Part 35

But he saw, not Portuguese, but a number of men in the well-known green of the 95th Rifles, marching up the street, cheering vigorously. Among them, in the middle of the causeway, strode two young Spaniards, the one slim and lissom, the other broad and bulky. Both walked buoyantly, and seemed in high good-humour. Behind them, over their heads, could be seen the antic figure of Pepito, perched on Bates's shoulders, and looking as proud as a peacock. Wilkes stared at the procession as it approached, wondering to see two Spaniards with the unprecedented escort of British Riflemen. All at once he drew himself up, struck his feet together, and, just as the head of the procession reached him, brought his hand to his eyebrow in the stiff military salute. His face was a study in its successive expressions of perplexity, vexation, and pleasure.

The recruits were taken too much aback to be able to make their salute before the procession had passed.

"Who's that ragged Don you're saluting, sargint?" asked one of them.

"Who's that, you dough-faced clod-hopping chaw-bacon, you!" cried Wilkes, seizing the opportunity of venting his feelings. "Why, that's Lieutenant Jack Lumsden, him what helped me to lick the mounseers at Corunna. And I'll make it warm for Charley Bates," he muttered, "stealing a march on me like that. Why didn't I perpetrate the disguise? That's what I want to know."

Meanwhile Jack and the Grampus had continued their progress until they arrived at the head-quarters of the 95th. There, two or three subalterns were seated at an open window, to catch a breath of air from the sea, grateful on that hot June day.

"Hullo!" said Pomeroy, catching sight of the procession, "what are the rascals up to now?"

"Some mischief, you may be sure," said Smith, looking over his shoulder. "I shall be glad when we get marching orders to join Sir Arthur. The men will get horribly loose if we're here long."

"By George!" said Pomeroy, "they appear to have got two Spaniards among them. Why--what--look here, Shirley, isn't that Lumsden's boy Pepito grinning like a monkey on Bates's shoulder?"

"Eh! What? Where?" said Smith, pushing his head out. "Jehoshaphat! That fat Spaniard--ha! ha!--don't you see, you fellows?--ha! ha!--he's the Grampus, bigger than ever. Gad! I shall die of this! The Grampus in Spanish toggery!"

"And the other fellow's Jack himself!" shouted Pomeroy excitedly. "Hurray! hurray!"

"'Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!'" quoted Shirley. "Hurray! Three cheers for Lumsden! But what am I to do with my epitaph?"

"What's all this pandemonium about?" cried a loud voice from the door of the room. "I wish you gentlemen would behave less like a pack of schoolb--"

"Lumsden's back, sir," said Smith. "The men are escorting him up the street."

"Good gad!" ejaculated Colonel Beckwith. Then, without more ado, he caught up Smith's cap from the table, stuck it on his head, and ran downstairs buttoning up his jacket on the way. He reached the door just in time to meet Jack before he entered.

"'Pon my honour--how d'e do?--glad to see you, hang it! You're not dead, then, after all?"

"Not a bit, sir," said Jack, heartily returning his handgrip. "Come to report myself, sir."

"Good gad! What a--what a villainous brigand you look! But we'll soon put that right. 'Pon my honour, I am deuced glad to see you."

The colonel shook hands again, and for some minutes Jack's arm was going up and down like a pump handle as he returned the greetings of his old friends, who meanwhile volleyed questions at him with clamorous excitement.

"Uncommonly kind of you fellows," he panted, "but if you'll excuse me--"

"Not a bit of it," cried Smith. "Excuse you, indeed!"

"No, begad," said the colonel. "You'll come in and let us drink your health--three times three. Come along."

"Most happy, sir, if you'll just allow me five or six minutes. The fact is, there's a lady on board, and--"

"Good gad! A lady!"

"And I came to get a coach to fetch her."

"Of course. A lady! My barouche is at your service. Here, Ogbourne, bring the barouche round in two minutes, for Mr. Lumsden.--Used to be your man, I think; a useful fellow.--Hang me! I must go and find Captain O'Hare."

Not many minutes later the subalterns at the window were as much surprised as interested to see the colonel's heavy rumbling chariot draw up at a house almost exactly opposite.

"I say, you fellows," cried Smith, "get out of sight. We don't want the lady to think we're a lot of peeping Toms."

"She's probably as old as your grandmother," said Pomeroy, "and long past blushing. Still--"

Consequently, when Juanita and her old duenna stepped out of the coach and entered the opposite house, there were no spectators of the scene. But when Jack returned to head-quarters he was instantly the mark of a running fire of questions. His fellow-officers, from the colonel downwards, were consumed with curiosity to know whether she was young or old, tall or short, dark or fair; where he had found her; what was her name. Shirley eagerly asked whether she was the famous Maid of Saragossa; Pomeroy was boiling with impatience because the Grampus had absolutely refused to give any information.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," cried Jack, "I can't attend to you all at once. The lady is the Senorita Juanita Alvarez, daughter of my father's old partner, on her way to England, and the friend with whom she is staying has invited the officers of my company to dinner to-morrow, so that if you care to go I'll introduce you en bloc."

"Bedad now," said Captain O'Hare, "that's mighty perlite. I must practise my best bow, and get my hair cut. 'Tis a powerful pity pigtails are just gone out of fashion, for sure I always looked killing in a pigtail. Ah well!"

"Come, Mr. Lumsden," said the colonel, "the Senorita has driven you out of our heads. What have you been doing with yourself? We learnt when Mr. Frere came home that you had gone to Saragossa, and not a man of us expected to see you again. Ogbourne, get some tumblers, and we'll do the honours."

It was late before the meeting broke up, and then not one of the company was satisfied. Jack had given them, indeed, a full and interesting account of the siege of Saragossa in general, but he appeared to be woefully lacking in detailed information about his own part in it. He was not so affectedly modest as to conceal the facts that Palafox had entrusted him with the defence of a certain district, and that the district was still in Spanish hands when the siege ended; but of the weeks of ceaseless work, unresting vigilance and anxious thought which had purchased his success he said never a word. Colonel Beckwith watched him closely as he told his story, and at its conclusion made a brief comment which gave him a thrill of pleasure.

"Gentlemen," he said, rising, "I speak for you all when I say that we're glad to have Lumsden back at the mess. There are big gaps in his story which somebody has to fill; but we don't want 'em filled to know that he's been an honour to the British army, and a credit to the Rifles. I give you Mr. Lumsden!"

When the cheers that followed the toast had died away, Jack on his side was eager to learn what had brought his old friends back to the Peninsula. Hearing that a new campaign was opening under Sir Arthur Wellesley, his face clouded for a moment.

"Sure an' ye've done enough for glory," said Captain O'Hare, noticing the expression, "and there's never a doubt the colonel will let ye go home to your sorrowing mother,--not to speak of escorting the colleen."

Jack blushed.

"Thank 'ee!" he said, "but I'm not going to run away from the regiment. Have you got a uniform to spare?"

"What, aren't ye in love then? Sure an' when I was your age I was desp'rately in love with half a dozen at once--the milkmaid, and the doctor's daughter, and the girl in the haberdasher's in Sackville Street, and a lot more."

"'I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more,'"

quoted Shirley lugubriously.

"Honour, bedad! That's what I said to Patsy O'Dowd when she taxed me with making eyes at Honour O'Grady, and she boxed my ears,--and Patsy had a powerful heavy hand, begore. And if ye're not afraid of someone cutting you out--Mr. Dugdale, for instance ... By the way, is he going home too?"

"Not a doubt of that, sir," said the Grampus himself. "Amateuring isn't such fun as you'd think; why, I had to peel the onions till the Frenchman came! I'm sick of it; and I'm going home to practise doctoring on a new plan."

"What's that about onions?" called Colonel Beckwith from the head of the table.

The Grampus proceeded to relate his capture by the guerrilleros, and to expatiate on various little grievances incident to his state of bondage, which the company appeared to find vastly entertaining. This want of sympathy with his misadventures nettled even the good-natured Grampus, who became more and more red and indignant, until at length he burst out:

"Well, at any rate I did some good, and that was no laughing matter. If it hadn't been for me they'd have tortured some scores of poor devils of Frenchmen that Lumsden bagged--so there!"

"Story! story!" was shouted round the table.

"You must get Lumsden to tell you that. He caught 'em; but 'twas a speech I made saved 'em from being fried or boiled or something."

"Now, Lumsden, fill up that gap," said the colonel.

Seeing that there was no help for it, Jack gave a brief account of his adventure with the commissary's party at Morata, awarding a due meed of praise to Antonio the guerrilla captain.

"He was a good sort," he added, "quite mild-mannered for a Spaniard. None of them knew a word of English, and he complained that his men had been roused to fury against the prisoners by the violent harangue of the English senior. He could hardly hold them."

"Oh, come now!" expostulated Dugdale. "I didn't know Spanish, but I made myself clear enough."

"Exactly," said Jack; "when you pointed to your throat and then to the fire, the poor simple guerrilleros were only in doubt as to whether you meant roasting or garrotting."

A roar of laughter completed the Grampus's discomfiture.

"Bet you--" he began in desperation; but finding himself unable to state a wager that would meet the case, he buried his face in a tankard, from which it took a considerable time to emerge.

Next day it was a quiet and subdued group that crossed to the house opposite. Captain O'Hare was unmistakeably nervous, Pomeroy self-consciously gorgeous, and Shirley pale with sitting up late the previous night over a Spanish grammar, conjugating the verb Amor in all its moods and tenses. The Grampus took his revenge in chaffing them, and they all grunted approval when Captain O'Hare exclaimed:

"Bedad, if 'twas on Shannon's shore 'tis meself that would be at home, but 'tis a mighty different thing meeting a Spanish lady on the banks of the Taygus without a word of the lingo to turn a compliment."

But they were agreeably surprised when, after being welcomed in broken English by their portly and amiable Portuguese hostess, they were greeted in the same tongue, spoken with the prettiest accent imaginable, by a charming young senorita. Her beauty made an instant and visible impression on Captain O'Hare's susceptible soul.

The dinner was long remembered and talked of by the officers of O'Hare's company. There was a numerous party, Spanish, Portuguese, and English. Jack was unwillingly the hero of the evening, and the flattering attentions paid him would have been still more embarrassing had he not been so preoccupied in watching Juanita, who appeared to him in a quite unaccustomed light. He had admired her courage during the dark days of the siege; he had got an inkling even then of the essential brightness of her temperament; but he was hardly prepared for her perfect ease and self-possession, the vivacity of her conversation, and her social tact. He felt an inexplicable sinking at the heart; Juanita seemed to be farther away from him than at any time since he had first met her in Saragossa. They had been frank comrades during the hazardous journey across country to the coast, and the delightful voyage that had just closed their adventures, and under stress of circumstances Jack had for so long taken the lead that it was a sort of awakening to find that she was now independent of his counsel and protection. Moreover, she was going to England. He had intended to go with her, but the return of his regiment had altered all that. Till this moment he had not realized what a separation might really mean. He felt that they were at the parting of the ways.

It was from Juanita's lips that his brother officers heard the full story of his work in Saragossa, and after. Simply, without exaggeration, yet glowingly, she described how, with unfailing resource, he had met and frustrated all the attacks of the French on his little garrison and kept the flag flying to the last. Captain O'Hare followed her story with unwavering interest. He was not the man to praise lightly. Indeed, it was not the custom in that age of hard fighters to scatter vain compliments; his subalterns were therefore the more deeply impressed when, in a pause, he turned to Juanita and said in a tone vibrant with earnestness:

"By my faith, Senorita, yours is a story of which every soldier, British or Spanish, may be proud. I honour your countrymen and countrywomen for their glorious defence of Saragossa--there is nothing finer that I know in all history. And we British officers are proud to think that one of ours, one of the 95th, is among the heroes of the siege. We all try to do our duty; few of us get the chance, like my friend Lumsden, of doing so much more than our mere duty; and by my soul, if we do get the chance, I only hope we'll make as good a use of it."

Jack, who had spent a most uncomfortable half-hour, was greatly relieved when the ladies withdrew. But his troubles were not over, for Captain O'Hare, resuming the brogue which had disappeared during his late outburst, said with a chuckle:

"By Vanus and all the Graces, 'tis a lucky thing for you, you young scamp, that Peter O'Hare is not fifteen years younger. 'Tis meself would have tried a fall wid ye--ay, and come in at a canter. Indeed an' I'm not sure 'tis too late even now. She was mighty civil to me at dinner, indeed she was."

The worthy captain laughed heartily, and turned to make himself agreeable, in halting French, to a colonel of Portuguese artillery.

"Hang it, Lumsden," said Pomeroy, "I call it a crying shame, that merely because a man happens to patter a little Spanish he should not only be shoved over the heads of better men than himself, but cut out more presentable ones with the jolliest girl I've seen this end of the Bay."

Jack smiled and held his peace.

"I say, you fellows," said Shirley, "give me a rhyme for Saragossa, someone. I've just knocked off a little gem of a thing--'Lines to J----a A----z', but hang me if I can tag the last of 'em."

"A good job too!" said Smith. "The whole company seems to be moonstruck. 'Pon my word, I believe I'm the only one of you that can keep his head."

"Ah," said the Grampus with a capacious sigh, "'tisn't the head, it's the heart!" There was a general laugh at his lugubrious accent; whereupon, with a sudden return to everyday life, he cried: "And I'll bet you, Harry George Wakelyn Smith, you're one of the first to find it out."

Smith snorted scornfully. He little imagined that long before the war was over he would himself meet the lovely Spanish damsel in distress who was to become Lady Smith of Aliwal and give her name to a certain little town, the Saragossa of South Africa.

Jack, who had taken his comrades' good-humoured banter with unfailing cheerfulness, now slipped away to join the ladies in the sala. When he entered the room, he noticed at once a deeper flush than usual on Juanita's cheeks, and felt that something was amiss. It was some little time before he could escape the renewed attentions of the circle. Then, seating himself beside Juanita, he said anxiously:

"Is anything wrong, Juanita?"

"Wrong! No, of course not. Why should anything be wrong?"

She turned her head away, and tapped her hand impatiently with her fan. Jack, noting the flush on her cheek, felt uneasily that her manner belied her words.

"I don't know," he said. "I was afraid there was something. I wanted to tell you, Juanita, that--that--well, things have changed, you know. There is to be another campaign; I shall have to march with the regiment. There's no help for it. I can't go back to England--not yet."

"I knew; I was told it--by somebody else."

There was that in her tone which made Jack wish that he had told her earlier of what his unexpected meeting with his old comrades must inevitably involve. He had shrunk from the explanation--he did not quite know why.

After a moment's silence she added slowly: "I am sorry for Mr. Dugdale; he will have a lonely journey, I fear, and he's so very fond of company."

"Lonely! But you get on very well together."

"Oh yes! I like Mr. Dugdale very much, but you see--I shall not be there. I have made up my mind, quite decided, not to go after all. England is a cold, foggy, horrid country, and I'm sure I shouldn't like the English. I ought never to have come so far." She rose from her seat. "I will go back to the dear Sisters at Carinena."

As she moved towards the balcony at the far end of the room, Jack caught the sparkle of tears in her eyes. He felt that he must be in fault; how or why he could not tell, and he was too much perturbed at Juanita's distress to think the matter out. He merely followed her. When they reached the balcony they stood for a few moments silent in the twilight, looking with unseeing eyes at the dim plaza below. There was a murmur of voices from the dusk, at first vague and indistinct, the words gradually stealing upon their consciousness with clearer and clearer meaning.

"There he was, poor little beggar, crying his eyes out. 'Ogbourne,' says I, 'what's amiss with Pepito?' 'Oh!' says he, 'crying for the moon. He wants to go with the Spanish senorita and stay with Mr. Lumsden at the same time; which ain't possible.' 'Well,' says I, 'I ain't so sure o' that. They do say he rescued her from old Boney himself and from a rascally Don too--yes, and they say she's main fond of him, which is only natural--considering.'"

Even in the dusk Jack, stealing a look at Juanita, saw that she had flushed hotly. As she half-turned to re-enter the room, he imprisoned the little hand that lay on the balustrade. She did not draw it away.

"But," continued the insistent voice, "what I want to know is, when's it to be?--that's what I want to know."

*Glossary of Spanish Words*

_adelante_, forward! come in! _adios_, adieu. _afrancesado_, a Spaniard who had accepted the French domination. _agua_, water. _alcalde_, mayor, chief magistrate. _alguazil_, constable, guard. _amigo_, friend. _arriero_, muleteer, carrier. _ay de mi_, alas! woe is me! _azucarillo_, a confection of paste, sugar, and rose-water. _bergantin_, brig. _bien_, well. _bueno_, good: _buenos dias_, good-morning; _buenas noches_, good-night; _buenas tardes_, good-afternoon. _caballero_, rider, gentleman, cavalier. _calle_, street. _caramba_, an exclamation. _casa_, house. _cebolla_, onion. _cerro_, hill. _choriso_, spiced sausage. _cigarillo_, a small cigar, whiff. _con_, with. _contessa_, countess. _contrabandista_, smuggler. _copa_, cup, goblet. _coso_, wide thoroughfare. _cuchillo_, knife. _cura_, parish priest, parson. _dia_, day: _buenos dias_, good-morning. _Dios_, God: _Vaya usted con Dios_ (lit. go with God), good-bye. _don_, a title, equivalent to esquire. _dona_, a title, equivalent to madam. _el_, la*, the. _Espana_, Spain. _fonda_, inn. _garbanzo_, a species of bean. _gaspacho_, a compound of vegetables and condiments. _gitano_, gipsy. _gracias_, thanks. _guerrillero_, an irregular warrior, member of a guerrilla band. _hidalgo_, nobleman. _hombre_, man, a common mode of address to inferiors. _javaneja_, an old-fashioned dance. _junta_, council. _manana_, to-morrow. _Maragato, one of a race of mingled Gothic and Moorish blood, inhabiting a district in N. W. Spain. *maravedi_, the smallest Spanish coin. _marchesa_, marchioness. _mareamiento_, sea-sickness. _mi_, _mio_, _mia_, my. _muchas_, many. _noche_, night: _buenas noches_, good-night. _nuestra_, our. _padre_, father. _pan_, bread. _patio_, courtyard, characteristic of the better Spanish houses. _patron_, landlord. _peseta_, silver coin worth about tenpence. _plaza_, square, open space: _Plaza Mayor_, great square. _par_, by. _porta_, gate. _posada_, tavern, inn. _puchero_, a sort of hot-pot. _que hay de nuevo?_ what news? _querida_, darling. _quien_, who: _quien vive?_ who goes there? _regidor_, alderman. _sala_, hall, drawing-room. _san_, _santo_, _santa_, saint. _senor_, sir, a title used in addressing equals or superiors. _senora_, madam, lady. _senorita_, miss, young lady. _si_, yes. _silencio_, hush! silence! _tarde_, afternoon. _tia_, aunt. _tio_, uncle. _tirador_, sharpshooter. _usted_, you. _valiente_, brave, valiant. _vamos_, come along! _vaya_, go: _vaya usted con Dios_ (lit. go with God), good-bye. _venta_, small wayside inn. _verdaderamente_, verily, indeed. _viva_, hurrah! long live! _vive_: _quien vive?_ who goes there?