by G. A. Henty
CHAPTER XVI: INGRATITUDE
Barcelona rescued, Peterborough at once urged the king to march uponMadrid and have himself proclaimed king in his capital. There was noforce which could oppose his advance, and Lord Galway and the Portuguesecould move unresisted from the west and meet him there. But it was along time before Charles and his counselors would listen to his advice;and although at last they agreed to follow it, their resolution wasshort. In the first place, they determined to leave so large a forceto garrison Catalonia that the army available for the advance on Madridwould be very seriously weakened--fifteen hundred English and elevenhundred Spaniards were to be left at Barcelona, sixteen hundred Englishand Dutch and fifteen hundred Spanish at Gerona, eight hundred and fiftySpanish and Dutch at Lerida, and five hundred Spanish at Tortosa.
This left but sixty-five hundred men available for service in the field,and even this number was subsequently diminished by the vacillatingCharles to forty-five hundred.
As Peterborough wrote to Lord Halifax: "We have saved kingdoms in spiteof the king, who would abandon them, and we have waged more dangerouswar with ministers than with enemies. Lord Galway and the Portuguesegenerals pass all understanding."
No wonder the earl was astounded by the incompetence of Lord Galway andthe Portuguese generals. They had twenty thousand men, while to opposethem there were but five thousand under the Duke of Berwick; and yetafter entering Spain they fell back, without doing anything, intoPortugal--their retreat beginning on the 11th of May, the day on whichPhilip retreated from Barcelona. So that on the opposite side of Spaintwo large armies simultaneously retired before others vastly weaker thanthemselves. When the news of Tesse's retreat to France reached Portugalthey again advanced. Berwick was too weak to oppose them, and on the25th of June the advance guard of the allies occupied Madrid, and thereproclaimed Charles as king.
Had Galway and his colleagues now shown the slightest energy, and movedagainst Berwick's little force, with which was Philip himself, theycould have driven them across the frontier without striking a blow,and the French cause would have been lost in Spain; but, having reachedMadrid, they remained there doing absolutely nothing--leaving ampletime to Philip to repair his misfortunes, receive aid from France, andrecommence the campaign with vigor. As Peterborough wrote indignantly toGeneral Stanhope: "Their halt is as fatal as was Hannibal's at Capua."
As soon as the movement upon Madrid had been decided upon, Peterboroughsailed with the English and Dutch infantry to Valencia, where he wasreceived with enthusiasm by the inhabitants. He at once set to work toraise a regiment of dragoons, and organized them in three weeks. Thevery day they were mounted he marched them upon Castile. During thistime not only had Lord Galway made no movement, but he had joined inthe German intrigue by which Charles was induced to abandon the plan ofmarching to his capital under the escort of Peterborough.
The allied generals at Madrid were indeed basely jealous of thebrilliant conqueror of Catalonia and Valencia. His deeds had throwntheirs entirely into the shade. With utterly insufficient means he haddone everything; with ample means they had effected nothing, and hadonly been enabled to enter Madrid by the fact that he had drawn off thearmy which had successfully opposed them.
After incessant labor in organizing his force, the earl sent twothousand men, under the command of Lieutenant General Wyndham, tobesiege the towns of Requena and Cuenca--two places of some strengthwhich blocked the road between Valencia and Madrid.
Wyndham easily accomplished the task; and the road being thus secured,Peterborough wrote to Charles that "nothing remained to hinder himfrom entering Madrid with even a small escort of horse." The earl hadeverything prepared along the road for the passage of the king; butalthough he wrote over and over again urging him not to delay, Charlesrefused to stir, and told General Stanhope (who backed Peterborough'sentreaties) that he had "no becoming equipment with which to enter hiscapital."
"Sire," the English general exclaimed in indignant astonishment, "ourWilliam the Third entered London in a hackney, with a cloak bag behindit, and was made king not many weeks after."
A month after the date originally settled Charles set out and proceededto Taragona, but then, to the astonishment of the English general andenvoy, they learned he had altered his mind and taken the route toSaragossa. When he heard the news, Peterborough sent couriers day afterday with urgent letters to the king. He prevailed upon a deputation ofthe Valencian nobility to follow with the same purpose, and transmittedthe opinion of a council of war, which was unanimous in entreatingthe king to stay his steps. The king again hesitated, and was about tofollow Peterborough's advice, when a French officer in the Portugueseservice arrived from Galway and Das Minas, again urging him to move bythe route which they had suggested.
Charles again hesitated, the Count of Cifuentes (who was with him) gavehis advice in favor of the Saragossa route, and the king decided on thatline.
On the 26th of July the earl summoned a council of war, including theGovernor of Valencia, two Spanish generals, and his own officers. Theyagreed unanimously that Peterborough should march his army to Madrid orjoin the army in Portugal, as circumstances might require. Just beforethey started letters came in from the king desiring that Peterboroughshould send the forces under his command either to relieve the Duke ofSavoy or to capture the Balearic Isles.
The earl declined to follow this ungrateful suggestion, which wasmanifestly intended by Charles and his advisers, English, Portuguese,and German, to send away from his kingdom the man who had won it forhim. Being fortunately independent of orders, Peterborough marched forCastile, as he and the council of war had previously determined.
Charles was not long in regretting that he had not followed LordPeterborough's advice. Instead of the triumphant procession fromSaragossa to Madrid, which he had been promised, he was met with themost determined opposition.
Every town and village in the center and south of Spain rose againsthim; Salamanca and Toledo declared for Philip, and Andalusia raisedeighteen thousand men. The troops of Las Torres from Valencia, andthose who had retreated under Tesse to Roussillon, had joined Berwick atXadraque, and Philip had placed himself at the head of this formidablearmy. Charles was obliged to send in the utmost haste to ask the Earl ofPeterborough to extricate him from the position in which he had placedhimself by neglecting his advice.
The earl instantly complied with the request, and marching with allspeed overtook the king on the 4th of August at Pastrina, and thenceon the following day escorted him in safety to the army of Portugal atGuadalaxara.
The total strength of the united allied army was eighteen thousandmen--a force inferior, indeed, to that with which Berwick confrontedthem; and that portion brought by Lord Galway and the Portuguese GeneralDas Minas was not to be relied upon, having fallen into a state of greatindiscipline owing to the tedious delays, the frequent retreats, and thelong inactivity to which it had been subjected by the incompetence ofits leaders. That this was so was evident by the fact that the day afterthe king's arrival the French made a partial attack, and many of theallied battalions at once fell into complete confusion. But this was notthe greatest drawback to the efficiency of the allied army; they wereparalyzed by the dissensions of their commanders--Galway, Das Minas,and the Dutch Count de Noyelles. Each and all declined to acknowledgePeterborough as commander in chief. The earl then offered to waive hisown rights entirely and to fight as a simple volunteer, and that DasMinas, Lord Galway, and the Dutch general should each command their ownforces, receiving their orders from the king.
This offer was, however, refused by the three generals. The partisansof the various leaders shared their animosity. The English troops ofPeterborough claiming, and justly, that Catalonia and Valencia had beengained and won by him, and that to him alone the king owed his crown,were furious that those who had shown naught but incapacity fromthe commencement of the campaign should now refuse to recognize hisauthority. While the disputes continued Berwick had nearly succeeded insurprising Galway,
and a disastrous defeat had only been preventedby the gallant defense made by Lord Tyrawley of an outpost which hecommanded, and which he held for two hours against all the efforts ofthe French, and so gave time for the army to make a hasty retreat.
The army was, moreover, straitened by want of provisions; Lord Galwayand his colleagues had made no arrangements whatever for its supply.Day and night the German favorites of the king, who had ruined theirmaster's cause by dissuading him from following the advice of LordPeterborough, now labored with the king still further to destroy hisconfidence in Peterborough; and finding himself treated coldly by theungrateful monarch, who owed everything to him, opposed at every turn bythe other generals, and seeing that his presence was worse than useless,Peterborough announced his intention of obeying the orders from QueenAnne, dated the 12th of June, and repeated on the 17th, to proceed tothe assistance of the Duke of Savoy.
On the same evening a council of war was held. The king formally laidPeterborough's announcement before the generals, who, delighted to getrid of their rival, unanimously recommended that he should depart.
On the 11th of August, full of mortification and disgust at thetreatment that he had experienced and the base ingratitude of the king,Peterborough rode from the camp at Guadalaxara. As if to humiliate himas far as possible, he was given only an escort of eighty dragoons,although there were serious difficulties to be encountered on the roadto Valencia. His two favorite aides de camp, Stilwell and Graham, werethe only officers who accompanied him. It is satisfactory to know thatfrom the moment of the earl's departure misfortune and disaster fellupon the fortunes of King Charles, and that the crown which he hadreceived from the English earl was wrested from his unworthy grasp.Peterborough had gone but a short distance when he heard that all hisbaggage, consisting of eight wagon loads and of the value of eightthousand pounds sterling, had fallen into the hands of the enemy. Whenhe left Valencia to extricate the king from his difficulties he hadordered it to be sent after him to Guadalaxara. When it arrived atCuenca, General Wyndham, who commanded there, forwarded it with a smallescort; but it was attacked while passing through the town of Huete by aparty of the Duke of Berwick's troopers.
The earl was furious at the news. Not only were all his personaleffects, jewels, and uniforms lost, but his spare horses, carriages,and mules. Upon making inquiry he found that the troopers of Berwick hadbeen aided by the inhabitants of Huete, who had given information to thetroopers and shared in the plunder. His first impulse was to burnthe town to the ground, and as when he arrived there he was joined byWyndham's force, he had ample power to do so.
He immediately summoned the magistrates and clergy to meet him, and toldthem in decided terms that they must find his baggage and the roguesthat had stolen it. After making a search in the town they were ableto find but a small portion of it. They then offered to pay him tenthousand pistoles for his loss, or any other sum which he might chooseto name; but the earl, with that singular generosity which formed somarked a part of his character, declined the offer, and said:
"I see you are honest gentlemen; for my part I will sit content with myloss if you will bring all the corn of the district to the army."
The townspeople were delighted at this clemency, as corn was much moreeasy to procure than money, and it was accordingly sent to Lord Galway'scamp, where it sufficed to supply the whole army for six weeks.
This was an act of almost unparalleled magnanimity and generosity to thegenerals whose jealousy and machinations had driven him from the army;but the earl was so satisfied at thus heaping coals of fire upon theheads of his rivals that he continued his journey in the highest stateof good humor in spite of the loss which he had suffered, and which, ashe was by no means rich, was a very considerable one. He took with himKilligrew's dragoons and sent on Wyndham's brigade to join Lord Galway.On the way he encountered several adventures.
One night when he arrived at the little town of Campillo, he heard of abarbarous massacre that had that day been perpetrated in a neighboringvillage upon a small detachment of English soldiers, who had just beendischarged from the hospital at Cuenca, and were proceeding under thecommand of an officer to join Wyndham's battalion of the guards, towhich they belonged. They had slept at the village, and were marchingout unconscious of danger, when a shot in the back killed their officer,and the peasants at once rushed in upon the men and killed several ofthem, together with their wives who had accompanied them. The rest weredragged up a hill near the village, and then one by one thrown down adeep pit.
No sooner did the earl hear of the outrage than he ordered the trumpetsto sound to horse. The dragoons, who, weary with their long march, hadjust unsaddled, turned out wondering at the order; but when they heardwhat had happened, they mounted with an impatience for vengeance equalto that of their general. Arriving at the village they found, to theirgreat disappointment, that the murderers had fled, and that hardly anyof the inhabitants remained. They found, however, hidden in the church,the clothes of some of the murdered guardsmen. The sacristan of thechurch was alleged by the inhabitants, who were narrowly examined, tohave taken an active part in the slaughter, and the earl ordered him tobe hung up at once to the knocker of his own door. The troops then rodeup to the top of the hill, and the earl and his aides de camp dismountedat the edge of the pit. They had procured a rope at the village,although the inhabitants insisted that no one could be found alive, asthe pit, which was a disused one, was of vast depth.
"Is any one alive down there?" the earl shouted.
"Yes, yes," a voice cried a short distance below them. "Thank Godfriends have come; but help me quickly, for I cannot hold on muchlonger."
Jack seized the rope and twisted one end round his body. Several of thesoldiers lowered him down, and some twenty feet below the edge he cameupon the man who had spoken. As he fell he had caught some bushes whichgrew in the side of the old pit, and having managed to find a ledgeon which to place his feet, had maintained his grasp in this perilousposition the whole day. As the rope was amply strong enough to hold two,Jack clasped his arms around the man's body and called to those above tohaul up. They were soon at the surface.
The soldier, who had fainted when he found himself in safety, was laiddown and brandy poured down his throat, and Jack, to his astonishmentand satisfaction, recognized in him his old friend Sergeant Edwards. Hedid not wait, however, for him to recover sensibility, but at once toldthe troopers to lower him again to the end of the rope. This they did,and Jack then shouted several times, but received no answer. He thendropped a small stone he had brought down with him, but no sound cameback in return, and, satisfied that none of the soldiers could havesurvived the fall, for he was already more than sixty feet below thesurface, he shouted to those above to draw him up. He found that Edwardshad now recovered his senses, and was giving to the earl a detailedaccount of the massacre, which so exasperated him that he gave ordersthat the village should be burned to the ground, a command whichwas willingly carried out by the troopers. Edwards was delighted atrecognizing Jack, and when, after the destruction of the village, theparty rode back to Campillo for the night, the two old friends had along chat as to the events which had happened since they last parted atBarcelona.
"Is it true, sir, that the general has resigned his command?"
"Quite true, Edwards."
"And is he going home, sir?"
"No; he will sail to aid the Duke of Savoy; at least that is the presentintention; but I should not be surprised if he is in England ere manymonths are over."
"Well, sir, I should like to get my discharge and go home too; beingchucked down that pit has given me a regular sickness of campaigningamong these savages. Talk about pirates, Captain Stilwell, why, Ihad rather fall among pirates any day than among these bloodthirstywretches. Calls themselves Christians too! The pirates wasn'thypocrites, in that way, anyhow; they didn't bow down on their kneesbefore every little trumpery doll stuck up by the wayside, and then goand cut a man's throat afterward--it was all fair and square wi
th them.Anyways, it don't matter to me, as I see, whether they has King Charlesor King Philip to rule over them; I wishes him joy of the job, whicheverit may be; but I don't see no call to be risking my life in being shot,or chucked down pits, or stabbed in my bed, for such a lot of varmintany longer. I have served my full time, and can take my pension;besides, I have got something like a thousand pounds stowed away in asnug hiding place near Barcelona."
"You have, Edwards? I am glad to hear it; I had no idea you were such arich man."
"It's prize money, sir, lawful earned prize money, though I don't knowbetween ourselves as the colonel would have approved of it; so I stowedit away and says nothing till I gets a chance to lift it before I setsail. It's been rather worrying me in case we should be ordered to takeship at some other port."
"Well, but how did you get it, Edwards?"
"Well, sir, I know that I can tell you, 'cause I am sure it won't go nofurther. Just afore the French came down to besiege Barcelona I wasup with the brigade at Lerida. The people were pretty much divided upthere, but the news as the French was coming to drive us into the seamade the folks as was against us very bold. The sentries had to bedoubled at night, for lots of our men were found stabbed, and it wasdangerous to go about outside the town except in parties. Well, sir,Sergeant Adams of ours, as smart a soldier as ever wore pigtail, hadfallen in love with the daughter of an innkeeper at a place four milesfrom Lerida.
"It wasn't much of a village, but there was a big convent close by, oneof the richest in Spain, they said. The girl was fond of Adams, and hadagreed, so he told me, to cut and run when the regiment marched away,and to be spliced to him. I rather tried to dissuade him from theaffair, for, as I pointed out, how would a Spanish woman get on inbarracks with the other sergeants' wives, specially if she was as prettyas the whole lot put together? However, of course, he wouldn't listen tothat--no chap ever does when he's downright in love; so he asked meone afternoon if I would go out with him and Sergeant Saunders to thevillage, so that while we were having our glass he could manage to get afew words with the girl to arrange about her joining him, for the Frenchwere only two or three marches away, and we might have to fall back anyday.
"I didn't much like the job, for it was a risky business three of usgoing so far; but he pointed out that we needn't start till it got dark,so nobody would see us till we got to the village, and we needn't staythere above a quarter of an hour, and could be off before any one whomeant mischief could find out that we were alone; besides, hithertothe people there had always been friendly, for, being just the rightdistance for a walk, and the wine there being good, our fellows wentover there a good deal: so the long and short of it was we went.
"We got there all right, and walked into the wine shop as usual and satdown and called for wine. There were half a dozen fellows sitting theredrinking. They were talking aloud when we entered, but stopped at onceas we came in, and looked as men do when you come across them just asthey are saying something as is no good about you. We passed the word asusual, and were soon chatting with them. They didn't seem very free andfriendly, and asked several questions about the French army, and whetherwe had any troops coming up to help us hold Lerida. I said we expectedfive or six thousand in a day or two, which seemed rather to take themby surprise.
"Well, presently Adams got up quietly and went out of the door, and Iknew he was going round to the back to meet his girl. I had seen a lookpass atween them when she brought in our wine. We went on talking quietfor some time; four or five other men dropped in, and some of them gottalking together in low tones, and I began to wish we were well out ofit, and to wonder how much longer Adams was going to be before he cameback. Suddenly we heard a loud scream, and Manola--that was the girl'sname--came rushing in from behind. 'He's killed him,' she screamed, andshe fell down as if she had been killed too. As I heard afterward, herold rascal of a father had for some time suspected something was upbetween her and Adams, and when he missed him had stolen out behind andcame upon them just as he was kissing her and saying goodby. Then hewhipped his knife out, and before Adams had time to turn round, stabbedhim in the back, and the sergeant fell dead without a word.
"Close behind the girl rushed in the innkeeper, swearing and cursing andcalling us heretics, and dogs, and robbers, and every other bad kind ofname. The men got up and began to stamp and shout, and seeing that itwas no time for argument I said to Saunders, 'We had best make a bolt ofit, Bill.' So we out swords and made a dash for the inner door, for theyhad closed in at the other with their knives out. We got safely throughthe house. Just outside the back door we came upon the body of Adams. Westopped a moment and turned him over to see if he was dead, but it wasall up with him.
"It didn't take a moment to look; but, before it was done, they wereupon us, both from behind and running round from the front of the house.We cut and slashed for a moment and then bolted with them at our heels.We got separated in a minute. I turned in among some bushes and lostSaunders. I heard afterward he was killed before he had run fifty yards.Luckily they missed me for the moment, and I lay down among the bushesand thought it over. The whole village was up by this time, as I couldhear by the shouts; and after thinking it over I concluded that therewas no chance of my making my way back to Lerida, and that my best planwould be to go up to the convent and ask for shelter there. I knew wellenough that once inside I should be safe from the peasants.
"Well, I crawled along for some distance. Half a dozen times theywas nigh stumbling over me as they searched about in the gardens andvineyards; but at last I made my way safe up to the convent and rangat the bell. Presently the little window in the door opened, and a monksaid, 'Who is there?' I kept out of his sight and said in Spanish: 'Afugitive who seeks sanctuary.' Thinking I was only somebody who hadstabbed three or four men in a row, the monk opened the door. He gavean exclamation when he saw my uniform when I entered, and would haveslammed the door in my face; but I pushed in. Then he gave a shout,and five or six other monks came running up and set up a jabbering, andstood staring at me as if I had been a wild beast. Then they wanted toturn me out; but I wouldn't budge, and as I had my sword still in myhand they didn't know what to do.
"At last some chap in authority came down. He talked to me and tried topersuade me to leave; but I said, 'No, I claim sanctuary;' and as theywere ready to give sanctuary to the worst of murderers, I didn't see asthey could deny it to me who had committed no crime whatever. He wentaway and came back again after some time, and then told me to sheath mysword and follow him. This I did, and he led the way to a sort of cellwhere there were some rushes laid on a stone bed, and told me that Icould remain there.
"Thinking it was all right I lay down and went to sleep, but waspresently woke by half a dozen monks, who were tying my hands and feetwith cords. It was no use struggling, so I lay quiet; and when theyhad done, they carried me away, took me some distance, and went down aflight of stairs; a door was unlocked, and then I was pitched downon the ground as if I had been a log of wood. I didn't move much thatnight.
"In the morning there was just enough light came through a little slithigh up in the wall to show me that I was in a place about six feetsquare. It was perfectly bare, without as much as a bit of straw tolie on. Presently two monks came in. One of them untied the cords whichfastened my hands. They placed some black bread and a jug of water byme, and then went out again. There they kept me for six days. At theend of that time they told me to come along with them. I had, of course,taken the cords off my legs when I had got my hands free, and I followedthem, wondering what was to come next. I was taken to the door of theconvent, and there I saw a party of French troopers, to whom the monkshanded me over. I mounted behind one of them, and was taken to MarshalTesse's camp near Lerida, and a couple of days afterward sent back toSaragossa.
"I didn't stop long in the prison there, for the next day the peoplerose, turned the French from the citadel, and opened the prison doorsand let out all the prisoners. They made a good deal of me, as I wasthe only Engli
shman there, supplied me with money and clean clothes, andprovided me with a guide and a mule to take me by round about byroadsso that I should avoid the French army. I put my regimentals in a bag,which I carried behind me, and at last got down to Barcelona the veryday before the French arrived there.
"I found my regiment already there. I got a rare blowing up from thecolonel for having gone out from Lerida without leave; but as he said hethought I had been punished enough already, and bore a good character,he overlooked it, of which I was glad enough, I can tell you, for Iexpected nothing less than reduction to the ranks.
"Well, after Lord Peterborough arrived with the fleet, and the Frenchbolted as hard as they could to France, Wyndham's brigade went up againto Lerida. I got chatting the affair over with Jack Thompson, who wasGeneral Wyndham's servant, and we agreed between us that we would givethose monks a fright, and perhaps get some compensation out of them. Sowe got hold of four of Killigrew's dragoons, who, when they heard whatwas wanted, was ready enough for the spree. So one day when GeneralWyndham had gone off with a party for the day, Thompson borrowed his hatand plumes and his cloak, and hiding them up, went out of camp with meto a place a quarter of a mile away, where the four troopers with twospare horses were waiting for us. Thompson put on the general's hat andcloak, and mounted one horse, while I got on the other, and away we rodeout to the village.
"First of all we went to the inn and seized the innkeeper. Manola wasn'tthere, and I never heard what became of her--whether her father had senther to a convent or killed her, I don't know. However, we held a courtregular. Thompson he was the judge, and I gave evidence as to theinnkeeper having murdered poor Adams, and Thompson sentenced him todeath, and we hung him up over his door. When we had set that job rightwe went to the convent and rang the bell. They opened quick enough thistime.
"'Tell the prior,' Thompson said, 'that the Earl of Peterborough ishere, and desires to see him instantly.'
"Mighty frightened the monk looked, I can tell you, as he went off togive the message, and came back in a minute, asking Thompson to followhim. We all dismounted. Two of the troopers stopped to look after thehorses, and the others with drawn swords followed Thompson and me. Wewere shown into the prior's room, which was fit for a prince. The priorlooked mighty pale, and so did two or three other chaps who were withhim.
"'Look here,' Thompson said in an angry tone of voice, 'I am the Earl ofPeterborough, and I hear from this man, Sergeant Edwards, of the king'sregiment of grenadiers, that he was basely and treacherously made aprisoner by you; that he was confined in an underground cell and fedwith bread and water for a week, and then handed over to the French.Now, sir, I give you an hour to clear out with all your gang from thisconvent, which I intend to destroy. You will remain in the courtyard asprisoners. You will then be tried for this treacherous act against oneof the King of England's guards, and all found to have had a hand in theproceeding will be hung.'
"Well, sir, you may just guess the fright they were in. They knew thatthe earl was just the sort of man to carry his threat into execution,and they thought their last day was come. You never saw such a set ofcowardly wretches in your life. I am blessed if they didn't go down ontheir knees and howl. At last Thompson began to think he had worked themup enough, and he said stern:
"'Well, I am disposed to have mercy, and if in half an hour you pay downthe sum of five thousand pounds as a ransom for the convent and yourwretched lives I will be merciful.'
"Then there was a fresh howling. They swore by all the saints that sucha sum as five thousand pounds was never heard of. Thompson graduallydropped his demands to three thousand; still they swore they hadn't gotit, and he said sternly to one of the troopers:
"'Ride back and fetch up the regiment which is a mile outside thevillage.'
"Then there was more howling, and at last they offered to give sevenhundred pounds, which was all the money which they had in the treasury,and to make it up in precious stones. After a deal of haggling Thompsonconsented, and I believe if he had stood out for three times as muchhe would have got it, for the convent was rich in relics, and no end ofprecious offerings were stored away in their chests; however, he didn'twish to push matters too far, and in half an hour they brought themoney, and a handful of diamonds and rubies, and things they had pickedout of their settings in the vases and crucifixes and vestments, andwhat not.
"We didn't know if they were real or not; but Thompson told them heshould give them to a jeweler to value, and if he found they had cheatedhim by giving him false stones he would come back and hang the lot ofthem. So off we rode again.
"When we got back to Lerida we took two or three of the stones to ajeweler and found that they were all right. Then we divided the swaginto three parts as we had agreed. Thompson took one, I took another,and the other was divided among the four troopers, who were not runningsuch a risk as we were. I never heard anything more about the matter,as far as I was concerned, though there was a row. The prior heard thatPeterborough had never been near Lerida, and came over and saw GeneralWyndham.
"Killigrew's dragoons were paraded, but the prior couldn't spot anyof them. We had chosen four fair fellows, and they had all darkenedthemselves a bit before they went. Luckily the prior did not sayanything about me. I expect he was afraid that when Wyndham heard howI had been treated there he might have inflicted a fresh fine on theconvent; however, I was not there at the time, for I had a touch offever the day after the affair, and made myself out a bit worse than Iwas, and so got sent down to Barcelona, where I buried my share of theplunder four or five inches deep in a corner of the hospital yard. Asto Thompson, there wasn't any reason why suspicion should fall upon him.Soon after I got back to my regiment I got ill again and was left in ahospital at Cuenca, and had a narrow escape of it this morning."
"It was a risky business," Jack said, "and it would have gone very hardwith you and Thompson if you had been found out."
"So it would, sir. I knew that; but you see, it was only right and justthose fellows should pay for their treatment of me. If I had laid thecase before General Wyndham, no doubt he would have punished themjust as severe as I did, only the fine would have gone into the armytreasury, instead of going to the right person."
"I am afraid, Edwards, that you have not got rid of those loose notionsof morality you picked up among the pirates," Jack said, smiling.
"Perhaps not, Captain Stilwell. You see, bad habits stick to a man; butI have done with them now. When I get back to England I shall buy a snugpublic house at Dover, and with that and my pension I shall be in cloverfor the rest of my life."
It was not until the voyage home that Jack, after obtaining a promise ofsecrecy, related to the earl the liberty which had been taken withhis name. It was just a freak after Peterborough's heart, and he wasimmensely amused.
"The rascals!" he said, "they deserved hanging, every one of them; butthe story is a capital one, and I should like to have been there myselfto have seen the fright of the prior and his assistants. They richlydeserved what befell them and more for betraying sanctuary. If it hadbeen a scoundrel who had cut his wife's throat, and stabbed half a dozenmen, they would have refused to give him up to the civil power, andwould have stood on the rights of sanctuary of the Church. I think theywere let off very easily. Let me see, is not that the same fellow thatI exchanged into the grenadiers at Gibraltar at your request, for hisconduct in that business of the mutiny on board your ship?"
"The same man, sir. He has led a queer life. He was a sailor originally,and was taken by pirates and forced to join them, and had a narrowescape of being hung when the vessel he sailed in was captured by anEnglish cruiser; but his life was spared, and he was drafted into thearmy, and he is a willing and faithful soldier of the queen, and reallya worthy fellow."
"He is evidently an arrant old scamp, Stilwell. Still, as long aswe recruit our army as we do, we cannot look for morality as well asbravery, and I dare say your fellow is no worse than the rest. If youever run against him in London you must b
ring him to me, and I will hearhis story from his own lips."