Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

CHAPTER L.
STERLING AND STRIKING AFFECTION.

At this particular time there was nothing so thoroughly appreciated, loved, admired, and begged, borrowed, or stolen in every corner of the Continent, as the good old English guinea. His fine old face and his jovial colour made him welcome everywhere; one look at him was enough to show his purity, substance, and sterling virtue, and prove him sure to outlast in the end the flashy and upstart “Napoleon.” Happily for the world, that poor, weak-coloured, and adulterated coin now called the “sovereign,” was not the representative of English worth at that time; otherwise Europe might have been either France or Russia for a century.

And though we are now in the mire so low—through time-servers, hucksters, and demagogues—that the voice of England is become no more than the squeak of a halfpenny shoeblack, we might be glad to think of all our fathers did, at our expense, so grandly and heroically, if nations (trampled on for years, and but for England swept away) would only take it as not a mortal injury that through us they live. At any rate, many noble Spaniards in and round about Malaga condescended to come and see the unloading of the British corvette, Cleopatra-cum-Antonio. She was the nimblest little craft (either on or off a wind) of all ever captured from the French; and her name had been reefed into Clipater first, and then into Clipper, which still holds way. And thus, in spite of all her money, she had run the gauntlet of Americans and Frenchmen, and lay on her keel discharging.

Lorraine regarded this process with his usual keen interest.

The scene was so new, and the people so strange, and their views of the world so original, that he could not have tried to step into anything nobler and more refreshing. There was no such Babel of gesticulation as in a French harbour must have been; but there was plenty of little side-play, in and out among the natives, such as a visitor loves to watch. And the dignity with which the Spaniards took the money into their charge was truly gratifying to the British mind. “They might have said ‘Thank you,’ at any rate,” thought Hilary, signing the bill of delivery, under three or four Spanish signatures. But that was no concern of his.

One hundred thousand British guineas, even when they are given away, are not to be made light of. Their weight (without heeding the iron chests wherein they were packed in Threadneedle Street) perhaps was not very much under a ton; and with the chests must have been nearly two tons. There were ten chests, thoroughly secured and sealed, each containing ten thousand guineas, and weighing about 4 cwt. All these were delivered by the English agent to the deputy of Count Zamora, who was accompanied by two members of the Junta of Seville, and the Alcaide of Cordova; and these great people, after no small parley, and with the aid of Spanish officers, packed all the consignment into four mule-carts, and sent them under strong escort to head-quarters near Cordova. Here the Count met them, and gave a receipt to Hilary for the Spanish subsidy, which very soon went the way of all money among the Spanish soldiers. And the next day the five less lucky mules, who were dragging the pay of the British army, went on with the five remaining chests—three in one cart and two in the other—still under Spanish escort, towards the slopes of the Sierra Morena.

Hilary, as usual, adapted himself to the tone and the humour around him. The Spanish officers took to him kindly, and so did the soldiers, and even the mules. He was in great spirits once more, and kindly and cordially satisfied with himself. His conscience had pricked him for many months concerning that affair with Claudia; but now it praised him for behaving well, and returning to due allegiance. He still had some little misgiving about his vows to the Spanish maiden; but really he did not believe that she would desire to enforce them. He was almost sure in his heart that the lovely young Donna did not care for him, but had only been carried away for the moment, by her own warmth, and his stupid fervour. Tush! he now found himself a little too wide awake, and experienced in the ways of women, to be led astray by any of them. Claudia was a most beautiful girl, most fascinating, and seductive; but now, if he only kept out of her way, as he meant most religiously to do——

“The brave and renowned young captain,” said the Count of Zamora, riding up in the fork of the valley where the mountain-road divided, and one branch led to his house, “will not, of course, disdain our humble hospitality for the night?”

“I fear that it cannot be, dear Senhor,” answered Lorraine, with a lift of his hat in the Spanish manner, which he had caught to perfection; “my orders are to make all speed with the treasure, until I meet our detachment.”

“We are responsible for the treasure,” the Count replied, with a smile of good-humour, and the slightest touch of haughtiness, “until you have crossed the river upon the other side of our mountains. Senhor, is not that enough? We have travelled far, and the mules are weary. Even if the young captain prefers to bivouac in the open air, it is a proverb that the noble English think more of their beasts than of themselves. And behold, even now the sun is low; and there are clouds impending! The escort is under my orders as yet. If you refuse, I must exercise the authority of the Junta.”

What could Hilary do but yield? He was ordered to be at the Count’s disposal; and thus the Count disposed of him. Nevertheless he stipulated that the convoy should pursue its course, as soon as the moon had risen; for the night is better than the day for travelling, in this prime of the southern year.

So the carts were brought into a walled quadrangle of the Monte Argento; and heavy gates were barred upon them, while the mules came out of harness, and stood happily round a heap of rye. The Spanish officers, still in charge, were ready to be most convivial; and Hilary fell into their mood, with native compliance well cultivated. In a word, they all enjoyed themselves.

One alone, the star of all, the radiant, brilliant, lustrous one, the admired of all admirers, that young Claudia, was sorrowful. Hilary, in the gush of youthful spirits and promotion; in the glow of duty done and lofty standard satisfied; through all the pride of money paid by the nation he belonged to; and even the glory of saying good things in a language slightly known to him;—Hilary caught from time to time those grand reproachful eyes, and felt that they quite spoiled his dinner. And he was not even to get off like this.

For when he was going in the calmest manner, to order forth his carts, and march, with the full moon risen among the hills—the daintiest little note ever seen came into his hand, as softly as if it were dropped by a dove too young to coo. He knew that it came from a lady of course; and in the romantic place and time, his quick heart beat more quickly.

The writing was too fine for even his keen eyes by moonlight; but he managed to get to a quiet lamp, and there he read as follows: “You have forgotten your vows to me. I must have an explanation. There is no chance of it in this house. My nurse has a daughter at the ‘bridge of echoes.’ You know it, and you will have to cross it, within a league of your journey. If I can escape, I shall be on that bridge in two hours’ time. You will wait for me there, if you are an English gentleman.”

This letter was unsigned, but of course it could only come from Claudia. Of all those conceited young Spanish officers, who had been contradicting Lorraine, and even daring to argue with him, was there one who would not have given his right hand, his gilt spurs, or even his beard, to receive such a letter and such an appointment from the daughter of the Count of Zamora?

Hilary fancied, as he said farewell, in the cumbrous mass of shadows and the foliage of the moonlight, that Donna Camilla (who came forth, with a white mantilla fluttering) made signs, as if she longed, with all her heart, to speak to him. But the Count stood by, and the guests of the evening, and two or three mule-drivers cracking whips; and Hilary’s horse turned on his tail, till the company kissed their hands to him. And thus he began to descend through trees, and rocks, and freaks of shadow-land, enjoying the freshness of summer night, and the tranquil beauty of moonlit hills. Nickles and Bones, the two English troopers, rode a little in advance of him, each of them leading a spare horse, and keeping his eyes fixed stubbornly on the treasure-carts still in the custody of the Spanish horsemen. For the Englishmen had but little faith in the honesty of “them palavering Dons,” and regarded it as an affront, and a folly, that the treasure should be in their charge at all.

In this order they came to the river Zujar, quite a small stream here at the foot of the mountains, and forming the boundary of the Count’s estates. According to the compact with the Spaniards, and advices that day received, the convoy was here to be met by a squadron of horse from Hill’s division; who at once would assume the charge of it, and be guided, as to their line of return, by Captain Lorraine’s suggestions. At the ford, however, there was no sign of any British detachment, and the trumpeters sounded a flourish in vain.

Hilary felt rather puzzled by this; but his own duty could not be in doubt. He must on no account allow the treasure-carts to pass the ford, and so quit Spanish custody, until placed distinctly under British protection. And this he said clearly to the Spanish colonel, who quite agreed with him on that point, and promised to halt until he got word from Lorraine to move into the water. Then Bones and Nickles were despatched to meet and hurry the expected squadron; for the Spanish troopers were growing impatient, and their discipline was but fortuitous.

Under these circumstances young Lorraine was sure that he might, without any neglect, spare just a few minutes, to do his duty elsewhere, as a gentleman. He felt that he might have appeared perhaps to play fast and loose with Claudia, although in his heart he was pretty certain that she was doing that same with him. And now he intended to tell her the truth, and beg to be quit of a vow, whose recall was more likely to gall than to grieve her.

The “bridge of echoes” was about a furlong above the ford, where the convoy halted. It was an exceedingly ancient bridge, supposed to be even of Gothic date, and patched with Moorish workmanship. It stood like a pack-saddle over the torrent, which roared from the mountains under it; and it must have been of importance once, as commanding approach to the passes. For, besides two deep embrasures wherein defenders might take shelter, it had (at the south or Morena end) a heavy fortalice beetling over, with a dangerous portcullis. And the whole of it now was in bad repair, so that every flood or tempest worked it away, at the top or bottom; and capable as it was of light carts or of heavy people, the officers were quite right in choosing to send the treasure by the ford below.

Hilary proved that his sword was free to leap at a touch from its scabbard, ere ever he set foot on that time-worn, shadowy, venerable, and cut-throat bridge. The precaution perhaps was a wise one. But it certainly did not at first sight exhibit any proof of true love’s confidence in the maiden he was come to meet. It showed the difference between a wise love and a wild one; and Hilary smiled as he asked himself whether he need have touched his sword, in coming to meet Mabel. Then, half ashamed of himself, for such very low mistrust of Claudia, he boldly walked through the crumbling gateway, and up the steep rise of the bridge.

On the peaked crown of the old arch he stood, and looked both up and down the river. Towards the mountains there was nothing but loneliness and rugged shadow; scarred with clefts of moonlight, and at further distance fringed with mist. And down the water, and the quiet sloping of the lowlands, everything was feeding on the comfort of the summer night; the broad delicious calm of lying under nature’s womanhood; when the rage of the masculine sun is gone, and fair hesitation comes after it.

Hilary looked at all these things; but did not truly see them. He took a general idea that the view was beautiful; and he might have been glad, at another time, to stand and think about it. For the present, however, his time was short, and he must make the most of it. The British detachment might appear at the ford, at any moment; and his duty would be to haste thither at once, and see to the transfer of convoy. And to make sure of this, he had begged that the Spanish trumpets might be sounded; while he kept his own horse waiting for him, and grazing kindly where the grass was cold.

The shadow of the old keep, and the ivy-mantled buttress, fell along the roadway of the bridge, and lay in scollops there. Beyond it, every stone was clear (of facing or of parapet), and the age of each could be guessed almost, and its story, and its character. Even a beetle, or an earwig, must have had his doings traced, if an enemy were after him. But under the eaves of the lamp of night, and within all the marge of the glittering, there lay such darkness as never lies in the world, where the noon is less brilliant. Hilary stood in the broad light waiting; and out of the shadow came Claudia.

“I doubted whether you would even do me the honour to meet me here,” she said; “oh, Hilary, how you are changed to me!”

“I have changed in no way, senhorita; except that I know when I am loved.”

“And you do not know—then you do not know—it does not become me to say it, perhaps. Your ways are so different from ours, that you would despise me if I told it all. I will not weep. No, I will not weep.”

With violent self-control, she raised her magnificent eyes to prove her words; but the effort was too much for her. The great tears came, and glistened in the brilliance of the moonlight; but she would not show them, only turned away; and wished that nobody in the world should know the power of her emotions.

“Come, come!” said Hilary (for an Englishman always says “come, come,” when he is taken aback), “you cannot mean half of this, of course. Come, Claudia; what can have made you take such a turn? You never used to do it!”

“Ah, I may have been fickle in the days gone by. But absence—absence is the power that proves——”

“Hark! I hear a sound down the river! Horses’ feet, and wheels, and clashing——”

“No; it is only the dashing of the water. I know it well. That is why this bridge is called the ‘bridge of echoes.’ The water makes all sorts of sounds. Look here; and I will show you.”

She took his hand, as she spoke, and led him away from the parapet facing the ford to the one on the upper side of the bridge; when, suddenly, such a faintness seized her, that she was obliged to cling to him, as she hung over the low and crumbling wall. And how lovely she looked in the moonlight, so pale, and pure, and perfect; and at the same time so intensely feminine and helpless!

“Let me fall,” she murmured; “what does it matter, with no one in the world to care for me? Hilary, let me fall, I implore you.”

“That would be nice gratitude to the one who nursed me, and saved my life. Senhorita, sit down, I pray you. Allow me to hold you. You are in great danger.”

“Oh no, oh no!” she answered faintly; as he was obliged to support her exquisite, but alas! too sensitive figure. “Oh, I must not be embraced. Oh, Hilary, how can you do such a thing to me?”

“How can I help such a thing, you mean? How beautiful you are, Claudia!”

“What is the use of it? Alas! what is the use of it, if I am? When the only one in all the world——”

“Ah! There I heard that noise again. It is impossible that it can be the water,—and I see horses, and the flash of arms.”

“Oh, do not leave me! I shall fall into the torrent. For the sake of all the saints, stay one moment! How can I be found here? What infamy!—at least, at least, swear one thing.”

“Anything—anything. But I must be gone. I may be ruined in a moment.”

“And so may I. In the name of the Saviour, swear not to tell that I met you here. My father would kill me. You cannot even dream——”

“I swear that no power on earth shall make me say a word about you.”

“Oh, I faint, I faint! Lay me there in the shadow. No one will see me. It is the last time. O how cruel, how cold, how false! how bitterly cruel you are to me!”

“Is it true,” in a breath he whispered—for now he was in great stir, and hurry, and heard the Spanish trumpets sound, as he carried her towards the shadow of the keep, and there for an instant leaned over her: “is it true that you love me, Claudia?”

“With my whole—oh, what do I say?” And as if she could not trust the echoes, she glanced at the corner timidly; “oh, do not go, for one moment, darling!—with every atom of my poor——”

“Heart,” she was going to say, no doubt, but was spared the trouble; for down fell Hilary, stunned by a crashing blow from that dark corner; and in a moment Alcides d’Alcar had him by the throat with gigantic hands, and planted one great knee on his breast.

“Did I do it well?” asked Claudia, recovering bright activity, “Oh, don’t let him see me. He never must know it.”

“Neither that nor anything else shall he know,” the brigand muttered, with a furious grasp; until poor Hilary’s blue eyes started forth their sockets. “You did it too well, my fair actress; so warmly, indeed, that I am quite jealous. The bottom of the Zujar is his marriage-couch.”

“Loosen his throat, or I scream for his comrades. You promised me not to hurt him. He shall not be hurt more than we can help; although he has been so faithless to me.”

“Ha, ha!” laughed the great brigand; “there is no understanding the delicate views of the females. But you shall be obeyed, beloved one. He will come to himself in about ten minutes; these Englishmen have such a thickness of head. Search him; be quick; let me have his despatch-book. You know where your lovers keep their things.”

Senseless though Hilary lay, the fair maiden kept herself out of the range of his eyes, as her nimble fingers probed him. In a moment she drew from an inner breast-pocket his private despatch-book, and Mabel’s letter, and portrait. Those last she stowed away for her own revenge, after glancing with great contempt at them; but the book she spread open to her lover.

“It is noble!” he cried, as the brilliant moonlight shone upon the pages. “What could be more fortunate? Here are the blank forms with the heading, and the flourish prepared for his signature. There is his metal pencil. Now write as I tell you in Spanish, but with one or two little barbarisms; such as you know him given to. ‘The detachment is here. I am holding them back. They are not to cross the water. Send the two carts through; but do not come yourselves. Good-night, and many thanks to you. May we soon meet again. (Signed) Hilary Lorraine.’ You know how very polite he is.”

“It is written, and in his own hand, most clearly. He has been my pupil, and I have been his. Poor youth, I am very sorry for him. Now let me go. Have I contented you?”

“I will tell you at the chapel to-morrow night. I shall have the cleverest and most beautiful bride in all Iberia. How can I part with you till then?”

“You will promise me not to hurt him,” she whispered through his beard, as he clasped her warmly; while Hilary lay at their feet, still senseless.

“By all the saints that ever were, or will be, multiplied into all the angels! One kiss more, and then adieu, if it must be.”

The active young Claudia glided away; while the great brigand proceeded, with his usual composure, to arrange things to his liking. He lifted poor Hilary, as if he were a doll, and bound him completely with broad leather straps, which he buckled to their very tightest; and then he fixed over his mouth a scarf of the delicate wool of the mountains; and then he laid him in the shade; for he really was a most honourable man, when honour came into bearing. And though (as far as his own feelings went) he would gladly have pitched this Captain Lorraine into the rush of the Zujar, he had pledged his honour to Claudia. Therefore he only gagged and bound him, and laid him out of the moonlight; which, at the time of year, might have maddened him. After this, Don Alcides d’Alcar struck flint upon punk, and lit a long cigar.

The whole of that country is full of fleas. The natives may say what they like; but they only damage their credit by denying it, or prove to a charitable mind their own insensibility. The older the deposit or the stratum is, the greater is the number of these active insects; and this old bridge, whether Moorish, or Gothic, or even Roman (as some contended), had an antiquarian stock of them.

Therefore poor Hilary, coming to himself—as he was bound to do by-and-by—grew very uneasy, but obtained no relief through the natural solace of scratching. He was strapped so tightly that he could only roll; and if he should be induced to roll a little injudiciously through a gap of the parapet he must go to the bottom of the lashing water. Considering these things, he lay and listened; and though he heard many things which he disliked (and which bore a ruinous meaning to him for the rest of his young life, and all who loved him) he called his high courage to his help; and being unable to talk to himself (from the thickness of the wool between his teeth, which was a most dreadful denial to him), he thought in his inner parts—“Now, if I die, there will be no harm to say of me.” He laid this to his conscience, and in contempt of all insects rolled off to sleep.

The uncontrollable outbreak of day, in the land where the sun is paramount, came like a cataract over the mountains, and scattered all darkness with leaps of light. The winding valley and the wooded slope, the white track of water, and the sombre cliffs, all sprang out of their vaporous mantle; and even the bridge of echoes looked a cheerful place to lounge on.

“A bad job surely!” said Corporal Nickles, marching with his footsteps counted, as if he were a pedometer. “Bones, us haven’t searched this here ramshackle thing of a Spanish bridge. Wherever young Cap’en can be, the Lord knows. At the bottom of the river, I dessay.”

“Better if he never was born,” replied Bones; “or leastwise now to be a dead one. Fifty thousand guineas in a sweep! All cometh of trusting them beggarly Dons. Corporal, what did I say to you?”

“Like a horacle, you had foreseen it, sergeant. But we’m all right, howsomever it be. In our favour we has the hallerby.”

Hilary, waking, heard all this, and he managed to sputter so through the wool, that the faithful non-commissioned officers ran to look for a wild sheep coughing.

“Is it all gone?” he asked pretty calmly, when they had cut him free at last, but he could not stand from stiffness. “Do you mean to say that the whole is gone?”

“Captain,” said Bones, with a solemn salute, which Nickles repeated as junior, “every guinea are gone, as clean as a whistle; and the Lord knows where ’em be gone to.”

“Yes, your honour, every blessed guinea,” said Nickles, in confirmation. “To my mind it goes against the will of the Lord to have such a damned lot of money.”

“You are a philosopher,” answered Lorraine; “it is pleasing to find such a view of the case. But as for me, I am a ruined man. No captain, nor even ‘your honour,’ any more.”

“Your honour must keep your spirits up. It mayn’t be so bad as your honour thinks,” they answered very kindly, well knowing that he was a ruined man, but saluting him all the more for it.

CHAPTER LI.
EMPTY LOCKERS.

Poor Hilary felt that for this bad verb his own name must be the receptive case; and he vainly looked about for any remedy or rescue. Stiff as he was in the limbs, by reason of the straps of Don Alcides, and giddy of head from the staff of that most patriotic Spaniard, he found it for some time a little hard to reflect as calmly as he should have done. Indeed it was as much as he could do to mount his horse—who (unlike his master) had stuck to his post very steadfastly—and with sadness alike with soul and body to ride down to the fatal ford. Sergeant-major Bones and Corporal Nickles also remounted and followed the bewildered captain, keeping behind him at a proper distance for quiet interchange of opinion.

“Corporal, now,” said the sergeant-major, sliding his voice from behind one hand, “what may be your sentiments as consarns this very pecooliar and most misfortunate haxident?”

“Sergeant, it would be misbehooving,” replied Nickles, who was a west-country man, “as well as an onceremonious thing for me to spake first in the matter. To you it belongeth, being the one as foretold it like a book; likewise senior hofficer.”

“Corporal, you are a credit to the army. Your discretion, at your age, is wonderful. There be so few young men as remember when a man has spoken right. I am the last man in the world to desire to be overpraised, or to take to myself any sense of it. And now I wants no credit for it. To me it seems to come natteral to discern things in a sort of way that I find in nobody else a’most.”

“You doos, you doos,” answered Corporal Nickles. “Many’s the time as I’ve said to myself—‘Whur can I goo, to find sergeant-major, in this here trick of the henemy?’ And now, sergeant, what do ’ee think of this? No fear to tell truth in spaking ’long of me.”

“Corporal, I have been thinking strongly ever since us untied him. And I have been brought up in the world so much, that I means to think again of it.”

“Why, sergeant, you never means to say——”

“Nickles, I means just what I means. I may be right, and yet again I may be altogether wrong; as is the way of every man. ‘Let me alone’ is all I say. But if I was sure as you could hold your tongue, I might have something to say to you. Not of any account, you know; but still, something.”

“Now, sergeant, after all the thumps us has seen and been through together, you never would behave onhandsome to me.”

“Corporal Nickles, if you put it upon that footing, I cannot deny you. And mind you, now, my opinion is that this is a very queer case indeed.”

“Now, now, to think of that! Why, sergeant, you ought to be a general!”

“Nickles, no flattery; I am above it. Not but what I might have done so well as other people, if the will of the Lord had been so. Consarning, however, of this to-do, and a precious rumpus it will be, my opinion is that we don’t know half.”

Speaking thus, the sergeant nodded to the corporal impressively, and jerked his thumb towards the captain in front, and winked, and then began again.

“You see, corporal, my place is to keep both eyes wide open. There was a many things as struck me up at the old Don’s yonder. A carrying on in corners, and a going to lamps to read things, and a winking out of young ladies’ eyes, to my mind most unmilitary. But I might a’ thought that was all young people, and a handsome young chap going on as they will, only for what one of they dirty devils as drives them mules have said to me.”

“No, now, sergeant; never, now!”

“As true as I sit this here hoss, when us come back with the sun getting up, what did that pagan say to me? You seed him, corporal, a-running up, and you might have saved me the trouble, only you was nodding forward. ‘Senhor captain,’ he said to me, and the whites of his eyes was full of truth, ‘the young cavalier has been too soft.’ That was how I made out his country gibberish; the stuff they poor beggars are born to.”

“It gooeth again the grain of my skin,” Corporal Nickles answered, “to harken them fellows chattering. But sergeant, what did he say next?”

“Well, they may chatter, or hold their tongues, to them as cannot understand them. Requireth a gift, which is a denial to most folk, to understand them. And what he said, Corporal Nickles, was this—that he was coming up the river, while the carts was waiting, and afore the robbery, mind you; and he seed a young woman come on to the bridge—you knows how they goes, corporal, when they expects you to look after them.”

“Sergeant, I should think so.”

“Well, she come on the bridge for all the world like that. Us have seen it fifty times. And she had a white handkercher on her head, or an Ishmaelitish mantle; and she were looking out for some young chap. And our young cap’en come after her. And who do you think she were? Why, one of the daughters of the old Don up yonner!”

“Good heart alaive, now, Sergeant Bones, I can’t a’most belave it!”

“Nickles, I tell you what was told me—word for word; and I say no more. But knowing what the ways of the women is, as us dragoons is so forced to do, even after a marriage and family——”

“Ah, sergeant, sergeant! we tries in vain to keep inside the strick line of dooty. I does whatever a man can do; and my father were a butcher.”

“Corporal, it is one of the trials which the Lord has ordered. They do look up at one so, and they puts the middle of their lips up, and then with their bodies they turns away, as if there was nothing to look at. But, Nickles, they gives you no sort of a chance to come to the bottom of them. And this is what young cap’en will find out. The good females always is found out at last; the same as my poor wife was. But here us are. We have relaxed the bonds of discipline with conversation. Corporal, eyes right, and wait orders!”

While these two trusty and veteran fellows had been discussing a subject far too deep for a whole brigade of them, and still were full of tender recollections (dashed with good escape), poor Hilary had been vainly spurring, here and there, and all about, himself not come to his clear mind yet, only hoping to know where the money was gone. Hope, however, upon that point was disappointed, as usual. The track of the heavy carts was clear in the gravel of the river, and up the rocky bank, and on the old Roman road towards Merida. And then, at the distance of about a furlong from the Zujar, the rut of the wooden wheels turned sharply into an elbow of a mountain-road. Here, on the hump of a difficult rise, were marks, as if many kicks, and pricks, and even stabs, had been ministered to good mules labouring heavily. There was blood on the road, and the blue shine of friction, where hard rock encountered hard iron, and the scraping of holes in gravelly spots, and the nicks of big stones laid behind wheels to ease the tugging, and afford the short relief of panting. These traces were plain, and becoming plainer as the road grew worse, for nearly a mile of the mountain-side, and then the track turned suddenly into a thicket of dark ilex, where, out of British sight and ken, the spoil had been divided.

The treasure-carts had been upset, and two of the sturdy mules, at last foundered with hard labour, lay in their blood, contented that their work was over, and that man (a greater brute than themselves) had taken all he wanted out of them. The rest had been driven or ridden on, being useful for further torment. And here on the ground were five stout coffers of good British iron; but, alas! the good British gold was flown.

At this sight, Hilary stared a little; and the five chests in the morning sun glanced back at him with such a ludicrously sad expression of emptiness, that, in spite of all his trouble, the poor young captain broke into a hearty laugh. Then his horse walked up, and sniffed at them, being reminded, perhaps, of his manger; and Hilary, dismounting, found a solitary guinea lying in the dust, the last of fifty thousand. The trail of coarse esparto bags, into which the gold had been poured from the coffers, for the sake of easier transport, was very distinct in the parts untrampled by horses, mules, or brigands. But of all the marks there was none more conspicuous than the impressions of some man’s boots, larger and heavier than the rest, and appearing, over and over again, here, there, and everywhere. For a few yards up the rugged mountain, these and other footprints might be traced without much trouble, till suddenly they dispersed, grew fainter, and then wholly disappeared in trackless, hopeless, and (to a stranger) impenetrable forest.

“Thou honest guinea that would not be stolen!” cried poor Lorraine, as he returned and picked up the one remaining coin; “haply I shall never own another honest guinea. Forty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine prefer the ownership of rogues. Last of guineas, we will not part till gold outlives humanity!”

“Now, sir, is there anything us can do?” cried Bones and Nickles, or one of them. “We has followed all the way up this here long hill, for want of better orders.”

“No, my good fellows, there is nothing to be done. We cannot follow any further. I must go with all speed to report myself. Follow me, if you can keep up.”

The sergeant nodded to the corporal—for, loyal and steadfast as they were, suspicion was at work with them; that ugly worm which, once set going, wriggles into the stoutest heart. Surely it was a queer thing of the captain not even to let them examine the spot; but order was order, and without a word they followed the young officer back to the high road, and then, for some hours in the heat of the day, on the way towards Estremadura. At noontide they came to a bright, broad stream, known to them as the Guadalmez, a confluent of the Guadiana; and here they were challenged, to their great surprise, by a strong detachment of British hussars.

“What is your duty here?” asked Lorraine, as his uniform and face were acknowledged and saluted by sentries posted across the ford.

“To receive,” cried an officer, riding through the river (for all of these people were wide awake), “Captain Lorraine and his Spanish convoy.”

“I have no convoy,” said Hilary, dropping his voice into very sad music. “All is lost. It is partly your fault. You were ordered to meet me at the Zujar ford.”

“This is the Zujar ford,” the cavalry major answered, sternly; and Hilary’s heart fell from its last hope of recovering anything.

“We have been here these three days waiting for you,” continued the major, with vehemence; “we have lost all our chance of a glorious brush; we sent you advice that we were waiting for you. And now you appear without your convoy! Captain Lorraine, what does all this mean?”

“Major, my explanation is due at head-quarters, rather than to you.”

“And a deuced hard job you’ll have to give it, or my name’s not M’Rustie,” the senior officer muttered, with more terseness and truth than courtesy. “I’m blessed if I’d stand in your shoes before Old Beaky for a trifle.”

Poor Hilary tried in vain to look as if he took it lightly. Even his bright and buoyant nature could not lift head against the sea of troubles all in front of him.

“I have done no harm,” he kept saying to himself, when, after the few words that duty demanded, he urged his stout horse forward; and the faithful sergeant and corporal, who had shunned all inquisitive hussars, spurred vigorously after him, feeling themselves (as a Briton loves to feel himself) pregnant with mighty evidence. “What harm have I done?” asked Hilary. “I saw to everything; I worked hard. I never quitted my post, except through duty towards a lady. Any gentleman must have done what I did. To be an officer is an accident; to be a gentleman is a necessity.”

“Have you felt altogether,” said conscience to him, “the necessity of that necessity? Have you found it impossible to depart from a gentleman’s first duty—good faith to those who trust in him? When you found yourself bewitched with a foreign lady, did you even let your first love know it? For months you have been playing fast and loose, not caring what misery you caused. And now you are fast in the trap of your looseness. Whatever happens serves you right.”

“Whatever happens serves me right!” cried Hilary Lorraine, aloud, as he lifted his sword just a little way forth, for the last time to admire it, and into the sheath dropped a quick, hot tear. “I have done my duty as an officer badly; and as a gentleman far worse. But, Mabel, if you could see me now, I think that you would forgive me.”

He felt his heart grow warm again with the thought of his own Mabel; and in the courage of that thought, he stood before Lord Wellington.

CHAPTER LII.
BE NO MORE OFFICER OF MINE.

It was a very grand movement, and triumphantly successful; opening up as fine a march as can be found in history, sweeping onward in victory, and closing with conquest of the Frenchmen in their own France, and nothing left to stop the advance on Paris. “Was all this luck, or was it skill?” the historian asks in wonder; and the answer, perhaps, may be found in the proverb—“Luck has a mother’s love for skill.”

Be that as it may, it is quite certain that Hilary, though he had shown no skill, had some little luck in the present case. For the Commander-in-Chief was a great deal too busy, and had all his officers too hard at work, to order, without fatal loss of time, a general court-martial now. Moreover, he had his own reasons for keeping the matter as quiet as possible, for at least another fortnight. Every soldier by that time would be in march, and unable to turn his back on Brown Bess: whereas now there were some who might lawfully cast away the knapsack, if they knew that their bounty was again no better than a cloudy hope. And, again, there were some ugly pot-hooks of English questions to be dealt with.

All these things passed through the rapid mind of the General, as he reined his horse, and listened calmly to poor Lorraine’s over-true report. And then he fixed his keen grey eyes upon Hilary, and said shortly—

“What were you doing upon that bridge?”

“That is a question,” replied Lorraine, while marvelling at his own audacity, “which I am pledged by my honour, as a gentleman, not to answer.”

“By your duty as an officer, in a place of special trust, you are bound to answer it.”

“General, I cannot. My lord, as I rather must call you now, I wish I could answer; but I cannot.”

“You have no suspicion who it was that stole the money, with so much care?”

“I have a suspicion, but nothing more; and it makes me feel treacherous, to suspect it.”

“Never mind that. We have rogues to deal with. What is your suspicion?”

“My lord, I am sorry to say that again I cannot, in honour, answer you.”

“Captain Lorraine, I have no time to spare.” Lord Wellington had been more than once interrupted by despatches. “Once and for all, do you mean to give any, or no explanation of your conduct, in losing £50,000?”

“General, all my life, and the honour of my family, depend upon what I do now.”

“Then go and seek advice, Lorraine,” the General answered kindly, for his heart was kind; and he had taken a liking for this young fellow, and knew a little of his family.

“I have no one to go to for advice, my lord. What is your advice to me?” With these words, Hilary looked so wretched and yet so proud from his well-bred face, and beautifully-shaped blue eyes, that his General stopped from his hurry to pity him. And then he looked gently at the poor young fellow.

“This is the most irregular state of things I have ever had to deal with. You have lost a month’s pay of our army, and enough to last them half a year; and you seem to think that you have done great things, and refuse all explanation. Is there any chance of recovering the money?”

“There might be, my lord, if we were not likely to advance too rapidly.”

“There might be, if we threw away our campaign! You have two courses before you; at least, if I choose to offer them. Will you take my advice, if I offer the choice?”

“I am only too glad to have any choice; and anything chosen for me by you.”

“Then this is just how you stand, Lorraine—if we allow the alternative. You may demand a court-martial, or you may resign your commission. On the other hand, as you know, a court-martial should at once be held upon you. What answer are you prepared to make, when asked why you left your convoy?”

“I should be more stubborn to them than even your lordship has let me be to you.”

“Then, Captain Lorraine, resign your commission. With my approval it can be done.”

“Resign my commission!” Lorraine exclaimed, reeling as if he had received a shot, and catching at the mane of the General’s horse, without knowing what he was doing. “Oh no, I never could do that.”

“Very well. I have given you my advice. You prefer your own decision; and I have other things to attend to. Captain Money will receive your sword. You are under arrest, till we can form a court.”

“My lord, it would break my father’s heart, if he were to hear of such a thing. I suppose I had better resign my commission, if I may.”

“Put that in writing, and send it to me. I will forward it to the Horse Guards with a memorandum from myself. I am sorry to lose you, Captain Lorraine: you might have done well, if you had only proved as sensible as you are active and gallant. But one word more—what made you stop short at the ford of a little mountain-stream? I chose you as knowing the country well. You must have known that the Zujar ford was twenty miles further on your road.”

“I know all that country too well, my lord. We halted at the real Zujar ford. General Hill’s detachment stopped at the ford of the Guadalmez. That is wrongly called the Zujar there. The Zujar has taken a great sweep to the east, and fallen into the Guadalmez and Guadalemar. Major M’Rustie must have been misled; and no doubt it was done on purpose. I have my information on the very best authority.”

“May I ask, upon what authority? Are you pledged in honour to conceal even that?”

“No, I may tell that, I do believe,” said Hilary, after one moment’s thought, and with his old bright simple smile. “I had it, my lord, from the two young ladies—the daughters of the Count of Zamora.”

“Aha!” cried Lord Wellington (being almost as fond of young ladies as they of him, and touched perhaps for a moment by the magic of a sweet young smile,) “I begin to understand the bridge affair. But I fear that young ladies can hardly be cited as authorities on geography. Otherwise, we might make out a case against the Spanish authorities for sending our escort to the wrong place. And the Spanish escort, as you say, took the other for the proper place?”

“Certainly, my lord, they did. And so did the Count, and everybody. Is there any hope now that I may be acquitted?”

At a moment’s notice from Hope that she would like to come back to her lodgings, Hilary opened his eyes so wide, and his heart so wide, and every other place that hope is generally partial to, that the great commander (who trusted as little, as possible, of his work to hope) could not help smiling a quick, dry smile. And he felt some pain, as, word by word, he demolished hope in Hilary.

“The point of the thing is the money, Lorraine. And that we never could recover from the Spaniards, even if it was lost through them; for the very good reason that they have not got it. And even supposing the mistake to be theirs, and our escort to have been sent astray; you were a party to that mistake. And more than that; you were bound to see that the treasure did not cross the river, until our men were there. Did you do so?”

“Oh, if I only had done that, I should not be so miserable.”

“Exactly so. You neglected your duty. Take more care of your own money than you have taken of the public cash, Lorraine. Do as I told you. And now, good-bye.”

The General, who had long been chafing at so much discourse just now, offered his hand to Lorraine, as one who was now a mere civilian.

“Is there no hope?” asked Hilary, dropping a tear into the mane of the restive horse. “Can I never be restored, my lord?”

“Never! unless the money is made good, before we go into quarters again. A heavy price for a captain’s commission!”

“If it is made good, my lord, will you restore me from this deep disgrace?”

“The question will be for his Royal Highness. But I think that in such an extraordinary case, you may rely—at any rate you may rely upon my good word, Lorraine.”

“I thank you, my lord. The money shall be paid. Not for the sake of my commission, but for the honour of our family.”