The G.A. Henty

by G. A. Henty

  “Close behind the girl rushed in the innkeeper, swearing and cursing and calling us heretics, and dogs, and robbers, and every other bad kind of name. The men got up and began to stamp and shout, and seeing that it was no time for argument I said to Saunders, ‘We had best make a bolt of it, Bill.’ So we out swords and made a dash for the inner door, for they had closed in at the other with their knives out. We got safely through the house. Just outside the back door we came upon the body of Adams. We stopped a moment and turned him over to see if he was dead, but it was all up with him.

  “It didn’t take a moment to look; but, before it was done, they were upon 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 lost Saunders. 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 bushes and thought it over. The whole village was up by this time, as I could hear by the shouts; and after thinking it over I concluded that there was no chance of my making my way back to Lerida, and that my best plan would be to go up to the convent and ask for shelter there. I knew well enough that once inside I should be safe from the peasants.

  “Well, I crawled along for some distance. Half a dozen times they was nigh stumbling over me as they searched about in the gardens and vineyards; but at last I made my way safe up to the convent and rang at the bell. Presently the little window in the door opened, and a monk said, ‘Who is there?’ I kept out of his sight and said in Spanish: ‘A fugitive who seeks sanctuary.’ Thinking I was only somebody who had stabbed three or four men in a row, the monk opened the door. He gave an exclamation when he saw my uniform when I entered, and would have slammed 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, and stood staring at me as if I had been a wild beast. Then they wanted to turn me out; but I wouldn’t budge, and as I had my sword still in my hand they didn’t know what to do.

  “At last some chap in authority came down. He talked to me and tried to persuade me to leave; but I said, ‘No, I claim sanctuary;’ and as they were ready to give sanctuary to the worst of murderers, I didn’t see as they could deny it to me who had committed no crime whatever. He went away and came back again after some time, and then told me to sheath my sword and follow him. This I did, and he led the way to a sort of cell where there were some rushes laid on a stone bed, and told me that I could remain there.

  “Thinking it was all right I lay down and went to sleep, but was presently woke by half a dozen monks, who were tying my hands and feet with cords. It was no use struggling, so I lay quiet; and when they had done, they carried me away, took me some distance, and went down a flight of stairs; a door was unlocked, and then I was pitched down on the ground as if I had been a log of wood. I didn’t move much that night.

  “In the morning there was just enough light came through a little slit high up in the wall to show me that I was in a place about six feet square. It was perfectly bare, without as much as a bit of straw to lie on. Presently two monks came in. One of them untied the cords which fastened my hands. They placed some black bread and a jug of water by me, and then went out again. There they kept me for six days. At the end 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 followed them, wondering what was to come next. I was taken to the door of the convent, and there I saw a party of French troopers, to whom the monks handed me over. I mounted behind one of them, and was taken to Marshal Tesse’s camp near Lerida, and a couple of days afterward sent back to Saragossa.

  “I didn’t stop long in the prison there, for the next day the people rose, turned the French from the citadel, and opened the prison doors and let out all the prisoners. They made a good deal of me, as I was the only Englishman there, supplied me with money and clean clothes, and provided me with a guide and a mule to take me by round about byroads so 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 very day before the French arrived there.

  “I found my regiment already there. I got a rare blowing up from the colonel for having gone out from Lerida without leave; but as he said he thought 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 I expected nothing less than reduction to the ranks.

  “Well, after Lord Peterborough arrived with the fleet, and the French bolted as hard as they could to France, Wyndham’s brigade went up again to Lerida. I got chatting the affair over with Jack Thompson, who was General Wyndham’s servant, and we agreed between us that we would give those monks a fright, and perhaps get some compensation out of them. So we got hold of four of Killigrew’s dragoons, who, when they heard what was wanted, was ready enough for the spree. So one day when General Wyndham had gone off with a party for the day, Thompson borrowed his hat and plumes and his cloak, and hiding them up, went out of camp with me to a place a quarter of a mile away, where the four troopers with two spare horses were waiting for us. Thompson put on the general’s hat and cloak, and mounted one horse, while I got on the other, and away we rode out to the village.

  “First of all we went to the inn and seized the innkeeper. Manola wasn’t there, and I never heard what became of her—whether her father had sent her to a convent or killed her, I don’t know. However, we held a court regular. Thompson he was the judge, and I gave evidence as to the innkeeper having murdered poor Adams, and Thompson sentenced him to death, and we hung him up over his door. When we had set that job right we went to the convent and rang the bell. They opened quick enough this time.

  “‘Tell the prior,’ Thompson said, ‘that the Earl of Peterborough is here, and desires to see him instantly.’

  “Mighty frightened the monk looked, I can tell you, as he went off to give the message, and came back in a minute, asking Thompson to follow him. We all dismounted. Two of the troopers stopped to look after the horses, and the others with drawn swords followed Thompson and me. We were shown into the prior’s room, which was fit for a prince. The prior looked mighty pale, and so did two or three other chaps who were with him.

  “‘Look here,’ Thompson said in an angry tone of voice, ‘I am the Earl of Peterborough, and I hear from this man, Sergeant Edwards, of the king’s regiment of grenadiers, that he was basely and treacherously made a prisoner by you; that he was confined in an underground cell and fed with 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 this convent, which I intend to destroy. You will remain in the courtyard as prisoners. You will then be tried for this treacherous act against one of the King of England’s guards, and all found to have had a hand in the proceeding will be hung.’

  “Well, sir, you may just guess the fright they were in. They knew that the 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 of cowardly wretches in your life. I am blessed if they didn’t go down on their knees and howl. At last Thompson began to think he had worked them up enough, and he said stern:

  “‘Well, I am disposed to have mercy, and if in half an hour you pay down the sum of five thousand pounds as a ransom for the convent and your wretched lives I will be merciful.’

  “Then there was a fresh howling. They swore by all the saints that such a sum as five thousand pounds was never heard of. Thompson gradually dropped his demands to three thousand; still they swore they hadn’t got it, and he said sternly to one of the troopers:

  “‘Ride back and fetch up the regiment which is a mile outside the village.’

  “Then there was more howling, and at last they offered to give seven hundred pounds, which was all the money which they had in the treasury, and to make it up in precious stones. Aft
er a deal of haggling Thompson consented, and I believe if he had stood out for three times as much he would have got it, for the convent was rich in relics, and no end of precious offerings were stored away in their chests; however, he didn’t wish to push matters too far, and in half an hour they brought the money, and a handful of diamonds and rubies, and things they had picked out of their settings in the vases and crucifixes and vestments, and what not.

  “We didn’t know if they were real or not; but Thompson told them he should give them to a jeweler to value, and if he found they had cheated him by giving him false stones he would come back and hang the lot of them. So off we rode again.

  “When we got back to Lerida we took two or three of the stones to a jeweler and found that they were all right. Then we divided the swag into three parts as we had agreed. Thompson took one, I took another, and the other was divided among the four troopers, who were not running such 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 that Peterborough had never been near Lerida, and came over and saw General Wyndham.

  “Killigrew’s dragoons were paraded, but the prior couldn’t spot any of them. We had chosen four fair fellows, and they had all darkened themselves a bit before they went. Luckily the prior did not say anything about me. I expect he was afraid that when Wyndham heard how I had been treated there he might have inflicted a fresh fine on the convent; however, I was not there at the time, for I had a touch of fever the day after the affair, and made myself out a bit worse than I was, and so got sent down to Barcelona, where I buried my share of the plunder four or five inches deep in a corner of the hospital yard. As to 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 a hospital at Cuenca, and had a narrow escape of it this morning.”

  “It was a risky business,” Jack said, “and it would have gone very hard with you and Thompson if you had been found out.”

  “So it would, sir. I knew that; but you see, it was only right and just those fellows should pay for their treatment of me. If I had laid the case before General Wyndham, no doubt he would have punished them just as severe as I did, only the fine would have gone into the army treasury, instead of going to the right person.”

  “I am afraid, Edwards, that you have not got rid of those loose notions of morality you picked up among the pirates,” Jack said, smiling.

  “Perhaps not, Captain Stilwell. You see, bad habits stick to a man; but I have done with them now. When I get back to England I shall buy a snug public house at Dover, and with that and my pension I shall be in clover for the rest of my life.”

  It was not until the voyage home that Jack, after obtaining a promise of secrecy, related to the earl the liberty which had been taken with his name. It was just a freak after Peterborough’s heart, and he was immensely amused.

  “The rascals!” he said, “they deserved hanging, every one of them; but the story is a capital one, and I should like to have been there myself to have seen the fright of the prior and his assistants. They richly deserved what befell them and more for betraying sanctuary. If it had been a scoundrel who had cut his wife’s throat, and stabbed half a dozen men, they would have refused to give him up to the civil power, and would have stood on the rights of sanctuary of the Church. I think they were let off very easily. Let me see, is not that the same fellow that I exchanged into the grenadiers at Gibraltar at your request, for his conduct 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 narrow escape of being hung when the vessel he sailed in was captured by an English cruiser; but his life was spared, and he was drafted into the army, and he is a willing and faithful soldier of the queen, and really a worthy fellow.”

  “He is evidently an arrant old scamp, Stilwell. Still, as long as we recruit our army as we do, we cannot look for morality as well as bravery, and I dare say your fellow is no worse than the rest. If you ever run against him in London you must bring him to me, and I will hear his story from his own lips.”

  CHAPTER XVII

  HOME

  Upon the arrival of the Earl of Peterborough at Valencia he was received with the profoundest sympathy and respect by the people, who were filled with indignation at the treatment which the man whose daring and genius had freed Catalonia and Valencia of the French had received at the hands of their ungrateful monarch. Finding that a portion of the fleet had been ordered to the West Indies, the earl was obliged to abandon his project of capturing Minorca and then carrying substantial aid to the Duke of Savoy. He, however, went to Genoa, and there borrowed a hundred thousand pounds, which he brought back to Valencia and sent to the king for the use of the army.

  The cause of Charles was already well nigh desperate. Castile was lost, and the enemy were pressing forward to recover Catalonia and Valencia. Affairs were in the utmost state of confusion. Peterborough’s rivals having got rid of him now quarreled among themselves, or their only bond of union was their mutual hatred of the earl.

  The king himself, while he pretended to flatter him, wrote letters behind his back to England bringing all sorts of accusations against him, and succeeded in obtaining an order for his return. Before leaving he implored the king and his generals to avoid a battle, which would probably be disastrous, and to content themselves with a defensive war until Eugene of Savoy and the Duke of Marlborough broke the power of France elsewhere. His opinion was overruled, and the result was the disastrous battle of Almanza, in which the hopes of Charles of Austria of obtaining the crown of Spain were finally crushed.

  Peterborough embarked on the 14th of May on board the Resolution, man of war, commanded by his second son Henry.

  The Resolution was accompanied by two frigates, the Enterprise and the Milford Haven. The King of Spain’s envoy to the court of Savoy also sailed in the Resolution. The earl took with him his two aides de camp, who were both too indignant at the treatment which their chief had received to desire to remain with the army in Spain. The little squadron sailed first for Barcelona, where it only remained a few hours, and then set sail for Italy.

  On the fifth day at sea they fell in with a French fleet of six men of war. Two carried eighty guns, two seventy, one sixty-eight, and the other fifty-eight. The Resolution was a slow sailer, and the French, who at once gave chase, gained rapidly upon her. As resistance against such overwhelming odds seemed hopeless, Peterborough determined to go with the Spanish envoy and the state papers on board the Enterprise. There was little time for reflection. A small boat was lowered, and the earl, with a hasty adieu to his son, Jack, and Graham, descended the ship’s side with the Spanish envoy and rowed away to the Enterprise.

  “We are fated to see the inside of a French prison, after all,” Jack said to Graham.

  “I don’t know, Stilwell. We have both been in their hands once, and did not stay there long. I can hardly believe that our luck’s going to desert us at last.”

  “I don’t see much chance of our escape this time, Graham. Six ships against one are too great odds even for English sailors. The smallest of them carries as many guns as we do, and once a prisoner on board a ship there is no slipping away.”

  “We are not prisoners yet, Jack, and I don’t think that Mordaunt will strike his flag without a struggle, though they are six to one. He is just his father over again as far as courage goes.”

  “Well, I hope, anyhow, the earl will get away,” Jack said. “If it hadn’t been for all those state papers he is burdened with I am sure he would have stuck to the Resolution and fought it out. It would be just the kind of desperate adventure to suit him. See, he has reached the Enterprise, and she and the Milford Haven are spreading every sail; but although they will leave us behind I question whether they will outsail the French. They are coming up fast.”

  “It will soon b
e dark,” Graham said, “and they may be able to slip away. You may be sure the French will attend to us first, as being the most valuable prize.”

  “Well, gentlemen,” Captain Mordaunt said, coming up to them, “you are going to have a piece of new experience. I know you have been through some apparently hopeless conflicts on land with my father, but I don’t think you have ever seen a sea fight.”

  “Are you going to fight them all, sir?” Jack asked.

  “I am going to try,” the captain said. “My orders were to go to Leghorn, and to Leghorn I mean to go if the ship floats; but I tell you honestly I do not think there is much chance of our getting there. Still, as long as the ship floats, the British flag will float over her.”

  “Is there anything we can do, sir?” Jack asked. “We shall be happy to serve as volunteers in any capacity in which you think we may be useful.”

  “Until it comes to boarding I fear that you cannot help,” the captain said, “except by walking about between decks and cheering and inspiriting the men. The presence of officers looking cool and confident among them always does good. If the enemy try to board us you shall fight by my side.”

  The two fastest sailing French vessels were so close when night fell that it was hopeless to try to evade them either by changing the ship’s course or by lowering the sails. At ten o’clock they were less than a mile astern, one on either quarter. The ship had long since been ready for action, and the men were now called to the guns; but the enemy did not open fire, but could, by the night glasses, be seen somewhat to shorten sail so as to keep about the same distance behind the Resolution.