on the palace threshold of the kings of Castile.
Oh, bloodhounds--worse than devils in the form of men, ye murdered
them, and now--my daughter (her voice became choked), my innocent
little daughter--but we are revenged--revenged--revenged!  Oh, Santa
Maria, Virgin, y Madre de Jesu! let us be forgiven--but, fiends, the
sure, cold hands of death are upon you--you are dying, for the wine
you have drunk is poisoned!'

"Mon Dieu!" said St. Florian, pausing while the perspiration almost
suffused his forehead, "still the screech-owl voice of that
detestable hag seems to ring in my tingling ears!

"Inspired by terror and rage, I made an effort to spring up, to draw
my sabre, to run her through the heart; but the moment my hand
touched the hilt, a deadly numbness crept over me; I staggered
backward, and while sleep and despair came over my soul, sank prone
and insensible on the corpses of my comrades!"

St. Florian paused again for an instant, for he really seemed
considerably excited by the recollection of the adventure.

"Parbleu! 'twas a most unpleasant denouement--a devil of a
winding-up.  Next morning I found my self lying prostrate on the
chilly floor of the Church of the Conception, which, with many
others, had been converted into a temporary hospital for the sick and
wounded.  I was sick for seventeen days, and my head ached as if it
had been crushed in a vice; while my miserable throat was skinned by
the stomach pump and other engines of the medical science, which the
staff surgeon had kept at work on me, as they afterwards said, for
two consecutive hours.

"Poor Jacques Chataigneur was in the same wretched condition, and lay
opposite to me, kennelled on a bed of straw, under the gothic canopy
which covered the grave perhaps of some long-bearded hidalgo of old
Castile.

"We alone recovered.

"The gay Chevalier de Vivancourt and his three comrades of la Garde
Imperiale died; so did poor Jean Graule and all our servants; for the
little fury Virginia had administered part of her infernal potion to
them too.  So to this hour, my friend, I entertain such a horror of
all kinds of prepared wine, that I may safely say, 'tis not in the
power of man, or even woman, with all her superlative cunning and
witchery, to make me taste a single drop that is not pure as when it
came from the wine-press."

"And the ladies--what became of them?"

"Donna Elvira," continued my garrulous friend, "disappeared from
Madrid on that very night, taking with her the unlucky Virginia, and
for a time we heard no more of them, save in the columns of the
'Moniteur' and 'El Espanol,' where, the Lord knows, our malheur made
more than noise enough!  May mischief dog their heels as two
revengeful vixens.  But I afterwards learned that the girl assumed
another name, and, bestowing her hand on a certain hidalgo of Alava,
actually had the happiness to give me shelter one night on the
retreat from Vittoria.  My whiskers had grown, and she did not
recognise me; sacre bleu, if she had!  I was never discovered, and
blessed my stars that I was sound, wind and limb, when I left her
mansion in the morning--Ouf! let me think no more of it, for
altogether 't is a story that makes me shudder."

"Excuse me, Captain St. Florian," said I, when he had ceased; "but on
my honour, you make me blush for the army of France."

"Morbleu!" said he; "they were only Spaniards."

"But I have heard many an episode of horror blacker even than that of
Donna Elvira, for I was one of those who followed up the retreating
army of Massena, from the frontiers of Portuguese Estremadura,
through desert fields and desolate cities, marked by fire and blood,
and all that the wantonness and wickedness your devastators could
inflict on a poor, a prostrate, and a defenceless people.  I am warm,
monsieur, but I pray you pardon me----"

"Ah! he was a stern old routier, Massena, and handled the dons so
roughly, that the Emperor named him rightly the 'child of rapine.'  I
care not for being his apologist, as I never either loved or admired
him, and once positively hated the old pagan, for reprimanding me in
general orders, because, on our retreat from the lines of Torres
Vedras, I neglected to destroy the house of a poor old hidalgo near
Santarem, who had been so kind to me, that I omitted him in the list
of devastations to be made by my foragers.  Ouf!  I got a lecture
that was printed in the 'Moniteur,' and read at the head of every
regiment in the division.  But in revenge, that very night I affixed
a scroll to the door of the marshal's quarters, saying--

"'This is the residence of the mighty Massena, Prince of Essling and
Duke of Rivoli, who has made more noise in the world by beating the
drum than by beating the British!'

"Corboeuf! what a frightful rage the old Turk was in, but he could
never discover the author of the pasquil, which made him the
laughing-stock of the whole army.  But the sparing of that hidalgo's
mansion and family was a most fortunate circumstance for me, as it
was the means of saving my life three days after."

"In what manner?"

"He ransomed me for a hundred dollars from some rascally frontier
guerillas who had captured me, and were on the point of putting me to
death.  Ouf! 'twas a devil of an adventure that.  Shall I tell it
you?"

"If you please," said I, lighting a fourth cigar.

"Well, then, listen, though perhaps it is not so much my story as
that of a poor peasant whom the Estremadurans named Perez the Potter."




CHAPTER XXII.

PEREZ, THE POTTER; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT.

"When Massena retired before the impetuous advance of Lord
Wellington, and left behind the boasted lines of Torres Vedras, you
may remember that he selected the position of Santarem as one
admirably adapted to keep in check the advance of your troops through
the Portuguese frontier.  While his division occupied their trenches
on the hill above the Tagus, I was one day despatched on duty to the
officer commanding the Cuirassier Brigade at Torres Novas, a town
five leagues from Santarem, situated in the middle of a beautiful
plain.  It is surrounded by walls, and is overlooked by the castle
with the nine towers, from which it takes its name.

"I rode without an orderly, or other followers, for the whole country
was covered with our troops, and I had no dread of molestation,
though desired by Marshal Massena to take with me a section of
dragoons, as part of the country through which I had to pass was
rendered very unsafe by the residence and outrages of a certain Don
Julian d'Aviero, a half-mad student of Alcala, who had gathered a
band of deserter guerillas, and become a captain of robbers in the
woods of Santarem.  There his name had become terrible through all
the Spanish and Portuguese Estremaduras, Alentejo and Beira.  His
midnight expeditions and attacks upon the detached houses and
solitary quintas of friend and foe were characterised by singular and
wanton cruelty; and in a state of warfare, where the country was
possessed by two hostile armies, the pretexts of treason and
espionage were never wanting.

"A wild yell informed the inmates that their dwelling was surrounded
by the banditti of Don Julian; the doors were dashed in; the men,
half-starting from their beds, were hewn to pieces; their wives and
daughters were dragged away to suffer worse than death; the houses
were pillaged, and then reduced to ashes.  And many of these
atrocities were doubtless attributed by us to you, and by you to us.
Captives were carried off daily, but they were generally ransomed; if
not, a shot from a carbine, or a stab from a poniard, and all was
over!

"I thought of all these things as I pursued my solitary way by the
foot of the mountains that skirt the plain of Torres Novas; but it
was with less of alarm than pleasure.  To me there seemed something
charming in the lonely and knight-errant-like fashion in which I had
thus ridden forth, in a strange country, among dangerous ways, and an
unscrupulous people, with neither friend nor ally save my sabre and
horse.

"The sun was verging towards the darkening mountains of Alentejo; but
the atmosphere was still exceedingly close and sultry, for, hot and
bright, the rays of the western sun were poured from a clear and
cloudless sky, scorching with their warmth the waving corn, and the
myriads of wild flowers that covered the beautiful plain of Torres
Novas.

"I was still far from the lines of Massena: the country seemed
desolate and depopulated.  I had no guide, and became apprehensive of
losing my way, and wandering towards the British outposts.  Once or
twice I questioned a passing peasant, but was provoked by their
sullenness and ignorance of their own locality.

"'Señor,' said I, to a paisano, whom I met driving two mules
harnessed in a rude cart, which was simply composed of the rough stem
of a tree, from which two branches in the form of a fork rested, one
on each wheel, and formed the axle--'Señor, how many leagues is it
from this place to Santarem?'

"'Three, señor Caballero,' replied the man, holding up three fingers.

"'Bueno! are they long or short?'

"'Short, señor.'

"There is, I know not why, a difference in the length of the Spanish
leagues, as many a time and oft we found on the long line of march.
After riding four or five miles further, and, being still uncertain,
on meeting another peasant driving a borrico (an ass), laden with
kid-skins of the mountain-wine, I inquired of him the distance from
Santarem on the Tagus.

"'Five long leagues, señor,' he replied, displaying four fingers and
a thumb.

"'Diable!' I muttered, and spurred on, for the sun had now sunk
behind the blue waving line of the western Sierra.

"Near a roadside fountain I passed the bodies of three or four French
soldiers, who had been wounded in a recent encounter with the outlaws
of Julian Aviero, and had crawled there to quench their thirst and
die.  They had been completely stripped by the Spaniards, and their
gory but honourable scars were blackening in the heat of the sultry
day.

"On the velvet turf that bordered the road I softly drew up my horse,
on observing behind the pedestal of the fountain a villanous son of
Israel practising dental surgery, by robbing the jaws of the dead;
for the soldiers being generally young men, their teeth brought a
good price in the dentist shops of Paris and Madrid.  I had
frequently heard of this revolting practice, but never till that
moment had ocular proof that such existed.

"The operator was a man about forty, lean and hollow-visaged, with
the brow of a villain, the eyes of a snake, the nose of an eagle, and
beard like a cossacque; he was enveloped in a loose blue gown, and
his head was surmounted by a steeple-crowned sombrero, that had long
lost every trace of its original colour.  Near him lay a square
mahogany box, like a pedlar's wallet, in which he carried his
instruments and stock of dental wares.

"He was so busy with the relaxed jaws of a young soldier that he did
not perceive my approach.

"You know how jealous we soldiers are of the treatment given to the
remains of our dead comrades.  Maladetto! my blood boiled.  Dashing
spurs into my horse, I plunged him right upon the dog of an
Israelite; a kick from a hoof laid bare his skull, and stretched him
prostrate on the earth.  As he fell backwards I obtained a glimpse of
his wallet, which bristled with poniards and pistols, from which I
concluded him to be a robber of the living as well as of the dead;
and I soon discovered my conclusions to be just.

"This rencontre occurred near a great olive wood, which was known to
be the haunt of Aviero; and I rode as fast as possible to leave it
behind before nightfall; but I had not gone half-a-mile from the
fountain, when a sharp rifle shot whistled from a grove of olives on
my right.  My horse gave a snort of agony, and fell heavily forward,
stone dead.  A bullet had pierced his brain.  I disengaged myself
from the stirrups, and drew my sabre, but ere I could strike one blow
in my defence, a hundred hands were upon me, and I was a prisoner, in
the power of a band of savage frontier guerillas--half soldiers, half
robbers, and wholly demons.  Diable! my life hung by a hair.

"Some wore broad hats, embroidered jackets, and yellow scarfs, with
plush breeches; others had little other garment than their olive
skins, and wore their flowing hair of the deepest black, gathered in
netted cauls; but all were armed with rifles, daggers, and pistols,
or with all manner of military weapons gathered from the fields of
those battles which were every day fought in their vicinity.

"Oh, Monsieur! what a moment of misery was that when I found myself
so completely at the mercy of those ruffian Spaniards, whom I equally
despised and abhorred.

"Many a knife was drawn and many a blow struck at me; but in their
very fury and anxiety to destroy me these wretches retarded, impeded,
and wounded each other.

"'Down with him! down with the Frenchman!  Death to the Buonapartist!
Maladetto!' was the cry on every side.

"'Caramba!' cried one in a voice of thunder, 'I will blow out the
brains of the first that injures him.  Frenchman and dog as he is,
our laws must be respected.  Away with him to the mountains, for Don
Julian d'Aviero must decide his fate.'

"Aviero! my heart sunk; I was then quite in the power of the devil.

"Amid a storm of growling and swearing, and even fisticuffs, I was
conducted through the wood, which was almost pathless and covered the
face of the Sierra by which we ascended, to an old and ruined villa,
belonging to the Duke of Aviero.  It stood on the edge of a precipice
that overhung the Tagus, and there Don Julian had for the present
established his head-quarters.  A recent attempt had been made, by a
detachment of ours, under Jacques Chataigneur, to dislodge him; these
had been repulsed with great slaughter; and on approaching the villa,
I could discern vivid traces of the conflict--traces which its
amiable and philosophical inmates cared not to trouble themselves as
yet in removing.

"This noble residence of Don Julian's ancestors, with its marble
vestibule and stately portico, its frescoed chambers and arcades of
columns, round which the vine and the rose were clambering, had been
no way improved by his occupation thereof.  A balustraded terrace
encircled it, and within and around it the dead French and guerillas
were lying across each other in scores--many of them yet grasping
their adversaries, just as they had fallen, without their hold
relaxing, or the fierce expression which distorted their features at
the hour of death passing away.

"Many of these men were my comrades, grenadiers of the 23rd, whom I
could recognise, notwithstanding the alteration of their features.

"In the assault and defence, the doors and windows of this beautiful
villa had all been blown to pieces; the walls were studded with
bullets and spattered with blood, which appeared to have run like a
rivulet down the staircase, to mingle with the waters of a shattered
jet d'eau in the vestibule.  At the head of the stair a barricade had
been formed by a sideboard, a piano, and other furniture, wedged with
bolsters and pillows, and books; and this point of assault had been
fought for, like any breach in the glacis of Badajoz.  Everywhere the
bills and axes of the pioneers had been at work; but Chataigneur had
been repulsed, and Don Julian remained impregnable and triumphant.

"In a noble apartment, the windows of which overlooked the Tagus and
the vast plain that spread in its beauty towards the castle and city
of Torres Novas, the ramparts of which were tipped with the last
gleam of the set sun, Don Julian, with several of his desperadoes,
sat over their cups of country wine, muffled in their mantles, and
enjoying paper cigars, while their feet rested on a great copper
brassero of charcoal that stood in the centre of the marble floor.

"Don Julian, a remarkably handsome young man, but with a bold,
reckless, and ferocious cast of features, received me with a low bow,
which I could perceive to be partly ironical.  His jacket of green
velvet was richly brocaded and fastened with silver clasps; his
breast was displayed by an open shirt, and had a crucifix engraven on
it by gunpowder.  He wore yellow breeches girt by a sash, red
stockings and abarcas; but had no weapons save his sabre.

"When he addressed me, I expected to hear but my death warrant; judge
how agreeably I was surprised by his saying,--

"'Señor, though you are a Frenchman, and I might this moment put you
to death as an invader of Spain, and as a revenge in some sort for
the recent attempt made by your ruthless marshal on my residence
here, I know you to be the officer who spared the mansion of old Don
Juan Lerma, when empowered by your orders to destroy it.  Don Juan is
the only man for whom a lingering feeling of humanity has left in my
breast an atom of regard, for he loved the old cavalier, my father,
well.  Being anxious to requite to you the kindness so lately done to
him, and to prove whether his gratitude surpasses that of a robber, I
request that you will write to him from this, my Villa of Aviero, and
beg the ransom of one hundred dollars to free you from my troop, as I
question very much if the state of Massena's commissariat will enable
you to have so much loose cash about you.'

"'You are right, señor; a hundred dollars!  Diable!  I never had so
much money at any time.  But what if the cavalier Lerma refuses?'

"'You must die.'

"'Morbleu!' said I, shrugging my shoulders.

"'Such is the law of capture to which we have bound ourselves, by
such oaths as men seldom hear.  You will be accommodated with writing
materials; address a letter to the Cavalier Don Juan Lerma, and one
of my people will convey it immediately to the city of Santarem.'

"Upon this, I wrote a hurried but anxious note to the old hidalgo,
begging him to consider the kindness I had done him, the danger by
which I was menaced, and pledging my honour to repay the hundred
duros out of my first prize money.  This system of kidnapping and
extortion had become so common that, being doubtful of the answer, I
saw the messenger depart with an anxiety which I laboured in vain to
conceal by folding my arms and planting my feet on the brassero, by
smoking a cigar, sipping the Lisbon vino, and joining in the half
frivolous and wholly ruffian chit-chat of Don Julian and his squalid
myrmidons.

"In the midst of this I was a little startled to find my
acquaintance, the Jew dentist, enter, with his box under his arm, a
bloody cloth encircling his head and half concealing his basilisk
eyes, which bent on me a demoniacal scowl of recognition; and I
discovered to my consternation that this worthy, in virtue of being a
greater fiend than his fellows, was no other than the lieutenant of
Julian d'Aviero.  But, without seeming to observe me, he advanced to
the side of the latter, and whispered a few words in his ear.

"'Ha,' said Don Julian, 'is it so? then our hellish compact must be
observed.  I am sorry for the little paisana, but there is no remedy.
Hold, there, cammarados! bring in the prisoners of Santarem--the
potter Perez and the girl who was captured with him last night by our
worthy Teniente Isacco Zendono.'

"'The girl is his sister,' growled the Jew robber, in husky Spanish,
as he threw off his blue gown and revealed his gaudy Spanish dress,
and sash bristling with pistols and knives, 'and a fair sample of
mother Eve's flesh she is--Bueno!'

"'Curses blast you! bring them in, or'--and Julian, who always
assumed the blustering ruffian to his own people, grasped a pistol.

"The lieutenant quitted his presence; but almost immediately
returned, dragging in a stout peasant about three or four and twenty
years of age.  He had all the lofty air, the well-knit and erect
figure of those peasantry on frontiers where the Portuguese are
improved by intermarriage with the Spaniards.  He wore a brown vest
with loose sleeves, and breeches of bright yellow cotton, tied about
the middle by a red silk scarf.  His long raven hair was gathered in
a wide silk netting, and hung in a heavy mass upon his neck.  His
hands were tightly pinioned by a cord, but he gazed about him with an
air of reckless defiance, which, however, failed to intimidate the
thieves, or to encourage his sister, a pretty-looking girl of
sixteen, or thereabout, who clung to his arm in the utmost terror.

"Her coal-black hair was plaited somewhat after the fashion of the
Basque women, in two gigantic braids, and reached below the flounces
of her yellow skirt, which was short enough to expose, half-way up to
the knee, her very handsome legs, encased in bright scarlet stockings
which were elaborately covered with white braiding.  Her little feet
and ankles were equipped with open cut abarcas, interlaced with
thongs of morocco leather, like the hose of your Highland soldiers.
Her teeth and lips were a miracle, and her terror made her dark eyes
glitter like diamonds.  Ah! merci, monsieur, she was excessively
captivating, that little paisana.

"Though such a little beauty is not uncommon in Spain, the robbers of
Don Julian gazed upon her with gloating eyes of evil admiration and
longing; many of them licked their huge blubber lips with grim and
grotesque glee, as if anticipating kisses; while the poor sinking
girl shrunk from their bold and villainous gaze, as she would have
done from the eyes of so many serpents or fiends.

"'Teresa, hold up your head, my dear girl; do not droop before these
base ladrones, stained as they are by a thousand atrocities.  Dios!
should innocence quail before guilt?' said the young peasant with a
fearlessness that at once gained him my sympathy and admiration; and
for a time I forgot my own troubles in those of the strangers.  'Be
bold of heart, my sweet sister!  We are possessed of that which can
touch even the hearts of these bad men, and unlock the doors of their
prison-house.'

"'You are mistaken in this idea, Señor Perez el Cantarero,' said Don
Julian, with a quiet sneer, while his band crowded round with
lowering brows and gloating eyes.  'Quite mistaken, allow me to
inform you.  Your honest uncle, the abagado (O most honest lawyer of
Santarem!) has refused to ransom you.  Our messenger, the very
reverend rabbi, Isacco Zendono, has come back just now empty-handed.'

"The girl shrieked and hid her face in the bosom of her brother, who
gazed around him with a look of rage, astonishment, and stupefaction.

"Isacco, the Jew, burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, in
which Don Julian and his comrades joined.

"'Out upon ye, villains,' exclaimed Perez the potter, shaking his
clenched hand at them.

"'O Perez, por amor de mi,' urged his sister, in a breathless voice.

"'Teresa, my poor Teresa,' muttered the brother through his hard-set
teeth, 'I had doubts, dreadful doubts; but I expected not this.
Answer, Señor Don Julian d'Aviero, does this black-hearted slave of
Mammon, this villain of an abagado, forget that he retains in his
repositories the inheritance left us by old Gil Perez, the alcalde of
Santarem?'

"'In truth, most blustering señor, most valiant cavalier of crocks
and cans, your father's honest brother has not forgotten that
important fact,' replied Julian d'Aviero, in his cool, dry way.  'The
abagado will act true to his trade, by deceiving those who trust him.
His trade!  May the great Devil confound it, for it has stripped me
of as fair an heritage as ever came from a miserly sire to a
spendthrift son.  Well, Señor Perez, in short, to possess himself of
your two thousand dollars, and practise a little profitable
conveyancing, your relative the lawyer has stoutly declined to ransom
you, saith our messenger, swearing by the bones of St. James, he
would not yield the hundredth part of a pezzo to save you from the
jaws of hell.'

"'Be it so,' muttered Perez, between his clenched teeth; 'in the
world that is to come, he will meet with his reward.'

"'Were it but to provoke the abagado, I would willingly set you free,
Señor Potter; but the laws of this free community say nay.'

"'But my sister----'

"'Has found no more favour than yourself.  Santos!  You are a strange
fellow, Señor Perez.  Who the devil ever expects to find an apostle
in the carcase of an abagado?'

"'Madre de Dios! my poor Teresa!' said the young man, folding his
sister to his breast; while she responded by an agony of grief and
terror, such as I had never before witnessed.

"On her knees she bent before Julian d'Aviero, imploring him to spare
her only brother, and to slay her, if he pleased; but her piteous
cries and supplications, rendered yet more plaintive by the beautiful
language of Spain, were drowned by the brutal jests, and whoops, and
yells of the Portuguese robbers.

"When the hubbub subsided, 'Señor Cantarero,' said Don Julian, in his
wonted cold and sarcastic manner, 'I have said that your ransoms are
refused.'

"'And what then, Señor Ladrone?' asked the paisano sternly.

"You must die--that is all," replied the captain, quietly knocking
the ashes from his fragrant cuba.

"'Die!'

"'Si, morir, Micer Perez el Cantarero,' said he, with an ironical bow.

"''T is hard to die thus, and unrevenged,' said the peasant, looking
round as if for a weapon; 'but I am content, so that you release my
sister, and swear upon the crucifix that she shall receive no harm.'

"At this demand there was another horrid laugh; and the Jew, turning
up his eyes, swore something in Hebrew at a request so unreasonable.

"'Keep your mind quite at ease, Perez, amigo mio,' said Julian
d'Aviero, whose potations were now affecting his brain, and imparting
to his manner a strange mixture of ferocity and jocose cruelty--'do
not be alarmed; your sister shall not die.  Maladetto! dost think we
have no taste or discrimination?'

"'The Holy Virgin thank you!' said the potter, with an odd mixture of
fervour and ferocity; 'my dearest Teresa, will----'

"'Fall to the lot of the fortunate rascal to whom the happy dice
assigns her,' said the Jew lieutenant of the gang, pushing forward
and jostling me, with such insolence that I had some difficulty in
keeping my hands from his throat.

"'Hark you, Master Potter,' he continued, in his husky Spanish, which
I cannot imitate.  'We cast lots for the women we capture, if they be
young and handsome.  The men we poniard, if they cannot ransom their
heads and hides, and then we bury them honourably in the chasm of the
Tagus.  The bones of some stout fellows are bleaching there, so you
will find yourself in good company, I promise you I owe you a grudge
for the stroke your 'cajado' dealt on my pate yesterday, and so claim
the first blow to-day.  Arrojarse, camarados! fall on!'

"He unsheathed his poniard and grasped the potter by the collar of
his buckram doublet; but the descending blow was arrested by the
uplifted arms of Teresa, who hung upon the villanous dog of Israel
with the determination, if not with the strength, of a tigress, and
poured forth a succession of cries and threats, which astonished even
the intended assassin; then, sinking upon her knees, the winning girl
pressed the murderer's hideous paw to her beautiful lips, beseeching
him, in those accents to which a woman in deadly terror can alone
give utterance, to spare her brother, her Perez, her dear and only
brother, and she would become the servant, the slave, of the robber
for her whole life.

"'Oh, spare my brother; spare him!  O Señor Judio; O Señor Don
Julian, Caballeros, gracias, bandidos, por Nuestra Señora Santissima!'

"'My slave?  Demonios!' chuckled the ruffian Jew; 'that you may be at
all events, or I may make short work with you, and so disappoint some
honest fellow here.  Off, off with you!' and he shook her from him
with so much violence, that on sinking to the floor, the blood gushed
from her mouth and nostrils.

"The Jew again raised his dagger, but Perez, filled with fury at the
treatment of his sister, snapped, as if it had been a straw, the cord
that bound him, and, grappling with the athletic ruffian, dashed him
on the floor where he placed a foot upon his breast, and trod him
down as one would do a serpent.  The blood of the potter was up;
grasping another by the sash, he hurled him back with such force that
the bandit was instantly slain; for, on staggering, his head came so
violently in contact with an angle of the wall, that in a moment his
brains were dashed out, and he presented a dreadful spectacle as he
lay, breathless and quivering, with his battered skull empty, as if
struck by a grapeshot, and his blood and brains forming an oozy pool
beside him.

"Even the banditti seemed struck with horror for a moment, and a
stillness ensued.  They glared at their dead comrade and at each
other, heedless of the groans and struggles of the half-stifled
Zendono.  The voice of the girl was again heard supplicating, for I
had raised her up; and she implored me to save her brother, for he
had done no wrong, but shed blood only in his own defence, and now
remained motionless and terrified at his own temerity.  The faint and
half-articulate voice of Teresa recalled the band from the spell
which, as I have said, their comrade's death had cast around them;
and simultaneously they rushed with their knives upon the poor
potter, and, pierced at once by innumerable and reiterated wounds, he
sunk lifeless among their feet; and long after the last vital spark
had fled, they continued to stab and slash, and otherwise mutilate
the corpse until its bloody garments hung about it in tatters.

"'Tonnere!' thought I, 'if my friend the hidalgo has neither the cash
nor the inclination to ransom me, I shall be in a bad way.'

"By order of Don Julian, who had watched this scene of butchery with
folded arms and an immovable aspect, the body was tossed over the
window, from whence I heard it falling heavily from rock to rock
before it reached the deep, dark water of a tributary of the Tagus,
that struggled through a chasm in the cliffs, two hundred feet below.

"While the half-drunken banditti cursed and yelled like fiends, they
cast the dead body of their comrade after that of the unfortunate
potter, then wiped and sheathed their poniards; and all traces of the
horrible occurrence disappeared, save the red blood gouts upon the
floor, which these European Thugs never thought of cleansing; but
trampled to and fro among that frightful puddle as heedlessly as if
it had been so much spring water spilt by accident.

"Teresa had swooned, and hung on my arm in a happy state of
insensibility.

"Isacco Zendono, who had suffered severely in the melée, during his
prostrate position on the floor, now scrambled up, his heart burning
with fury, and his body smarting with pain.  He was plastered with
the gore of the slain men; and its dripping from his sable beard and
matted hair no way improved his personal appearance, or increased the
benevolence of his features.

"Growling at the weight of his comrades' heels, he demanded in a
stentorian voice that lots should be cast for possession of the
Señora Teresa; a proposition at once acceded to.

"Dice were produced, and the beetle-browed banditti crowded round a
table, where they rattled and threw the dice in succession.

"The Jew uttered a yell.

"He had won!

"Diable! how like a victorious fiend he seemed, as, with a shout of
villanous joy, he snatched the poor insensible victim from my arms,
and with his poniard menacing any man who dared to follow, bore her
off, bent double over his left arm, as easily as he would have done a
folded mantle.

"Poor Teresa! she was so slight and young.

"Monsieur, I am not quite such a bad or wild fellow as, perhaps, you
may think me; and I do assure you that I then felt my impetuous blood
tingling in every vein.  I sprang after the dog Zendono, but was
restrained by the powerful and perhaps friendly arm of Don Julian
d'Aviero.

"'Señor!' he exclaimed, in a whisper, 'are you mad?  Remember your
life is at stake, and ponder well on the helplessness of your
condition among us.'

"The truth of this came bitterly home to my heart; I gave the speaker
a fierce and reproachful glance, and folded my arms in silence.

"My heart bled for the unhappy girl.

* * * * * *

"Frequently in that long and dreary night, when the mountain blast
howled drearily through the shattered villa of Aviero, and moaned in
the gorge through which the Tagus wound, I heard the cries and
lamentations of the miserable girl, and the oaths and revelry of
those to whom she was now abandoned.

"Ere daybreak her cries had ceased.  Mille Baionettes! they nearly
drove me mad.

"What became of her I know not, as I never saw her again.

"Next day, an old Padre of Santarem came with a message from the
hidalgo Don Juan Lerma, whose mansion I had spared.  The priest had
volunteered on this errand of mercy, as no other man in Santarem
would venture within the reach of the terrible Aviero, to whom he
paid two hundred pillared dollars, and I was conducted to within a
few toises of the advanced sentinels of our out-piquets, by Don
Julian in person, and we bade each other adieu with a very good
grace, but without either tears or regret on my side, as may be well
assumed; and so ended my mal-adventure in the wood of Santarem."

----------

The Captain St. Florian concluded his story.

"Parbleu!" said he, "how dry my throat is with speaking so long, and
I dare say I have tired you to death.  But let us have one more
bottle of Janette's champagne, and then we shall decamp soberly to
look for more adventures.  But I must be cautious, being for guard at
the chateau to-morrow.  You cannot mean to return to Lagny to-night?"

"I must; and 't is high time we were off, Captain St. Florian;
besides, I see Janette is decidedly sleepy."

"Ah! poor girl, yes."

"My horse is at an hotel in a street leading from the Champ Elysées."

"Ouf! a devil of a way from this.  There is a church clock striking
five.  Nombril de Belzebub, 't is morning!"

We hurriedly rose to depart.  Janette had fallen fast asleep in the
bar, and St. Florian kissed her brow as he passed and deposited the
reckoning in her lap.  The portière of the cabaret let us out, and we
sallied through the street to find my hotel.

At the chateau, as the Parisians name the palace, I bade adieu to the
captain, and getting forth my horse, rode off.

The trumpets of the Austrian cavalry and the English drums were
ringing on the early morning wind, as the reveille roused the
soldiers of the allied host in their several camps and cantonments.

The patrols of the gensd'armes were retiring to their quarters; the
sun was coming up in his glory, and ruddily in his morning light,
amid the morning smoke of Paris, shone the huge façade of Notre Dame,
and the burnished dome of the Hotel des Invalides.

Paris, with its tented parks and guarded barriers, was left behind;
and I dashed at full gallop along the dusty road that under the
shadow of many a vine trellis, and many an apple bower, led to my
cantonments at Lagny on the Marne.




CHAPTER XXIII

THE MAJOR'S STORY.

On the Colonel concluding, there arose a contention between our
surgeon, Mac Leechy, and the senior major, as to who should tell his
story first; for "the steam" was now fairly up; but the matter was
adjusted by seniority, like choice of quarters, or having the best
bed in a billet, and the right of first mounting a breach, and other
little contingencies of a military life.

"I was once nearly hanged by Wellington," said the Doctor to tempt us
to listen; "for when I first joined the service, it was as an ensign,
though I had my diploma of M.D."

"Hanged?" said Slingsby; "then you proved a King's bad bargain,
Doctor?"

"Not half so bad as you, Jack," retorted our old medico; "but I'll
tell you in a few words how it came to pass.  When our troops were
falling back from Quatre Bras, upon the village of Waterloo, on that
stormy 17th of June, which preceded the great battle, I was sent
forward with sixteen men of the Scots Brigade to take possession of
the principal inn as quarters for the Great Duke and his staff, and
to save the house from being plundered or forcibly seized by any one
else.  We entered the village double-quick: I soon found the inn, and
after posting my sentinels in front and rear, preceded to investigate
(from motives of personal interest) the contents of the pantry before
the Duke arrived.  In twenty minutes afterwards we heard
musket-shots; I rushed out of the kitchen (where I had been consoling
the terrified landlady, and deviling a drumstick,) to find my fellows
firing at the French tirailleurs, who were now at the end of the
village where they had lined a stone wall.  We peppered them briskly;
but four of my men had just fallen, when a Belgian officer, all
covered with stars and lace, galloped up to me, crying, as he took
the road to Brussels,

"'Fall back--fall back--Waterloo is surrounded, and you will be cut
off!'

"I drew out my men and left the village double quick.  At the other
end of it, I passed a mounted general officer with his staff, who
were sitting quietly and composed in their saddles; but he called to
me with a loud voice,--

"'Halt, sir--halt your men, and come here!'

"I obeyed, and lowered the point of my sword.  Oh, there was no
mistaking the keen grey eagle eyes, the high nose and white
neckcloth; the little blue cloak and brass sabre of this personage.
It was Wellington himself.

"'In God's name, sirrah,' said he, fiercely, 'why have you abandoned
your post?'

"'The village is surrounded----'

"'It is not surrounded--a few sharpshooters fired a shot or two at
our cavalry, but they have been all killed or taken.'

"'A Belgian officer--

"'Cowardice--rank cowardice,' said Wellington.  'and at a time like
this!  Provost Marshal--where are the Provost Marshal and his guard?
A rope--get a rope, and hang this young fellow from the nearest tree.'

"I was in deadly terror, for I was then a raw lad, and did not
perceive that this was, perhaps, only to frighten me; but at that
moment Sir Denis Pack dashed up with some intelligence which was of
more importance to Europe than the hanging of Ensign Mac Leechy, so
Wellington troubled himself no more about me; I shrunk away to pick
my half-devilled bone and to rejoin the Scots Brigade, who were
bivouacked in a field near the Brussels road.

"Soon after Waterloo, I exchanged my ensign's commission for a
medical one, and have never since been in terror of being hanged by a
Provost, or shot by a court martial."

"Tush," said the major, "I was once nearer being hanged than you,
doctor; for I was tried, and sentenced, and, moreover, only escaped
one noose to be caught by another--for I got my wife by it."

Our major was a jolly and cozy old fellow, who was addicted to a
little flirtation with married dames of mature age, and to making
downright love to widows (if his good lady was absent), and
invariably opened the trenches by affecting to consider them the
sisters of their handsome daughters.  He was a great favorite with us
all; but, being married, he never dined at mess, unless when
specially invited by some one.  Thus we warmly welcomed our old
major's story, which he began without further preamble.




CHAPTER XXIV.

"ESTELLA."

"I entered the service," quoth the Major, "when the Peninsular War
was at its height, and my commission was signed by the first
gentleman in Europe, then Prince Regent; truly we had queer ideas of
what constituted a gentleman in those days,

  "'In my hot youth, when George III. was king.'


"I joined our first battalion in Spain, and had more than enough of
marching, fighting, and starving in the desolate province of
Estremadura, where Marshal Macdonald and General Foy never gave us a
moment to spare.  I was wounded at La Nava, and at the storming of
Almarez.  When I scrambled over the palisades, with my sword-arm in a
sling, I remember a voltigeur officer rushing upon me with his sabre
uplifted; but, on perceiving my wound, he lowered his weapon
gracefully in salute, and passed on to encounter another.  We took
the garrison prisoners, blew up the works, and threw the guns into
the Tagus.  At night, when we buried the dead, by flinging them into
their own trenches, I was shocked to perceive my generous and gallant
voltigeur among them--cold and stiff--slain by a shot in his heart,
and with his right hand still grasping the hilt of the same sabre
with which he had threatened and so chivalrously spared me.  I was at
the defence of Alba, and with the covering army at Badajoz, and I
fought at Victoria, where our colonel, the gallant Cadogan, was
killed, and where we put up a statue to his memory; but so unlike
him, that I am sure if the good man ever looks at it out of Heaven,
he will never recognise himself.

"We had always hard fighting, for I belonged to the light troops; and
so far as the head was concerned in those days, I was very well
adapted for that branch of the service.

"My regiment, the Highland Light Infantry, belonged to the first
brigade of the second division of infantry (Sir Rowland Hill's), and
at the time when this little narrative opens was quartered at
Aranjuez, a small town of Toledo, about twenty miles south of Madrid,
on the left bank of the Tagus.  Though we had been for some months in
quarters of refreshment on the Portuguese frontier, and had there
received several supplies of clothing, &c., from Britain, in
consequence of the rapid movements of the army, which, by turning the
positions on the Ebro and Douro, had driven back the French under
Joseph and Jourdan, making them to traverse the whole length of Spain
in one short month, and the incessant activity of the light troops,
my uniform was reduced to a mere mass of rags.  My cap, a kind of
Highland bonnet, checquered, but without feathers (like that still
retained by the 71st and 74th Regiments), was worn into many holes,
and the rain came through upon my head.  My epaulettes, or wings,
were reduced to black wire; my coatee, turned to purple and black,
was, like my Tartan trews, patched with cloth of every hue; my sash
had shrunk to a remnant; the pipeclay had long disappeared from my
shoulder-belt, and the sheath of my claymore was worn away until six
inches of the bare blade stuck through it And such was the general
appearance of the officers of our regiment, as, with our canvas
haversacks, our blankets and cloaks slung in our sashes, and carrying
wooden canteens, similar to those of the privates, we marched into
Aranjuez, and defiled, with pipes playing and drums beating, towards
the great summer palace of Philip II., which occupies a little island
formed by the Tagus and the Xarama, and is surrounded by the most
beautiful pleasure-grounds.

"In one hand I carried my sword, in the other a ham, which I had
picked up when overhauling a French caisson.  My lieutenant had a
small wine-skin, and my ensign a round loaf under his arm; thus, we,
the officers of the 1st company, looked forward, to what we deemed,
in those hard times, a sumptuous repast, on halting in the quadrangle
of the vast and silent palace, from which Joseph and his court had
fled but a few hours before, leaving behind many a sign of their
hasty departure.  Here lay Turkey carpets half torn up; there, velvet
hangings but half torn down; in one room were bales of furniture,
ornaments, and plate, packed but abandoned; in another lay the
remains of a sumptuous feast, the wine was yet in the half-emptied
glass; the fork remained in the breast of the turkey; the ashes of a
large fire yet smouldered in the vast kitchen, and in each apartment
of these long and magnificent suites, which traverse the whole palace
of Philip II., were splendid Parisian clocks, with their gilt
pendulums yet wagging under crystal shades, and all remaining in
statu quo, just as the French fugitives had left them, on the
approach of our advanced guard.

"We chose our apartment, seized utensils, and, after a bath in the
sandy Xarama to refresh us after our long and dusty march, we sat
down to a supper on my ham, the ensign's loaf, and the lieutenant's
skin of the country wine.  Fresh from the royal gardens we took fruit
in abundance; for the season was summer, and the purple grape, the
golden apple, and the ruddier orange, with the ripe pomegranate, were
all to be had at arm's length from the tall, painted windows.  Nor
were cigars wanting: for, when investigating the contents of a
certain press, I found several boxes, from which we supplied
ourselves, and gave the remainder to the men of our company, who were
solacing themselves in the adjacent apartments, and lounging on the
velvet sofas, down ottomans, and satin fauteuils, on which the fair
demoiselles of the usurper's court had sat but the day before.

"The quarter-guards were set; the out-pickets had been posted in the
direction of the enemy; in the palace court, our ten pipes had
sounded for the tatoo, and, wearied to excess, we lay down, some on
beds, and some on benches, but many more on the hard floor, where we
slept soundly, and heedless of the advancing, the marching, and
skirmishing of the morrow; for we light troops had always our full
share of the latter.

"I was in this luxurious state--for dry quarters, and a sound sleep
after a hearty meal, are great luxuries to the campaigner--when I was
shaken by the shoulder, and I heard the devilish voice of our
sergeant-major saying--

"'I beg your pardon, Captain ----; the first officer for duty is
required to take convalescents to the rear They march an hour before
daylight, and the adjutant sent me to warn you, sir, and say, the
piper will blow the rouse in twenty minutes.'

"He retired, having delivered his orders; and then, as a pleasant
sequel to them, I heard the rain--the heavy rain of Castile, where
every drop is the size of a walnut--pattering on the long range of
palace windows which faced the east.  No man ever left a warm down
bed more unwillingly than did I the hard tiled floor of the sala.  I
rolled up my cloak and blanket, slung them with my haversack and
canteen, and then groped about for a small portmanteau which
contained all my goods and gear; and, without disturbing my two
comrades to bid them 'good-bye'--for, poor fellows! after so long a
march as that of yesterday, to have done so would have been positive
inhumanity--with half-closed eyes, I hurried along, stumbling over
the sleeping soldiers, muskets, knapsacks, and broken furniture with
which the vast halls and suites of chambers were encumbered.  After
losing myself for a time in that famous apartment of mirrors, where
Godoy and the Queen were wont to perform fandangos, I reached the
bridge of Toledo, as it is named from the road which crosses it; and
there I found the convalescents assembling, in the dark of a cold and
rainy morning, for daylight was yet an hour distant, and I heard the
heavy drops battering the tarred canvas covers of the wretched
caissons, wherein the sick and wounded lay.  I heard the rain also
lashing on the parapets of the bridge, and raising bubbles on the
rapid stream which swept below its arches.

"There were not less than thirty waggons or bullock-cars filled by
officers alone, many of them sick, or suffering from diseases
produced by hardship and starvation; others from wounds, and the
amputation of legs and arms, by the stupid apothecaries' boys, who
composed almost wholly our medical staff in the Peninsula.  In rags
and misery, almost shirtless and shoeless, they lay closely packed in
the caissons among a little straw; and one--the weakest and most
reduced--was the famous Irish assistant-surgeon, Maurice Quill, of
the 31st Regiment.  I had one officer of the 1st Dragoon Guards, who,
being mad as a March hare, had an entire waggon to himself, and I
heard him bellowing like a wild bull, above the rushing rain and the
howling wind as I approached this mournful assemblage on the old
bridge of Toledo.

"I received the lists and commissariat papers, &c., in the dark, from
the brigade-major, who carried a lantern under his cloak, and, in
bidding me adieu, bade me beware of Barba Roxa, or Red-bearded
Sancho, a thief, whose exploits were then making some noise in Toledo
and La Mancha.  The few soldiers who accompanied me were also
convalescents, on their way home to be discharged, and, consequently,
were barely able to carry their arms.  I had a French troop horse,
captured in the scramble at Arroyo del Molino, and by my side rode
the only effective man in the detachment, my orderly dragoon; who,
for the good service he rendered me by his inborn bravery and
fidelity, I shall ever remember with gratitude, Darby Crogan, a
private of the 4th, or Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, and when I say he
was every inch a true Irish soldier, further comment is needless.

"Though we had enough and to spare of fighting, I own that it was
with no ordinary feeling of dissatisfaction I departed on this duty,
leaving my comrades to push on towards the south, to fight and win
the great battle of Vittoria, and drive the French from Spain; while
I had the foreknowledge that there was never an instance known of an
officer leaving the army, in charge of convalescents, without being
involved in the most serious quarrels with the Spanish authorities,
both civil and military.  But there was no alternative for me; so,
muffling myself in my cloak, after sharing with Darby Crogan a glass
of brandy from a certain convenient flask, which hung at my
waist-belt, and after a good deal of galloping to and fro, swearing
at muleteers and bullock-drivers, the cars were put in motion, and
the march began just as the first streak of dawn glimmered dimly
above the distant sierras.

"A company of Les Chasseurs Brittaniques (who, though French
deserters and ragamuffins of every kind, wore the red British
uniform), under a Captain H----, marched also for Ciudad Real, and
nearly at the same time, but were ordered to pursue a route apart
from mine, by Santa Cruz de la Zarza, and down the other side of the
mountains, by Corral de Almuguer and Madridejos.

"The morning had broken clear and cloudless, when, passing through an
open tract of country, we reached Yepes, and the summer sun of
Castile came up in all his burning glory.  I generally rode about
fifty yards in front of my party to avoid the incessant complaints
and cries of the sick and wounded, whose ailments or sores were
exasperated by the increasing heat and pitiless jolting of the
bullock-cars, which had neither springs nor iron axles.  The day was
cloudless and scorching; the plain hot, dry, and dusty, all
vegetation being burned out of it.  No breeze came from the distant
mountains; but a vast swarm of black flies, which floated like a
vapour about us, gave incredible annoyance.

"A poor young officer (lieutenant in an English light cavalry
regiment) expired under the pain of his mortifying wounds and
accumulated sufferings.  This event caused a temporary halt.  By the
side of the mule-track, which crossed that arid plain, we hastily
made a little grave, about a foot deep, and laid him down, yet warm,
in his uniform, and coffinless.  A little of the blood-stained straw
from the waggons was spread over his face, and then we covered him
up, heaping the dry dusty soil over him by our feet, by the butts of
muskets, and blades of bayonets, to keep the wolves from disturbing
his rest.  Near this lonely grave there flowed a little fountain from
a rude stone duct, which had been made in the days of old, 'en tiempo
antique,' as a mule-driver told me.  In twenty minutes after, we were
all again en route, with the mule-bells jangling and the wheels
jarring, as if nothing had happened; but his place in the waggon was
soon supplied, as every hour some of my convalescent guard became
unable to endure the weight of their trappings, and had to be placed
among the sick.  Thus our progress was so slow that night was closing
before we entered La Guardia, a small town, about sixteen miles from
Aranjuez.

"As we clambered and toiled up the rocky ridge which it crowns, on
the right bank of the Cedron, Crogan and I, who rode in front, were
surprised to find the little town almost deserted, and that a few of
the inhabitants who had lingered until we were close at hand, were
retiring from it on the other side, some on foot and others on mules,
but all bearing away their goods and chattels, beds and furniture.
Entering, we found it empty; and as there were neither alcalde nor
alguazils to go through the farce of distributing billets, we
quartered ourselves wherever we best could.  After conveying all the
wounded from the waggons into the great convent (I carried Dr. Quill
on my back, for he was weak as a child), there we laid them, in rows,
on the tiled floors; and, after filling their canteens with water,
left them to warm themselves the best way they could, for we were
wearied almost to death by the slow loitering march of the past day,
under a scorching Castilian sun.

"La Guardia is surrounded by a strong but ruinous fortified wall,
which was built in the olden time to defend the district from the
incursions of the Moors; and at each end it had a gate, whereon I
posted a guard of a corporal and three men; for as the whole country
swarmed with thieves and guerilla deserters, I knew not what picaros
might be lurking in the old gypsum quarries near the Cedron.

"Darby Crogan and I took possession of a deserted house in the main
street.  He lighted a fire, and being scarce of fuel, made pretty
free use of the doors and shutters, chairs and tables; and we broiled
on a ramrod, or boiled in a camp-kettle, our poor ration beef,
sprinkling it with flour, and eating it without salt, for that was a
commodity extremely scarce among us in Spain; hence, the flavour of
our commissariat beef, after being carried in a canvas haversack, on
a long day's march, under a burning sun, would have driven Soyer or
his majesty of Oude into fits.

"We had scarcely concluded this miserable meal, which we shared
fraternally--for on service, though discipline is never forgotten,
the officer and private are more blended together, as real soldierly
sentiment replaces empty etiquette--when we were startled by the
report of two or three muskets in our immediate vicinity.

"'Hollo!' said Crogan, springing to the door of the house, 'the inimy
'ill be on us before we can say peas!'

"'Some guerillas, or picaros, or perhaps, Barba Roxa,' said I,
setting down my flask of aguardiente, to listen.

"'Darby Roxy!--sure it 'ill be pleasant to meet a namesake.'

"'Not if he beats up our quarters, when we are in so poor a condition
to resist any who might attempt it; and the watches and rings, &c.,
of so many sick officers are booty enough for a few enterprising
Spaniards, who might try to knock the guard on the head.  Look to our
pistols, Crogan; bring up the horses, and we will ride forth to
reconnoitre.'

"'Right, yer honour--I'm the man,' replied the active Irishman, as he
looked to the priming of our pistols, loaded his carbine, and hurried
to the shed close by, where our horses were chewing their rations of
chopped straw; he saddled, and brought them to the door; and thus, in
three minutes, we were both mounted.  Meanwhile, the guards at each
gate of the little town had turned out; and, leaving word to get the
whole party under arms in the street, accompanied by Crogan, I rode
at a rapid trot towards that direction in which the flashes had been
seen by our sentinels.

"La Guardia lay buried in obscurity; the night was dark, and a thin
vapour veiled the stars; but no moon was visible, though at times a
red meteor flashed across the sky.  As the warm night-wind passed
over the vast tracts of waste and untilled land, it was laden with
the rich aroma of those innumerable little plants like mignionette,
which flourish by the wayside in all the wild parts of Spain.

"'Soft ground, sir,' said Crogan, as his horse stumbled among the
dry-scorched soil; 'by the holy! this is just like still-hunting,
only the bog, bad luck to it! is as dhry as a bone.'

"'Hush!' said I, reining in my horse; 'do you not hear something?'

"'By my troth I do,'replied Darby; and as he spoke, a musket flashed
about a quarter of a mile distant; and then we heard a faint cry,
like a woman's.

"'There are no French in this neighbourhood,' said I, surprised.

"'But plinty of thaves and robbers, sir; and a nice meetin' it 'id be
for us.'

"'Forward!' said I; 'we must just take them, like our wives, Crogan,
for better or worse.'

"'And, like the wives, a sorry takin' it may be for some of us,' said
Darby, with a reckless laugh, as we rode on in the dark; and reaching
the skirt of a cork wood, found a large Spanish coach, drawn by two
mules--such a turn-out as one might have met in those days on the
prados of Seville or Madrid--being ransacked by five or six ruffians,
armed with pistols, knives, and carbines.  A man lay dead among the
long grass, near the trees; the mules were kicking and plunging in
the traces; and while one ruffian dragged out two ladies, the others
were cutting open and emptying their portmanteaus.  I drew my a word.

"'Make your horse rear, sir, the moment we are fired at,' cried
Crogan, who was a practised trooper--' 'twas by not doing so that
Corporal Lanigan, of ours, got a ball in his chest, at Talavera--his
first battle too.'

"'Forward!' cried I, 'cut them down!'

"'Whoop--hubaboo! this baste ov mine 'ud clear the rock of Cashel at
one spring!' exclaimed Crogan, who uttered an Irish yell, as we fell
suddenly on the marauders; and though we were but two to six, routed
them in a moment.  Three shots were fired at us: I cut one fellow
across the hand, and severed his fingers, which grasped the barrel of
his musket; Darby stretched another among the grass, and, whether
scared by his Irish shout, our sudden onset, or the dread that there
were more of us, I know not but in a twinkling they had vanished into
the wood, and we sprang from our horses to assist the ladies.

"'Ay de mi! señor oficial!' cried the younger, grasping me by the
left arm; 'a thousand prayers and thanks.'

"'Ay! mi señor Caballero, muchias gracias,' added the elder, making a
stately, but profound curtsy to Crogan.

"'Why, mam, you make a regular Irish dip,' said he, raising his hand
to the peak of his helmet 'But, sure you've dhropped something,' he
added, picking up a flask.  'Oh, it can't be this, at all--aggadenty,
the thafe!  Hurroo! it's like raal Cork, but out of a bran-new cask.'

"The old lady now turned to me, perceiving that I was the officer,
and prayed 'el santo de las santos,' and all the saints in heaven
might bless us, for our courageous and timely succour.

"'We are on our way to Ciudad Real from Madridejos, and were attacked
in the wood.  My señor escudero was shot, our outriders fled; and the
ladrones would undoubtedly have maltreated me--not that I cared for
myself, señor, but my dear little goddaughter--la nina--the child--la
nina Estella.  It was all for her that I trembled'--and so forth.

"By the moon, which glinted for a time through the hazy clouds, I
could perceive that the speaker was a middle-aged lady, very dark
complexioned; and, though not handsome, possessing a tolerably good,
even stately presence; and that her goddaughter, whose features were
blanched by terror, had fine dark Spanish eyes, and a graceful
figure, though somewhat undersized.

"I begged of them to be no longer alarmed.

"'Señoras,' said I, 'my detachment is at La Guardia, close at hand;
allow me to offer my escort to you, so far as Ciudad Real, for that,
also, is my destination.'

"'We owe you a thousand thanks, señor oficial,' replied the gentle
voice of la nina Estella, who seemed to be somewhere about eighteen.
'Oh, I shall never forget that fellow's red beard!  Madre de Dios,
what a size and colour it was!'

"'O ho! then our friend was Sancho himself.'

"'Ah, señor,' said the old lady, 'how happily we will avail ourselves
of your kind offer.'

"'Good--I shall have pleasant companions for the remainder of this
most unpleasant journey,' thought I, beginning to repack the
half-rifled mails.

"'We are travelling in great haste,' said the señora.  'Is your
detachment composed of horse or foot, caballero?'

"'It partakes of both, señora; being thirty waggons of sick and
wounded.'

"'Sick and wounded!  O madre de Dios! 'tis quite a travelling
hospital; thirty waggons--a lazarretto--and I have lost my priceless
relic of St. Margarida the Scot.  Oh, señor valaroso, we owe you a
million of favours, but will rather proceed alone.  And here is this
rogue, Pedro, come back with his mule.  Ah, false coward, to leave
your young mistress in such peril.  I will have you well beaten when
we reach Ciudad Real; I will, sir.  What would have become of us, but
for the miraculous arrival of the señor oficial?'

"While I assisted the trembling Pedro to restrap the portmanteaus,
and put the mules in order, a colloquy was proceeding between Darby
Crogan, and the Spaniard whom he had levelled when the fray first
began.

"'Silence, now,' I heard him say, while striking the butt of his
carbine to shake the priming; 'it will soon be all over wid ye; so
die aisy--do, and don't be bothering me.'

"'Ay, por amor de Dios, Señor Inglese,' implored the Spaniard on his
knees.

"'Señor Inglese, indeed!' said Darby, testily, as the aquardiente
mounted into his brain; 'is it an Englishman you'd call me, you
rascally Spaniard, and I, praise God! a dacent Irishman, like my
father and mother before me?'

"'Ay de mi, Señor Dragone----'

"'Dragon, is it, now!  I have a name, Mr. Spaniard, as good as your
own, for lack of a better, and that is Darby Crogan, ould Widda
Crogan's boy, at the four cross roads, near the bog of ----; but what
am I prating about?  To make a long story short, prepare for your
wooden surtoo, and make a clane breast you spalpeen of the earth,
you!'

"'Come, come, Darby,' said I, 'let him go; he is only a poor rascal
of a Murcian.'

"'It's only makin' game of him I am, your honour; but sure I am that
his being, as you say, a marchent won't make him feel dyin' a bit
more,' replied Darby, uncocking his carbine with an air of
discontent.  'Richly he desarves to die, for he fired his pistols at
me twice; the curse of Cromwell be on him!'

"'Away now,' said I, pointing to the wood; 'vayan usted con Dios, or
demonic, if it suits you better; and see, villain, that we meet no
more!'

"With a dark gleam in his eye the disarmed robber slunk away, and I
saw that his face, where not streaked with blood from Darby's sword
cut, was ghastly pale with hate, fear, and fury.

"We placed the ladies in their antique caravan-looking coach; buckled
their baggage on the pyramidal top thereof; furnished Pedro and
another servant with the arms and ammunition of the two robbers;
promised to see the unfortunate escudero interred, a promise which we
never performed; and after escorting them some miles beyond the cork
wood, bade them adieu, receiving a pressing invitation to visit them
at Ciudad Real, 'where every one knew Donna Emerenciana de
Alcala-de-los-Gazules,' which name I give myself no small credit for
remembering.  We then returned to La Guardia, and for a time thought
no more of the affair.

"I had ordered the drum to be beaten before daylight, but it was not
until two hours after it that the whole of the sick and wounded were
again stowed into their waggons, and en route; for in the back-garden
of the convent we had to bury those whom we found dead.

"Then again began that melancholy chorus of groans and cries of pain,
mingled with curses in English and Spanish, the cracking of whips,
and jingle of bells, as the obstinate mules and lazy bullocks, which
drew the rude cars, were urged to motion; and over wretched roads we
departed from La Guardia, towards the mountains.

"Passing over the ground of the last night's adventure, Crogan picked
up something which glittered amongst the grass; it proved to be the
portrait of a young lady, in a veil, flowing over a high comb; and in
her well-arched eyebrows, fine dark eyes, roguish mouth, and
fascinating smile, I recognised Donna Estella.

"'Bravo! a delightful souvenir of La Guardia,' said I; and, after
admiring it for a time, consigned it to my breast-pocket.  'Darby, I
will owe you a dollar for this when I draw on the paymaster.'  I
gazed at it frequently on the march, and every time I did so ray
interest in the original increased (but bah! do not think I was fool
enough to fall in love with a mere miniature), and I resolved that if
she was to be found in Ciudad Real I would certainly discover and
visit her.

"Again a black cloud of flies covered the whole of us; several cars
broke down; and such was the terrible nature of the road that one
fell entirely over a precipice, bullocks, wounded, and all; and then
so great was the delay occasioned by the various casualties, that
evening came on before we reached Mora, which is only ten miles from
La Guardia.  So the reader may have some idea of the tedium of our
progress.

"Mora I found also abandoned by its inhabitants, who fled at our
approach, carrying with them all provisions and everything else which
could be borne away.  Many of the houses appeared to have been
recently burned, for flames were yet smouldering in three of them,
and in another two men were lying dead; one shot, the other
bayoneted.  Being certain that there were no French in the
neighbourhood, or nearer than Burgos and Navarre, I was at a loss to
comprehend the source of this terror and outrage: but, influenced by
anxiety to be nearer Ciudad Real, and to have my defenceless
detachment disposed of for that night, I pushed on, in hope of
reaching a small village, which, as my 'route' indicated, lay about
ten miles further off.

"Descending from Mora, we traversed a plain which lies between two
sierras that terminate at Porzuna, in La Mancha: and if our progress
was slow by day, it was slower still by night.  The heat was yet
excessive; a thick impalpable dust floated about us; the air was
close and still; there was not a breath of wind.  Our thirst was
intense, and a murmur of satisfaction arose from my mournful
cavalcade when the blackened sky, and the croaking of the frogs,
announced rain; and when it did come, it came in torrents.  Then,
raising the covers of the waggons, the wretched patients thrust out
their pallid faces and trembling hands to catch the heavy drops.  The
dusty plain soon became transformed into a sea of mud, and the poor
convalescent guard sank above their ankles at every step, while,
deeper still, the mules went above their fetlocks.

"Anxious and impatient, accompanied by my orderly, I rode forward a
few miles, but failed to discover the said village; the whole
district was desolate, and being without a guide, I feared that we
had lost the way.  On returning I found matters still worse; for,
taking advantage of my absence, the villanous Spaniards, by a
preconcerted arrangement, had simultaneously cut the traces of their
mules and bullocks, and (though my guard shot a few of them in the
attempt) had fled, leaving the sick and wounded to die in the
wilderness.

"I cannot say whether anger or despair was my prevailing emotion; but
to be left thus, with three or four-and-twenty waggons (for their
number was now reduced), full of sick and dying men, among the
mountains of Toledo, without provisions, and without a medical
officer, was not very pleasant.  Though the rain was still falling,
as it falls only in Spain (like one ceaseless and tremendous
shower-bath), Crogan and I departed at a gallop after the runaways,
but could only overtake one; and, as he would neither halt nor obey
us, we fired at him with our pistols, and, breaking his leg, left him
in the same condition he had left so many of our comrades.

"Aware that not a moment should be lost in procuring a fresh team, we
turned in the direction of Toledo, and ascended the sierra, half
blinded by the rain which lashed in our faces, and, by swelling the
streams from the hills, was fast making the valley between them a
sheet of water

"'A fine thing it will be, your honour,' said Crogan--'for I'm just
in the mood to be savage--if we fall in with the Rapparees that
rummaged over the ould lady, last night, and sacked Mora and La
Guardia.'

"'Never mind, Darby, my boy, you will die in the bed "of honour"
then.'

"'Divil a one of me cares--though, by my sowl,' he added, as our
horses plashed fetlock-deep in water, 'I would like that same bed of
yer honour's to be a dhry one.'

"'So would I, Darby, but remember--

  "'Why should we be melancholy, boys,
  Whose business 'tis to----die?'


"'By the hokey! that ditty sounds very like as if the man that made
it, sir, had been up to his neck in a bog at the time.  But there are
lights!'

"'And the rain is abating, too.'

"To be brief.  After a ten miles' ride, we reached Almonacid de
Zorita, a small town of New Castile, where we roused the alcalde from
his bed.  He summoned his alguazils, and they, after an infinite deal
of trouble, collected by impress all the cattle in the place,
amounting to about twenty mules, and as many bullocks.  The alcalde
assisted us with ill-concealed reluctance, and told me that he and
the alcalde of Mora had that morning transmitted to the commandant at
Ciudad Real an account of certain outrages, and lawless impressment
of mules, committed by a British detachment, at Mora and La Guardia.'

"'You must mistake, Señor Alcalde,' said I, angrily, for I was
drenched to the skin at the time; 'the only plunderers of La Guardia,
if I may judge from personal experience, are true Castilians.'

"'The Marquis of Santa Cruz shall judge,' said the alcalde, showing
us to the door.  'Adieu, señores.'

"'Good-bye, old gentleman, and bad manners to you,' said Crogan, as
we leaped on our horses, and, recrossing the sierra reached the
waggons about daybreak: and though sleepless and exhausted, I was but
too happy when the new team was traced to them, and the whole were
once more on their way towards La Mancha.

"Slowly and wearily we toiled on by the banks of the Algador, and
again crossing the mountains, near a lake into which it flows,
reached Guadalerza, all but overcome by heat and fatigue.  I remember
that near the lake (which was literally alive with adders and small
snakes) there stood a solitary convent; and as we passed its walls,
the fair recluses waved their handkerchiefs from their narrow
gratings, with many a cry of 'viva los Inglesos,' so long as we were
within hearing.  From Guadalerza, fortunately, the inhabitants had
not fled, and they answered promptly and readily the piteous cries of
our sufferers for water, which was supplied to them in crocks and
jars, that were filled and emptied as if to quell a conflagration.

"The village of Fuentelfresno, which overlooks those sands from
whence the Guadiana is supposed to spring, was our next
halting-place, but its miserable and impoverished inhabitants were
totally unable to afford us rations of any kind; and there several of
the wounded, whose sabre-cuts or gun-shot wounds, by the jolting of
the waggons, had broken out afresh, expired.  There were two officers
and four soldiers, whom we buried in one hole (alas! I cannot call it
a grave), under an old orange-tree, near the Jarama.  Finding that it
was useless to halt in a place where we were in danger of starving,
we went further on, and bivouacked nine miles beyond it.  near a
little runnel of spring water, on a fine green plain.  The soundest
sleep that ever closed my eyes was enjoyed there, on that soft grassy
sward, beside my horse's heels; but I cannot omit to mention the
terror by which it was broken.

"My charger snorted, reared, and tried madly to break away from the
peg to which I had picketted him.

"I raised myself on inv elbow, and looked around me.  The waggons
were all closely drawn up side by side: the escort were sleeping
among their piled arms, and, muffled in their great-coats, our four
sentinels stood motionless, about three hundred yards distant.  The
moonlight was clear and beautiful.  Suddenly something reared its
head close beside me; I shrunk under my blanket, and, lo! a frightful
snake, nearly fifteen feet long, passed over the whole bivouac,
hissing and gliding; but, fortunately, without biting any one, it
disappeared into a little thicket of laurels and underwood which grew
near us.

"'Och, this Spain!--snakes, too--divil mend it!' I heard Crogan
muttering in his sleep; 'more ov it yet! and I have never had a raal
good potato down my throat since I came into it.'

"Next day, the sun-burnt plains of La Mancha lay before us; but ere
the intense heat of noon, we reached Fernancaballero, in the partida
of Piedrabueno; and there (so exhausted were my soldiers, and so
terrible the complaints of the wounded), though my route permitted me
to tarry but one night, I was compelled to halt for two additional
days, an indulgence which nearly cost me my life.  In the early
morning, when visiting the quarters of the sick and wounded, to
render them any assistance in my power before marching, I became
aware that a person was following me through the dark, muddy, and
unpaved streets of the mountain Puebla.

"As a soldier, habitually cautious, and, as a campaigner, aware of
the Spanish character, I grasped the hilt of my Highland sword, and
walked watchfully on.

"This man, by whom I had certainly been dogged and followed for some
time, was now joined by two others, and the three accompanied my
steps, remaining close behind.  Crogan was looking after our horses,
and I had no other orderly or attendant; but resolving that if their
intentions were bad to anticipate them, I halted, and confronting the
trio, said, as if without suspicion.--

"'Señores, que hora es?'

"'Son los quatro, Caballero,' replied one, gaping at me with surprise
on being so suddenly accosted; but I saw the ominous gleam of two
knives, as they were secretly drawn from the broad worsted sashes of
his companions, who skilfully endeavoured to conceal the act.  Quick
as lightning, drawing a pistol from my belt, I fired a bullet right
at the head of one, whose enormous red beard the flash revealed to
me.  The hall tore open his cheek, and carried away his left ear.
His comrade rushed upon me, but I received him by thrusting the
muzzle into his mouth, and hurling him furiously back.  On this they
all took to flight; but not before I perceived that the wounded man
had his left hand swathed in a bandage.

"'O ho, Señor Sancho, la Barba Roxa!' said I, recognising the robber
whom I had maimed at La Guardia; 'I thought your voice was not
unfamiliar to me.'

"I hurried to the muster-place, in a frame of mind that struggled
between wrath at my narrow escape, and triumph at the victory I had
won; but, in ten minutes after, the drum beat, and, replacing the
sick in the waggons, we moved off.

"Our march of fifteen miles from Fernancaballero we got rapidly over;
for Crogan and I having found no less than twenty-five mules grazing
near the Alzuer, which there flows through a fertile, plain, many of
them bridled, as if just abandoned by their riders, we yoked them to
the waggons, and entering Ciudad Real, the capital of La Mancha,
passed at a rapid pace through its broad, straight, and well-paved
streets, to the great Plaza, or principal square.

"'The Lord be praised!' thought I, as the train halted, and I gave in
my papers to the Spanish town-major, Don José Gonzales y Llano, a
field-officer of that regiment of Leon, which fled, en masse, from
the field of Vittoria.  'My duty and my troubles are over together.'

"But I was grievously mistaken, as I might have augured from the
manner of the town-major, who curled his mustaches, and shifted from
one foot to the other, like a man who has something unpleasant to
say, but dares not.

"While the occupants of the waggons were being conveyed to hospital
by fatigue-parties of Spanish soldiers, and my guard joined a
detachment of convalescents, who, under another officer, were on
their march towards the castle of Belem.  I soon became aware that I
was an object of marked attention to the denizens of Ciudad Real.  A
vast crowd had gathered in the Plaza, and I saw many men,
particularly paisanos, gesticulating violently, and pointing to me,
while the muttering gradually rose into shouts of 'Maldetto! mueran
los Inglesos!  Perro! ladrone! bandido!'

"'What the devil is the meaning of all this?' thought I; and
indignantly pushed my horse right through them.  On this the cries
redoubled, and the crowd increased so fast, that I was fain to ride
at a trot towards the house of a guantero (a maker of those gloves
for which Ciudad Real is famous throughout Spain), on whom I had been
billeted.  There I found Darby Crogan awaiting me, breathless,
exasperated, and carbine in hand, for he, too, had been followed in
the same manner by a mob, who shouted, yelled, threw mud, stones, and
rotten melons, with every missile which the uncleaned streets so
readily afforded.  We were perfectly at a loss to comprehend the
cause of treatment so unusual and so unmerited.

"'El guantero, our patron, is as cross as two sticks, or a bag of
ould nails, devil mend him! and unless your honour has a coin about
you, it's but a cowld supper we'll have,' said Crogan, as we entered
the sala, or principal apartment of the house.

"'I have not had a peseta since we left Mora,' said I; 'but here is
the patron at supper, on a cold fowl, too! we are just in time.'

"'Sure he'll ask us to ate wid him--Och! for the smallest taste in
life!' sighed poor Darby, for our food had been principally roasted
castanos during the two previous days, so miserably was the Spanish
commissariat conducted.  The patron was certainly at supper; but,
instead of welcoming us to his house as the deliverers of Spain, who
had driven the usurper from Torres Vedras to the Douro, from the
Douro to the Ebro, and from thence towards the Pyrenees, he barely
bestowed a bow upon us, and desired his servant to conduct me to one
room and Crogan to another.  Amazed at the coldness of this reception
within, which corresponded so exactly with the ungenerous treatment
of the mob without, a storm of indignation gathered in my heart; but
being aware that a strong Spanish garrison occupied the citadel, and
that the Dons were lads who did not stand on trifles, I pocketed my
wrath and turned away, resolving on the morrow to discover Donna
Emerenciana and la nina Estella.

"'Blue blazes!' grumbled Darby; 'are we not to have a ration of
something to-night?  Lord, sir, you don't know how hungry I am, for
the two insides o' me are sticking together.  I wish we had hould of
that darling pullet.'

"'So do I, Crogan, and that the old guantero had hold of the horns of
the moon.'

"'Wid his fingers well greased, the ould thief!  Never mind, sir,
wait till they're all asleep, and if I lave a place unransacked, I am
not the boy of ould Widdy Crogan, at the four cross-roads.'

"The sulky looks of the glover were reflected by those of his wife
and servant, a buxom Basque woman, who wore her coal-black hair
plaited into one long tail, which overhung her thick woollen
petticoat of bright yellow.  Her stockings were scarlet; and I saw
Crogan squinting at her well-turned ankles, cased in their neat
leather abarcas, as she tripped before us, up the steep wooden stair
that led to my apartment.  The brown-cheeked Basque bade us
'good-night,' in bad Spanish, set down the light, and on being told
that one room would do for the soldier and myself, withdrew.  Crogan
placed a few chairs against the door, and near them lay down on the
floor, with his carbine loaded and half-cocked.  Without undressing,
I threw myself on the bed, with my drawn sword beside me, for the
uproar still continued in the street; but long before its din had
died away, we were both buried in profound sleep--the deep and
dreamless slumber of long weariness and toil.

"From this happy state I was aroused about midnight by a loud noise.
Sword in hand, I sprang up, and Darby's promise to overhaul the
patron's pantry flashed upon my mind.  But, lo! a lantern glared into
my eyes; and I saw the brown uniforms, red facings, silver
epaulettes, bronzed features, and enormous mustaches of several
Spanish officers, who surrounded me with drawn swords.  Among them I
recognised Don José Gonzalez y Llano, the town-major, by whose orders
I was roughly seized and disarmed.  The lantern was held rudely
before my face, then to my belt-plate and the buttons of my coat.

"'The seventy-first regimento infanteria de Escotos,' said one.

"'La division de Don Roland Hill,' said another.

"'Señores, what is the meaning of this intrusion, and how dare you
lay hands thus upon me?'

"'The Marquis of Santa Cruz de la Zarza will tell you that,' said the
little major, insolently.

"'Then where is the marquis?' asked I, furiously.

"'At his palace, where he waits you, and requires your presence,'
said a young officer, who wore the cross of St. James and the
splendid uniform of an Ayudante de Campo.  'Come with us, señor,' he
added, politely.  'I beg to assure you that resistance is worse than
useless; so permit me, for the present, to receive your sword.'

"I handed the young aide-de-camp my belt and scabbard.

"'Gentlemen, I beg you to remember that I am an officer bearing his
Britannic Majesty's commission.'  And without saying more, I
accompanied them from the house of the glover, under escort of four
Spanish soldiers, who surrounded me with fixed bayonets.  In silence
we traversed various streets, which were buried in darkness and
obscurity; and I saw nothing of Crogan (for I had been seized while
he was on his exploring expedition); yet though anxious and
perplexed, I maintained a haughty silence, and disdained to question
my conductors.

"The bell of the cathedral tolled midnight as we entered the great
Plaza, and saw before us the stately palace of the marquis
brilliantly illuminated, for he was giving a magnificent fete in
honour of his patron saint, whose festival had occurred on the day
that had passed.  From the lofty latticed windows, four-and-twenty
lines of variously-coloured light fell across the great Plaza of the
bull-fights, and shed their prismatic hues on its plashing fountains.
A flight of marble steps led us to the vestibule, where a Spanish
guard of honour was under arms, with fixed bayonets; and, passing
between their ranks, we ascended to the grand saloon of the palace.

"In that magnificent apartment, decorated in the florid and
profusely-gilded style of Charles the Fifth's time, filled with a
deluge of light from crystal chandeliers, and over a slippery floor
of clear and tesselated marble, I was led by my conductors through
the glittering crowd of guests.  On every hand I saw the brown
uniforms, red facings, and silver epaulettes of the Spanish line, the
blue and silver of the Portuguese, the green of the Cazadores, and
the black velvet suits of old-fashioned cavaliers, wearing the
crosses of St. James and of Calatrava.  The ladies wore, almost
uniformly, dresses of black or white, but with a profusion of the
richest lace.  Many of them looked like beautiful black-eyed brides,
for their brows were wreathed with flowers, or they had one fresh red
rose among their dark glossy hair, placed just beside the comb, from
which fell that sweeping veil which like a gauzy mist floated about
their superb figures.  For years I had not looked on such a scene.

"'Madre de Dios! what an officer!'  'O!  Santos! that a British
officer!'  'Morte de Dios! he a cavalier!' were the exclamations in
every varying tone.  I was led along the saloon; the music ceased in
the gilded gallery; the dancers paused, mingled, and crowded about
us; then reflecting that I had come straight from the camp and field,
where my comrades were facing danger and death for these same
Spaniards, I thought the exhibition made of me by the Major Don José
Gonzalez, of the regiment of Leon, alike scurvy and ungrateful.  Our
division of the army had not received a farthing of pay for six
months at that time, and many a brave fellow fell at Vittoria and the
Pyrenees without receiving his hard-won arrears, which, more than
probably, his relations never obtained either.

"I was in the same plight in which I had marched from Aranjuez; my
wings worn to black wire; coat purple, and patched with grey and blue
at the elbows; my Tartan trews a mass of darns; scabbard, as I have
said, six inches too short for the claymore; shoes all gone at the
toes; and my last shirt all gone too, save the wrists and collar.
But I was weatherbeaten as a smuggler; and I looked more like a
soldier than the pomatumed Dons of the Spanish line, or the Cavaliers
of Calatrava, who turned up their mustaches and muttered 'basta!' as
I passed them, to where the Marquis stood, with a lady leaning on his
arm.

"Don Christoval, of Santa Cruz, was a tall, gaunt man, with a long
Castilian visage, black lack-lustre eyes, and a solemn air of lofty
pomposity.  His mustaches were curled up to his ears.  He had an
enormous basket-hilted toledo depending from a sling-belt, and
carried his handkerchief stuffed into the hilt thereof.  He wore the
uniform of a Spanish lieutenant-general, and had various little gold
and silver ornaments sparkling on his breast.  I was aware that a
graceful and bright-eyed young girl, in white lace, with her head
wreathed by a superb tiara of brilliants, leaned on his arm; but so
solemnly severe was the brow of the Marquis and so brief his
greeting, though in the old style of Castilian courtesy, that he
riveted my whole attention.  Besides, I was not a little indignant at
the unceremonious manner in which I had been brought before him, and
made a spectacle to his guests.

"'Señor Don Christoval,' said I, 'for what am I brought--I may say
dragged--hither from my billet, after a tedious march, and after
having duly delivered over my detachment, according to my orders from
head-quarters?'

"'Señor official,' replied the Marquis, with a look of grave
severity, 'you are charged with murdering two Spaniards, carrying off
twenty mules from La Guardia, and levying other contributions in the
partida.'

"'Who dare to be my accusers?' I asked, thunder-struck at such a
charge.

"'The alcalde of La Guardia, whose brother is one of the slain; and
Alonzo Perez, a master-muleteer of Fuentelfresno, whose mules you
carried off.'

"'Marquis, on my honour as a British officer and gentleman, I deny
this.'

"The Marquis smiled coldly, as he replied,--

"'To-morrow we will confront you with the worthy alcalde; and as for
the mules, the owner recognised them this morning, drawing your
waggons into Ciudad Real.  Each animal has a private notch in its
ears.'

"'Marquis, I beg to assure you----'

"'Sir--no more.  Here I cannot listen to explanations.  I might place
a guard over you, but nevertheless consider yourself a prisoner, and
believe that any attempt to escape will be deemed but a proof of
guilt.  Retain your sword--partake of our hospitality; and I hope,
señor, that the morrow will find you prepared to refute these dark
charges.'

"He waved his hand with such an air as a Castilian noble could alone
assume, and with a lofty gait strode away: then in his daughter, who
swept on by his side, for the first time I recognised the young lady
I had rescued at La Guardia, the original of the portrait Darby had
found, and which at that moment I had upon my person.

"Her large dark eyes dilated with astonishment, and then sparkled
with the recognition, which the punctilio of the place or her
father's pride and severity, together with my tatterdemalion aspect,
prevented her avowing; and thus, though I had saved her life--yea,
more than her life--at the risk of my own, this dazzling creature
passed away and left me, without a word of thanks or courtesy.

"I do not remember that I felt either the alarm, horror, or
astonishment that might be supposed consequent to an accusation so
startling as murder and marauding.  I can only account for this by
the deadness of feeling and of all sense of danger which results from
actual service and warfare.  But there was one emotion which I felt
deeply--an angry pride; aware that I was an object of aversion and
suspicion to the gay guests of the Marquis, among whom the fat and
ferocious little town-major made himself very conspicuous in laying
down the Spanish military law on the enormities I had committed.  The
hidalgos gazed at me indignantly through their eye-glasses; the
dark-eyed donnas peeped timidly through the openings of their veils,
and 'matador, borrachio, Inglese ladrone,' were the gentlest of the
epithets I heard muttered by many a pretty lip.  My heart swelled
with rage, and instead of joining the dancers, or aiding in the
onslaught made upon the viands which covered the long tables of an
adjoining saloon, between lofty epergnes and vases of crystal and
silver, filled with summer flowers, I stood aloof with folded arms,
and felt the smarting of a wound received but a few months
before--and that wound was received for Spain, and on Spanish ground!

"At a little distance I saw the Donna Estella whispering to her
father's aide-de-camp.  A minute afterwards he approached me.

"'Señor,' said he, 'if you will pardon the advice of a friend, I
beseech you to retire to your quarters, for all here view you with
hostile eyes; and, as a brave soldier, to whom my little cousin owes
(as she has told me) her life, I cannot afford to see you thus
misused.  To-morrow, I hope, will see these clouds dispelled;
meantime, allow me to accompany you.  I have here a spare apartment,
to which you are welcome.'

"All places were alike to me; I accepted his offer with gratitude;
and, as we descended to the vestibule, the first person I met was
honest Darby Crogan, with his sword under his arm, and his keen grey
Irish eyes sparkling with rage; and he pushed the laced lacqueys
right and left.

"'I have heard it all, sir,' said the brave fellow, who had been
anxious about me; 'and mighty hard it will go wid you.  It was all
the doin' of that capthin of the Chaseers Britaneeks, who came out of
his own route into ours, ransacked La Guardia, and carried off the
mules (bad cess to them!).  They were found with us, and the owner is
ready to swear by this and by that, and by everything else, that you
are the man, and these are his mules, as he knows by the holes
punched in their ears, and to these holes he is as ready to swear as
to his own two eyes.'

"'True, Darby; but how is all this to be explained to these hostile
and obstinate Spaniards?'

"'Kape your mind aisy, sir; there are four good hours till daybreak
yet, and if I don't astonish them thaving Dons, I am not Darby Crogan
of the 4th Dragoon Guards.'

"On the terrace of the palace, which had anciently been the
head-quarters of that celebrated fraternity, the Santa Hermandad,
founded in 1249 for the suppression of robbers, I walked to and fro
for half an hour with the aide-de-camp, enjoying a cigar, talking of
the war, my own mishap, and longing to ask a few questions about his
dark-eyed cousin, with whom her miniature had made me so intimately
acquainted.  The glorious moon was rolling through an unclouded
Spanish sky, pouring a flood of silver light into the Plaza and court
of the palace, on the towers of the great church, and the magnificent
hospital of Cardinal Lorenzana, the good and wise Archbishop of
Toledo.  The gardens of the Marquis were all lighted up by the same
white radiance; the foliage of the citron trees was edged with silver
and laden with perfume; the rose-trees hung their dewy blossoms over
the marble fountains, the clear waters of which plashed and sparkled
in the moonlight.  After a pause, I ventured to ask--

"'What is the name of the--the Marquis's daughter?'

"'My cousin--la nina--Estella de la Zarza.'

"'A pretty one enough; and she is about to change it, I presume?'

"'Change it!' reiterated the Ayudante de Campo, who did not perceive
that I was fishing for a certain information.  'Oh!  I see--marriage.
She is about to marry, Corpo de Baccho!  yes, but our Spanish ladies
do not change their names when they marry.'

"'And who is the happy man--yourself, señor?'

"'Nay, nay--we Catholics cannot marry our cousins.  Next week she is
to wed old Don José Gonzalez.'

"'What! that old beer-barrel, the town-major?'

"'Si, señor,' replied he, twirling his mustaches, with a doubtful
look: while I felt that I was beginning to abhor that town-major
immeasurably.

"About eight o'clock next morning I saw sixteen Spanish officers in
full uniform, with their swords and belts, preceded by the said Don
José, marching in file through the court of the palace, at the
side-door of which they entered.  A few minutes afterwards my friend,
the aide-de-camp, came to acquaint me, that "the court-martial, by
which I was to be tried, was constituted, and awaited me."  Without
any futile protestation against the illegality and rapidity of this
measure, I followed him to a spacious apartment, having four large
windows, which opened clown to the floor, and overlooked a grass park
which lay behind the palace.  The members of the court, over which
the town-major (who, from the first, had constituted himself my
deadly enemy) presided, were solemnly sworn across their swords; they
promised to administer justice according to the laws of war, and so
forth, and then the prosecution proceeded.

"I was charged with murdering, or causing to be shot, two peasants;
robbery, in levying contributions; blasphemous sacrilege, in
destroying a statue of the Blessed Virgin.  My horizon was now black
as it could be!  I knew very little of the language.  Save Crogan,
who remained beside me in court, I had not a friend or a comrade near
me; for the whole of my guard had marched for Belem four hours
before, while Maurice Quill, and the other sick officers, could
neither defend nor succour me.  I perceived in a moment, that, as
Crogan said, I had been accused of outrages committed by les
Chasseurs Britanniques (who wore scarlet uniform); but I resolved,
that unless matters went hard with myself, not to criminate their
officer, who, by leaving his own proper route, and relaxing his
discipline, had become guilty of the acts for which I was that day to
suffer.  The three principal witnesses against me were, the alcalde,
the muleteer, and a farmer from the partida of La Guardia.

"The first--old, stupid, half-blind, and obstinate--swore to my face
that I was the officer who had ordered his dear brother Vincentio,
the abogado, to be shot on his own threshold, and another man to be
bayoneted.  In vain I drew his attention to the Highland cap of the
71st, and to my tartan trews, assuring him that I was an Escoto.  He
shook his head--I wore a red coat--I was the very man!

"Then came the muleteer, a sturdy Catalonian, clad in a fur jacket
and yellow cotton breeches, wearing a broad sombrero, under which his
black hair hung in a red net.  He, too, swore across his knife, that
I had carried off his train of mules, or at least, that at the
bayonet's point, my soldiers had done so, to travel more at their
ease.

"'He did not see me, neither did he then see any waggons of sick, but
he knew his mules as well as if he had been the father of them, the
moment they appeared in the streets of la Ciudad Real.'

"'You will swear to your mules, hombre?'

"'By the marks in their ears, Don José, as readily as I would swear
to my own nose.'

"'Lead forward some of those mules to the window, and let the witness
see them.'

"An uproar of voices was heard in the park, and the witness, who went
to the window, uttered a cry of dismay.  The ears of his twenty mules
had been shred off close by the bone!

"'Morte de Dios!' growled the officers, twirling their mustaches;
'these Inglesos are devils!'

"'It was murtherin cruel for the poor bastes,' whispered Darby
Crogan; 'but it was all to save your honour's life I cropped them;
and sure it is worth a bushel of mules' ears; for it was a good
bushel ov 'em I buried this blessed morning.  The Lord reward Misther
Quill, for it was his best docthor's knife he lint me, to make
croppies of them all.'

"The little Major Don José was bursting with wrath.

"'Call the next witness,' he exclaimed, furiously.

"A tall, powerfully-formed, and fair-complexioned man, who, contrary
to the Spanish custom, was closely shaven, now came forward, and
stated himself to be a farmer, or jardinero, at Mora and La Guardia.
He had a large patch on his cheek, and kept one hand constantly
thrust into the red and yellow sash which girt his waist.

"Confronting me boldly and vindictively, with all the glare of hate a
cold grey eye can pour, he accused me of destroying for firewood a
statue of the Virgin at Mora, and swore to having seen the act
committed.  A growl of anger followed his evidence; and I found that
shooting an alcalde's brother, and carrying off twenty mules, were
mere jokes, compared to this.  I was startled by his voice, which,
assuredly, I had heard before--but where?  What could be the origin
of a charge so false, so strange, as sacrilege?  I turned to question
him, but he was at that moment ordered to withdraw.

"'Señor Ayudante de Campo,' said Don José, 'read from the
RECOPILACION of the military penalties the first article.'

"'El que blasfamare el santo nombre de Dios, de la Vergén ó de los
Santos, será immediamente preso y castigado por la primero vez con
la,' &c.

"'Read the fourth article, concerning outrage to divine images, for
the prisoner has been alike sacrilegious and blasphemous.'

"'El que con irreverencia y deliberation cannocida de desprecio ajare
de obra las sagradas imagenes, ornamentos ó cualquierro de las casas
dedicados al Divino culto, ó las hurtare, servá ahorcado,' &c.

"'The plot thickens,' thought I.

"In short, they sentenced me to be hanged.

"The Marquis, as Governor of Ciudad Heal, dared to confirm this
unjust sentence, which he directed should be put in execution in the
Plaza, at eight o'clock on the following morning.

"Far, far from aid and my comrades; wholly at the mercy of men, whose
hearts the cunning charge of the last witness had totally closed
against me; aware of the futility of denial and defiance, and the
hopelessness of rescue or escape, I sat in a grated room of the
public carcel, or gaol, of the town, almost stupefied by the
suddenness, the shame, and opprobrium of my impending fate.  'Poets
and painters,' says a certain writer, 'have ever made the estate of a
man condemned to die one of their favourite themes of comment or
description.'  By heavens!  I never met one of either which came
within a thousand degrees of the agony I endured that night at Ciudad
Real.  I, a gentleman, a soldier, bearing on my person three wounds,
won on that accursed Spanish soil; innocent of all they alleged;
young, with a long life and rapid promotion before me, to be cut off
thus--strangled like a garotted villain--hanged like a dog, to glut
the noonday frenzy of a Spanish rabble!  Horrible!  I had often faced
death without shrinking; but now, like a coward's, my whole soul
shrunk from such a death as that which these Spaniards meted out to
me.

"The night came on: I sat in darkness, revolving a myriad futile
plans of escape.  I was to die to-morrow, and that conviction seemed
palpably before me.  I heard it, saw it, felt it; there was a dull
sound humming in my ears--a tingling in my heart.  I recollected,
with remorse and shame, how coldly, calmly, and unmoved I had seen
the provost-marshal's guard hang six soldiers on the retreat from
Burgos.  I remembered their struggles, their agonies, and wondered
how they felt.  I passed a hand over my throat, compressed it a
little, and shuddered.

"And now, in the man who had accused me of sacrilege, I suddenly
remembered Barba Roxa, the robber, and the hand I had maimed was that
which he retained in his sash.

"'Fool! fool! that I am,' I exclaimed, bitterly; 'where were my eyes,
my ears, my faculties, that knew him not before?  This is his
revenge--his Spaniard's triumph.'

"Even my friend, the aide-de-camp, seemed to have abandoned me; and
could it be that the pretty daughter of the Marquis had not pleaded,
or said one kind word to save the poor officer who had so freely
risked his life for hers?

"All at once my stupor left me.  I sprang to the bars of the window,
and from their solid sockets, madly strove to wrench them with a
tiger's strength.  I felt every corner; the vast iron lock of the
door, the door itself moveless as a wall of adamant.  Vain, vain!  I
was to die to-morrow, and my swollen heart almost burst with emotion,
when I thought of my friends, my family, and my regiment, all
canvassing the various causes of a death so ignominious.

"A face appeared suddenly at the window, which was raised.

"'Don't be alarmed, yer honour, it's only me,' said a voice.

"'Crogan--you!' I exclaimed, in the confusion of my thoughts; 'are
you not dead--in heaven?'

"'In heaven--the Lord forbid!  I'm here, standing on my two feet, not
that I think people there stand on their heads; but don't be spakin'
in that doleful way, sir, at all, for you must prepare to lave this
place in less than no time.  Do you hear the knockin' of hammers?
It's them thavin' Spaniards puttin' up the dancin' post in the
Plaza--blazes take that same!'

"'Leave this!  Crogan; but how?'

"'By the door, to be sure.  It will be opened in ten minutes; and
horses are waitin' for the three of us, I hope, at the corner of the
sthreet.'

"'The three of us, Darby?'

"'Ay, sir, just the three of us; for isn't there a darlin' young lady
goin', too?--but I must be afther lookin' to the girths and straps of
our cattle.'

"He was scarcely gone when the door of the room opened, and the
daughter of the Marquis stood before me, together with a man bearing
a light; and in that man I recognised the under carcelero, or turnkey.

"'Oh! señora,' I exclaimed, my heart bounding with gratitude and joy,
'you have not forgotten me--or abandoned me to this cruel and
unmerited death.'

"'Hush, señor; not a word of thanks or of transport, for that would
spoil all,' she replied, with calmness and decision.  'I do, indeed,
owe you a debt of gratitude; but the mention of that to my father,
and more than all to Don José----'

"'Ah, you shudder at that name.'

"'Would but accelerate your fate.  I have bribed the carcelero,' she
whispered, 'and he will sleep sound.  His deputy is about to join the
guerillas of the great Don Julian Sanchez, and for twenty dollars
will guide you to Madrid, sent by my cousin, the ayudante; your
horses are waiting at the corner of the Plaza.  No more,' she added,
shortly, when I attempted to kiss her hand, which the thick folds of
her ample veil concealed.

"In a minute we had left the detested prison-house, and crossed the
garden which lay between it and the Plaza.  Again the glorious moon
was rolling in its silver splendour over Ciudad Heal; and as I gazed
on my fair companion, the interest I felt for her returned vividly,
and became stronger, as the moment approached when I should leave her
for ever.  I saw her magnificent eyes sparkling through her veil.

"'Señora,' said I, with hesitation, as our attendant, by hurrying on
before, had left us for one instant alone--'Señora,' I continued,
urged by a kind, a grateful, and a stronger impulse than I could at
that time analyse, 'though to remain here is remaining but to die, I
leave Ciudad Real with the most sincere sorrow.'

"'And why?'

"'Because I may never see you again.'

"'But I also am going to Madrid--and this night, too.'

"I remembered the words of Crogan; I knew alia Spanish love was
capable of; my heart leaped within me.

"'Madrid!' I reiterated.

"'With you and your brave dragoon.  Ah, señor, do not refuse to
escort me.  My father is bent on marrying me to Don José----'

"'What!--that rascally old town-major?  My dear señora, I beg you not
to think of it.'

"'Ah!  I have thought a great deal of it, and wept for it too.'

"'Then,' said I, drawing my breath more freely, end seeing a prospect
of vengeance on the pot-bellied major, 'you do not love him?'

"'Oh no; I hate, abhor, detest him; and to avoid him, am about to
retire to Madrid, where my aunt lives.  She is reverend mother at our
Lady of Attocha.  You know the great convent where the little Jesus
is that works the miracles, and looks so beautiful, a love of an
infant, on the altar of the Hundred Lamps.  My aunt will save me from
this detested union if you, señor, will but afford me your escort.  I
am friendless,' she continued, weeping; 'for such is the terror of my
father's name that there is not a man in Ciudad Real whom I can
trust.  Yet I shall confide in your goodness; indeed I am sure--I
know--I think, I may.  The British officer has a high sense of
chivalry 'and honour, but Ay de mi! el Espanol no tiene nada.'

"'Madam,' said I, touched to the heart by the compliment, and her
confiding nature, 'trust to me, and while life remains, by heaven,
and that honour, I will see you safely to Madrid.'

"Crogan, with three saddle-horses, stood at the gate.  We mounted,
the fair Estella springing on her jennet, à la cavalier, in the
fashion of Old Castile.  We left Ciudad Heal by the northern gate,
and then put our horses to their mettle, as we avoided the direct
route to Madrid, and struck off into the mountains towards Carrion de
Calatrava.

"I might spin my story beyond the limits allotted to me, but surely
it requires no conjuror to guess the sequel!  The interest begun by
the miniature, so fortunately found, the charming society,
confidence, and generous spirit of the original strengthened and
confirmed.  In four days we reached Madrid, in four more we were
married in the convent chapel of Attocha.

"The Marquis sent the Major Don José expressly to Wellington,
requesting him to hang and behead me.  His grace declined to accede,
but the name of Captain ----, of Les Chasseurs Britanniques, was
struck out of the army-list.  My head is still safe on my shoulders,
though somewhat powdered by time.  Thanks to his Grace of Richmond, I
have got my medal with eight clasps, and La Señora Estella (now known
by another name) is, though somewhat old like myself, one of the
dearest and most affectionate wives in the world, and I crave a
bumper in her honour, gentlemen."

Such was the story of our worthy major, whose toast I need scarcely
say was drunk with enthusiasm.

Our doctor was the next, and like every one who has a story to tell
he had listened with considerable impatience to the adventures of the
major, and the moment his toast had been duly honoured and silence
was restored, he began his tale without further preface, and was then
followed by our rough old Highland quartermaster.




CHAPTER XXV.

A LEGEND OF FIFE.

I can only give you an old Scottish story of the last century, with
the incidents of which I became familiar in my student days when
attending the ancient university of St. Andrew's, where I worked my
way manfully through the classes of chemistry, anatomy, and natural
philosophy; and felt as proud of my academic gown as I have done in
later years of my red coat and epaulettes, and perhaps as happy, too,
for some of the most joyous days, and certainly the most uproarious
nights of my past life, have been spent in the auld East Neuk of
Fife--God bless it!

And now for my legend.

It was a cold night in the March of the year 1708.  The hour of ten
had tolled from the old Gothic collegiate church; beating on his
drum, the drummer in the livery of the burgh had proceeded from the
Market-cross to the ruins of St. David's Castle, and from thence to
the chapel of St. Rufus, and having made one long roll or flourish at
the point from whence his peregrination began, he adjourned to the
"Thane of Fife" to procure a dram, while the good folks of Crail
composed themselves for the night, and the barring of doors and
windows announced that those who were within had resolved to make
themselves comfortable and secure, while those unfortunate wights
that were without were likely to remain so.

Hollowly the German Sea was booming on the rocks of the harbour; and
from its hazy surface a cold east wind swept over the flat, bleak
coast of Crail; a star peeped at times between the flying clouds, and
even the moon looked forth once, but immediately veiled her face
again, as if one glance at the iron shore and barren scenery,
unenlivened by hedge or tree, were quite enough to prevent her from
looking again.

The town-drummer had received his dram and withdrawn, and Master
Spiggot, the gudeman or landlord of the Thane of Fife, the principal
tavern, and only inn or hostel in the burgh, was taking a last view
of the main street, and considering the propriety of closing for the
night.  It was broad, spacious, and is still overlooked by many a
tall and gable-ended mansion, whose antique and massive aspect
announces that, like other Fifeshire burghs before the Union in the
preceding year, it had seen better days.  Indeed, the house then
occupied by Master Spiggot himself, and from which his sign bearing
the panoplied Thane at full gallop on a caparisoned steed, swung
creaking in the night wind, was one of those ancient edifices, and in
former days had belonged to the provost of the adjoining kirk: but
this was (as Spiggot said), "in the auld-warld times o' the
Papistrie."

The gudeman shook his white head solemnly and sadly, as he looked
down the empty thoroughfare.

"There was a time," he muttered, and paused.

Silent and desolate as any in the ruins of Thebes, the street was
half covered with weeds and rank grass that grew between the stones,
and Spiggot could see them waving in the dim starlight.

Crail is an out-of-the-way place.  It is without thoroughfare and
without trade; few leave it and still fewer think of going there, for
there one feels as if on the very verge of society; for even by day,
there reigns a monastic gloom, a desertion, a melancholy, a uniform
and voiceless silence, broken only by the croak of the gleds and the
cawing of the clamorous gulls nestling on the old church tower, while
the sea booms incessantly as it rolls on the rocky beach.

But there was a time when it was otherwise; when the hum of commerce
rose around its sculptured cross, and there was a daily bustle in the
chambers of its Town-hall, for there a portly provost and bailies
with a battalion of seventeen corpulent councillors sat solemnly
deliberating on the affairs of the burgh, and swelling with a
municipal importance that was felt throughout the whole East Neuk of
Fife; for, in those days, the bearded Russ and red-haired Dane, the
Norwayer and the Hollander, laden with merchandise, furled their
sails in that deserted harbour where now scarcely a fisherboat is
seen; for on Crail, as on all its sister towns along the coast, fell
surely and heavily that decay of trade which succeeded the Union in
1707.

On the sad changes a year had brought about, Spiggot pondered sadly,
and was only roused from his dreamy mood by the sudden apparition of
a traveller on horseback standing before him; for so long and so soft
was the grass of the street that his approach had been unheard by the
dreamer, whose mind was wandering after the departed glories of the
East Neuk.

"A cold night, landlord, for such I take you to be," said the
stranger, in a bold and cheerful voice, as he dismounted.

"A cauld night and a dreary too," sighed poor Boniface, as he bowed,
and hastened to seize the stranger's bridle, and buckled it to a ring
at tha door-cheek; "but the sicht of a visitor does gude to my heart;
step in, sir.  A warm posset that was simmering in the parlour for
myself is at your service, and I'll set the stall-boy to corn your
beast and stable it."

"I thank you, gudeman; but for unharnessing it matters not, as I must
ride onward; but I will take the posset with thanks, for I am chilled
to death by my long ride along this misty coast."

Spiggot looked intently at the traveller as he stooped, and entering
the low-arched door which was surmounted by an old monastic legend,
trod into the bar with a heavy clanking stride, for he was accoutred
with jack boots and gilded spurs.  His rocquelaure was of scarlet
cloth, warmly furred, and the long curls of his Ramilies wig flowed
over it.  His beaver was looped upon three sides with something of a
military air, and one long white feather that adorned it, floated
down his back, for the dew was heavy on it.  He was a handsome man,
about forty years of age, well sunburned, with a keen dark eye, and
close-clipped moustache, which indicated that he had served in
foreign wars.  He threw his hat and long jewelled rapier aside, and
on removing his rocquelaure, discovered a white velvet coat more
richly covered with lace than any that Spiggot had seen even in the
palmiest days of Crail.

According to the fashion of Queen Anne's courtiers, it was without a
collar, to display the long white cravat of point d'Espagne, without
cuffs, and edged from top to bottom with broad bars of lace, clasps
and buttons of silver the whole length; being compressed at the waist
by a very ornamental belt, fastened by a large gold buckle.

"Your honour canna think of riding on to-night," urged Boniface; "and
if a Crail-capon done just to perfection, and a stoup of the best
wine, at least, siccan wine as we get by the east seas, since that
vile incorporating Union----"

"Vile and damnable! say I," interrupted the stranger.

"True for ye, sir," said Spiggot, with a kindling eye; "but if these
puir viands can induce ye to partake of the hospitality of my puir
hostel, that like our gude burrowtoun is no just what it has been----"

"Gudeman, 'tis impossible, for I must ride so soon as I have imbibed
thy posset."

"As ye please, sir--your honour's will be done.  Our guests are now,
even as the visits of angels, unco few and far between; and thus,
when one comes, we are loath to part with him.  There is a deep
pitfall, and an ugly gulleyhole where the burn crosses the road at
the town-head, and if ye miss the path, the rocks by the beach are
steep, and in a night like this----"

"Host of mine," laughed the traveller, "I know right well every rood
of the way, and by keeping to the left near the Auldlees may avoid
both the blackpit and the sea-beach."

"Your honour kens the country hereawa, then?" said Spiggot with
surprise.

"Of old, perhaps, I knew it as well as thee."

The gudeman of the Thane scrutinised the traveller's face keenly, but
failed to recognise him, and until this moment, he thought that no
man in the East Neuk was unknown to him; but here his inspection was
at fault.

"And hast thou no visitors with thee now, friend host?" he asked of
Spiggot.

"One only, gude sir, who came here on a brown horse about nightfall.
He is an unco' foreign-looking man, but has been asking the way to
the castle o' Balcomie."

"Ha! and thou didst tell of this plaguey pitfall, I warrant."

"Assuredly, your honour, in kindness I did but hint of it."

"And thereupon he stayed.  Balcomie--indeed! and what manner of man
is he?"

"By the corslet which he wears under his coat, and the jaunty cock of
his beaver, I would say he had been a soldier."

"Good again--give him my most humble commendations, and ask him to
share thy boasted posset of wine with me."

"What name did you say, sir?"

"Thou inquisitive varlet, I said no name," replied the gentleman,
with a smile.  "In these times men do not lightly give their names to
each other, when the land is swarming with Jacobite plotters and
government spies, disguised Jesuits, and Presbyterian tyrants.  I may
be the Devil or the Pope, for all thou knowest."

"Might ye no be the Pretender?" said Spiggot, with a sour smile.

"Nay, I have a better travelling name than that; but say to this
gentleman that the Major of Marshal Orkney's Dragoons requests the
pleasure of sharing a stoup of wine with him."

"Sir, it mattereth little whether you give your name or no," replied
the host bitterly; "for we are a' nameless now.  Twelve months ago,
we were true Scottish men, but now----"

"Our king is an exile--our crown is buried for ever, and our brave
soldiers are banished to far and foreign wars, while the grass is
growing green in the streets of our capital--ay, green as it is at
this hour in your burgh of Crail; but, hence to the stranger; yet say
not," added the traveller, bitterly and proudly, "that in his warmth
the Scottish cavalier has betrayed himself."

While the speaker amused himself with examining a printed
proclamation concerning the "Tiend Commissioners and Transplantation
off Paroch Kirkis," which was pasted over the stone mantlepiece of
the bar, the landlord returned with the foreign gentleman's thanks,
and an invitation to his chamber, whither the Major immediately
repaired; following the host up a narrow stone spiral stair to a
snugly-wainscotted room, against the well-grated windows of which a
sudden shower was now beginning to patter.

The foreigner, who was supping on a Crail-capon (in other words a
broiled haddock) and stoup of Bourdeaux wine, arose at their
entrance, and bowed with an air that was undisguisedly continental.
He was a man above six feet, with a long straight nose, over which
his dark eyebrows met and formed one unbroken line.  He wore a suit
of green Genoese velvet, so richly laced that little of the cloth was
visible; a full-bottomed wig, and a small corslet of the brightest
steel (over which hung the ends of his cravat), as well as a pair of
silver-mounted cavalry pistols that lay on the table, together with
his unmistakable bearing, decided the Major of Orkney's that the
stranger was a brother of the sword.

"Fair sir, little introduction is necessary between us, as, I
believe, we have both followed the drum in our time," said the Major,
shaking the curls of his Ramilies wig with the air of a man who has
decided on what he says.

"I have served, Monsieur," replied the foreigner, "under Marlborough
and Eugene."

"Ah! in French Flanders?  Landlord--gudeman, harkee; a double stoup
of this wine; I have found a comrade to-night--be quick and put my
horse to stall, I will not ride hence for an hour or so.  What
regiment, sir?"

"I was first under Grouvestein in the Horse of Driesberg."

"Then you were on the left of the second column at Ramilies--on that
glorious 12th of May," said the Major, drawing the high-backed chair
which the host handed him, and spreading out his legs before the
fire, which burned merrily in the basket grate on the hearth, "and
latterly----"

"Under Wandenberg."

"Ah! an old tyrannical dog."

A dark cloud gathered on the stranger's lofty brow.

"I belonged to the Earl of Orkney's Grey Dragoons," said the Major;
"and remember old Wandenberg making a bold charge in that brilliant
onfall when we passed the lines of Monsieur le Mareschal Villars at
Pont-a-Vendin, and pushed on to the plains of Lens."

"That was before we invested Doway and Fort-Escharpe, where old
Albergotti so ably commanded ten thousand well-beaten soldiers."

"And then Villars drew off from his position at sunset and encamped
on the plain before Arras."

"Thou forgettest, comrade, that previously he took up a position in
rear of Escharpe."

"True; but now I am right into the very melée of those old affairs,
and the mind carries one on like a rocket.  Your health, sir--by the
way, I am still ignorant of your name."

"I have such very particular reasons for concealing it in this
neighbourhood, that----"

"Do not think me inquisitive; in these times men should not pry too
closely."

"Monsieur will pardon me, I hope."

"No apology is necessary, save from myself, for now my curiosity is
thoroughly and most impertinently whetted, to find a Frenchman in
this part of the world, here in this out-o'-the-way place, where no
one comes to, and no one goes from, on a bleak promontory of the
German Sea, the East Neuk of Fife."

"Monsieur will again excuse me; but I have most particular business
with a gentleman in this neighbourhood; and having travelled all the
way from Paris, expressly to have it settled, I beg that I may be
excused the pain of prevarication.  The circumstance of my having
served under the great Duke of Marlborough against my own king and
countrymen is sufficiently explained when I acquaint you, that I was
then a French Protestant refugee; but now, without changing my
religion, I have King Louis' gracious pardon and kind protection
extended to me."

"And so you were with Wandenberg when his troopers made that daring
onfall at Pont-a-Vendin, and drove back the horse picquets of
Villars," said the Major, to lead the conversation from a point which
evidently seemed unpleasant to the stranger.  "'T was sharp, short,
and decisive, as all cavalry affairs should be.  You will of course
remember that unpleasant affair of Wandenberg's troopers who were
accused of permitting a French prisoner to escape.  It caused a great
excitement in the British camp, where some condemned the dragoons,
others Van Wandenberg, and not a few our great Marlborough himself."

"I did hear something of it," said the stranger in a low voice.

"The prisoner whose escape was permitted was, I believe, the father
of the youths who captured him, a circumstance which might at least
have won them mercy----"

"From the Baron!"

"I forgot me; he was indeed merciless."

"But as I left his dragoons, and indeed the army about that time, I
shall be glad to hear your account of the affair."

"It is a very unpleasant story; the more so as I was somewhat
concerned in it myself," said the Major, slowly filling his
long-stemmed glass, and watching the white worm in its stalk, so
intently as he recalled all the circumstances he was about to relate,
that he did not observe the face of the French gentleman, which was
pale as death; and after a short pause, he began as follows:--

"In the onfall at Pont-a-Vendin, it happened that two young Frenchmen
who served as gentlemen volunteers with you in the dragoon regiment
of Van Wandenberg, had permitted--how, or why, I pretend not to
say--the escape of a certain prisoner of distinction.  Some said he
was no other than M. le Mareschal Villars himself.  They claimed a
court-martial, but the old baron, who was a savage-hearted Dutchman,
insisted that they should be given up unconditionally to his own
mercy, and in an evil moment of heedlessness or haste, Marlborough
consented, and sent me (I was his aide-de-camp) with a written order
to that effect, addressed to Colonel the Baron Van Wandenberg, whose
regiment of horse I met 'en route' for St. Venant, about nightfall on
a cold and snowy evening in the month of November.

"Snow covered the whole country, which was all a dead level, and a
cold, leaden-coloured sky met the white horizon in one unbroken line,
save where the leafless poplars of some far-off village stood up, the
landmarks of the plain.  In broad flakes the snow fell fast, and
directing their march by a distant spire, the Dutch troopers rode
slowly over the deepening fields.  They were all muffled in dark blue
cloaks, on the capes of which the snow was freezing, while the breath
of the men and horses curled like steam in the thickening and
darkening air.

"Muffled to the nose in a well-furred rocquelaure, with my wig tied
to keep the snow from its curls, and my hat flapped over my face, I
rode as fast as the deep snow would permit, and passing the rear of
the column where, moody and disarmed, the two poor French volunteers
were riding under care of an escort I spurred to the baron who rode
in front near the kettle drums, and delivered my order; as I did so,
recalling with sadness the anxious and wistful glance given me by the
prisoners as I passed them.

"Wandenberg, who had no more shape than a huge hogshead, received the
dispatch with a growl of satisfaction.  He would have bowed, but his
neck was too short.  I cannot but laugh when I remember his strange
aspect.  In form he looked nearly as broad as he was long, being
nearly eight feet in girth, and completely enveloped in a rough blue
rocquelaure, which imparted to his figure the roundness of a ball.
His face, reddened by skiedam and the frost, was glowing like
crimson, while the broad beaver hat that overshadowed it, and the
feathers with which the beaver was edged, were encrusted with the
snow that was rapidly forming a pyramid on its crown, imparting to
his whole aspect a drollery at which I could have laughed heartily,
had not his well-known acuteness and ferocity awed me into a becoming
gravity of demeanour; and delivering my dispatch with a tolerably
good grace, I reined back my horse to await any reply he might be
pleased to send the Duke.

"His dull Dutch eyes glared with sudden anger and triumph, as he
folded the document, and surveyed the manacled prisoners.  Thereafter
he seized his speaking trumpet, and thundered out,--

"'Ruyters--halt! form open column of troops, trot!'

"It was done as rapidly as heavily-armed Dutchmen on fat slow horses
knee deep among snow could perform it, and then wheeling them into
line, he gave the orders--

"'Forward the flanks, form circle, sling musquetoons! trumpeters ride
to the centre and dismount.'

"By these unexpected manoeuvres, I suddenly found myself inclosed in
a hollow circle of the Dutch horsemen, and thus, as it were,
compelled to become a spectator of the scene that ensued, though I
had his Grace of Marlborough's urgent orders to rejoin him without
delay on the road to Aire."

"And--and you saw----"

"Such a specimen of discipline as neither the devil nor De Martinet
ever dreamed of; but thoroughly Dutch, I warrant you.

"I have said it was intensely cold, and that the night was closing;
but the whiteness of the snow that covered the vast plain, with the
broad red circle of the half-obscured moon that glimmered through the
fast-falling flakes, as it rose behind a distant spire, cast a dim
light upon the place where the Dutchmen halted.  But deeming that
insufficient, Van Wandenberg ordered half-a-dozen torches to be
lighted, for his troopers always had such things with them, being
useful by night for various purposes; and hissing and sputtering in
the falling snow flakes, their lurid and fitful glare was thrown on
the close array of the Dutch dragoons, on their great cumbrous hats,
on the steeple crowns of which, I have said, the snow was gathering
in cones, and the pale features of the two prisoners, altogether
imparting a wild, unearthly, and terrible effect to the scene about
to be enacted on that wide and desolate moor.

"By order of Van Wandenberg, three halberts were fixed into the
frozen earth, with their points bound together by a thong, after
which the dismounted trumpeters layed hands on one of the young
Frenchmen, whom they proceeded to strip of his coat and vest.

"Disarmed and surrounded, aware of the utter futility of resistance,
the unfortunate volunteer offered none, but gazed wistfully and
imploringly at me, and sure I am, that in my lowering brow and
kindling eyes, he must have seen the storm that was gathering in my
heart.

"'Dieu vous bénisse, Officier,' cried the Frenchman in a mournful
voice, while shuddering with cold and horror as he was stripped to
his shirt; 'save me from this foul disgrace, and my prayers--yea, my
life--shall be for ever at your disposal.'

"'Good comrade,' said I, 'entreat me not, for here I am powerless.'

"'Baron,' he exclaimed; 'I am a gentleman--a gentleman of old France,
and I dare thee to lay thy damnable scourge upon me.'

"'Ach Gott; dare--do you say dare? ve vill zee,' laughed Van
Wandenberg, as the prisoner was dragged forward and about to be
forcibly trussed to the halberts by the trumpeters, when, animated to
the very verge of insanity, he suddenly freed himself, and rushing
like a madman upon the Baron, struck him from his horse by one blow
of his clenched hand.  The horse snorted, the Dutch troopers opened
their saucer eyes wider still, as the great and corpulent mass fell
heavily among the deepening snow, and in an instant the foot of the
Frenchman was pressed upon his throat, while he exclaimed--

"'If I slay thee, thou hireling dog, as I have often slain thy
clodpated countryman in other days,' and the Frenchman laughed
fiercely, 'by St. Denis!  I shall have one foeman less on this side
of Hell.'

"'Gott in Himmel! ach! mein tuyvel! mein Gott!' gasped the Dutchman,
as he floundered beneath the heel of the vengeful and infuriated
Frenchman, who was determined on destroying him, till a blow from the
baton of an officer stretched him almost senseless among the snow,
where he was immediately grasped by the trumpeters, disrobed of his
last remaining garment, and bound strongly to the halberts.

"Meanwhile the other prisoner had been pinioned and resolutely held
by his escort, otherwise he would undoubtedly have fallen also upon
Van Wandenberg, who, choking with a tempest of passion that was too
great to find utterance in words, had gathered up his rotund figure,
and with an agility wonderful in a man of his years and vast obesity,
so heavily armed, in a buff coat and jack boots ribbed with iron, a
heavy sword and cloak, clambered on the back of his horse, as a clown
would climb up a wall: and with a visage alternating between purple
and blue, by the effects of rage and strangulation, he surveyed the
prisoner for a moment in silence, and there gleamed in his piggish
grey eyes an expression of fury and pain, bitterness and triumph
combined, and he was only able to articulate one word--

"'Flog!'

"On the handsome young Frenchman's dark curly hair, glistening with
the whitening snow that fell upon it, and on his tender skin
reddening in the frosty atmosphere, on the swelling muscles of his
athletic form, on a half healed sabre-wound, and on the lineaments of
a face that then expressed the extremity of mental agony, fell full
the wavering light of the uplifted torches.  The Dutch, accustomed to
every species of extra-judicial cruelty by sea and land, looked on
with the most grave stolidity and apathetic indifference; while I
felt an astonishment and indignation that rapidly gave place to
undisguised horror.

"'Flog!'

"The other prisoner uttered a groan that seemed to come from his very
heart, and then covered his ears and eyes with his hands.  Wielded by
a muscular trumpeter, an immense scourge of many-knotted cords was
brought down with one fell sweep on the white back of the victim, and
nine livid bars, each red, as if seared by a hot iron, rose under the
infliction, and again the terrible instrument was reared by the
trumpeter at the full stretch of his sinewy arm.

"Monsieur will be aware, that until the late Revolution of 1688, this
kind of punishment was unknown here and elsewhere, save in Holland;
and though I have seen soldiers run the gauntlet, ride the mare, and
beaten by the martinets, I shall never oh, no! never forget the
sensation of horror with which this (to me) new punishment of the
poor Frenchman inspired me; and, sure I am, that our great Duke of
Marlborough could in no way have anticipated it.

"Accustomed, as I have said, to every kind of cruel severity, unmoved
and stoically the Dutch looked on, with their grey, lacklustre eyes,
dull, unmeaning, and passionless in their stolidity, contrasting
strongly with the expression of startled horror depicted in the
strained eyeballs and bent brows of the victim's brother, when after
a time he dared to look on this revolting punishment.  Save an
ill-repressed sob, or half-muttered interjection from the suffering
man, no other sound broke the stillness of the place, where a
thousand horsemen stood in close order, but the sputtering of the
torches in the red light of which our breaths were ascending like
steam.  Yes! there was one other sound, and it was a horrible
one--the monotonous whiz of the scourge, as it cut the keen frosty
air and descended on the lacerated back of the fainting prisoner.
Sir, I see that my story disturbs you.

"A corpulent Provost Mareschal, with a pair of enormous moustaches,
amid which the mouth of his meerschaum was inserted, stood by,
smoking with admirable coolness, and marking the time with his cane,
while a drummer tapped on his kettledrum, and four trumpeters had,
each in succession, given their twenty-five lashes and withdrawn;
twice had the knotted scourge been coagulated with blood, and twice
had it been washed in the snow which now rose high around the feet of
our champing and impatient horses; and now the fifth torturer
approached, but still the compressed lips and clammy tongue of the
proud Frenchman refused to implore mercy.  His head was bowed down on
his breast, his body hung pendant from the cords that encircled his
swollen and livid wrists; his back from neck to waist was one mass of
lacerated flesh, on which the feathery snowflakes were melting; for
the agony he endured must have been like unto a stream of molten lead
pouring over him; but no groan, no entreaty escaped him, and still
the barbarous punishment proceeded.

"I have remarked that there is no event too horrible or too sad to be
without a little of the ridiculous in it, and this was discernible
here.

"One trumpeter, who appeared to have more humanity, or perhaps less
skill than his predecessors, and did not exert himself sufficiently,
was soundly beaten by the rattan of the trumpet-major, while the
latter was castigated by the Provost Mareschal, who, in turn for
remissness of duty, received sundry blows from the speaking-trumpet
of the Baron; so they were all laying soundly on each other for a
time."

"Morbleu!" said the Frenchman, with a grim smile, "'t was quite in
the Dutch taste, that."

"The Provost Mareschal continued to mark the time with the listless
apathy of an automaton; the smoke curled from his meerschaum, the
drum continued to tap-tap-tap, until it seemed to sound like thunder
to my strained ears, for every sense was painfully excited.  All
count had long been lost, but when several hundred lashes had been
given, Van Wandenberg and half his Dutchmen were asleep in their
saddles.

"It was now snowing thick and fast, but still this hideous dream
continued, and still the scourging went on.

"At last the altered sound of the lash and the terrible aspect of the
victim, who, after giving one or two convulsive shudders, threw back
his head with glazed eyes and jaw relaxed, caused the trumpeter to
recede a pace or two, and throw down his gory scourge, for some
lingering sentiment of humanity, which even the Dutch discipline of
King William had not extinguished, made him respect when dead the man
whom he had dishonoured when alive.

"The young Frenchman was dead!

"An exclamation of disgust and indignation that escaped me woke up
the Baron, who after drinking deeply from a great pewter flask of
skiedam that hung at his saddlebow, muttered "schelms" several times,
rubbed his eyes, and then bellowed through his trumpet to bind up the
other prisoner.  Human endurance could stand this no more, and though
I deemed the offer vain, I proposed to give a hundred English guineas
as ransom.

"'Ach Gott!' said the greedy Hollander immediately becoming
interested; "but vere you get zo mosh guilder?'

"'Oh, readily, Mynheer Baron,' I replied, drawing forth my
pocket-book, 'I have here bills on his Grace the Duke of
Maryborough's paymaster and on the Bank of Amsterdam for much more
than that.'

"'Bot I cannot led off de brisoner for zo little--hunder ponds--dat
ver small--zay two.'

"If one is not enough, Mynheer Baron, I will refer to the decision of
his grace the captain-general.'

"'Ach, der tuyvel! vill you?' said the Dutchman, with a savage gleam
in his little eyes which showed that he quite understood my hint,
'vell, me vont quarrel vid you; gib me de bills and de schelm is
yours.'

"Resolving, nevertheless, to lay the whole affair before Marlborough,
the moment I reached our trenches at Aire, I gave a bill for the
required sum, and approaching the other Frenchman requested him to
remain beside me; but he seemed too much confused by grief, and cold,
and horror to comprehend what I said.  Poor fellow! his whole soul
and sympathies seemed absorbed in the mangled corpse of his brother,
which was now unbound from the halberts and lay half sunk among the
new-fallen snow.  While he stooped over it, and hastily, but
tenderly, proceeded to draw the half-frozen clothing upon the
stiffened form, the orders of Van Wandenberg were heard hoarsely
through his speaking-trumpet, as they rang over the desolate plain,
and his troopers wheeled back from a circle into line--from line into
open column of troops, and thereafter the torches were extinguished
and the march begun.  Slowly and solemnly the dragoons glided away
into the darkness, each with a pyramid of snow rising from the
steeple crown and ample brims of his broad beaver hat.

"It was now almost midnight; the red moon had waned, the snow-storm
was increasing, and there were I and the young Frenchman, with his
brother's corpse, left together on the wide plain, without a place to
shelter us."

"Proceed, Monsieur," said the Frenchman, as the narrator paused; "for
I am well aware that your story ends not there."

"It does not--you seem interested; but I have little more to relate,
save that I dismounted and assisted the poor Frenchman to raise the
body from the snow, and to tie it across the saddle of my horse,
taking the bridle in one hand, I supported him with the other, and
thus we proceeded to the nearest town."

"To Amientieres on the Lys," exclaimed the Frenchman, seizing the
hands of the Major as the latter paused again; "to Armentieres, ten
miles west of Lisle, and there you left them, after adding to your
generosity by bestowing sufficient to inter his brother in the
Protestant church of that town, and to convey himself to his native
France.  Oh!  Monsieur, I am that Frenchman, and here, from my heart,
from my soul, I thank you," and half kneeling, the stranger kissed
the hand of the Major.

"You!" exclaimed the latter; "by Jove I am right glad to see you.
Here at Crail, too, in the East Neuk o' Fife--'t is a strange chance;
and what in heaven's name seek ye here?  'T is a perilous time for a
foreigner--still more, a Frenchman, to tread on Scottish ground.  The
war, the intrigues with St. Germains, the Popish plots, and the devil
only knows what more, make travelling here more than a little
dangerous."

"Monsieur, I know all that; the days are changed since the Scot was
at home in France, and the Frenchman at home in Scotland, for so the
old laws of Stuart and Bourbon made them.  A few words will tell who
I am, and what I seek here.  Excuse my reluctance to reveal myself
before, for now you have a claim upon me.  Oh! believe me, I knew not
that I addressed the generous chevalier who, in that hour of despair,
redeemed my life (and more than my life), my honour, from the
scourge, and enabled me to lay the head of my poor brother with
reverence in the grave.  You have heard of M. Henri Lemercier?"

"What! the great swordsman and fencer--that noble master of the
science of defence, with the fame of whose skill and valour all
Europe is ringing?"

"I am he of whom Monsieur is pleased to speak so highly."

"Your hand again, sir; zounds; but I dearly love this gallant science
myself, and have even won me a little name as a handler of the
rapier.  There is but one man whom Europe calls your equal, Monsieur
Lemercier."

"My superior, you mean, for I have many equals," replied the
Frenchman, modestly.  "You, doubtless, mean----"

"Sir William Hope, of Hopetoun."

"Ah!  Mon Dieu, yes, he has indeed a great name in Europe as a fencer
and master of arms, either with double or single falchion, case of
falchions, back-sword and dagger, pistol or quarter staff; and it is
the fame of his skill and prowess in these weapons, and the
reputation he has earned by his books on fencing, that hath brought
me to-day to this remote part of Scotland."

"Zounds!" said the Major, shaking back the long powdered curls of his
Ramilies wig, and looking remarkably grave; "you cannot mean to have
a bout with Sir William.  He hath a sure hand and a steady eye; I
would rather stand a platoon than be once covered by his pistol."

"Monsieur, I have no enmity to this Sir William Hope, nor am I
envious of his great name as a fencer.  Ma foi! the world is quite
wide enough for us both; but here lies my secret.  I love
Mademoiselle Athalie, the niece of Madame de Livry----"

"How--the old flame of the great Louis!"

"Oui," said Lemercier, smiling; "and many say that Athalie bears a
somewhat suspicious resemblance to her aunt's royal lover; but that
is no business of mine; she loves me very dearly, and is very good
and amiable.  Diable!  I am well content to take her and her thirty
thousand louis-d'or without making any troublesome inquiries.  It
would seem that my dear little Athalie is immensely vain of my
reputation as a master of fence, and having heard that this Scottish
Chevalier is esteemed the first man of the sword in Britain, and
further, that report asserts he slew her brother in the line of
battle at Blenheim, fighting bravely for a standard, she declared
that ere her hand was mine, I must measure swords with this Sir
William, and dip this, her handkerchief, in his blood in token of his
defeat, and of my conquest."

"A very pretty idea of Mademoiselle Athalie, and I doubt not Hopetoun
will be overwhelmed by the obligation when he hears of it," said the
Major of Orkney's, whose face brightened with a broad laugh, "and so
much would I love to see two such brisk fellows as thou and he yoked
together, at cut-and-thrust, that if permitted, I will rejoice in
bearing the message of M. Lemercier to Sir William, whose Castle of
Balcomie is close by here."

"Having no friend with me, I accept your offer with a thousand
thanks," said Lemercier.

"Sir William did indeed slay an officer, as you have said, in that
charge at Blenheim, where the regiment of the Marquis de Livry were
cut to pieces by Orkney's Scots' Greys; but to be so good and
amiable, and to love you so much withal, Mademoiselle Athalie must be
a brisk dame to urge her favoured Chevalier on a venture so
desperate; for mark me, Monsieur Lemercier," said the Major,
impressively, "none can know better than I the skill--the long and
carefully-studied skill--of Sir William of Hopetoun, and permit me to
warn you----"

"It matters not--I must fight him; love, honour, and rivalry, too, if
you will have it so, all spur me on, and no time must be lost."

"Enough; I should have been in my stirrups an hour ago; and dark
though the night be, I will ride to Balcomie with your message."

"A million of thanks--you will choose time and place for me."

"Say, to-morrow, at sunrise; be thou at the Standing-stone of
Sauchope; 't is a tall, rough block, in the fields near the Castle of
Balcomie, and doubt not but Sir William will meet thee there."

"Thanks, thanks," again said the Frenchman, pressing the hand of the
Major, who, apparently delighted at the prospect of witnessing such
an encounter between the two most renowned swordsmen in Europe, drank
off his stoup of wine, muffled himself in his rocquelaure, and with
his little cocked hat stuck jauntily on one side of the Ramilies wig,
left the apartment, and demanded his horse and the reckoning.

"Then your honour will be fulehardy, and tempt Providence," said the
landlord.

"Nay, gudeman, but you cannot tempt me to stay just now.  I ride only
through the town to Balcomie, and will return anon.  The Hopetoun
family are there, I believe?"

"Yes; but saving my lady at the preachings, we see little o' them;
for Sir William has bidden at Edinburgh, or elsewhere, since his
English gold coft the auld tower from the Balcomies of that Ilk, the
year before the weary Union, devil mend it!"

"Amen, say I; and what callest thou English gold?"

"The doolfu' compensation, o' whilk men say he had his share."

"Man, thou liest, and they who say so lie! for to the last moment his
voice was raised against that traitorous measure of Queensbury and
Stair, and now every energy of his soul is bent to its undoing!"
replied the Major, fiercely, as he put spurs to his horse, and rode
rapidly down the dark and then grassy street, at the end of which the
clank of his horse's hoofs died away, as he diverged upon the open
ground that lay northward of the town, and by which he had to
approach the tower of Balcomie.

The Frenchman remained long buried in thought, and as he sipped his
wine, gazed dreamily on the changing embers that glowed on the
hearth, and cast a warm light on the blue delft lining of the
fireplace.  The reminiscences of the war in Flanders had called up
many a sad and many a bitter recollection.

"I would rather," thought he, "that the man I am to encounter
to-morrow was not a Scot, for the kindness of to-night, and of that
terrible night in the snow-clad plain of Arras, inspire me with a
warm love for all the people of this land.  But my promise must be
redeemed, my adventure achieved, or thou, my dear, my rash Athalie,
art lost to me!" and he paused to gaze with earnestness upon a jewel
that glittered on his hand.  It was a hair ring, bound with gold, and
a little shield bearing initials, clasped the small brown tress that
was so ingeniously woven round it.

As he gazed on the trinket, his full dark eyes brightened for a
moment, as the mild memories of love and fondness rose in his heart,
and a bright smile played upon his haughty lip and lofty brow.  Other
thoughts arose, and the eyebrows that almost met over the straight
Grecian nose of Lemercier, were knit as he recalled the ominous words
of his recent acquaintance--

"Mademoiselle Athalie must be a brisk dame to urge her favoured
Chevalier on a venture so desperate."

One bitter pang shot through his heart, but he thrust the thought
aside, and pressed the ring to his lips.

"Oh, Athalie," he said, in a low voice, "I were worse than a villain
to suspect thee."

At that moment midnight tolled from the dull old bell of Crail, and
the strangeness of the sound brought keenly home to the lonely heart
of Lemercier that he was in a foreign land.

The hour passed, but the Major did not return.

Morning came.

With gray dawn Lemercier was awake, and a few minutes found him
dressed and ready.  He attired himself with particular care, putting
on a coat and vest, the embroidery of which presented as few
conspicuous marks as possible to an antagonist's eye.  He clasped his
coat from the cravat to the waist, and compressed his embroidered
belt.  He adjusted his white silk roll-up stockings with great
exactness; tied up the flowing curls of his wig with a white ribbon,
placed a scarlet feather in his hat, and then took his sword.  The
edge and point of the blade, the shell and pommel, grasp and guard of
the hilt were all examined with scrupulous care for the last time; he
drew on his gloves with care, and giving to the landlord the
reckoning, which he might never return to pay, Lemercier called for
his horse and rode through the main street of Crail.

Following the directions he had received from his host, he hastily
quitted the deserted and grass-grown street of the burgh (the very
aspect of which he feared would chill him), and proceeded towards the
ancient obelisk, still known as the "Standing Stone of Sauchope,"
which had been named as the place of rendezvous by that messenger who
had not returned, and against whom M. Lemercier felt his anger a
little excited.

It was a cool March morning, the sky was clear and blue, and the few
silver clouds that floated through it became edged with gold as the
sun rose from his bed in the eastern sea--that burnished sea from
which the cool fresh breeze swept over the level coast.  The fields
were assuming a vernal greenness, the buds were swelling on hedge and
tree, and the vegetation of the summer that was to come--the summer
that Lemercier might never see--was springing from amid the brown
remains of the autumn that had gone, an autumn that he had passed
with Athalie amid the gaieties and gardens of Paris and Versailles.

At the distance of a mile he saw the strong square tower of Balcomie,
the residence of his antagonist.  One side was involved in shadow,
the other shone redly in the rising sun, and the morning smoke from
its broad chimneys curled in dusky columns into the blue sky.  The
caw of the rooks that followed the plough, whose shining share turned
up the aromatic soil, the merry whistle of the bonneted plough-boys,
the voices of the blackbird and the mavis, made him sad, and pleased
was Lemercier to leave behind him all such sounds of life, and reach
the wild and solitary place where the obelisk stood--a grim and
time-worn relic of the Druid ages or the Danish wars.  A rough
mis-shapen remnant of antiquity, it still remains to mark the scene
of this hostile meeting, which yet forms one of the most famous
traditions of the East Neuk.

As Lemercier rode up, he perceived a gentleman standing near the
stone.  His back was towards him, and he was apparently intent on
caressing his charger, whose reins he had thrown negligently over his
arm.

Lemercier thought he recognised the hat, edged with white feathers,
the full-bottomed wig, and the peculiar lacing of the white velvet
coat, and on the stranger turning he immediately knew his friend of
the preceding night.

"Bon jour, my dear sir," said Lemercier

"A good morning."  replied the other, and they politely raised their
little cocked hats.

"I had some misgivings when monsieur did not return to me," said the
Frenchman.  "Sir William has accepted my challenge?"

"Yes, monsieur, and is now before you," replied the other, springing
on horseback.  "I am Sir William Hope, of Hopetoun, and am here at
your service."

"You!" exclaimed the Frenchman, in tones of blended astonishment and
grief.  "Ah! unsay what you have said.  I cannot point my sword
against the breast of my best benefactor--against him to whom I owe
both honour and life.  Can I forget that night on the plains of
Arras?  Ah, my God! what a mistake: what a misfortune.  Ah, Athalie!
to what have you so unthinkingly urged me?"

"Think of her only, and forget all of me, save that I am your
antagonist, your enemy, as I stand between thee and her.  Come on, M.
Lemercier, do not forget your promise to mademoiselle; we will
sheathe our swords on the first blood drawn."

"So be it then, if the first is thine," and unsheathing their long
and keen-edged rapiers, they put spurs to their horses, and closing
up hand to hand, engaged with admirable skill and address.

The skill of one swordsman seemed equalled only by that of the other.

Lemercier was the first fencer at the Court of France, where fencing
was an accomplishment known to all, and there was no man in Britain
equal to Sir William Hope, whose "Complete Fencing Master" was long
famous among the lovers of the noble science of defence.

They rode round each other in circles.  Warily and sternly they began
to watch each other's eyes, till they flashed in unison with their
blades; their hearts beat quicker as their passions became excited
and their rivalry roused; and their nerves became strung as the hope
of conquest was whetted.  The wish of merely being wounded ended in a
desire to wound; and the desire to wound in a clamorous anxiety to
vanquish and destroy.  Save the incessant clash of the notched
rapiers, as each deadly thrust was adroitly parried and furiously
repeated, the straining of stirrup-leathers, as each fencer swayed to
and fro in his saddle, their suppressed breathing, and the champing
of iron bits, Lemercier and his foe saw nothing but the gleam, and
heard nothing but the clash of each other's glittering swords.

The sun came up in his glory from the shining ocean; the mavis soared
above them in the blue sky; the early flowers of spring were
unfolding their dewy cups to the growing warmth, but still man fought
with man, and the hatred in their hearts waxed fierce and strong.

In many places their richly-laced coats were cut and torn.  One lost
his hat, and had received a severe scar on the forehead, and the
other had one on his bridle hand.  They often paused breathlessly,
and in weariness lowered the points of their weapons to glare upon
each other with a ferocity that could have no end but death--until at
the sixth encounter, when Lemercier became exhausted, and failing to
parry with sufficient force a fierce and furious thrust, was run
through the breast so near the heart, that he fell from his horse
gasping and weltering in blood.

Sir William Hope flung away his rapier and sprang to his assistance,
but the unfortunate Frenchman could only draw from his finger the
ring of Athalie, and with her name on his lips expired--being
actually choked in his own blood.

Such was the account of this combat given by the horrified Master
Spiggot, who, suspecting "that there was something wrong," had
followed his guest to the scene of the encounter, the memory of which
is still preserved in the noble house of Hopetoun, and the legends of
the burghers of Crail.

So died Lemercier.

Of what Sir William said or thought on the occasion, we have no
record.  In the good old times he would have eased his conscience by
the endowment of an altar, or foundation of a yearly mass; but in the
year 1708 such things had long been a dead letter in the East Neuk;
and so in lieu thereof, he interred him honourably in the aisle of
the ancient kirk, where a marble tablet long marked the place of his
repose.

Sir William did more; he carefully transmitted the ring of Lemercier
to the bereaved Athalie, but before its arrival in Paris she had
dried her tears for the poor chevalier, and wedded one of his
numerous rivals.  Thus, she forgot him sooner than his conqueror, who
reached a good old age, and died at his castle of Balcomie, with his
last breath regretting the combat of that morning at the Standing
Stone of Sauchope.




CHAPTER XXVI.

THE PHANTOM REGIMENT--THE QUARTERMASTER'S STORY.

Though the continued march of intellect and education have nearly
obliterated from the mind of the Scots a belief in the marvellous,
still a love of the supernatural lingers among the more mountainous
districts of the northern kingdom; for "the Schoolmaster" finds it no
easy task, even when aided by all the light of science, to uproot the
prejudices of more than two thousand years.

I was born in Strathnairn, about the year 1802, and, on the death of
my mother, was given, when an infant, to the wife of a cotter to
nurse.  With these good people I remained for some years, and thus
became cognizant of the facts I am about to relate.

There was a little romance connected with my old nurse Meinie and her
gudeman.

In their younger days they had been lovers--lovers as a boy and
girl--but were separated by poverty, and then Ewen Mac Ewen enlisted
as a soldier, in the 26th or Cameronian Regiment, with which he saw
some sharp service in the West Indies and America.  The light-hearted
young highlander became, in time, a grave, stern, and morose soldier,
with the most rigid ideas of religious deportment and propriety: for
this distinguished Scottish regiment was of Puritan origin, being one
of those raised among the Westland Covenanters, after the deposition
of king James VII. by the Estates of Scotland.  England surrendered
to William of Orange without striking a blow; but the defence of
Dunkeld, and the victorious battle of Killycrankie, ended the
northern campaign, in which the noble Dundee was slain, and the army
of the cavaliers dispersed.  The Cameronian Regiment introduced their
sectarian forms, their rigorous discipline, and plain mode of public
worship into their own ranks, and so strict was their code of morals,
that even the Non-jurors and Jacobins admitted the excellence and
stern propriety of their bearing.  They left the Scottish Service for
the British, at the Union, in 1707, but still wear on their
appointments the five-pointed star, which was the armorial bearing of
the colonel who embodied them; and, moreover, retain the privilege of
supplying their own regimental Bibles.

After many years of hard fighting in the old 26th, and after carrying
a halbert in the kilted regiment of the Isles, Ewen Mac Ewen returned
home to his native place, the great plain of Moray, a graver, and, in
bearing, a sadder man than when he left it.

His first inquiry was for Meinie.

She had married a rival of his, twenty years ago.

"God's will be done," sighed Ewen, as he lifted his bonnet, and
looked upwards.

He built himself a little cottage, in the old highland fashion, in
his native strath, at a sunny spot, where the Uisc Nairn--the Water
of Alders--flowed in front, and a wooded hill arose behind.  He hung
his knapsack above the fireplace; deposited his old and sorely
thumbed regimental Bible (with the Cameronian star on its boards,)
and the tin case containing his colonel's letter recommending him to
the minister, and the discharge, which gave sixpence per diem as the
reward of sixteen battles--all on the shelf of the little window,
which contained three panes of glass, with a yoke in the centre of
each, and there he settled himself down in peace, to plant his own
kail, knit his own hose, and to make his own kilts, a grave and
thoughtful but contented old fellow, awaiting the time, as he said,
"when the Lord would call him away."

Now it chanced that a poor widow, with several children, built
herself a little thatched house on the opposite side of the drove
road--an old Fingalian path--which ascended the pastoral glen; and
the ready-handed veteran lent his aid to thatch it, and to sling her
kail-pot on the cruicks, and was wont thereafter to drop in of an
evening to smoke his pipe, to tell old stories of the storming of
Ticonderago, and to ask her little ones the catechism and biblical
questions.  Within a week or so, he discovered that the widow was
Meinie--the ripe, blooming Meinie of other years--an old, a faded,
and a sad-eyed woman now; and poor Ewen's lonely heart swelled within
him, as he thought of all that had passed since last they met, and as
he spake of what they were, and what they might have been, had fate
been kind, or fortune roved more true.

We have heard much about the hidden and mysterious principle of
affinity, and more about the sympathy and sacredness that belong to a
first and early love; well, the heart of the tough old Cameronian
felt these gentle impulses, and Meinie was no stranger to them.  They
were married, and for fifteen years, there was no happier couple on
the banks of the Nairn.  Strange to say, they died on the same day,
and were interred in the ancient burying-ground of Dalcross, where
now they lie, near the ruined walls of the old vicarage kirk of the
Catholic times.  God rest them in their humble highland graves!  My
father, who was the minister of Croy, acted as chief mourner, and
gave the customary funeral prayer.  But I am somewhat anticipating,
and losing the thread of my own story in telling theirs.

In process of time the influx of French and English tourists who came
to visit the country of the clans, and to view the plain of Culloden,
after the publication of "Waverley" gave to all Britain, that which
we name in Scotland "the tartan fever," and caused the old path which
passed the cot of Ewen to become a turnpike road; a tollbar--that
most obnoxious of all impositions to a Celt--was placed across the
mouth of the little glen, barring the way directly to the
battle-field; and of this gate the old pensioner Ewen naturally
became keeper; and during the summer season, when, perhaps, a hundred
carriages per day rolled through, it became a source of revenue alike
to him, and to the Lord of Cawdor and the Laird of Kilravock, the
road trustees.  And the chief pleasure of Ewen's existence was to sit
on a thatched seat by the gate, for then he felt conscious of being
in office--on duty--a species of sentinel; and it smacked of the old
time when the Generale was beaten in the morning, and the drums
rolled tattoo at night; when he had belts to pipeclay, and boots to
blackball; when there were wigs to frizzle and queues to tie, and to
be all trim and in order to meet Monseigneur le Marquis de Montcalm,
or General Washington "right early in the morning;" and there by the
new barrier of the glen Ewen sat the live-long day, with spectacles
on nose, and the Cameronian Bible on his knee, as he spelled his way
through Deuteronomy and the tribes of Judah.

Slates in due time replaced the green thatch of his little cottage;
then a diminutive additional story, with two small dormer windows,
was added thereto, and the thrifty Meinie placed a paper in her
window informing shepherds, the chance wayfarers, and the wandering
deer-stalkers that she had a room to let; but summer passed away, the
sportsman forsook the brown scorched mountains, the gay tourist
ceased to come north, and the advertisement turned from white to
yellow, and from yellow to flyblown green in her window; the winter
snows descended on the hills, the pines stood in long and solemn
ranks by the white frozen Nairn, but "the room upstairs" still
remained without a tenant.

Anon the snow passed away, the river again flowed free, the flowers
began to bloom; the young grass to sprout by the hedgerows, and the
mavis to sing on the fauld-dykes, for spring was come again, and
joyous summer soon would follow; and one night--it was the 26th of
April--Ewen was exhibiting his penmanship in large text-hand by
preparing the new announcement of "a room to let," when he paused,
and looked up as a peal of thunder rumbled across the sky; a red
gleam of lightning flashed in the darkness without, and then they
heard the roar of the deep broad Nairn, as its waters, usually so
sombre and so slow, swept down from the wilds of Badenoch, flooded
with the melting snows of the past winter.

A dreadful storm of thunder, rain, and wind came on, and the little
cottage rocked on its foundations; frequently the turf-fire upon the
hearth was almost blown about the clay-floor, by the downward gusts
that bellowed in the chimney.  The lightning gleamed incessantly, and
seemed to play about the hill of Urchany and the ruins of Caistel
Fionlah; the woods groaned and creaked, and the trees seemed to
shriek as their strong limbs were torn asunder by the gusts which in
some places laid side by side the green sapling of last summer, and
the old oak that had stood for a thousand years--that had seen
Macbeth and Duncan ride from Nairn, and had outlived the wars of the
Comyns and the Clanchattan.

The swollen Nairn tore down its banks, and swept trees, rocks, and
stones in wild confusion to the sea, mingling the pines of Aberarder
with the old oaks of Cawdor; while the salt spray from the Moray
Firth was swept seven miles inland, where it encrusted with salt the
trees, the houses, and windows, and whatever it fell on as it mingled
with the ceaseless rain, while deep, hoarse, and loud the incessant
thunder rattled across the sky, "as if all the cannon on earth,"
according to Ewen, "were exchanging salvoes between Urchany and the
Hill of Geddes."

Meinie grew pale, and sat with a finger on her mouth, and a startled
expression in her eyes, listening to the uproar without; four
children, two of whom were Ewen's, and her last addition to the clan,
clung to her skirts.

Ewen had just completed the invariable prayer and chapter for the
night, and was solemnly depositing his old regimental companion, with
"Baxter's Saints' Best," in a place of security, when a tremendous
knock--a knock that rang above the storm--shook the door of the
cottage.

"Who can this be, and in such a night?" said Meinie.

"The Lord knoweth," responded Ewen, gravely; "but he knocks both loud
and late."

"Inquire before you open," urged Meinie, seizing her husband's arm,
as the impatient knock was renewed with treble violence.

"Who comes there?" demanded Ewen, in a soldierly tone.

"A friend," replied a strange voice without, and in the same manner.

"What do you want?"

"Fire and smoke!" cried the other, giving the door a tremendous kick;
"do you ask that in such a devil of a night as this?  You have a room
to let, have you not?"

"Yes."

"Well: open the door, or blood and 'oons I'll bite your nose off!"

Ewen hastened to undo the door; and then, all wet and dripping as if
he had just been fished up from the Moray Firth, there entered a
strange-looking old fellow in a red coat; he stumped vigorously on a
wooden leg, and carried on his shoulders a box, which he flung down
with a crash that shook the dwelling, saying,--

"There--dam you--I have made good my billet at last."

"So it seems," said Ewen, reclosing the door in haste to exclude the
tempest, lest his house should be unroofed and torn asunder.

"Harkee, comrade, what garrison or fortress is this," asked the
visitor, "that peaceable folks are to be challenged in this fashion,
and forced to give parole and countersign before they march in--eh?"

"It is my house, comrade; and so you had better keep a civil tongue
in your head."

"Civil tongue?  Fire and smoke, you mangy cur!  I can be as civil as
my neighbours; but get me a glass of grog, for I am as wet as we were
the night before Minden."

"Where have you come from in such a storm as this?"

"Where you'd not like to go--so never mind; but, grog, I tell
you--get me some grog, and a bit of tobacco; it is long since I
tasted either."

Ewen hastened to get a large quaighful of stiff Glenlivat, which the
veteran drained to his health, and that of Meinie; but first he gave
them a most diabolical grin, and threw into the liquor some black
stuff, saying,--

"I always mix my grog with gunpowder--it's a good tonic; I learned
that of a comrade who fell at Minden on the glorious 1st of August,
'59.

"You have been a soldier, then?"

"Right!  I was one of the 25th, or old Edinburgh Regiment; they
enlisted me, though an Englishman, I believe; for my good old dam was
a follower of the camp."

"Our number was the 26th--the old Cameronian Regiment--so we were
near each other, you see, comrade."

"Nearer than you would quite like, mayhap," said Wooden-leg, with
another grin and a dreadful oath.

"And you have served in Germany?" asked Ewen.

"Germany--aye, and marched over every foot of it, from Hanover to
Hell, and back again.  I have fought in Flanders, too."

"I wish you had come a wee while sooner," said Ewen gravely, for this
discourse startled his sense of propriety.

"Sooner," snarled this shocking old fellow, who must have belonged to
that army, "which swore so terribly in Flanders," as good Uncle Toby
says; "sooner--for what?"

"To have heard me read a chapter, and to have joined us in prayer."

"Prayers be d--ned!" cried the other, with a shout of laughter, and a
face expressive of fiendish mockery, as he gave his wooden leg a
thundering blow on the floor; "fire and smoke--another glass of
grog--and then we'll settle about my billet upstairs."

While getting another dram, which hospitality prevented him from
refusing, Ewen scrutinised this strange visitor, whose aspect and
attire were very remarkable; but wholly careless of what any one
thought, he sat by the hearth, wringing his wet wig, and drying it at
the fire.

He was a little man, of a spare, but strong and active figure, which
indicated great age; his face resembled that of a rat; behind it hung
a long queue that waved about like a pendulum when he moved his head,
which was quite bald, and smooth as a cricket-ball, save where a long
and livid scar--evidently a sword cut--traversed it.  This was
visible while he sat drying his wig; but as that process was somewhat
protracted, he uttered an oath, and thrust his cocked hat on one side
of his head, and very much over his left eye, which was covered by a
patch.  This head-dress was the old military triple-cocked hat, bound
with yellow braid, and having on one side the hideous black leather
cockade of the House of Hanover, now happily disused in the British
army, and retained as a badge of service by liverymen alone.  His
attire was an old threadbare red coat, faced with yellow, having
square tails and deep cuffs, with braided holes; he wore
knee-breeches on his spindle shanks, one of which terminated, as I
have said, in a wooden pin; he carried a large knotted stick; and, in
outline and aspect, very much resembled, as Ewen thought, Frederick
the Great of Prussia, or an old Chelsea pensioner, or the soldiers he
had seen delineated in antique prints of the Flemish wars.  His
solitary orb possessed a most diabolical leer, and, whichever way you
turned, it seemed to regard you with the fixed glare of a basilisk.

"You are a stranger hereabout, I presume?" said Ewen drily.

"A stranger now, certainly; but I was pretty well known in this
locality once.  There are some bones buried hereabout that may
remember me," he replied, with a grin that showed his fangless jaws.

"Bones!" reiterated Ewen, aghast.

"Yes, bones--Culloden Muir lies close by here, does it not?"

"It does--then you have travelled this road before?"

"Death and the Devil!  I should think so, comrade; on this very night
sixty years ago I marched along this road, from Nairn to Culloden,
with the army of His Royal Highness, the Great Duke of Cumberland,
Captain-General of the British troops, in pursuit of the rebels under
the Popish Pretender----"

"Under His Royal Highness Prince Charles, you mean, comrade," said
Ewen, in whose breast--Cameronian though he was--a tempest of
Highland wrath and loyalty swelled up at these words.

"Prince--ha! ha! ha!" laughed the other; "had you said as much then,
the gallows had been your doom.  Many a man I have shot, and many a
boy I have brained with the butt end of my musket, for no other crime
than wearing the tartan, even as you this night wear it."

Ewen made a forward stride as if he would have taken the wicked
boaster by the throat; his anger was kindled to find himself in
presence of a veritable soldier of the infamous "German Butcher,"
whose merciless massacre of the wounded clansmen and their
defenceless families will never be forgotten in Scotland while oral
tradition and written record exist; but Ewen paused, and said in his
quiet way,--

"Blessed be the Lord! these times and things have passed away from
the land, to return to it no more.  We are both old men now; by your
own reckoning, you must at least have numbered four-score years, and
in that, you are by twenty my better man.  You are my guest to-night,
moreover, so we must not quarrel, comrade.  My father was killed at
Culloden."

"On which side?"

"The right one--for he fell by the side of old Keppoch, and his last
words were, 'Righ Hamish gu Bragh!'"

"Fire and smoke!" laughed the old fellow, "I remember these things as
if they only happened yesterday--mix me some more grog and put it in
the bill--I was the company's butcher in those days--it suited my
taste--so when I was not stabbing and slashing the sheep and cattle
of the rascally commissary, I was cutting the throats of the Scots
and French, for there were plenty of them, and Irish too, who fought
against the king's troops in Flanders.  We had hot work, that day at
Culloden--hotter than at Minden, where we fought in heavy marching
order, with our blankets, kettles, and provisions, on a broiling
noon, when the battle-field was cracking under a blazing sun, and the
whole country was sweltering like the oven of the Great Baker."

"Who is he?"

"What! you don't know him?  Ha! ha! ha!  Ho! ho! ho! come, that is
good."

Ewen expostulated with the boisterous old fellow on this style of
conversation, which, as you may easily conceive, was very revolting
to the prejudices of a well-regulated Cameronian soldier.

"Come, come, you old devilskin," cried the other, stirring up the
fire with his wooden leg, till the sparks flashed and gleamed like
his solitary eye; "you may as well sing psalms to a dead horse, as
preach to me.  Hark how the thunder roars, like the great guns at
Carthagena!  More grog--put it in the bill--or, halt, d--me! pay
yourself," and he dashed on the table a handful of silver of the
reigns of George II., and the Glencoe assassin, William of Orange.

He obtained more whiskey, and drank it raw, seasoning it from time to
time with gunpowder, just as an Arab does his cold water with ginger.

"Where did you lose your eye, comrade?"

"At Culloden; but I found the fellow who pinked me, next day, as he
lay bleeding on the field; he was a Cameron, in a green velvet
jacket, all covered with silver; so I stripped off his lace, as I had
seen my mother do, and then I brained him with the butt-end of
brown-bess--and before his wife's eyes, too!  What the deuce do you
growl at, comrade?  Such things will happen in war, and you know that
orders must be obeyed.  My eye was gone--but it was the left one, and
I was saved the trouble of closing it when taking aim.  This slash on
the sconce I got at the battle of Preston Pans, from the Celt who
slew Colonel Gardiner."

"That Celt was my father--the Miller of Invernahyle," said Meinie,
proudly.

"Your father! fire and smoke! do you say so?  His hand was a heavy
one!" cried Wooden-leg, while his eye glowed like the orb of a hyæna.

"And your leg?"

"I lost at Minden, in Kingsley's Brigade, comrade; aye, my
leg--d--n!--that was indeed a loss."

"A warning to repentance, I would say."

"Then you would say wrong.  Ugh!  I remember when the shot--a
twelve-pounder--took me just as we were rushing with charged bayonets
on the French cannoniers.  Smash! my leg was gone, and I lay
sprawling and bleeding in a ploughed field near the Weser, while my
comrades swept over me with a wild hurrah! the colours waving, and
drums beating a charge."

"And what did you do?"

"I lay there and swore, believe me."

"That would not restore your limb again."

"No; but a few hearty oaths relieve the mind; and the mind relieves
the body; you understand me, comrade; so there I lay all night under
a storm of rain like this, bleeding and sinking; afraid of the knives
of the plundering death-hunters, for my mother had been one, and I
remembered well how she looked after the wounded, and cured them of
their agony."

"Was your mother one of those infer----" began MacEwen.

"Don't call her hard names now, comrade; she died on the day after
the defeat at Val; with the Provost Marshal's cord round her neck--a
cordon less ornamental than that of St. Louis."

"And your father?"

"Was one of Howard's Regiment; but which the devil only knows, for it
was a point on which the old lady, honest woman, had serious doubts
herself."

"After the loss of your leg, of course you left the service?"

"No, I became the company's butcher; but, fire and smoke, get me
another glass of grog; take a share yourself, and don't sit staring
at me like a Dutch Souterkin conceived of a winter night over a 'pot
de feu,' as all the world knows King William was.  Dam! let us be
merry together--ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho! and I'll sing you a song of
the old whig times."

  "'O, brother Sandie, hear ye the news,
          Lillibulero, bullen a la!
  An army is coming sans breeches and shoes,
          Lillibulero, bullen a la!

  "'To arms! to arms! brave boys to arms!
          A true British cause for your courage doth ca';
  Country and city against a kilted banditti,
          Lillibulero, bullen a la!'"


And while he continued to rant and sing the song (once so obnoxious
to the Scottish Cavaliers), he beat time with his wooden leg, and
endeavoured to outroar the stormy wind and the hiss of the drenching
rain.  Even MacEwen, though he was an old soldier, felt some
uneasiness, and Meinie trembled in her heart, while the children
clung to her skirts and hid their little faces, as if this singing,
riot, and jollity were impious at such a time, when the awful thunder
was ringing its solemn peals across the midnight sky.




CHAPTER XXVII.

THE PHANTOM REGIMENT.--THE UNCO' QUEST.

Although this strange old man baffled or parried every inquiry of
Ewen as to whence he had come, and how and why he wore that
antiquated uniform, on his making a lucrative offer to take the upper
room of the little toll-house for a year--exactly a year--when Ewen
thought of his poor pension of six-pence per diem, of their numerous
family, and Meinie now becoming old and requiring many little
comforts, all scruples were overcome by the pressure of necessity,
and the mysterious old soldier was duly installed in the attic, with
his corded chest, scratch-wig, and wooden-leg; moreover, he paid the
first six months' rent in advance, dashing the money--which was all
coin of the first and second Georges, on the table with a bang and an
oath, swearing that he disliked being indebted to any man.

The next morning was calm and serene; the green hills lifted their
heads into the blue and placid sky.  There was no mist on the
mountains, nor rain in the valley.  The flood in the Nairn had
subsided, though its waters were still muddy and perturbed; but save
this, and the broken branches that strewed the wayside--with an
uprooted tree, or a paling laid flat on the ground, there was no
trace of yesterday's hurricane, and Ewen heard Wooden-leg (he had no
other name for his new lodger) stumping about overhead, as the old
fellow left his bed betimes, and after trimming his queue and wig,
pipeclaying his yellow facings, and beating them well with the brush,
in a soldier-like way, he descended to breakfast, but, disdaining
porridge and milk, broiled salmon and bannocks of barley-meal, he
called for a can of stiff grog, mixed it with powder from his wide
waistcoat pocket, and drank it off at a draught.  Then he imperiously
desired Ewen to take his bonnet and staff, and accompany him so far
as Culloden, "because," said he, "I have come a long, long way to see
the old place again."

Wooden-leg seemed to gather--what was quite unnecessary to him--new
life, vigour, and energy--as they traversed the road that led to the
battle-field, and felt the pure breeze of the spring morning blowing
on their old and wrinkled faces.

The atmosphere was charmingly clear and serene.  In the distance lay
the spires of Inverness, and the shining waters of the Moray Firth,
studded with sails, and the ramparts of Fort George were seen jutting
out at the termination of a long and green peninsula.  In the
foreground stood the castle of Dalcross, raising its square outline
above a wood, which terminates the eastern side of the landscape.
The pine-clad summit of Dun Daviot incloses the west, while on every
hand between, stretched the dreary moor of Drummossie--the Plain of
Culloden--whilome drenched in the blood of Scotland's bravest hearts.

Amid the purple heath lie two or three grass-covered mounds.

These are the graves of the dead--the graves of the loyal
Highlanders, who fell on that disastrous field, and of the wounded,
who were so mercilessly murdered next day by an order of Cumberland,
which he pencilled on the back of a card (the Nine of Diamonds); thus
they were dispatched by platoons, stabbed by bayonets, slashed by
swords and spontoons, or brained by the butt-end of musket and
carbine; officers and men were to be seen emulating each other in
this scene of cowardice and cold-blooded atrocity, which filled every
camp and barrack in Continental Europe with scorn at the name of an
English soldier.

Ewen was a Highlander, and his heart filled with such thoughts as
these, when he stood by the grassy tombs where the fallen brave are
buried with the hopes of the house they died for; he took off his
bonnet and stood bare-headed, full of sad and silent contemplation;
while his garrulous companion viewed the field with his single eye,
that glowed like a hot coal, and pirouetted on his wooden pin in a
very remarkable manner, as he surveyed on every side the scene of
that terrible encounter, where, after enduring a long cannonade of
round shot and grape, the Highland swordsmen, chief and gillie, the
noble and the nameless, flung themselves with reckless valour on the
ranks of those whom they had already routed in two pitched battles.

"It was an awful day," said Ewen, in a low voice, but with a gleam in
his grey Celtic eye; "yonder my father fell wounded; the bullet went
through his shield and pierced him here, just above the belt; he was
living next day, when my mother--a poor wailing woman with a babe at
her breast--found him; but an officer of Barrel's Regiment ran a
sword twice through his body and killed him; for the orders of the
German Duke were, 'that no quarter should be given.'  This spring is
named MacGillivray's Well, because here they butchered the dying
chieftain who led the Macintoshes--aye bayonetted him, next day at
noon, in the arms of his bonnie young wife and his puir auld mother!
The inhuman monsters!  I have been a soldier," continued Ewen, "and I
have fought for my country; but had I stood that day on this Moor of
Culloden, I would have shot the German Butcher, the coward who fled
from Flanders--I would, by the God who hears me, though that moment
had been my last!"

"Ha, ha, ha!  Ho, ho, ho!" rejoined his queer companion.  "It seems
like yesterday since I was here; I don't see many changes, except
that the dead are all buried, whereas we left them to the crows, and
a carriage-road has been cut across the field, just where we seized
some women, who were looking among the dead for their husbands, and
who----"

"Well?"

Wooden-leg whistled, and gave Ewen a diabolical leer with his snaky
eye, as he resumed,--

"I see the ridge where the clans formed line--every tribe with its
chief in front, and his colours in the centre, when we, hopeless of
victory, and thinking only of defeat, approached them; and I can yet
see standing the old stone wall which covered their right flank.
Fire and smoke! it was against that wall we placed the wounded, when
we fired at them by platoons next day.  I finished some twenty rebels
there myself."

Ewen's hand almost caught the haft of his skene dhu, as he said,
hoarsely,--

"Old man, do not call them rebels in my hearing, and least of all by
the graves where they lie; they were good men and true; if they were
in error, they have long since answered to God for it, even as we one
day must answer; therefore let us treat their memory with respect, as
soldiers should ever treat their brothers in arms who fall in war."

But Wooden-leg laughed with his strange eldritch yell, and then they
returned together to the tollhouse in the glen; but Ewen felt
strongly dissatisfied with his lodger, whose conversation was so
calculated to shock alike his Jacobitical and his religious
prejudices.  Every day this sentiment grew stronger, and he soon
learned to deplore in his inmost heart having ever accepted the rent,
and longed for the time when he should be rid of him; but, at the end
of the six months, Wooden-leg produced the rent for the remainder of
the year, still in old silver of the two first Georges, with a few
Spanish dollars, and swore he would set the house on fire, if Ewen
made any more apologies about their inability to make him
sufficiently comfortable and so forth; for his host and hostess had
resorted to every pretence and expedient to rid themselves of him
handsomely.

But Wooden-leg was inexorable.

He had bargained for his billet for a year; he had paid for it; and a
year he would stay, though the Lord Justice General of Scotland
himself should say nay!

Boisterous and authoritative, he awed every one by his terrible
gimlet eye and the volleys of oaths with which he overwhelmed them on
suffering the smallest contradiction; thus he became the terror of
all; and shepherds crossed the hills by the most unfrequented routes
rather than pass the toll-bar, where they vowed that his eye
bewitched their sheep and cattle.  To every whispered and stealthy
inquiry as to where his lodger had come from, and how or why he had
thrust himself upon this lonely tollhouse, Ewen could only groan and
shrug his shoulders, or reply,--

"He came on the night of the hurricane, like a bird of evil omen; but
on the twenty-sixth of April we will be rid of him, please Heaven!
It is close at hand, and he shall march then, sure as my name is Ewen
Mac Ewen!"

He seemed to be troubled in his conscience, too, or to have strange
visitors; for often in stormy nights he was heard swearing or
threatening, and expostulating; and once or twice, when listening at
the foot of the stair, Ewen heard him shouting and conversing from
his window with persons on the road, although the bar was shut,
locked, and there was no one visible there.

On another windy night, Ewen and his wife were scared by hearing
Wooden-leg engaged in a furious altercation with some one overhead.

"Dog, I'll blow out your brains!" yelled a strange voice.

"Fire and smoke! blow out the candle first--ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho!"
cried Wooden-leg; then there ensued the explosion of a pistol, a
dreadful stamping of feet, with the sound of several men swearing and
fighting.  To all this Ewen and his wife hearkened in fear and
perplexity; at last something fell heavily on the floor, and then all
became still, and not a sound was heard but the night wind sighing
down the glen.

Betimes in the morning Ewen, weary and unslept, left his bed and
ascended to the door of this terrible lodger and tapped gently.

"Come in; why the devil this fuss and ceremony, eh, comrade?" cried a
hoarse voice, and there was old Wooden-leg, not lying dead on the
floor as Ewen expected, or perhaps hoped; but stumping about in his
shirt sleeves, pipe-claying his facings, and whistling the "Point of
War."

On being questioned about the most unearthly "row" of last night, he
only bade Ewen mind his own affairs, or uttered a volley of oaths,
some of which were Spanish, and mixing a can of gunpowder grog
drained it at a draught.

He was very quarrelsome, dictatorial, and scandalously irreligious;
thus his military reminiscences were of so ferocious and
blood-thirsty a nature, that they were sufficient to scare any quiet
man out of his seven senses.  But it was more particularly in
relating the butcheries, murders, and ravages of Cumberland in the
highlands, that he exulted, and there was always a terrible air of
probability in all he said.  On Ewen once asking of him if he had
ever been punished for the many irregularities and cruelties he so
freely acknowledged having committed,--

"Punished?  Fire and smoke, comrade, I should think so; I have been
flogged till the bones of my back stood through the quivering flesh;
I have been picquetted, tied neck and heels, or sent to ride the
wooden horse, and to endure other punishments which are now abolished
in the king's service.  An officer once tied me neck and heels for
eight and forty hours--ay, damme, till I lost my senses; but he lost
his life soon after, a shot from the rear killed him; you understand
me, comrade; ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho! a shot from the rear."

"You murdered him?" said Ewen, in a tone of horror.

"I did not say so," cried Wooden-leg with an oath, as he dealt his
landlord a thwack across the shins with his stump; "but I'll tell you
how it happened.  I was on the Carthagena expedition in '41, and
served amid all the horrors of that bombardment, which was rendered
unsuccessful by the quarrels of the general and admiral; then the
yellow fever broke out among the troops, who were crammed on board
the ships of war like figs in a cask, or like the cargo of a slaver,
so they died in scores--and in scores their putrid corpses lay round
the hawsers of the shipping, which raked them up every day as they
swung round with the tide; and from all the open gunports, where
their hammocks were hung, our sick men saw the ground sharks gorging
themselves on the dead, while they daily expected to follow.  The air
was black with flies, and the scorching sun seemed to have leagued
with the infernal Spaniards against us.  But, fire and smoke, mix me
some more grog, I am forgetting my story!

"Our Grenadiers, with those of other regiments, under Colonel James
Grant of Carron, were landed on the Island of Tierrabomba, which lies
at the entrance of the harbour of Carthagena, where we stormed two
small forts which our ships had cannonaded on the previous day.

"Grenadiers--open your pouches--handle grenades--blow your fuses!"
cried Grant, "forward."

"And then we bayonetted the dons, or with the clubbed musket smashed
their heads like ripe pumpkins, while our fleet, anchored with
broadsides to the shore, threw shot and shell, grape, cannister,
carcasses, and hand-grenades in showers among the batteries, booms,
cables, chains, ships of war, gunboats, and the devil only knows what
more.

"It was evening when we landed, and as the ramparts of San Luiz de
Bocca Chica were within musket shot of our left flank, the lieutenant
of our company was left with twelve grenadiers (of whom I was one) as
a species of out-picquet to watch the Spaniards there, and to
acquaint the officer in the captured forts if anything was essayed by
way of sortie.

"About midnight I was posted as an advanced sentinel, and ordered to
face La Bocca Chica with all my ears and eyes open.  The night was
close and sultry; there was not a breath of wind stirring on the land
or waveless sea; and all was still save the cries of the wild animals
that preyed upon the unburied dead, or the sullen splash caused by
some half-shrouded corpse, as it was launched from a gun-port, for
our ships were moored within pistol-shot of the place where I stood.

"Towards the west the sky was a deep and lurid red, as if the
midnight sea was in flames at the horizon; and between me and this
fiery glow, I could see the black and opaque outline of the masts,
the yards, and the gigantic hulls of those floating charnel-houses
our line-of-battle ships, and the dark solid ramparts of San Luiz de
Bocca Chica.

"Suddenly I saw before me the head of a Spanish column!"

"I cocked my musket, they seemed to be halted in close order, for I
could see the white coats and black hats of a single company only.
So I fired at them point blank, and fell back on the picquet, which
stood to arms.

"The lieutenant of our grenadiers came hurrying towards me.

"Where are the dons?" said he.

"In our front, sir," said I, pointing to the white line which seemed
to waver before us in the gloom under the walls of San Luiz, and then
it disappeared.

"They are advancing," said I.

"They have vanished, fellow," said the lieutenant, angrily.

"Because they have marched down into a hollow."

"In a moment after they re-appeared, upon which the lieutenant
brought up the picquet, and after firing three volleys retired
towards the principal fort where Colonel Grant had all the troops
under arms; but not a Spaniard approached us, and what, think you,
deceived me and caused this alarm?  Only a grove of trees, fire and
smoke! yes, it was a grove of manchineel trees, which the Spaniards
had cut down or burned to within five feet of the ground; and as
their bark is white it resembled the Spanish uniform, while the black
burned tops easily passed for their grenadier caps to the
overstrained eyes of a poor anxious lad, who found himself under the
heavy responsibility of an advanced sentinel for the first time in
his life."

"And was this the end of it?" asked Ewen.

"Hell and Tommy?" roared the Wooden-leg, "no--but you shall hear.  I
was batooned by the lieutenant; then I was tried at the drumhead for
causing a false alarm, and sentenced to be tied neck and heels, and
lest you may not know the fashion of this punishment I shall tell you
of it.  I was placed on the ground; my firelock was put under my
hams, and another was placed over my neck; then the two were drawn
close together by two cartouch-box straps; and in this situation,
doubled up as round as a ball, I remained with my chin wedged between
my knees until the blood spouted out of my mouth, nose, and ears, and
I became insensible.  When I recovered my senses the troops were
forming in column, preparatory to assaulting Fort San Lazare; and
though almost blind, and both weak and trembling, I was forced to
take my place in the ranks; and I ground my teeth as I handled my
musket and saw the lieutenant of our company, in lace-ruffles and
powdered wig, prepare to join the forlorn hope, which was composed of
six hundred chosen grenadiers, under Colonel Grant, a brave Scottish
officer.  I loaded my piece with a charmed bullet, cast in a mould
given to me by an Indian warrior, and marched on with my section.
The assault failed.  Of the forlorn hope I alone escaped, for Grant
and his Grenadiers perished to a man in the breach.  There, too, lay
our lieutenant.  A shot had pierced his head behind, just at the
queue.  Queer, was it not? when I was his covering file?"

As he said this, Wooden-leg gave Ewen another of those diabolical
leers, which always made his blood ran cold, and continued,--

"I passed him as he lay dead, with his sword in his hand, his fine
ruffled shirt and silk waistcoat drenched with blood--by the bye,
there was a pretty girl's miniature, with powdered hair peeping out
of it too.  'Ho, ho!' thought I, as I gave him a hearty kick; 'you
will never again have me tied neck-and-heels for not wearing
spectacles on sentry, or get me a hundred lashes, for not having my
queue dressed straight to the seam of my coat."

"Horrible!" said Ewen.

"I will wager my wooden leg against your two of flesh and bone, that
your officer would have been served in the same way, if he had given
you the same provocation."

"Heaven forbid!" said Ewen.

"Ha, ha, ha!  Ho, ho, ho!" cried Wooden-leg.

"You spoke of an Indian warrior," said Ewen, uneasily, as the
atrocious anecdotes of this hideous old man excited his anger and
repugnance; "then you have served, like myself, in the New World?"

"Fire and smoke!  I should think so, but long before your day."

"Then you fought against the Cherokees?"

"Yes."

"At Warwomans Creek?"

"Yes; I was killed there."

"You were--what?" stammered Ewen.

"Killed there."

"Killed?"

"Yes, scalped by the Cherokees; dam! don't I speak plain enough?"

"He is mad," thought Ewen.

"I am not mad," said Wooden-leg gruffly.

"I never said so," urged Ewen.

"Thunder and blazes! but you thought it, which is all the same."

Ewen was petrified by this remark, and then Wooden-leg, while fixing
his hyæna-like eye upon him, and mixing a fresh can of his peculiar
grog, continued thus,--

"Yes, I served in the Warwomans Creek expedition in '60.  In the
preceding year I had been taken prisoner at Fort Ninety-six, and was
carried off by the Indians.  They took me into the heart of their own
country, where an old Sachem protected me, and adopted me in place of
a son he had lost in battle.  Now this old devil of a Sachem had a
daughter--a graceful, pretty and gentle Indian girl, whom her tribe
named the Queen of the Beaver dams.  She was kind to me, and loved to
call me her pale-faced brother.  Ha, ha, ha!  Ho, ho, ho!  Fire and
smoke! do I now look like a man that could once attract a pretty
girl's eye,--now, with my wooden-leg, patched face and riddled
carcase?  Well, she loved me, and I pretended to be in love too,
though I did not care for her the value of an old snapper.  She was
graceful and round in every limb, as a beautiful statue.  Her
features were almost regular--her eyes black and soft; her hair hung
nearly to her knees, while her smooth glossy skin, was no darker than
a Spanish brunette's.  Her words were like notes of music, for the
language of the Cherokees, like that of the Iroquois, is full of the
softest vowels.  This Indian girl treated me with love and kindness,
and I promised to become a Cherokee warrior, a thundering turtle and
scalp-hunter for her sake--just as I would have promised anything to
any other woman, and had done so a score of times before.  I studied
her gentle character in all its weak and delicate points, as a
general views a fortress he is about to besiege, and I soon knew
every avenue to the heart of the place.  I made my approaches with
modesty, for the mind of the Indian virgin was timid, and as pure as
the new fallen snow.  I drew my parallels and pushed on the trenches
whenever the old Sachem was absent, smoking his pipe and drinking
fire-water at the council of the tribe; I soon reached the base of
the glacis and stormed the breastworks--dam!  I did, comrade.

"I promised her everything, if she would continue to love me, and
swore by the Great Spirit to lay at her feet the scalp-lock of the
white chief, General the Lord Amherst, K.C.B., and all that, with
every other protestation that occurred to me at the time; and so she
soon loved me--and me alone--as we wandered on the green slopes of
Tennessee, when the flowering forest-trees and the magnolias, the
crimson strawberries, and the flaming azalea made the scenery
beautiful; and where the shrill cry cf the hawk, and the carol of the
merry mocking-bird, filled the air with sounds of life and happiness.

"We were married in the fantastic fashion of the tribe, and the
Indian girl was the happiest squaw in the Beaver dams.  I hoed cotton
and planted rice; I cut rushes that she might plait mats and baskets;
I helped her to weave wampum, and built her a wigwam, but I longed to
be gone, for in six months I was wearied of her and the Cherokees
too.  In short, one night, I knocked the old Sachem on the head, and
without perceiving that he still breathed, pocketted his valuables,
such as they were, two necklaces of amber beads and two of Spanish
dollars, and without informing my squaw of what I had done, I
prevailed upon her to guide me far into the forest, on the skirts of
which lay a British outpost, near the lower end of the vale, through
which flows the Tennessee River.  She was unable to accompany me more
than a few miles, for she was weak, weary, and soon to become a
mother; so I gave her the slip in the forest, and, leaving her to
shift for herself, reached head-quarters, just as the celebrated
expedition from South Carolina was preparing to march against the
Cherokees.

"Knowing well the localities, I offered myself as a guide, and was at
once accepted--

"Cruel and infamous!" exclaimed honest Ewen, whose chivalric Highland
spirit fired with indignation at these heartless avowals; "and the
poor girl you deceived----"

"Bah!  I thought the wild beasts would soon dispose of her."

"But then the infamy of being a guide, even for your comrades,
against those who had fed and fostered, loved and protected you!  By
my soul, this atrocity were worthy of King William and his Glencoe
assassins!"

"Ho, ho, ho! fire and smoke! you shall hear.

"Well, we marched from New York in the early part of 1760.  There
were our regiment, with four hundred of the Scots Royals, and
Montgomery's Highlanders.  We landed at Charleston, and marched up
the country to Fort Ninety-six on the frontier of the Cherokees.  Our
route was long and arduous, for the ways were wild and rough, so it
was the first of June before we reached Twelve-mile River.  I had
been so long unaccustomed to carry my knapsack, that its weight
rendered me savage and ferocious, and I cursed the service and my own
existence; for in addition to our muskets and accoutrements, our
sixty rounds of ball cartridge per man, we carried our own tents,
poles, pegs, and cooking utensils.  Thunder and blazes! when we
halted, which we did in a pleasant valley, where the great shady
chestnuts and the flowering hickory made our camp alike cool and
beautiful, my back and shoulders were nearly skinned; for as you must
know well, comrade, the knapsack straps are passed so tightly under
the armpits, that they stop the circulation of the blood, and press
upon the lungs almost to suffocation.  Scores of our men left the
ranks on the march, threw themselves down in despair, and were soon
tomahawked and scalped by the Indians.

"We marched forward next day, but without perceiving the smallest
vestige of an Indian trail; thus we began to surmise that the
Cherokees knew not that we were among them; but just as the sun was
sinking behind the blue hills, we came upon a cluster of wigwams,
which I knew well; they were the Beaver dams, situated on a river,
among wild woods that never before had echoed to the drum or bugle.

"Bad and wicked as I was, some strange emotions rose within me at
this moment.  I thought of the Sachem's daughter--her beauty--her
love for me, and the child that was under her bosom when I abandoned
her in the vast forest through which we had just penetrated; but I
stifled all regret, and heard with pleasure the order to 'examine
flints and priming.'

"Then the Cherokee warwhoop pierced the echoing sky; a scattered fire
was poured upon us from behind the rocks and trees; the sharp steel
tomahawks came flashing and whirling through the air; bullets and
arrows whistled, and rifles rung, and in a moment we found ourselves
surrounded by a living sea of dark-skinned and yelling Cherokees,
with plumes on their scalp locks, their fierce visages streaked with
war paint, and all their moccasins rattling.

"Fire and fury, such a time it was!

"We all fought like devils, but our men fell fast on every side; the
Royals lost two lieutenants, and several soldiers whose scalps were
torn from their bleeding skulls in a moment.  Our regiment, though
steady under fire as a battalion of stone statues, now fell into
disorder, and the brown warriors, like fiends in aspect and activity,
pressed on with musket and war-club brandished, and with such yells
as never rang in mortal ears elsewhere.  The day was lost, until the
Highlanders came up, and then the savages were routed in an instant,
and cut to pieces.  'Shoot and slash' was the order; and there ensued
such a scene of carnage as I had not witnessed since Culloden, where
His Royal Highness, the fat Duke of Cumberland, galloped about the
field, overseeing the wholesale butchery of the wounded.

"We destroyed their magazines of powder and provisions; we laid the
wigwams in ashes, and shot or bayonetted every living thing, from the
babe on its mother's breast, to the hen that sat on the roost; for as
I had made our commander aware of all the avenues, there was no
escape for the poor devils of Cherokees.  Had the pious, glorious,
and immortal King William been there, he would have thought we had
modelled the whole affair after his own exploit at Glencoe.

"All was nearly over, and among the ashes of the smoking wigwams and
the gashed corpses of king's soldiers and Indian warriors, I sat down
beneath a great chestnut to wipe my musket, for butt, barrel, and
bayonet were clotted with blood and human hair--ouf, man, why do you
shudder? it was only Cherokee wool;--all was nearly over, I have
said, when a low fierce cry, like the hoarse hiss of a serpent, rang
in my ear; a brown and bony hand clutched my throat as the fangs of a
wolf would have done, and hurled me to the earth!  A tomahawk flashed
above me, and an aged Indian's face, whose expression, was like that
of a fiend, came close to mine, and I felt his breath upon my cheek.
It was the visage of the sachem, but hollow with suffering and almost
green with fury, and he laughed like a hyæna, as he poised the
uplifted axe.

"Another form intervened for a moment; it was that of the poor Indian
girl I had so heartlessly deceived; she sought to stay the avenging
hand of the frantic sachem; but he thrust her furiously aside, and in
the next moment the glittering tomahawk was quivering in my brain--a
knife swept round my head--my scalp was torn off, and I remember no
more."

"A fortunate thing for you," said Ewen, drily; "memory such as yours
were worse than a knapsack to carry; and so you were killed there?"

"Don't sneer, comrade," said Wooden-leg, with a diabolical gleam in
his eye: "prithee, don't sneet; I was killed there, and, moreover,
buried too, by the Scots Royals, when they interred the dead next
day."

"Then how came you to be here?" said Ewen, not very much at ease, to
find himself in company with one he deemed a lunatic.

"Here? that is my business--not yours," was the surly rejoinder.

Ewen was silent, but reckoned over that now there were but thirty
days to run until the 26th of April, when the stipulated year would
expire.

"Yes, comrade, just thirty days," said Wooden-leg, with an
affirmative nod, divining the thoughts of Ewen; "and then I shall be
off, bag and baggage, if my friends come."

"If not?"

"Then I shall remain where I am."

"The Lord forbid!" thought Ewen; "but I can apply to the sheriff."

"Death and fury!  Thunder and blazes!  I should like to see the
rascal of a sheriff who would dare to meddle with me!" growled the
old fellow, as his one eye shot fire, and, limping away, he ascended
the stairs grumbling and swearing, leaving poor Ewen terrified even
to think, on finding that his thoughts, although only half conceived,
were at once divined and responded to by this strange inmate of his
house.

"His friends," thought Ewen, "who may they be?"

Three heavy knocks rang on the floor overhead, as a reply.

It was the wooden leg of the Cherokee invader.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE PHANTOM REGIMENT--THE MIDNIGHT MARCH.

This queer old fellow (continued the quartermaster) was always in a
state of great excitement, and used an extra number of oaths, and
mixed his grog more thickly with gunpowder when a stray red coat
appeared far down the long green glen, which was crossed by Ewen's
lonely toll-bar.  Then he would get into a prodigious fuss and
bustle, and was wont to pack and cord his trunk, to brush up his
well-worn and antique regimentals, and to adjust his queue and the
black cockade of his triple-cornered hat, as if preparing to depart.

As the time of that person's wished-for departure drew nigh, Ewen
took courage, and shaking off the timidity with which the swearing
and boisterous fury of Wooden-leg had impressed him, he ventured to
expostulate a little on the folly and sin of his unmeaning oaths, and
the atrocity of the crimes he boasted of having committed.

But the wicked old Wooden-leg laughed and swore more than ever,
saying that a "true soldier was never a religious one."

"You are wrong, comrade," retorted the old Cameronian, taking fire at
such an assertion; "religion is the lightest burden a poor soldier
can carry; and, moreover, it hath upheld me on many a long day's
march, when almost sinking under hunger and fatigue, with my pack,
kettle, and sixty rounds of ball ammunition on my back.  The duties
of a good and brave soldier are no way incompatible with those of a
Christian man; and I never lay down to rest on the wet bivouac or
bloody field, with my knapsack, or it might be a dead comrade, for a
pillow, without thanking God----"

"Ha, ha, ha!"

"--The God of Scotland's covenanted Kirk for the mercies he
vouchsafed to Ewen Mac Ewen, a poor grenadier of the 26th Regiment."

"Ho, ho, ho!"

The old Cameronian took off his bonnet and lifted up his eyes, as he
spoke fervently, and with the simple reverence of the olden time; but
Wooden-leg grinned and chuckled and gnashed his teeth as Ewen resumed.

"A brave soldier may rush to the cannon's mouth, though it be loaded
with grape and cannister; or at a line of levelled bayonets--and rush
fearlessly too--and yet he may tremble, without shame, at the thought
of hell, or of offended Heaven.  Is it not so, comrade?  I shall
never forget the words of our chaplain before we stormed the Isles of
Saba and St. Martin from the Dutch, with Admiral Rodney, in '81."

"Bah--that was after I was killed by the Cherokees.  Well?"

"The Cameronians were formed in line, mid leg in the salt water, with
bayonets fixed, the colours flying, the pipes playing and drums
beating 'Britons strike home,' and our chaplain, a reverend minister
of God's word, stood beside the colonel with the shot and shell from
the Dutch batteries flying about his old white head, but he was cool
and calm, for he was the grandson of Richard Cameron, the glorious
martyr of Airdsmoss.

"'Fear not, my bairns,' cried he (he aye called us his bairns, having
ministered unto us for fifty years and more)--'fear not; but remember
that the eyes of the Lord are on every righteous soldier, and that
His hand will shield him in the day of battle!'

"'Forward, my lads,' cried the colonel, waving his broad sword, while
the musket shot shaved the curls of his old brigadier wig; 'forward,
and at them with your bayonets;' and bravely we fell on--eight
hundred Scotsmen, shoulder to shoulder--and in half an hour the
British flag was waving over the Dutchman's Jack on the ramparts of
St. Martin."

But to all Ewen's exordiums, the Wooden-leg replied by oaths, or
mockery, or his incessant laugh,--

"Ha, ha, ha!  Ho, ho, ho!"

At last came the long-wished for twenty-sixth of April!

The day was dark and louring.  The pine woods looked black, and the
slopes of the distant hills seemed close and near, and yet gloomy
withal.  The sky was veiled by masses of hurrying clouds, which
seemed to chase each other across the Moray Firth.  That estuary was
flecked with foam, and the ships were riding close under the lee of
the Highland shore, with topmasts struck, their boats secured, and
both anchors out, for everything betokened a coming storm.

And with night it came in all its fury;--a storm similar to that of
the preceding year.

The fierce and howling wind swept through the mountain gorges, and
levelled the lonely shielings, whirling their fragile roofs into the
air, and uprooting strong pines and sturdy beeches; the water was
swept up from the Loch of the Clans, and mingled with the rain which
drenched the woods around it.  The green and yellow lightning played
in ghastly gleams about the black summit of Dun Daviot, and again the
rolling thunder bellowed over the graves of the dead on the bleak,
dark moor of Culloden.  Attracted by the light in the windows of the
toll house, the red deer came down from the hills in herds and
cowered near the little dwelling; while the cries of the affrighted
partridges, blackcocks, and even those of the gannets from the Moray
Firth were heard at times, as they were swept past, with branches,
leaves, and stones, on the skirts of the hurrying blast.

"It is just such a storm as we had this night twelvemonths ago," said
Meinie, whose cheek grew pale at the elemental uproar.

"There will be no one coming up the glen to-night," replied Ewen; "so
I may as well secure the toll-bar, lest a gust should dash it to
pieces."

It required no little skill or strength to achieve this in such a
tempest; the gate was strong and heavy, but it was fastened at last,
and Ewen retreated to his own fireside.  Meanwhile, during all this
frightful storm without, Wooden-leg was heard singing and carolling
up-stairs, stumping about in the lulls of the tempest, and rolling,
pushing, and tumbling his chest from side to side; then he descended
to get a fresh can of grog--for "grog, grog, grog," was ever his cry.
His old withered face was flushed, and his excited eye shone like a
baleful star.  He was conscious that a great event would ensue.

Ewen felt happy in his soul that his humble home should no longer be
the resting-place of this evil bird whom the last tempest had blown
hither.

"So you leave us to-morrow, comrade?" said he.

"I'll march before daybreak," growled the other; "'twas our old
fashion in the days of Minden.  Huske and Hawley always marched off
in the dark."

"Before daybreak?"

"Fire and smoke, I have said so, and you shall see; for my friends
are on the march already; but good night, for I shall have to parade
betimes.  They come; though far, far off as yet."

He retired with one of his diabolical leers, and Ewen and his wife
ensconced themselves in the recesses of their warm box-bed; Meinie
soon fell into a sound sleep, though the wind continued to howl, the
rain to lash against the trembling walls of the little mansion, and
the thunder to hurl peal after peal across the sky of that dark and
tempestuous night.

The din of the elements and his own thoughts kept Ewen long awake;
but though the gleams of electric light came frequent as ever through
the little window, the glow of the "gathering peat" sank lower on the
hearth of hard-beaten clay, and the dull measured tick-tack of the
drowsy clock as it fell on the drum of his ear, about midnight, was
sending him to sleep, by the weariness of its intense monotony, when
from a dream that the fierce hawk eye of his malevolent lodger was
fixed upon him, he started suddenly to full consciousness.  An uproar
of tongues now rose and fell upon the gusts of wind without; and he
heard an authoritative voice requiring the toll-bar to be opened.

Overhead rang the stumping of the Wooden-lag, whose hoarse voice was
heard bellowing in reply from the upper window.

"The Lord have a care of us!" muttered Mac Ewen, as he threw his kilt
and plaid round him, thrust on his bonnet and brogues, and hastened
to the door, which was almost blown in by the tempest as he opened it.

The night was as dark, and the hurricane as furious as ever; but how
great was Ewen's surprise to see the advanced guard of a corps of
Grenadiers, halted at the toll-bar gate, which he hastened to unlock,
and the moment he did so, it was torn off its iron hooks and swept up
the glen like a leaf from a book, or a lady's handkerchief; as with
an unearthly howling the wind came tearing along in fitful and
tremendous gusts, which made the strongest forests stoop, and dashed
the struggling coasters on the rocks of the Firth--the Æstuarium
Vararis of the olden time.

As the levin brands burst in lurid fury overhead, they seemed to
strike fire from the drenched rocks, the dripping trees, and the long
line of flooded roadway, that wound through the pastoral glen towards
Culloden.

The advanced guard marched on in silence with arms slung; and Ewen,
to prevent himself from being swept away by the wind, clung with both
hands to a stone pillar of the bar-gate, that he might behold the
passage of this midnight regiment, which approached in firm and
silent order in sections of twelve files abreast, all with muskets
slung.  The pioneers were in front, with their leather aprons, axes,
saws, bill-hooks, and hammers; the band was at the head of the
column; the drums, fifes, and colours were in the centre; the
captains were at the head of their companies; the subalterns on the
reverse flank, and the field-officers were all mounted on black
chargers, that curvetted and pranced like shadows, without a sound.

Slowly they marched, but erect and upright, not a man of them seeming
to stoop against the wind or rain, while overhead the flashes of the
broad and blinding lightning were blazing like a ghastly torch, and
making every musket-barrel, every belt-plate, sword-blade, and
buckle, gleam as this mysterious corps filed through the barrier,
with who?  Wooden-leg among them!

By the incessant gleams Ewen could perceive that they were
Grenadiers, and wore the quaint old uniform of George II.'s time; the
sugar-loaf-shaped cap of red cloth embroidered with worsted; the
great square-tailed red coat with its heavy cuffs and close-cut
collar; the stockings rolled above the knee, and enormous
shoe-buckles.  They carried grenade-pouches; the officers had
espontoons; the sergeants shouldered heavy halberds, and the coats of
the little drum-boys were covered with fantastic lace.

It was not the quaint and antique aspect of this solemn battalion
that terrified Ewen, or chilled his heart; but the ghastly expression
of their faces, which were pale and hollow-eyed, being, to all
appearance, the visages of spectres; and they marched past like a
long and wavering panorama, without a sound; for though the wind was
loud, and the rain was drenching, neither could have concealed the
measured tread of so many mortal feet; but there was no footfall
heard on the roadway, nor the tramp of a charger's hoof; the regiment
defiled past, noiseless as a wreath of smoke.

The pallor of their faces, and the stillness which accompanied their
march, were out of the course of nature; and the soul of Mac Ewen
died away within him; but his eyes were riveted upon the marching
phantoms--if phantoms, indeed, they were--as if by fascination; and,
like one in a terrible dream, he continued to gaze until the last
files were past; and with them rode a fat and full-faced officer,
wearing a three-cocked hat, and having a star and blue ribbon on his
breast.  His face was ghastly like the rest, and dreadfully
distorted, as if by mental agony and remorse.  Two aides-de-camps
accompanied him, and he rode a wild-looking black horse, whose eyes
shot fire.  At the neck of the fat spectre--for a spectre he really
seemed--hung a card.

It was the Nine of Diamonds!

The whole of this silent and mysterious battalion passed in line of
march up the glen, with the gleams of lightning flashing about them.
One bolt more brilliant than the rest brought back the sudden flash
of steel.

They had fixed bayonets, and shouldered arms!

And on, and on they marched, diminishing in the darkness and the
distance, those ghastly Grenadiers, towards the flat bleak moor of
Culloden, with the green lightning playing about them, and gleaming
on the storm-swept waste.

The Wooden-leg--Ewen's unco' guest--disappeared with them, and was
never heard of more in Strathnairn.

He had come with a tempest, and gone with one.  Neither was any trace
ever seen or heard of those strange and silent soldiers.  No regiment
had left Nairn that night, and no regiment reached Inverness in the
morning; so unto this day the whole affair remains a mystery, and a
subject for ridicule with some, although Ewen, whose story of the
midnight march of a corps in time of war--caused his examination by
the authorities in the Castle of Inverness--stuck manfully to his
assertions, which were further corroborated by the evidence of his
wife and children.  He made a solemn affidavit of the circumstances I
have related before the sheriff, whose court books will be found to
confirm them in every particular; if not, it is the aforesaid
sheriff's fault, and not mine.

There were not a few (but these were generally old Jacobite ladies of
decayed Highland families, who form the gossiping tabbies and
wall-flowers of the Northern Meeting) who asserted that in their
young days they had heard of such a regiment marching by night, once
a year to the field of Culloden; for it is currently believed by the
most learned on such subjects in the vicinity of the "Clach na
Cudden," that on the anniversary of the sorrowful battle, a certain
place, which shall be nameless, opens, and that the restless souls of
the murderers of the wounded clansmen march in military array to the
green graves upon the purple heath, in yearly penance; and this story
was thought to receive full corroboration by the apparition of a fat
lubberly spectre with the nine of diamonds chained to his neck; as it
was on that card--since named the Curse of Scotland--the Duke of
Cumberland hastily pencilled the savage order to "show no quarter to
the wounded, but to slaughter all."

Such was the story of our old Highland Quartermaster.




CHAPTER XXIX.

THE LAST OF DON FABRIQUE.

A week or two after our return from Seville to Gibraltar, Jack
Slingsby received a note from a Spanish officer, who commanded a
detachment of the Grenadiers of Jaen, to the effect that the famous
bandit Fabrique de Urquija had been taken, and was condemned to die
by the spirited Alcalde of San Roque; that his execution was to take
place on the day after to-morrow, and that if we wished to behold the
mode of punishing such criminals in Spain, it would afford him much
pleasure if we joined his party, which was ordered to assist in
guarding the scaffold.

Though neither of us were animated by a love of cruelty or taste for
the morbid, we were somewhat curious to see how this romantic
vagabond, who so pitilessly had meted out death to so many others,
would encounter his own terrible doom, and availing ourselves of the
Spanish officer's polite offer, we procured a day's leave, rode over
to breakfast with him, and marched with his detachment to San Roque,
a little town, which lies, as I have elsewhere said, about six miles
from our garrison on the Spanish side.

As we proceeded, the Spanish capitano told us the little episode of
Don Fabrique's capture.

It happened thus.

The Alcalde of San Roque was reputed to be immensely wealthy, and to
have in a secret place a strong box full of yellow doubloons and rich
silver duros, piled up in shining pillars to its brim, like the
treasure chests which the Moors are supposed to have hidden in all
the old castles and ruined atalayas in Spain, and all of which are
occasionally visible to those who have the fortune of being born on
Good Friday, as every Spaniard knows.

The rumour of this wealth could not fail to reach the ears of Don
Fabrique, and to excite the cupidity of that enterprising gentleman;
but concealing his intentions from his band, whom he intended to
leave, as he proposed to himself a little trip to Paris or Peru, if
he relieved the Alcalde of those cares which are inseparable from the
possession of wealth, he reconnoitred the house, and found an
entrance to a room wherein he secreted himself beneath a bed, which
stood in an alcove off it.  In this bed the portly alcalde and his
buxom wife were wont to take their repose; so Don Fabrique had not
been very long in this place of concealment, when the lady came in
with a lamp in her hand, and placing it on the toilet table,
proceeded to divest her charming person of her habiliments.

She threw the fag end of her cigar into the brassero; hung her wig
upon a knob of the mirror, et cetera.  She then dipped a finger into
the little font of holy water which hung at the head of her bed, and
stepped in, to await the coming of her worthy spouse, who was
lingering over the 'Heraldo' and a glass of Valdepenas in the
dining-room below.

Now as the bed had a canvas bottom like a hammock, and the lady
therein was equal in size and weight to three ordinary women, Don
Fabrique, with natural consternation, reflected on what he should
have to endure, when the gorbellied alcalde was added to the
superincumbent load of the señora.

"Demonio!" thought he, "what is to be done?  I shall be suffocated
before that brute the señor patron is half asleep!"

The panting robber stirred uneasily, and the stout lady above him
started.

"Madre de Dios, what is that!" she whispered to herself.

There was no response; but on Fabrique stirring again, the señora
fairly sprang in terror from her bed.  Fabrique dared not breathe,
but with one hand on his stiletto and the other on his lips, he lay
still as death.  The lady now obtained a glimpse of his foot.  and
uttering one of those shrill cries, which most women can utter at any
time, she rushed from the chamber to seek her husband; but first she
took the precaution of double-locking the door.

Finding himself discovered, and aware that all was over now, Fabrique
hastened to escape by his place of entrance, the window.  Alas! it
was now secured by a shutter crossed by iron bars on the outside, and
these resisted all his efforts.  There was no chimney; again he
rushed to the door.  It was firm--fast as a rock, and he might as
well have rushed against the stone wall.  He heard the clank of feet
and of halberts as the hastily-summoned alguazils came into the room
below; true, he had his dagger; but what would that avail him against
so many?  The perspiration burst over his brow and he cursed the
avarice which brought him on such errand unassisted by that faithful
and determined band he was about to leave for ever.

Fertile in expedients, he at last thought of one.

He threw off all his clothes and popped into the bed of the señor
alcalde, and scarcely had he tucked himself cosily in when the door
was burst open, and in marched the portly patron, his eyes dilated
with vengeance, and his paunch swollen with official dignity and
purple valdepenas, while the grim alguazils with pointed halberts and
cocked trabujas came behind, and with them was the terrified lady in
her night-dress, holding a candle in one trembling hand, her rosary
and a case of reliques in the other.

Fabrique gazed at them with well-feigned surprise, which was
reflected in the faces of all on beholding the place of his retreat,
though it soon turned to resentment in the wife of the alcalde; her
eyes flashed; her plump cheeks and bosom became crimson with anger.

"How now, señor raterillo," thundered the alcalde; "what am I to
understand by all this?"

"By what, most worthy señor," whined the robber, with affected
simplicity and shame.

"Why--your being here--here, señor--in the bed of the señora--in my
bed?" continued the alcalde, gathering courage from the loudness of
his own voice; "speak, rascal--why are you here?"

"Ask the señora, who invited me," replied Fabrique.  with the coolest
assurance in the world.

"Morte de Dios, what is this I hear?" muttered the overwhelmed
alcalde.

"Yes, ask her, for I did not come here unexpected, believe me, most
worthy and much-injured Señor Patron," continued the cunning rogue as
he leaped out of bed, and assisted by the tittering alguazils, put on
his garments with all haste, while the wife of the poor alcalde gazed
upon him speechless with rage at the inference and his accusation,
while the magistrate himself was baffled and blanched by a new and
vague sense of shame and consternation.

"My dear señora," said Fabrique, in a bland tone, as he tied on his
sash and assumed his sombrero, "I regret extremely that you are weary
of me--that my company is no longer pleasing to you, as of old; but
it is very cruel of you to bring the neck of a poor lover so faithful
as I into such deadly jeopardy, and I shall treasure this lesson of
female perfidy, revenge, and caprice to my latest hour.  Muchas
gracias, señora, much good may your trick do you."

The lady was choking with anger and unmerited shame, while the
cunning rogue continued,--

"Most worthy Señor Alcalde, most faithless and fickle señora, and
you, most paltry and pitiful señores alguazils, I have the honour to
wish you all a very good evening."

With a low bow and a mocking smile, he was about to depart, when one
of the alguazils exclaimed,--

"Stop--seize him; by Santiago, 'tis Fabrique de Urquija!"

The face of the robber became black with fury; he drew his stiletto
and rushed upon his discoverer, but was soon beaten down by the
halberts and clubbed blunderbusses of the officials, by whom he was
bound with cords and dragged to prison without delay.

He was soon tried in due form, and though the whole town rang with
his terrible exploits, and the women praised his handsome figure, his
reckless courage, and the great tact and skill by which he had so
nearly eluded the pot-bellied Alcalde, he was sentenced "to be
garotted at twelve o'clock to-day."

Such was the detail given to us by the Spanish officer.

As we neared San Roque, we found great crowds from remote parts of
the judicial partido, all clad in the picturesque and antique
costumes of the province, ascending the mountain on which the town is
situated, and all anxious to behold the dying demeanour of the most
famous of Spanish bandits--the greatest since Manuel Francisco was
shot at Cordova two years ago.

The mountain of San Roque stands at the head of a beautiful bay of
the same name; and on looking back as we ascended, we had a charming
view of the sea, with several large Xebecques floating like gigantic
white birds with wings outspread upon its shining azure surface.

A clear and brilliant morning sun poured a flood of light athwart the
picturesque plaza of San Roque, into which, as one may easily
imagine, the whole male population of the town--about eight
thousand--were crowded.  This plaza resembled a sea of human heads
covered with black or brown sombreros; though there were many who
wore only their own coarse black hair in netted cauls, and a few had
scarlet forage caps.  Above this crowd glittered the bayonets and the
glazed shakoes of a battalion of Infantry of the Spanish line, from
the adjacent barracks.  These surrounded the high wooden platform of
the garotte.  Within their line were the poor old ecclesiastics of
the two suppressed convents and three hospitals of San Roque, wearing
the remarkable monastic costumes of a past age.

The principal place was occupied by the commandant of the fortified
camp of San Roque, who, upon our appearing among the crowd in our
British uniform, sent his aide-de-camp, with a polite invitation for
us to join his staff, which we immediately accepted.

On the centre of the platform, which was about twenty feet square,
and covered with black cloth, sat the fallen Fabrique de Urquija upon
a little wooden stool, with his back placed against the upright post
of the garotte, the iron collar of which encircled his brawny naked
neck.  His broad low brow was black as a thunder cloud; his eyes were
fierce and keen, and with a lowering glance of scornful pride, he
surveyed the masses who crowded on every inch of space that afforded
footing.  His ancles were chained to an eyebolt on the floor of the
platform.  Near him stood the old confessor José de Torquemada of
Medina, barefooted; his cowl thrown back; in his wrinkled hands an
ivory crucifix, which ever and anon he placed to the quivering lips
of the doomed man in the interval of prayer.

Poor Urquija!  I forgot all his atrocities and the evil he would once
have done to Slingsby and myself; and now I felt only pity for his
terrible situation.

"I saw your glance of commiseration," said Jack quietly, as he
prepared a cigarito; "but be assured, Ramble, you may as well feel
pity for a bruised wolf.  I have not forgotten the Rio de Muerte, and
that night on the hills above Trohniona."

"Noble Caballeros--buenos Christianos," said a venerable Franciscan,
placing before us the wooden platter on which he was receiving the
reals and pence of the faithful; "por neustra Señora Santissima, one
little medio for the sinful soul of Fabrique de Urquija."

Jack and I--though believing but little in monk or mass--were taught
as soldiers to respect the religious prejudices of all men; thus we
were touched by the honest piety of these old pillars of a dying
creed---dying at least in Spain; and we each threw in a gold coin.
This raised an approving murmur among the people, and the prisoner
gave us a glance full of recognition and gratitude.  We had paid
enough for fifty masses!

The church bell now began to toll a passing knell.

Then the alguazils, who wore the cavalier costume of other times--the
broad hat, the long locks, the white vandyke collar over a little
shoulder mantle, the short knee-breeches and buckled shoes, of the
days of Cervantes, advanced their halberts and ascended the scaffold,
accompanied by the executioner, who was dressed in the deepest black.
All present now murmured and looked round, and several officers drew
their swords, for rumours of a projected rescue were current in San
Roque and its vicinity.

The confession was ended, and if all the horrors which rumour
ascribed to the unhappy Urquija were true, what a revelation it must
have been!  What a volume it would have made!

José Torquemada remained on his knees beside the penitent, who turned
to him ever and anon, anxiously and hurriedly to pour into his ear
some newly-remembered act of guilt, or perhaps to spin out the thread
of life a little--a very little longer.

Meanwhile the solemn bell continued tolling; the people around the
scaffold were nearly all upon their knees, and the grasp of the
executioner was laid upon the iron wrench or screw of the garotte.
The face of the culprit flushed as he did so, and then grew pale as
marble.

The hand of the church clock indicated the hour of noon; then a
cannon pealed from the fortifications of San Roque and the priest
pointed with his crucifix to Heaven, while the executioner, at that
instant, gave the screw a vigorous twist, and the head of Urquija
fell suddenly on his breast.  It heaved a little, and all was over.

A "viva" mingled with the prayers of the people; but the dead man
remained motionless and still, under that bright sunshine of noon;
and then rose the hum of many voices as if a load had been taken off
every breast; while the bayonets flashed and the sharp brass drums
beat merrily, as the Spanish Infantry wheeled from hollow square into
open column of companies, and marched by sections through the Plaza
to the fortified camp of San Roque; then the crowd, who, up to the
last moment had foretold and expected a rescue from the band of
Urquija, who were hovering and vowing vengeance on the Sierra de
Ronda, began to disperse.

Such was the last act in the terrible career of Fabrique de Urquija,
the student of Alcala; and such was the last episode of Jack
Slingsby's Spanish adventures and mine.

We dined with the Commandant at the fortified camp of San Roque, and
in the evening rode back to Gibraltar, where we found the garrison in
a buzz of excitement.

"What is the matter?" I asked of a sentinel at the lower
fortifications as we rode in; "and for what reason was that heavy
cannon fired after sunset?"

"The Himalaya has come in, sir, with Sir Henry Slingsby and a
detachment of the Guards on board; she is at anchor in the roads, and
your regiment is ordered to embark for the Crimea by gunfire
to-morrow."

"Hurrah!" cried Jack, and we dashed at full speed to our barracks,
where the clusters of our soldiers in the square, laughing and
talking gaily, the colonel's orderly running after the adjutant, the
adjutant calling for the Serjeant major, and the evident excitement
and satisfaction visible in every face, corroborated the information
of the sentinel, and impressed upon us the necessity of immediately
packing our baggage; but before doing so, I dispatched at once to
press these little tales and episodes which have lightened and
beguiled our mess-table in old Gibraltar; and if they please my
readers, and win from them but half the praise they won from my light
hearted and brave brother officers, my task in collecting them will
be more than recompensed.



WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON.