"I can tell you that the troops, here, are a good deal better off than they are elsewhere. There is a fearful want of land carriage, but we get our supplies up by boats. That is why the Portuguese regiments are encamped on the river.
"Well, how did you get away from the French? It is curious that when I saw O'Grady lastwhich was a fortnight ago, when he came in to get a conveyance to take over sundry cases of whisky that had come up the river, for the use of his messhe said:
"'I expect that O'Connor and Dick Ryan will turn up here, before the spring. I am sure they will, if they have got together.'"
"It is too long a story to tell, here," Ryan said. "It is full of hairbreadth escapes, dangers by sea and land, and ends up with a naval battle."
The officers laughed.
"Well, will you come to our quarters?" one of them said. "We have got some decent wine, and some really good cigars which came up from Lisbon last week, and there are lots of our fellows who will be glad to see you."
They accordingly adjourned to a large building where the officers of the regiment were quartered and, in the apartment that had been turned into a mess room, they found a dozen officers, all of whom were known both to Terence and Ryan. After many questions were asked and answered on both sides, Ryan was requested to tell the story of their adventures after being taken prisoners. He told it in an exaggerated style that elicited roars of laughter, making the most of what he called The Battle of the Shirt Sleeves with the guerillas; exaggerating the dangers of his escape, and the horrors of their imprisonment, for a week, among the sails and nets.
"O'Connor," he said, "has hardly got back his sense of smell yet. The stink of tar, mixed with fishy odours, will be vivid in my remembrance for the rest of my life."
When he had at last finished, one of them said:
"And now, how much of all this is true, Ryan?"
"Every fact is just as I have told it," he replied gravely. "You may think that I have exaggerated, for did an Irishman ever tell a story, without exaggeration? But I give you my honour that never did one keep nearer to the truth than I have done. I don't say that the fisherman's wife took quite such a strong fancy to me as I have stated, although she can hardly have been insensible to my personal advantages; but really, otherwise, I don't know that I have diverged far from the narrow path of truth. I tell you, those two days that we were running before that gale was a thing I never wish to go through again."
"And you really tied up the Maire of Granville, Ryan?"
"We did so," Dicky said, "and a miserable object the poor little fat man looked, as he sat in his chair trussed up like a fowl."
"And now, about the sea fight, Ryan?"
"Every word was as it happened. O'Connor and I turned gunners, and very decent shots we made, too; and a proof of it was that, if we would have taken it, I believe the captain of the schooner would have given us half the booty found in the lugger's hold; but we were modest and self denying, and contented ourselves with a third, each, of the cash found in the captain's cabin; which we could not have refused if we wanted to, the captain made such a point of it. It came to nearly three hundred pounds apiece; and mighty useful it was, for we had, of course, to get new uniforms and rigs out, and horses and saddlery at Lisbon. I don't know what I should have done without it, for my family's finances would not have stood my drawing upon them; and another mortgage would have ruined them, entirely."
"Well, certainly, that is a substantial proof of the truth of that incident in your story; but I think that, rather than have passed forty-eight hours in that storm, I would have stopped at Bayonne and taken my chance of exchange."
"Then I am afraid,
Forester, that you are deficient in martial ardour," Terence said gravely. "Our desire to be back fighting the French was so great that no dangers would have appalled us."
There was a general laugh.
"Well, at any rate, you managed uncommonly well, Ryan, whether it was martial ardour that animated you or not; and O'Grady was not far wrong when he said that you and O'Connor would creep out through a mouse's hole, if there was no other way of doing it."
"Now, what has been doing since we have been away?" Terence asked.
"Well, to begin with, all Andalusia has been captured by Soult. Suchet has occupied Valencia. Lerida was captured by him, after a scandalously weak resistance; for there were over nine thousand troops there, and the place surrendered after only 1000 had fallen. Gerona, on the other hand, was only captured by Augereau after a resistance as gallant as that of Saragossa.
"That is the extraordinary thing about these Spaniards. Sometimes they show themselves cowardly beyond expression, at others they fight like heroes. Just at present, even the Juntas do not pretend that they have an army capable of driving the French out of the Pyrenees; which is a comfort, for we shall have to rely upon ourselves and not be humbugged by the Spaniards, the worthlessness of whose promises, Lord Wellington has ascertained, by bitter experience. The Portuguese government is as troublesome and as truthless as that of Spain, but Wellington is able to hold his own with them; and there is little doubt that the regular regiments will fight, and be really of valuable assistance to us; but these have been raised in spite of the constant opposition of the Junta at Lisbon.