Part 4

"You're not a very ancient Pistol even now, Mr. Lumsden," he said. "But that's the right spirit; regard yourself as a man and you'll do a man's work. Well, that is settled, then. I'll send you some money, and I hope you will do me valuable service and come back with a whole skin. Stay; you want a Spanish outfit. I know the very man who can be useful to you--a Spanish gentleman, one of the old school. I will write you a line of introduction. Let me see." Sir John hastily rummaged among a heap of papers. "I mustn't forget one of the names; that would be an unpardonable slight. Here it is."

He scribbled a note, copying the address with some care. Jack read: "El Senor Don Pedro Benito Aguilar Quadrato Garrapinillos de Sarrion de Gracioso," and caught a twinkle in Sir John's eye.

"I am sure he will do all he can for you," added the commander-in-chief. "He is a good patriot, not a painted one. Now good-bye, and good luck to you!"

He shook hands with Jack, who, feeling as though he trod on air, so much elated was he at the confidence placed in him, went back to his quarters. At the door he found a small group of his fellow-officers, evidently in a high state of excitement.

"Hi, Jack," cried Smith, as he came up to them, "what do you think of this? The army's going to retreat."

"You don't say so?" said Jack with well-feigned surprise.

"I do, though. Did you ever hear of such an order from a British commander-in-chief! We haven't even had a glimpse of the enemy, and by all we can hear their cavalry vedettes are at least four marches away. I can't for the life of me make out what Johnny Moore can be thinking of. How did he get his reputation, I wonder?"

"Depend upon it, he's good reason if he has ordered a retreat."

"'He that fights and runs away,'" began Shirley; but Jack had already gone into the house, where he found his man Giles Ogbourne in the kitchen, polishing his boots and hissing like a kettle with the exertion.

"Giles," said Jack, "cut off and find me a strong, steady mule somewhere. Then go to Sir John Moore's quarters; say you have come from me; you'll get some money and a paper packet; take them, with the mule, out of the town as quickly as you can, and wait for me some two miles along the Valladolid road. Don't say a word to anyone about me, mind."

"Very good, sir!"

Giles dropped the boots and departed on his errand. Then Jack found his way to the palace of the much-baptized hidalgo. After the usual salutations, made on both sides with more than ordinary regard to punctilio, Jack presented his note. Don Pedro, an old and stately cavalier, with thin pointed features and wearing a crimson skull-cap, looked up after reading it, and said:

"General Sir Moore's wishes are to a good Spaniard commands. If you will acquaint me, Senor, with the manner in which I may serve you, I shall feel myself indeed honoured."

Jack, bowing his acknowledgments of the hidalgo's courtesy, went straight to the point.

"My general, Senor, has entrusted me with a somewhat delicate mission towards Olmedo. As you may imagine, it would not be politic for me to make such a journey as a British officer. Relying on a certain familiarity with your noble language"--here the courtly hidalgo waved his hand in graceful acknowledgment--"I propose to pass for the time as one of your countrymen. I shall need in the first place a dress, and secondly one or two willing helpers."

"Ah! as to the dress," said the hidalgo musingly. "Let me see. You will do best to wear a quiet costume, such as might become a well-to-do tradesman--say a snuff-coloured cloak, a pointed hat, velvet breeches, and high gaiters. Well, give me half an hour, and I will have the costume ready for you. As to the helpers, that is a little more difficult. I have no intimate acquaintance in the neighbourhood of Olmedo. If you had asked me but a few short months ago, I should have said that any of my countrymen might have been trusted, but, alas! too many now have betrayed their country to the usurper. But now I bethink me, an old servant of mine keeps a small inn, the Posada de Oriente, at Medina del Campo, some twelve miles on this side of Olmedo. He is an excellent worthy fellow, and staunch, and if you so please, Senor, I will write a note to him, asking him to serve you as he would serve me."

Jack eagerly accepted the hidalgo's offer. Don Pedro opened a heavily-chased escritoire, selected a sheet of paper, then cut a new quill, and proceeded with as much formal deliberation as though he were penning a document of state. The letter finished, he carefully sprinkled it with sand from a silver pounce-box, delicately shook the paper clean when the ink was dry, and after folding it, impressed upon it a seal some two inches in diameter. The whole operation had occupied nearly half an hour, which Jack had utilized in thinking out his plans.

"I much regret to hear, Senor," said the hidalgo, as he handed him the note, "that my dear friend General Castanos has suffered a check, and that this may cause some change in General Sir Moore's plans. But I hope your excellent countrymen will not be discouraged by this temporary mischance. 'Tis but the fortune of war, or perhaps a warning, a summons to us to cast off our lethargy; and Spain will hear, and when she awakes, let her foes beware."

Jack took his leave, thanking the hidalgo in flowing Castilian, and requesting him to send the promised costume to his quarters. Half an hour afterwards the clothes arrived. Meanwhile Jack had procured a little saffron, by whose aid he had given his complexion a sallow tinge, and this, with the large-brimmed pointed hat, the cloak, and other details of the costume, effected a complete transformation in his appearance. Armed with the note to Don Pedro's old servant, he walked boldly out by the front door into the street. As luck would have it, the first person he met was Captain O'Hare himself.

"Vaya usted con Dios!" said Jack, with a slight bow, giving the usual Spanish salutation.

"Buenos dias, Senor!" returned the captain, with so vile a pronunciation that Jack could scarcely repress a smile. He passed on unrecognized, and chuckled at having so completely deceived the worthy captain.

Rather more than half an hour later he came to a spot on the road to Medina del Campo where Giles was patiently waiting with the mule. The big private was sitting on a heap of stones, holding the reins with one hand while with the other he flung pebbles across the road in idle preoccupation. Jack went up to him.

"You Inglese soldier?" he said, in a foreign accent.

"Yes, mister."

"Inglaterra a fine region," said Jack. "You go a viaje?"

"See then, what's a viaje?"

"A voyage, a march, on the mule back."

"No, I'm not goin' a march on the mule back."

"The mule is to you?"

"The mule bean't nowt to me."

"Where you go then?"

"What's that to you, mister?"

"What for you--?"

"Now look here, mister, doan't ye be too inquisitive. Axing me forty questions indeed. See then, I'll punch your head, iss a wull, if ye--"

Jack burst out laughing.

"Well, Giles," he said, "that's a compliment to my disguise at any rate. Have you got the packet for me?"

"Yes, sir," said Ogbourne, springing to his feet with a sheepish grin. "Beg pardon, sir, but I took you for a Don."

"I know you did. Well now, get back to quarters, and don't say a word to anybody about where I have gone. If you are asked about me--and no doubt you will be--just say that I have been sent on an errand by the general."

"Very good, sir. Mumchanced as a scarecrow, sir."

"That's right. Good-day!"

He sprang on to the mule, took a switch and the packet containing the map from his man's hands, and rode off in the direction of Medina del Campo. It was fortunate that he had previous experience of such steeds when a young boy in Barcelona, for the animal began at once to play pranks. It got up first of all on its hind-legs, and then gave a lurch forward, a movement for which Jack was prepared, and which he defeated by a sudden violent strain upon the reins that brought the animal to reason. The mule requires wholly different treatment from a horse. Prick him with the spur, he stops dead; strike him with a whip, he lies down; draw rein, and he begins to gallop. Sometimes he will halt in the middle of the road, lift his head, stretch his neck, draw back his chops till he shows his gums and long teeth, and then give vent to sobs, sighs, gurgles, squeals like a pig's; and thrash him as you please, he will not budge a step until his vocal exercises are finished. Jack knew all this of old, and after trying a few experiments the mule appeared to recognize that he had no raw hand to deal with, and settled down into a steady trot, making the bells upon his neck tinkle merrily.

Jack had not ridden more than a quarter of a mile when, as he was passing by a small clump of trees, the mule stopped short, and not all his rider's coaxing sufficed to make him move. Springing off his back, Jack went to his head, to see if leading would prove more effectual than driving. As he stood there a pebble fell at his feet, then another, and another, coming, apparently, from the sky. He looked up, and there, ensconced in a fork of one of the trees, crouched a small human figure.

"Well I'm hanged!" exclaimed Jack. "Come down, Pepito."

The figure swung itself over the bough, clambered down the trunk with the nimbleness of a squirrel, dropped lightly from the lowest branch, and stood before Jack, looking up into his face with a broad smile. It was a curious figure indeed: a boy about four feet six in height, with tanned skin some shades darker than the Spaniard's olive hue, thick red lips now open and showing strong white teeth, narrow brow, arched nose, and long raven-black hair that hung in a tangled mass over his eyes. He was not pretty, but there was something strangely attractive in his smile, and his brilliant black eyes, with their indescribable touch of mystery, were dancing with fun as they met the surprised gaze of the young Englishman.

"And what does this mean, Pepito?" said Jack in Spanish.

"Go with Senor," replied the boy briefly. He shivered; it was a cold day, and the raw air cut through the tatters which left his flesh here and there exposed.

"No, that's impossible," said Jack decisively. "I couldn't be bothered with you."

"Want to go with Senor," persisted the boy. "Know the roads--Medina, Valladolid, Segovia, all the places; the Gitanos know everything."

"That's all very well, but I don't want you. You'd be in the way. Besides, I'm riding. You couldn't keep up with me."

"Can run fast. No mule can beat me."

"Nonsense! I shall be riding all day, and you'd be dead before night."

"I can get a mule, then."

"Where, may I ask?"

"From the Busne."

Jack knew that Busne was the gipsies' name for the Spaniards.

"That means that you would steal it, eh? Didn't I tell you that if you were caught stealing you'd be hanged, or at any rate soundly flogged?"

"Yes. Hanged!" He shrugged his shoulders. "Flogged!" He pulled aside his rags and showed the marks left by old thrashings on his skin.

"Incorrigible little imp!" muttered Jack in English. "Look here," he went on in Spanish, "you can't go with me; that's settled. You must go back to Salamanca. I'll give you a note to Ogbourne--"

"He'll flog me."

"No. I'll tell him to get you some clothes and see that you are fed, and to keep his eye on you till I get back. Now, will you promise me to keep out of mischief?"

"No."

"Impudent little beggar! I suppose you know no better. You know at any rate that my man will lay on pretty heavily if you plague him. Look, here's a silver peseta. I'll give you this if you promise to go back to Salamanca."

He held up the coin between finger and thumb.

"Give it me," said Pepito.

"Promise."

"I'll go with you, Senor," said the boy obstinately.

"Don't you understand? It's impossible. I can't be clogged with you. Come now, here's the money. Cut away, and when I see you next take care that you've decent clothes on your back."

Jack rapidly scribbled a note, and gave it with the coin into the brown lean little paw, eagerly outstretched to receive it. Pepito stowed them both into a pocket he discovered somewhere among his rags, then grinned, and said:

"Now I run with Senor's mule."

"Confound you!" cried Jack, losing patience at last. "I won't have you with me."

He raised the switch which he had laid across the saddle and made to strike at the gipsy. Pepito looked in his face with an inscrutable expression in his dark eyes, shrank back from the expected blow, then slowly turned on his heel and slunk away in the direction of Salamanca.

"The obstinate little mule!" said Jack to himself as he watched him go. "I don't wonder that Giles has given him many a tanning. I'd sooner be haunted by a ghost."

As soon as Pepito was out of sight Jack remounted, and set the mule at a canter to make up for lost time.

*CHAPTER V*

*A Roadside Adventure*

A Spanish By-Road--Negotiations--A Rupture--A Village Inn--Family History--Antonio the Brave--A Near Thing--The Other Cheek--Explanations--Recruits--Quits

For a few miles Jack followed the highroad, meeting no one but an old wizened woman staggering along under a basket-load of onions. Then, thinking it well, as he approached the district in which there was a possibility of encountering the enemy's vedettes, to avoid the main thoroughfare, he struck off to the right along what was little better than a cart track, discovering from his map that this would lead him to his destination by way of Pedroso, Cantalapiedra, and Carpio, villages which were scarcely likely to be selected as billeting-places by any considerable force. It was a dreary ride. The road was heavy with the recent rains. It passed through a country consisting partly of bare heath, partly of grain-fields, now black and desolate. He had started from Salamanca shortly after eleven o'clock, and, owing to interruptions and the state of the roads, it was nearly three in the afternoon before he arrived at Cantalapiedra, little more than half-way to Medina. By that time he was hungry, and his steed was both hungry and tired. Dismounting before a posada at the entrance to the town, he sent the mule to be fed and rubbed down, and went into the house to seek refreshment himself.

There was no other guest in the place, and the landlord, slow and stolid like a genuine Spaniard, showed neither pleasure nor displeasure at the appearance of a traveller. In reply to Jack's request for food, he brought, after some delay, a basin of very greasy soup of a reddish tinge, due to the saffron with which it had been liberally sprinkled, and a dirty carafe of violet-coloured wine, which Jack found, when he poured it out, almost thick enough to cut with a knife. The bread, however, was eatable, if a trifle salt, and Jack munched away with an appetite that evoked a gleam of interest in the landlord's solemn eyes. He began to ask questions, and indeed to show himself inquisitive, remarking on the strange fact of a young man travelling alone through disturbed country at such a time. Jack good-humouredly parried enquiries that seemed too direct, merely explaining that he had been on a visit to Salamanca, and was riding across country because, having heard rumours that the French were in possession of Valladolid, he had no wish to fall into their hands. The landlord dryly told him that travelling anywhere in Spain was rather dangerous for a man with good clothes on his back and money in his pocket, for if he escaped the French he might fall in with bandits, and there was little to choose between them when plunder was in question. In answer to this Jack opened his coat and showed the man the butt of a big Spanish pistol.

"Even a peaceful merchant," he said with a laugh, "may prove an awkward customer to tackle."

The landlord shrugged.

"One against a troop of French cavalry, or a gang of bandits, would fare rather badly," he said. "I suppose you will want a bed to-night, Senor?"

"Not I. I'm going to push on to Medina."

"The saints help you to find your way in the dark, then!"

"Oh! I shall find it. The road is direct, you know, and my mule will not wander."

He set off after an hour's rest and rode on in increasing darkness. What the landlord had said about brigands gave him little concern. For one thing, the mule trod almost silently on the sodden road, and he had removed the bell from its neck; for another, he had avoided the highway, and did not suppose that much booty was ever to be obtained on the by-roads; and lastly, he trusted to his wits, his mule, and his pistol. As he rode on, the air grew colder and the sky darker; there was no moon, and a thickening haze lay over the fields to right and left of the road. It was impossible to proceed at more than a walking pace, except at risk of breaking the mule's knees in a rut or ditch. To divert his thoughts from the cold and the unpleasantness of his journey, he ran over in his mind the events of the last few days. He dwelt particularly on the strange message he had received from Don Fernan Alvarez. "Palafox the man, Palafox the name!"--what could it mean? How did it concern his old playmate Juanita, whom he remembered, a little black-eyed child, clambering on his father's knee, and listening with her finger in her mouth to the stories told her by Mr. Lumsden, so merry and frank compared with her stiff, stately, solemn father. Palafox!--he was a young general, with a brilliant reputation; Jack had heard Colonel Beckwith give high praise to his strenuous defence of Saragossa against Verdier; but what likelihood was there that the chances of the campaign would give Jack an opportunity of meeting him! Suppose he did meet him, what--

"Buenas noches, caballero!" said a thick guttural voice at his mule's head, breaking into his meditation, and giving him a momentary shock.

"Buenas noches, hombre!" he replied.

The mule had stopped short. Jack saw dimly, right in front of him, a thick-set figure clad in a heavy cloak, his head covered with a pointed large-brimmed hat, reminding the rider of pictures he had seen of Italian brigands.

"O Senor caballero," said the man, "will you have the charity to tell a poor wayfarer the time?"

Jack was on the point of pulling out his big hunting-watch, but it struck him suddenly that it was advisable to be on his guard until he was sure of his man.

"Somewhere about seven o'clock, I fancy," he said courteously. "You are right in my way, my friend."

"Si, caballero, but it is my way as well as yours."

"It is wide enough for both of us," rejoined Jack with a smile; "and as I have some miles to ride, I shall be obliged to you if you'll stand away and let me get on."

The man did not budge, but brought his left hand from beneath his cloak and seized the off rein.

"Come, my friend, don't delay me. 'Tis a cold night, and the sooner I reach my journey's end the better I shall be pleased."

Jack spoke quietly and politely as before, but he was watching the fellow with the wariness of a hawk.

"'Tis cold for me also, caballero; a fire and warm drink await me yonder. I am going to fight the accursed French, and it strikes me a mule like yours will serve me well. I will trouble you, therefore, to dismount, caballero. I perceive you are a tradesman from the town, and you will admit the fighter is more useful to Spain than the shopkeeper. If you will do me the honour to descend, I will mount in your place."

"Not so fast, my man," said Jack. "I don't want to hurt you, but if you continue to stand there you may come to grief when I whip up my mule."

Realizing from Jack's firm tone that his object was not to be gained without a struggle, the man suddenly threw off the fold of the cloak enveloping his right arm, and with a guttural oath lifted a huge mallet he carried in his hand, springing slightly aside to give his arm free play. The movement was fatal to him. With a sharp dig in the groin Jack swung the mule round in the same direction, and launched him full at his assailant. Before the ponderous mallet had time to complete its swing, the mule had struck the man square in the chest, and as he reeled and fell under the blow Jack brought down his switch smartly across his brow.

"That's well saved, anyhow," said Jack grimly to himself as he cantered on, and smiled as he heard the man's curses pursuing him. The mule seemed to share in his rider's feelings, for as he trotted steadily on he lifted his head high in the air, curled up his lip, and showed his long yellow teeth, as though laughing at the man's ignominious overthrow. Jack let him have his way, and the animal kept up the same pace unfalteringly, with never a slip or stumble, until he reached the squalid streets of Medina del Campo. The curfew had just ceased ringing, and the great market-square was quite deserted; but Jack knocked at a house in which he saw a light, enquired the way to the Posada de Oriente, and in a few minutes was standing within the doorway of that hostelry. To judge by the various voices issuing from its interior, it was entertaining a numerous company.

He presented to the landlord the letter he had brought from the man's former master, Don Pedro, and was led with some hesitation into the inn, while his mule was handed over to an ostler. The inn consisted of one large apartment with a fireplace at each end, a timber roof blackened and varnished by smoke, stalls at each side for horses and mules, and for travellers a few small lateral chambers each containing a bed made of planks laid across trestles, and covered with sheets of coarse sacking. "Rough lying," thought Jack, as he looked in at the open door of one of these. The floor was of brick, strewn with rushes. A large fire burnt in one of the grates, strings of onions hung from nails on the walls, and the place was pervaded by an odour of scalded oil and grilled tomatos. Jack gave a comprehensive greeting to the company as he entered. A deep silence had fallen upon the room, and he was conscious of the curious scrutiny of several pairs of eyes; but knowing that the Spaniard is always reserved with a stranger until assured that he is not, let us say, a pedlar, or a rope-dancer, or a dealer in hair-oil, he paid the company for the moment no further attention, but sat down on a back seat pointed out by the patron, and ordered food. The landlord regretted that at short notice he could supply him with nothing but a simple gaspacho. Jack laughed inwardly at the thought of how his friend Pomeroy would turn up his fastidious nose at such fare, but assured his host that in his present state of hunger he could eat anything, and the gaspacho was accordingly prepared. Some water was poured into a soup-tureen, to this was added a little vinegar, a few pods of garlic, some onions cut into four, a slice or two of cucumber, a little spice, a pinch of salt, and a few slices of bread; with this the detestable mixture was complete. As Jack began his meagre meal the landlord opened the hidalgo's note, and Jack threw a glance round the company.