Part 8

He was about to withdraw, when the orderly turned his head to the left, as though seeking a share of the admiration so lavishly bestowed on his superior. Jack noticed that one eye-socket was closed; the man's remaining eye had a curiously malign glitter that gave the beholder a strange sense of uneasiness.

"Is this how people feel when they talk of the evil eye?" he said to himself with an unmirthful laugh. Then he donned his own clothes and went gloomily downstairs to find his brother officers.

*CHAPTER IX*

*Some Surprises*

At the Cross-Roads--A Melee--Bagged--Franceschi's Chasseurs--Under Guard--A Hard Case--Moore's Plans--Reconnoitring--Within the Gates--Caged--Blind Man's Buff--A Strategic Move--A Dash on Rueda--An Alarm--A Chase in the Dark--A Tragedy

About two o'clock on a frosty December afternoon, some ten days after Jack Lumsden's return to Salamanca, four riders were walking their horses up a slight incline about three miles out of Alaejos towards Valladolid. Three of them were troopers in the 18th Light Dragoons, the fourth, riding slightly in advance of the rest, was Jack himself, now wearing his own uniform, and mounted on a fine black charger borrowed from the regiment to which his companions belonged. A few yards from the crest of the hill, lying back from the road, was a mean-looking hovel at the door of which stood a little black-eyed girl, who watched the advancing riders with her finger in her mouth.

"Hullo, little girl," said Jack in Spanish, pulling up as he came abreast of her, "are we on the right road for Tordesillas?"

The child gave a scared look at the troopers and fled into the hut without replying.

"You've sent the timid little beggar into her burrow," said Jack with a smile. At the same moment a heavy-browed man appeared at the door, in the rough coat and thick gaiters of a muleteer.

"Ha, my friend," said Jack in a genial tone, "your little daughter needn't have been afraid of us! Are we going right for Tordesillas?"

"Straight on, Senor," replied the man, with stolid countenance. "Over the river; you can't miss your way."

"Thanks! Any sign of the French hereabout?"

"Never a man--the saints forbid!" said the man with a scowl. "They carried off my last pig six months ago. Gr-r-r! I hate them!"

"Well, they won't trouble you much longer if we can help it. Buenas tardes!"

"Vaya usted con Dios, Senor!" replied the muleteer, doffing his hat; and as the Englishman rode off, his little daughter came to his side and watched with him their retreating figures.

A mile farther on they had just crossed the stream of which the man had spoken, when Jack suddenly reined up his horse and in a low tone ordered his men to halt.

"Do you hear anything, Kelly?" he asked of one of the troopers.

The man turned his head aside, and his companions sat motionless, an expectant look upon their faces.

"Riders, sir!" said Kelly in a moment.

"I thought so," returned Jack. "To our right, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

There was a moment's silence. Behind them came a slight murmur from the full river, but more distinctly, from some distant point beyond a wall-enclosed orchard on their right, sounded the unmistakable clatter of horses' hoofs on the hard road.

"Wait here," said Jack, springing from his horse. "Don't make a sound. I'm going forward to reconnoitre. Hold my horse's rein, Kelly, and don't let him champ his bit."

He ran forward, round a slight bend in the road. In two minutes he was back.

"Men," he said in a low voice, "there's a road to the right, and half a dozen Frenchmen riding down towards us. I think they're French--by their helmets. We four are a match for the six, eh?"

The men grinned.

Jack rapidly took stock of the situation. The wind was almost due east; he and his men were riding north-east, and as they were the smaller party, and had been travelling only at walking pace, it was not likely that the enemy had heard them coming. The idea of dismounting his men and forming an ambuscade at first suggested itself. Jack glanced round for a convenient tree or post to which they might tether the horses; but though there were plenty of trees beyond the orchard wall, the only way in was a quarter of a mile to their rear. This meant that even if the ambuscade were successful two at least of the enemy would be almost certain to escape, for Jack and his men, with three carbines and a pistol, could at the best only account for four at the first volley, and the remaining two would have a start of half a mile before they could be pursued. On the other hand, if Jack told off a man to hold the horses, his striking force would be reduced to three, and there was always the risk that two of the horses--young Spanish chargers purchased at Salamanca and only half-trained--would break away at the sound of the firing. For these reasons Jack preferred to trust to cold steel.

Giving his commands almost in a whisper, he drew up his men in line under cover of the wall, about thirty yards from the cross-road, ordering them to be in readiness to charge at the word. Each man silently drew his sabre and Jack uncovered his sword, still fresh as when he received it from the makers in Pall Mall. It was not perhaps quite so suitable for the purpose in hand as the weapons carried by the troopers, but Jack knew that it was of the highest temper, and felt confident that it would not fail him.

In little more than a minute the increasing clatter showed that the unsuspecting Frenchmen were approaching the cross-roads. There was no slackening of pace as they neared the junction, and Jack inferred from this that their route lay straight across the main road towards Castroduno or Toro. Every second seemed like a minute to him as he waited for the horsemen to arrive, but after what seemed an interminable delay two helmets at last appeared beyond the angle of the wall. Jack drove his spurs into his horse, giving the word "Charge!" and, with their leader a pace or two in advance, the three troopers dashed forward. In a few seconds the two bodies met with a terrific shock. The French dragoons, unable to check their progress, had just had time to draw their sabres; the leading files had half-wheeled their horses to meet the storm, but the two succeeding troopers were taken square on the flank, and all the advantage of momentum being on the side of the attacking force, the whole four went down like a ship struck by a squall. Almost before Jack could realize what had happened he was reining in his horse on the far side of the cross-road; three of the Frenchmen were lying motionless on the road, a fourth, dismounted, was defending himself with spirit against one of Jack's troopers, and three horses were scampering wildly towards Toro. He was wheeling his horse round, when, almost at the same moment, two bullets whizzed past his head. The two remaining Frenchmen had halted before reaching the cross-road, rapidly fired their carbines, and, turning round in the direction from which they had come, were now galloping wildly away.

"After them, Kelly!" shouted Jack to the corporal, who was just beside him; and, leaving the other two troopers to secure the dismounted Frenchmen, the two dashed off at a mad gallop. They were a hundred yards behind at the start; the Frenchmen were down upon their horses' necks, shouting to the beasts in a fever of haste. But as luck would have it, they were heavy men; Jack was a light-weight, and before the chase had proceeded for two hundred yards he began to gain, and the interval between himself and Kelly was increasing. Foot by foot he made up on his quarry; in little more than a mile he was at the heels of the rearmost Frenchman. The man, feeling that he was at a disadvantage, suddenly swerved towards the near side of the road, bending low as he did so to avoid Jack's blow, and then, as Jack darted past, pulled his horse on his haunches and wheeled round to meet Kelly. Thinking he could safely leave this man to the heavy trooper, Jack rode on after the Frenchman in front, and within a couple of minutes had him at his mercy. The dragoon had no time to turn and meet his pursuer; with a horse of superior speed, Jack, coming up behind him, had a terrible advantage over the fugitive, who was painfully twisting himself round in the saddle to meet the expected blow. Choosing his opportunity, Jack, dropping his own sword, wrested the Frenchman's sabre from his grasp, and next moment drove him into the hedge.

"Je me rends! je me rends!" cried the Frenchman, panting.

"Comme de juste!" gasped Jack, who then turned to see how Kelly was faring. He had ridden down and over the luckless dragoon, who, rising painfully to his feet, called for quarter. Being a strapping fellow, the trooper had been unable to do more than maintain his distance from the second Frenchman, who, however, seeing Jack now standing full in his path, recognized that the game was up, checked his horse, and quietly surrendered his sword just as Kelly came bustling to his side.

"Jolly good chase, sir!" said Kelly, as Jack and his prisoner came up. "The froggies showed the cleanest pair of heels I ever did see."

"You stuck to it like a Briton," said Jack. "Now we'll get back to the others and see what damage is done."

With the two Frenchmen disarmed between them, they retraced their steps, the Frenchmen sitting limp and careless, with a resigned expression of countenance that tickled Kelly's sense of humour.

"Where do you come from, mon brave?" asked Jack of the man next to him.

"From Rueda, monsieur le capitaine," answered the trooper with a smile. Jack chuckled inwardly at his sudden promotion, and went on:

"And what is your regiment?"

"Mais, monsieur, the 22nd Chasseurs of General Franceschi's cavalry. And little did we think, monsieur, that we should meet Englishmen to-day. Eh bien! it is all the fortune of war, and monsieur le capitaine rides a good horse."

"No better than your own, mon brave," said Jack, not to be outdone in politeness. "Well now, how many of your regiment may happen to be in Rueda, if I may ask?"

The trooper looked at him with twinkling eyes.

"Non, non, monsieur le capitaine," he said. "You have captured our patrol: c'est egal! but you want to know too much. I tell you how many? Non, non; but we are enough to capture all Sir Moore's army before it ends its retreat to Lisbon. Monsieur wants to spoil the joke."

"Very well," said Jack with a laugh. "I won't press you; but there are more ways than one of killing a cat, as we say in English."

He kept up an amicable conversation with the Frenchman until they arrived at the cross-roads. There he found his two troopers mounting guard over the four wounded chasseurs, and Jack was sufficiently new to warfare to feel relieved and glad that no life had been lost. The dragoons had made clumsy attempts to bind up their prisoners' wounds, and had allowed the least injured of them to fetch water in his helmet from the stream.

"That's right," said Jack as he came up. "We've had an unexpected piece of luck, my men, and our capture may be important. But we have no time to lose. We made noise enough along the road to bring up the whole French army if it's hereabouts. Lucky the regiment isn't far behind us. Now help these fellows on to their horses; we'll take them back to the hut we left a while ago, and I'll leave them in your charge while I go on alone and pick up a little information."

"May I come, sir?" asked Kelly. "'Tisn't safe to go alone."

"Safer for one than two. But come along; there's no time to waste, and it's getting dark."

In a few minutes the cavalcade had reached the hut on the hillside. The muleteer glowered viciously at the prisoners as they were led up to his door, and handled his knife as though he would have liked there and then to take vengeance upon them for the loss of his favourite pig. But Jack allowed no mistake about his intentions; he told the man that the prisoners would remain with him, in charge of the dragoons, until the British advance-guard under General Stewart arrived.

"I'm going on to Rueda," he added. "How far is it from here?"

"A league and a half, Senor," said the man.

"That's about seven miles as your Spanish league goes. Kelly, if General Stewart arrives before I get back, tell him that there are some of General Franceschi's chasseurs at Rueda on our right flank, and I've gone to find out how many. If all goes well I'll be back within two hours."

"Very good, sir!" said Kelly, and then looked as though he would have said more.

"Well, what is it?" asked Jack.

"Beg pardon, sir, but you'll be nabbed as sure as a gun. Your uniform--"

"Don't worry, Kelly. I'm going to borrow an outfit from one of our French friends here. Come, mon ami," he said, turning to the sergeant whom he had captured, "I must trouble you to take off some of your things--your helmet, say, and your cloak, your breeches, and your boots; I think they'll be enough."

"Pardon, monsieur le capitaine, but I'm a soldier of the emperor, and the emperor would shoot me as a traitor if I parted with my uniform to an Englishman."

"That would be unfortunate. But we can't stand on ceremony now; make haste, if you please."

"But, monsieur," said the man, "the breeches won't fit you."

"They will be a trifle baggy, but no one will be critical in the dark. Come now, hurry up!"

"But, monsieur, I shall be cold, I shall freeze. If monsieur will lend me his things in exchange, perhaps--"

"No, thanks! If you're cold you'd better ask the muleteer to lend you some things, or, better still, go to bed. Kelly, come and help the sergeant off with his things."

But as Kelly approached him with a grin, the Frenchman unclasped his cloak and proceeded to divest himself of the garments Jack required. Soon Jack was cantering off on his reconnoitring expedition to Rueda.

By this time it was almost dark, and Jack rode gently, partly in order to avoid mishap, and partly to spare his horse in case hard work were required of him later. His blood tingled with the excitement of his recent adventure and with anticipation of the unknown adventures before him. Like his brother officers, and indeed every member of the army, from the chief of staff to the smallest drummer-boy, he rejoiced in the sudden change of plan which Sir John Moore had announced about a week before. The news he himself had brought to the general, reinforced by further news obtained through Manuel and Juan, and by information that the Spanish armies were concentrating, had determined Sir John, on December 5th, to countermand his order to retreat. The French, he had learnt, were not marching in his direction, but towards Madrid, which, he was assured, was defended by large forces at the difficult Somosierra Pass, and would resist to the utmost. He put little faith in the Spaniards' power of resistance, but he saw a possibility of creating a diversion in their favour, and of cutting in between Soult and Napoleon and striking a blow at the former. If Madrid had not yet fallen, his movement might draw off Napoleon and save the capital, or at any rate he might make matters so unpleasant, by seizing Valladolid and Burgos, that time would be gained for the re-equipment of the Spanish armies. If, on the other hand, Madrid fell, he could still make a run for it. He therefore ordered Baird on his left and Hope on his right to move forward towards Valladolid, while he himself prepared to advance on the same town by way of Alaejos and Tordesillas, acquainting the Marquis of La Romana, who was at Leon, some 120 miles due north of Salamanca, with his intentions.

A few days after Moore had arrived at this decision he received the news that Madrid had capitulated to Napoleon. It was a severe blow. He had hoped against hope that the Spanish promises would at last be fulfilled, that their boasts would at last justify themselves. Once more the Spaniards had shown their instability. But Moore was not disposed to alter his plans; there seemed every probability of his striking a successful blow at the French communications. On December 11th, then, the infantry moved out from Salamanca, General Paget marching with the reserve for Toro, where his brother, Lord Paget, had already arrived with Baird's cavalry, while Hope left Alba de Tormes next day to join the main body on the Valladolid road. The advance along this road was led by General Charles Stewart's cavalry brigade, consisting of Hussars and Light Dragoons. It happened that during the previous week Jack had more than once been sent backwards and forwards between Salamanca and Alba de Tormes with despatches and reports, and he had come under the notice of General Stewart. When the advance was ordered, Stewart, thinking that Jack would be useful in gathering news from the Spaniards, and acting as interpreter in matters connected with commissariat and billeting, asked that he might be temporarily attached to him as extra aide-de-camp, and it was while riding ahead to enquire about billets in Tordesillas that Jack met with the adventure just related.

As he rode along towards Rueda he could not help feeling a glow of satisfaction at his continued good luck. But he did not indulge in idle dreams. It was now too dark to see, but his ears were keenly alert to catch any sound that betokened danger, and he told Pomeroy afterwards that he felt as sensitive as a cat's whiskers. His enterprise was obviously full of peril, for he had no knowledge of the number of troops in Rueda, or of that town itself, and it behoved him to go warily. If the French force was large, there would certainly be outposts at some distance from the town, and every now and then he pulled up his horse and waited, straining eyes and ears for a sound or a light.

At length, when he had been riding for about three-quarters of an hour, he saw, at the bottom of a slight hollow more than half a mile in his front, a twinkle of light which he inferred came from a house by the roadside. Dismounting at once he led his horse off the road to the left, and found that he was in a vineyard where many of the poles used for supporting the vines were still standing in the soil. He led his horse well out of sight from the road, tied him to one of these poles, patted his neck, and then set off to walk through the field, keeping a distance of about fifty yards from the highway. The light shone more clearly now, and as he approached it he went ever more and more cautiously, stopping at one point to remove the spurs that, in spite of his careful tread, made a slight clanking on the frozen ground. At thirty yards distance from the light he saw that it proceeded from the window of a small cabin not unlike the muleteer's behind him. Now every step he took was as stealthy as a cat's. His pulse beat a little faster as he came within a few feet of the cabin, though he was barely conscious of this, so intent was he on the task in hand.

He crept at first behind the hut and waited for a moment. Voices reached him from within. Pressing his ear against the wooden wall, he distinguished a few exclamations in French, and then a burst of laughter.

"They're having a high old time!" he said to himself with a chuckle. "Evidently well occupied. I'll chance it."

Stealing round the hut he fell down on hands and knees and crawled till he came beneath the window; he then removed his helmet, took a breath, and raised himself inch by inch until he could just peer over the lower sill. For a moment his eyes were dazzled by the light. As they became more accustomed to it he saw four French troopers, in the same uniform as the one he now wore, seated at a round table playing cards. An empty bottle stood in the centre, and some glasses were half-full of red wine. Jack inferred at once that the cabin was a sort of impromptu guard-room, from which sentries were posted at the entrance to the village.

"Pretty sentries!" he said to himself. "I wouldn't give much for their skins if Boney caught them! They're making enough row to drown the sound of an army. So much for that."

Lowering himself with equal care, he crept away, rose to his feet, and set off at a sharp walk towards Rueda. Before long he descried a number of scattered lights ahead. Then he found himself in a lane that appeared to lead towards the town. "Here goes," he thought, and without hesitation struck up the lane in the direction of the lights.

It led straight into the principal street. Jack walked boldly on, thinking that boldness would attract less attention than stealth. He noticed that nearly all the houses at this end of the place were lit up. Sounds of merriment floated upon the air--a laugh, a cheer, an exclamation of anger, the clink of glasses, the rattle of dice. There was a small inn; twenty yards away Jack smelt fried onions, and longed for his supper. The street was empty, and as he went forward he observed that the houses were almost all dark, and guessed that the French were billeted at the end he had passed. By and by he came to the Plaza, a narrow open space in the centre of the town, and saw what was evidently the town-house looming before him, a large building in the middle of the square. He halted in the shadow of a church porch.

"There'll be a sentry posted here," he thought. "I wonder which side of the building he is on!" He hesitated for a moment whether to proceed or to return at once, seeing no prospect of obtaining definite information of the number of the French. "In for a penny in for a pound," he said to himself; "I'll try another few yards."

He chose the street passing by the left-hand face of the town-house, and stole along on tiptoe. A narrow beam of light fell obliquely across the street from an upper window on his left, throwing a luminous circle on the townhouse wall just above the level of his head. He skirted the wall, and had reached the mid-point of that face of the square, when a voice suddenly arrested his steps.

"Senor, charity for a poor prisoner. A copper, Senor, for the love of God!"

The voice appeared to come from just above his head. There was something in the tone that seemed familiar, and with a quickening pulse he resolved to test the surmise which had flashed upon him. Retracing his steps for a couple of yards, he looked up, and there, full in the shaft of light from the house opposite, he saw the barred grating of a dungeon, and, pressed against the bars--yes, it was the small elfin face of the gipsy boy Pepito. "Here's luck again!" he thought. Being below the level of the beam of light, Jack himself was out of sight, and he knew that Pepito could only have caught the sound of his footsteps, and must have addressed him without knowing who he was. Putting his hand into the pocket of his breeches--forgetting they were not his own--he took out a few copper coins, and stretched his arm up towards the grating.

"Here you are, poor prisoner!" he said softly in Spanish.

A low exclamation answered him. The coins were taken, and a small lean hand pressed his gently.

"Muchas gracias," said Pepito; then turning to speak to someone behind him in the cell: "A Christian gives alms to the poor, and four noble Spaniards and a gipsy boy will not go supperless to bed."

"Four noble Spaniards!" echoed Jack. "Let me speak with one of them."

Pepito disappeared instantly, and his place was taken by a large, heavy-jawed Spaniard, whom Jack recognized at once as the stableman who had led the pursuit of him from Olmedo. The man looked suspiciously at the French uniform.

"Hist! I may help you," began Jack, but at this moment he heard the clamp-clamp of ammunition boots approaching from round the corner behind him. "The sentry!" he thought. "Silence! I will come back," he whispered.