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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Snare, by Rafael Sabatini
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Snare
+
+Author: Rafael Sabatini
+
+Posting Date: January 2, 2009 [EBook #2687]
+Release Date: June, 2001
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SNARE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SNARE
+
+By Rafael Sabatini
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    I.  THE AFFAIR AT TAVORA
+
+   II.  THE ULTIMATUM
+
+  III.  LADY O'MOY
+
+   IV.  COUNT SAMOVAL
+
+    V.  THE FUGITIVE
+
+   VI.  MISS ARMYTAGE'S PEARLS
+
+  VII.  THE ALLY
+
+ VIII.  THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
+
+   IX.  THE GENERAL ORDER
+
+    X.  THE STIFLED QUARREL
+
+   XI.  THE CHALLENGE
+
+  XII.  THE DUEL
+
+ XIII.  POLICHINELLE
+
+  XIV.  THE CHAMPION
+
+   XV.  THE WALLET
+
+  XVI.  THE EVIDENCE
+
+  XVII.  BITTER WATER
+
+ XVIII.  FOOL'S MATE
+
+   XIX.  THE TRUTH
+
+    XX.  THE RESIGNATION
+
+   XXI.  SANCTUARY
+
+   POSTSCRIPTUM
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SNARE
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE AFFAIR AT TAVORA
+
+
+It is established beyond doubt that Mr. Butler was drunk at the time.
+This rests upon the evidence of Sergeant Flanagan and the troopers who
+accompanied him, and it rests upon Mr. Butler's own word, as we shall
+see. And let me add here and now that however wild and irresponsible a
+rascal he may have been, yet by his own lights he was a man of honour,
+incapable of falsehood, even though it were calculated to save his skin.
+I do not deny that Sir Thomas Picton has described him as a "thieving
+blackguard." But I am sure that this was merely the downright, rather
+extravagant manner, of censure peculiar to that distinguished general,
+and that those who have taken the expression at its purely literal value
+have been lacking at once in charity and in knowledge of the caustic,
+uncompromising terms of speech of General Picton whom Lord Wellington,
+you will remember, called a rough, foulmouthed devil.
+
+In further extenuation it may truthfully be urged that the whole hideous
+and odious affair was the result of a misapprehension; although I cannot
+go so far as one of Lieutenant Butler's apologists and accept the
+view that he was the victim of a deliberate plot on the part of his
+too-genial host at Regoa. That is a misconception easily explained. This
+host's name happened to be Souza, and the apologist in question has very
+rashly leapt at the conclusion that he was a member of that notoriously
+intriguing family, of which the chief members were the Principal Souza,
+of the Council of Regency at Lisbon, and the Chevalier Souza, Portuguese
+minister to the Court of St. James's. Unacquainted with Portugal, our
+apologist was evidently in ignorance of the fact that the name of Souza
+is almost as common in that country as the name of Smith in this. He may
+also have been misled by the fact that Principal Souza did not neglect
+to make the utmost capital out of the affair, thereby increasing the
+difficulties with which Lord Wellington was already contending as a
+result of incompetence and deliberate malice on the part both of the
+ministry at home and of the administration in Lisbon.
+
+Indeed, but for these factors it is unlikely that the affair could ever
+have taken place at all. If there had been more energy on the part of
+Mr. Perceval and the members of the Cabinet, if there had been less bad
+faith and self-seeking on the part of the Opposition, Lord Wellington's
+campaign would not have been starved as it was; and if there had been
+less bad faith and self-seeking of an even more stupid and flagrant
+kind on the part of the Portuguese Council of Regency, the British
+Expeditionary Force would not have been left without the stipulated
+supplies and otherwise hindered at every step.
+
+Lord Wellington might have experienced the mental agony of Sir John
+Moore under similar circumstances fifteen months earlier. That he did
+suffer, and was to suffer yet more, his correspondence shows. But his
+iron will prevented that suffering from disturbing the equanimity of his
+mind. The Council of Regency, in its concern to court popularity with
+the aristocracy of Portugal, might balk his measures by its deliberate
+supineness; echoes might reach him of the voices at St. Stephen's
+that loudly dubbed his dispositions rash, presumptuous and silly;
+catch-halfpenny journalists at home and men of the stamp of Lord Grey
+might exploit their abysmal military ignorance in reckless criticism and
+censure of his operations; he knew what a passionate storm of anger and
+denunciation had arisen from the Opposition when he had been raised to
+the peerage some months earlier, after the glorious victory of Talavera,
+and how, that victory notwithstanding, it had been proclaimed that his
+conduct of the campaign was so incompetent as to deserve, not reward,
+but punishment; and he was aware of the growing unpopularity of the
+war in England, knew that the Government--ignorant of what he was so
+laboriously preparing--was chafing at his inactivity of the past few
+months, so that a member of the Cabinet wrote to him exasperatedly,
+incredibly and fatuously--"for God's sake do something--anything so that
+blood be spilt."
+
+A heart less stout might have been broken, a genius less mighty stifled
+in this evil tangle of stupidity, incompetence and malignity that sprang
+up and flourished about him on every hand. A man less single-minded
+must have succumbed to exasperation, thrown up his command and taken
+ship for home, inviting some of his innumerable critics to take his
+place at the head of the troops, and give free rein to the military
+genius that inspired their critical dissertations. Wellington, however,
+has been rightly termed of iron, and never did he show himself more of
+iron than in those trying days of 1810. Stern, but with a passionless
+sternness, he pursued his way towards the goal he had set himself,
+allowing no criticism, no censure, no invective so much as to give him
+pause in his majestic progress.
+
+Unfortunately the lofty calm of the Commander-in-Chief was not shared
+by his lieutenants. The Light Division was quartered along the River
+Agueda, watching the Spanish frontier, beyond which Marshal Ney
+was demonstrating against Ciudad Rodrigo, and for lack of funds its
+fiery-tempered commander, Sir Robert Craufurd, found himself at last
+unable to feed his troops. Exasperated by these circumstances, Sir
+Robert was betrayed into an act of rashness. He seized some church plate
+at Pinhel that he might convert it into rations. It was an act which,
+considering the general state of public feeling in the country at
+the time, might have had the gravest consequences, and Sir Robert was
+subsequently forced to do penance and afford redress. That, however,
+is another story. I but mention the incident here because the affair of
+Tavora with which I am concerned may be taken to have arisen directly
+out of it, and Sir Robert's behaviour may be construed as setting an
+example and thus as affording yet another extenuation of Lieutenant
+Butler's offence.
+
+Our lieutenant was sent upon a foraging expedition into the valley of
+the Upper Douro, at the head of a half-troop of the 8th Dragoons, two
+squadrons of which were attached at the time to the Light Division. To
+be more precise, he was to purchase and bring into Pinhel a hundred
+head of cattle, intended some for slaughter and some for draught. His
+instructions were to proceed as far as Regoa and there report himself
+to one Bartholomew Bearsley, a prosperous and influential English
+wine-grower, whose father had acquired considerable vineyards in
+the Douro. He was reminded of the almost hostile disposition of the
+peasantry in certain districts; warned to handle them with tact and to
+suffer no straggling on the part of his troopers; and advised to
+place himself in the hands of Mr. Bearsley for all that related to the
+purchase of the cattle. Let it be admitted at once that had Sir
+Robert Craufurd been acquainted with Mr. Butler's feather-brained,
+irresponsible nature, he would have selected any officer rather than our
+lieutenant to command that expedition. But the Irish Dragoons had only
+lately come to Pinhel, and the general himself was not immediately
+concerned.
+
+Lieutenant Butler set out on a blustering day of March at the head of
+his troopers, accompanied by Cornet O'Rourke and two sergeants, and at
+Pesqueira he was further reinforced by a Portuguese guide. They found
+quarters that night at Ervedoza, and early on the morrow they were in
+the saddle again, riding along the heights above the Cachao da Valleria,
+through which the yellow, swollen river swirled and foamed along its
+rocky way. The prospect, formidable even in the full bloom of fruitful
+and luxuriant summer, was forbidding and menacing now as some imagined
+gorge of the nether regions. The towering granite heights across the
+turgid stream were shrouded in mist and sweeping rain, and from the
+leaden heavens overhead the downpour was of a sullen and merciless
+steadiness, starting at every step a miniature torrent to go swell the
+roaring waters in the gorge, and drenching the troop alike in body and
+in spirit. Ahead, swathed to the chin in his blue cavalry cloak, the
+water streaming from his leather helmet, rode Lieutenant Butler, cursing
+the weather, the country; the Light Division, and everything else that
+occurred to him as contributing to his present discomfort. Beside
+him, astride of a mule, rode the Portuguese guide in a caped cloak of
+thatched straw, which made him look for all the world like a bottle of
+his native wine in its straw sheath. Conversation between the two was
+out of the question, for the guide spoke no English and the lieutenant's
+knowledge of Portuguese was very far from conversational.
+
+Presently the ground sloped, and the troop descended from the heights by
+a road flanked with dripping pinewoods, black and melancholy, that for
+a while screened them off from the remainder of the sodden world. Thence
+they emerged near the head of the bridge that spanned the swollen river
+and led them directly into the town of Regoa. Through the mud and clay
+of the deserted, narrow, unpaved streets the dragoons squelched their
+way, under a super-deluge, for the rain was now reinforced by steady
+and overwhelming sheets of water descending on either side from the
+gutter-shaped tiles that roofed the houses.
+
+Inquisitive faces showed here and there behind blurred windows; odd
+doors were opened that a peasant family might stare in questioning
+wonder--and perhaps in some concern--at the sodden pageant that was
+passing. But in the streets themselves the troopers met no living thing,
+all the world having scurried to shelter from the pitiless downpour.
+
+Beyond the town they were brought by their guide to a walled garden, and
+halted at a gateway. Beyond this could be seen a fair white house set
+in the foreground of the vineyards that rose in terraces up the hillside
+until they were lost from sight in the lowering veils of mist. Carved
+on the granite lintel of that gateway, the lieutenant beheld the
+inscription, "BARTHOLOMEU BEARSLEY, 1744," and knew himself at his
+destination, at the gates of the son or grandson--he knew not which, nor
+cared--of the original tenant of that wine farm.
+
+Mr. Bearsley, however, was from home. The lieutenant was informed
+of this by Mr. Bearsley's steward, a portly, genial, rather priestly
+gentleman in smooth black broadcloth, whose name was Souza--a name
+which, as I have said, has given rise to some misconceptions. Mr.
+Bearsley himself had lately left for England, there to wait until the
+disturbed state of Portugal should be happily repaired. He had been a
+considerable sufferer from the French invasion under Soult, and none
+may blame him for wishing to avoid a repetition of what already he
+had undergone, especially now that it was rumoured that the Emperor in
+person would lead the army gathering for conquest on the frontiers.
+
+But had Mr. Bearsley been at home the dragoons could have received no
+warmer welcome than that which was extended to them by Fernando Souza.
+Greeting the lieutenant in intelligible English, he implored him, in the
+florid manner of the Peninsula, to count the house and all within it his
+own property, and to command whatever he might desire.
+
+The troopers found accommodation in the kitchen and in the spacious
+hall, where great fires of pine logs were piled up for their comfort;
+and for the remainder of the day they abode there in various states of
+nakedness, relieved by blankets and straw capotes, what time the house
+was filled with the steam and stench of their drying garments. Rations
+had been short of late on the Agueda, and, in addition, their weary
+ride through the rain had made the men sharp-set. Abundance of food
+was placed before them by the solicitude of Fernando Souza, and they
+feasted, as they had not feasted for many months, upon roast kid, boiled
+rice and golden maize bread, washed down by a copious supply of a rough
+and not too heady wine that the discreet and discriminating steward
+judged appropriate to their palates and capable of supporting some
+abuse.
+
+Akin to the treatment of the troopers in hall and kitchen, but on a
+nobler scale, was the treatment of Lieutenant Butler and Cornet O'Rourke
+in the dining-room. For them a well-roasted turkey took the place
+of kid, and Souza went down himself to explore the cellars for a
+well-sunned, time-ripened Douro table wine which he vowed--and our
+dragoons agreed with him--would put the noblest Burgundy to shame; and
+then with the dessert there was a Port the like of which Mr. Butler--who
+was always of a nice taste in wine, and who was coming into some
+knowledge of Port from his residence in the country--had never dreamed
+existed.
+
+For four and twenty hours the dragoons abode at Mr. Bearsley's quinta,
+thanking God for the discomforts that had brought them to such comfort,
+feasting in this land of plenty as only those can feast who have kept a
+rigid Lent. Nor was this all. The benign Souza was determined that
+the sojourn there of these representatives of his country's deliverers
+should be a complete rest and holiday. Not for Mr. Butler to journey to
+the uplands in this matter of a herd of bullocks. Fernando Souza had at
+command a regiment of labourers, who were idle at this time of year, and
+whom his good nature would engage on behalf of his English guests.
+Let the lieutenant do no more than provide the necessary money for the
+cattle, and the rest should happen as by enchantment--and Souza himself
+would see to it that the price was fair and proper.
+
+The lieutenant asked no better. He had no great opinion of himself
+either as cattle dealer or cattle drover, nor did his ambitions beget in
+him any desire to excel as one or the other. So he was well content that
+his host should have the bullocks fetched to Regoa for him. The herd was
+driven in on the following afternoon, by when the rain had ceased, and
+our lieutenant had every reason to be pleased when he beheld the solid
+beasts procured. Having disbursed the amount demanded--an amount more
+reasonable far than he had been prepared to pay--Mr. Butler would have
+set out forthwith to return to Pinhel, knowing how urgent was the need
+of the division and with what impatience the choleric General Craufurd
+would be awaiting him.
+
+"Why, so you shall, so you shall," said the priestly, soothing Souza.
+"But first you'll dine. There is good dinner--ah, but what good
+dinner!--that I have order. And there is a wine--ah, but you shall give
+me news of that wine."
+
+Lieutenant Butler hesitated. Cornet O'Rourke watched him anxiously,
+praying that he might succumb to the temptation, and attempted suasion
+in the form of a murmured blessing upon Souza's hospitality.
+
+"Sir Robert will be impatient," demurred the lieutenant.
+
+"But half-hour," protested Souza. "What is half-hour? And in half-hour
+you will have dine."
+
+"True," ventured the cornet; "and it's the devil himself knows when we
+may dine again."
+
+"And the dinner is ready. It can be serve this instant. It shall," said
+Souza with finality, and pulled the bell-rope.
+
+Mr. Butler, never dreaming--as indeed how could he?--that Fate was
+taking a hand in this business, gave way, and they sat down to dinner.
+Henceforth you see him the sport of pitiless circumstance.
+
+They dined within the half-hour, as Souza had promised, and they dined
+exceedingly well. If yesterday the steward had been able without warning
+of their coming to spread at short notice so excellent a feast, conceive
+what had been accomplished now by preparation. Emptying his fourth and
+final bumper of rich red Douro, Mr. Butler paid his host the compliment
+of a sigh and pushed back his chair.
+
+But Souza detained him, waving a hand that trembled with anxiety, and
+with anxiety stamped upon his benignly rotund and shaven countenance.
+
+"An instant yet," he implored. "Mr. Bearsley would never pardon me did I
+let you go without what he call a stirrup-cup to keep you from the ills
+that lurk in the wind of the Serra. A glass--but one--of that Port you
+tasted yesterday. I say but a glass, yet I hope you will do honour to
+the bottle. But a glass at least, at least!" He implored it almost with
+tears. Mr. Butler had reached that state of delicious torpor in which
+to take the road is the last agony; but duty was duty, and Sir Robert
+Craufurd had the fiend's own temper. Torn thus between consciousness of
+duty and the weakness of the flesh, he looked at O'Rourke. O'Rourke,
+a cherubic fellow, who had for his years a very pretty taste in wine,
+returned the glance with a moist eye, and licked his lips.
+
+"In your place I should let myself be tempted," says he. "It's an
+elegant wine, and ten minutes more or less is no great matter."
+
+The lieutenant discovered a middle way which permitted him to take a
+prompt decision creditable to his military instincts, but revealing a
+disgraceful though quite characteristic selfishness.
+
+"Very well," he said. "Leave Sergeant Flanagan and ten men to wait for
+me, O'Rourke, and do you set out at once with the rest of the troop. And
+take the cattle with you. I shall overtake you before you have gone very
+far."
+
+O'Rourke's crestfallen air stirred the sympathetic Souza's pity.
+
+"But, Captain," he besought, "will you not allow the lieutenant--"
+
+Mr. Butler cut him short. "Duty," said he sententiously, "is duty. Be
+off, O'Rourke."
+
+And O'Rourke, clicking his heels viciously, saluted and departed.
+
+Came presently the bottles in a basket--not one, as Souza had said, but
+three; and when the first was done Butler reflected that since O'Rourke
+and the cattle were already well upon the road there need no longer be
+any hurry about his own departure. A herd of bullocks does not travel
+very quickly, and even with a few hours' start in a forty-mile journey
+is easily over-taken by a troop of horse travelling without encumbrance.
+
+You understand, then, how easily our lieutenant yielded himself to
+the luxurious circumstances, and disposed himself to savour the second
+bottle of that nectar distilled from the very sunshine of the Douro--the
+phrase is his own. The steward produced a box of very choice cigars, and
+although the lieutenant was not an habitual smoker, he permitted himself
+on this exceptional occasion to be further tempted. Stretched in a deep
+chair beside the roaring fire of pine logs, he sipped and smoked and
+drowsed away the greater par of that wintry afternoon. Soon the third
+bottle had gone the way of the second, and Mr. Bearsley's steward being
+a man of extremely temperate habit, it follows that most of the wine had
+found its way down the lieutenant's thirsty gullet.
+
+It was perhaps a more potent vintage than he had at first suspected, and
+as the torpor produced by the dinner and the earlier, fuller wine was
+wearing off, it was succeeded by an exhilaration that played havoc with
+the few wits that Mr. Butler could call his own.
+
+The steward was deeply learned in wines and wine growing and in very
+little besides; consequently the talk was almost confined to that
+subject in its many branches, and he could be interesting enough, like
+all enthusiasts. To a fresh burst of praise from Butler of the ruby
+vintage to which he had been introduced, the steward presently responded
+with a sigh:
+
+"Indeed, as you say, Captain, a great wine. But we had a greater."
+
+"Impossible, by God," swore Butler, with a hiccup.
+
+"You may say so; but it is the truth. We had a greater; a wonderful,
+clear vintage it was, of the year 1798--a famous year on the Douro, the
+quite most famous year that we have ever known. Mr. Bearsley sell some
+pipes to the monks at Tavora, who have bottle it and keep it. I beg him
+at the time not to sell, knowing the value it must come to have one day.
+But he sell all the same. Ah, meu Deus!" The steward clasped his hands
+and raised rather prominent eyes to the ceiling, protesting to his Maker
+against his master's folly. "He say we have plenty, and now"--he spread
+fat hands in a gesture of despair--"and now we have none. Some sons of
+dogs of French who came with Marshal Soult happen this way on a forage
+they discover the wine and they guzzle it like pigs." He swore, and his
+benignity was eclipsed by wrathful memory. He heaved himself up in a
+passion.
+
+"Think of that so priceless vintage drink like hogwash, as Mr. Bearsley
+say, by those god-dammed French swine, not a drop--not a spoonful
+remain. But the monks at Tavora still have much of what they buy, I am
+told. They treasure it for they know good wine. All priests know good
+wine. Ah yes! Goddam!" He fell into deep reflection.
+
+Lieutenant Butler stirred, and became sympathetic.
+
+"'San infern'l shame," said he indignantly. "I'll no forgerrit when I...
+meet the French." Then he too fell into reflection.
+
+He was a good Catholic, and, moreover, a Catholic who did not take
+things for granted. The sloth and self-indulgence of the clergy in
+Portugal, being his first glimpse of conventuals in Latin countries,
+had deeply shocked him. The vows of a monastic poverty that was kept
+carefully beyond the walls of the monastery offended his sense of
+propriety. That men who had vowed themselves to pauperism, who wore
+coarse garments and went barefoot, should batten upon rich food and
+store up wines that gold could not purchase, struck him as a hideous
+incongruity.
+
+"And the monks drink this nectar?" he said aloud, and laughed
+sneeringly. "I know the breed--the fair found belly wi' fat capon lined.
+Tha's your poverty stricken Capuchin."
+
+Souza looked at him in sudden alarm, bethinking himself that all
+Englishmen were heretics, and knowing nothing of subtle distinctions
+between English and Irish. In silence Butler finished the third and last
+bottle, and his thoughts fixed themselves with increasing insistence
+upon a wine reputed better than this of which there was great store in
+the cellars of the convent of Tavora.
+
+Abruptly he asked: "Where's Tavora?" He was thinking perhaps of the
+comfort that such wine would bring to a company of war-worn soldiers in
+the valley of the Agueda.
+
+"Some ten leagues from here," answered Souza, and pointed to a map that
+hung upon the wall.
+
+The lieutenant rose, and rolled a thought unsteadily across the room.
+He was a tall, loose-limbed fellow, blue-eyed, fair-complexioned, with
+a thatch of fiery red hair excellently suited to his temperament. He
+halted before the map, and with legs wide apart, to afford him the
+steadying support of a broad basis, he traced with his finger the course
+of the Douro, fumbled about the district of Regoa, and finally hit upon
+the place he sought.
+
+"Why," he said, "seems to me 'sif we should ha' come that way. I's
+shorrer road to Pesqueira than by the river."
+
+"As the bird fly," said Souza. "But the roads be bad--just mule tracks,
+while by the river the road is tolerable good."
+
+"Yet," said the lieutenant, "I think I shall go back tha' way."
+
+The fumes of the wine were mounting steadily to addle his indifferent
+brains. Every moment he was seeing things in proportions more and more
+false. His resentment against priests who, sworn to self-abnegation,
+hoarded good wine, whilst soldiers sent to keep harm from priests' fat
+carcasses were left to suffer cold and even hunger, was increasing with
+every moment. He would sample that wine at Tavora; and he would bear
+some of it away that his brother officers at Pinhel might sample it. He
+would buy it. Oh yes! There should be no plundering, no irregularity, no
+disregard of general orders. He would buy the wine and pay for it--but
+himself he would fix the price, and see that the monks of Tavora made no
+profit out of their defenders.
+
+Thus he thought as he considered the map. Presently, when having taken
+leave of Fernando Souza--that prince of hosts--Mr. Butler was riding
+down through the town with Sergeant Flanagan and ten troopers at his
+heels, his purpose deepened and became more fierce. I think the change
+of temperature must have been to blame. It was a chill, bleak evening.
+Overhead, across a background of faded blue, scudded ragged banks of
+clouds, the lingering flotsam of the shattered rainstorm of yesterday:
+and a cavalry cloak afforded but indifferent protection against the wind
+that blew hard and sharp from the Atlantic.
+
+Coming from the genial warmth of Mr. Souza's parlour into this, the
+evaporation of the wine within him was quickened, its fumes mounted now
+overwhelmingly to his brain, and from comfortably intoxicated that he
+had been hitherto, the lieutenant now became furiously drunk; and the
+transition was a very rapid one. It was now that he looked upon the
+business he had in hand in the light of a crusade; a sort of religious
+fanaticism began to actuate him.
+
+The souls of these wretched monks must be saved; the temptation to
+self-indulgence, which spelt perdition for them, must be removed from
+their midst. It was a Christian duty. He no longer thought of buying the
+wine and paying for it. His one aim now was to obtain possession of
+it not merely a part of it, but all of it--and carry it off, thereby
+accomplishing two equally praiseworthy ends: to rescue a conventful
+of monks from damnation, and to regale the much-enduring, half-starved
+campaigners of the Agueda.
+
+Thus reasoned Mr. Butler with admirable, if drunken, logic. And
+reasoning thus he led the way over the bridge, and kept straight on
+when he had crossed it, much to the dismay of Sergeant Flanagan, who,
+perceiving the lieutenant's condition, conceived that he was missing his
+way. This the sergeant ventured to point out, reminding his officer that
+they had come by the road along the river.
+
+"So we did," said Butler shortly. "Bu' we go back by way of Tavora."
+
+They had no guide. The one who had conducted them to Regoa had returned
+with O'Rourke, and although Souza had urged upon the lieutenant at
+parting that he should take one of the men from the quinta, Butler, with
+wit enough to see that this was not desirable under the circumstances,
+had preferred to find his way alone.
+
+His confused mind strove now to revisualise the map which he had
+consulted in Souza's parlour. He discovered, naturally enough, that the
+task was altogether beyond his powers. Meanwhile night was descending.
+They were, however, upon the mule track, which went up and round the
+shoulder of a hill, and by this they came at dark upon a hamlet.
+
+Sergeant Flanagan was a shrewd fellow and perhaps the most sober man in
+the troop--for the wine had run very freely in Souza's kitchen, too,
+and the men, whilst awaiting their commander's pleasure, had taken the
+fullest advantage of an opportunity that was all too rare upon that
+campaign. Now Sergeant Flanagan began to grow anxious. He knew the
+Peninsula from the days of Sir John Moore, and he knew as much of the
+ways of the peasantry of Portugal as any man. He knew of the brutal
+ferocity of which that peasantry was capable. He had seen evidence
+more than once of the unspeakable fate of French stragglers from the
+retreating army of Marshal Soult. He knew of crucifixions, mutilations
+and hideous abominations practised upon them in these remote hill
+districts by the merciless men into whose hands they happened to fall,
+and he knew that it was not upon French soldiers alone--that these
+abominations had been practised. Some of those fierce peasants had
+been unable to discriminate between invader and deliverer; to them
+a foreigner was a foreigner and no more. Others, who were capable of
+discriminating, were in the position of having come to look upon French
+and English with almost equal execration.
+
+It is true that whilst the Emperor's troops made war on the maxim that
+an army must support itself upon the country it traverses, thereby
+achieving a greater mobility, since it was thus permitted to travel
+comparatively light, the British law was that all things requisitioned
+must be paid for. Wellington maintained this law in spite of all
+difficulties at all times with an unrelaxing rigidity, and punished with
+the utmost vigour those who offended against it. Nevertheless breaches
+were continual; men broke out here and there, often, be it said,
+under stress of circumstances for which the Portuguese were
+themselves responsible; plunder and outrage took place and provoked
+indiscriminating rancour with consequences at times as terrible to
+stragglers from the British army of deliverance as to those from the
+French army of oppressors. Then, too, there was the Portuguese Militia
+Act recently enforced by Wellington--acting through the Portuguese
+Government--deeply resented by the peasantry upon whom it bore, and
+rendering them disposed to avenge it upon such stray British soldiers as
+might fall into their hands.
+
+Knowing all this, Sergeant Flanagan did not at all relish this night
+excursion into the hill fastnesses, where at any moment, as it seemed to
+him, they might miss their way. After all, they were but twelve men all
+told, and he accounted it a stupid thing to attempt to take a short cut
+across the hills for the purpose of overtaking an encumbered troop that
+must of necessity be moving at a very much slower pace. This was the
+way not to overtake but to outdistance. Yet since it was not for him to
+remonstrate with the lieutenant, he kept his peace and hoped anxiously
+for the best.
+
+At the mean wine-shop of that hamlet Mr. Butler inquired his way by
+the simple expedient of shouting "Tavora?" with a strong interrogative
+inflection. The vintner made it plain by gestures--accompanied by a
+rattling musketry of incomprehensible speech that their way lay straight
+ahead. And straight ahead they went, following that mule track for
+some five or six miles until it began to slope gently towards the plain
+again. Below them they presently beheld a cluster of twinkling lights
+to advertise a township. They dropped swiftly down, and in the outskirts
+overtook a belated bullock-cart, whose ungreased axle was arousing the
+hillside echoes with its plangent wail.
+
+Of the vigorous young woman who marched barefoot beside it, shouldering
+her goad as if it were a pikestaff, Mr. Butler inquired--by his usual
+method--if this were Tavora, to receive an answer which, though voluble,
+was unmistakably affirmative.
+
+"Covento Dominicano?" was his next inquiry, made after they had gone some
+little way.
+
+The woman pointed with her goad to a massive, dark building, flanked by
+a little church, which stood just across the square they were entering.
+
+A moment later the sergeant, by Mr. Butler's orders, was knocking upon
+the iron-studded main door. They waited awhile in vain. None came to
+answer the knock; no light showed anywhere upon the dark face of the
+convent. The sergeant knocked again, more vigorously than before.
+Presently came timid, shuffling steps; a shutter opened in the door, and
+the grille thus disclosed was pierced by a shaft of feeble yellow light.
+A quavering, aged voice demanded to know who knocked.
+
+"English soldiers," answered the lieutenant in Portuguese. "Open!"
+
+A faint exclamation suggestive of dismay was the answer, the shutter
+closed again with a snap, the shuffling steps retreated and unbroken
+silence followed.
+
+"Now wharra devil may this mean?" growled Mr. Butler. Drugged wits, like
+stupid ones, are readily suspicious. "Wharra they hatching in here that
+they are afraid of lerring Bri'ish soldiers see? Knock again, Flanagan.
+Louder, man!"
+
+The sergeant beat the door with the butt of his carbine. The blows gave
+out a hollow echo, but evoked no more answer than if they had fallen
+upon the door of a mausoleum. Mr. Butler completely lost his temper.
+"Seems to me that we've stumbled upon a hotbed o' treason. Hotbed o'
+treason!" he repeated, as if pleased with the phrase. "That's wharrit
+is." And he added peremptorily: "Break down the door."
+
+"But, sir," began the sergeant in protest, greatly daring.
+
+"Break down the door," repeated Mr. Butler. "Lerrus be after seeing
+wha' these monks are afraid of showing us. I've a notion they're hiding
+more'n their wine."
+
+Some of the troopers carried axes precisely against such an emergency as
+this. Dismounting, they fell upon the door with a will. But the oak was
+stout, fortified by bands of iron and great iron studs; and it resisted
+long. The thud of the axes and the crash of rending timbers could be
+heard from one end of Tavora to the other, yet from the convent it
+evoked no slightest response. But presently, as the door began to yield
+to the onslaught, there came another sound to arouse the town. From the
+belfry of the little church a bell suddenly gave tongue upon a frantic,
+hurried note that spoke unmistakably of alarm. Ding-ding-ding-ding
+it went, a tocsin summoning the assistance of all true sons of Mother
+Church.
+
+Mr. Butler, however, paid little heed to it. The door was down at last,
+and followed by his troopers he rode under the massive gateway into
+the spacious close. Dismounting there, and leaving the woefully anxious
+sergeant and a couple of men to guard the horses, the lieutenant led the
+way along the cloisters, faintly revealed by a new-risen moon, towards a
+gaping doorway whence a feeble light was gleaming. He stumbled over the
+step into a hall dimly lighted by a lantern swinging from the ceiling.
+He found a chair, mounted it, and cut the lantern down, then led the
+way again along an endless corridor, stone-flagged and flanked on either
+side by rows of cells. Many of the doors stood open, as if in silent
+token of the tenants' hurried flight, showing what a panic had been
+spread by the sudden advent of this troop.
+
+Mr. Butler became more and more deeply intrigued, more and more deeply
+suspicious that here all was not well. Why should a community of loyal
+monks take flight in this fashion from British soldiers?
+
+"Bad luck to them!" he growled, as he stumbled on. "They may hide as
+they will, but it's myself 'll run the shavelings to earth."
+
+They were brought up short at the end of that long, chill gallery by
+closed double doors. Beyond these an organ was pealing, and overhead
+the clapper of the alarm bell was beating more furiously than ever. All
+realised that they stood upon the threshold of the chapel and that the
+conventuals had taken refuge there.
+
+Mr. Butler checked upon a sudden suspicion. "Maybe, after all, they've
+taken us for French," said he.
+
+A trooper ventured to answer him. "Best let them see we're not before we
+have the whole village about our ears."
+
+"Damn that bell," said the lieutenant, and added: "Put your shoulders to
+the door."
+
+Its fastenings were but crazy ones, and it yielded almost instantly to
+their pressure--yielded so suddenly that Mr. Butler, who himself had
+been foremost in straining against it, shot forward half-a-dozen yards
+into the chapel and measured his length upon its cold flags.
+
+Simultaneously from the chancel came a great cry: "Libera nos, Domine!"
+followed by a shuddering murmur of prayer.
+
+The lieutenant picked himself up, recovered the lantern that had rolled
+from his grasp, and lurched forward round the angle that hid the chancel
+from his view. There, huddled before the main altar like a flock of
+scared and stupid sheep, he beheld the conventuals--some two score of
+them perhaps and in the dim light of the heavy altar lamp above them he
+could make out the black and white habit of the order of St. Dominic.
+
+He came to a halt, raised his lantern aloft, and called to them
+peremptorily:
+
+"Ho, there!"
+
+The organ ceased abruptly, but the bell overhead went clattering on.
+
+Mr. Butler addressed them in the best French he could command: "What
+do you fear? Why do you flee? We are friends--English soldiers, seeking
+quarters for the night."
+
+A vague alarm was stirring in him. It began to penetrate his obfuscated
+mind that perhaps he had been rash, that this forcible rape of a convent
+was a serious matter. Therefore he attempted this peaceful explanation.
+
+From that huddled group a figure rose, and advanced with a solemn,
+stately grace. There was a faint swish of robes, the faint rattle
+of rosary beads. Something about that figure caught the lieutenant's
+attention sharply. He craned forward, half sobered by the sudden fear
+that clutched him, his eyes bulging in his face.
+
+"I had thought," said a gentle, melancholy woman's voice, "that the
+seals of a nunnery were sacred to British soldiers."
+
+For a moment Mr. Butler seemed to be labouring for breath. Fully sobered
+now, understanding of his ghastly error reached him at the gallop.
+
+"My God!" he gasped, and incontinently turned to flee.
+
+But as he fled in horror of his sacrilege, he still kept his head
+turned, staring over his shoulder at the stately figure of the abbess,
+either in fascination or with some lingering doubt of what he had seen
+and heard. Running thus, he crashed headlong into a pillar, and, stunned
+by the blow, he reeled and sank unconscious to the ground.
+
+This the troopers had not seen, for they had not lingered. Understanding
+on their own part the horrible blunder, they had turned even as their
+leader turned, and they had raced madly back the way they had come,
+conceiving that he followed. And there was reason for their haste other
+than their anxiety to set a term to the sacrilege of their presence.
+From the cloistered garden of the convent uproar reached them, and the
+metallic voice of Sergeant Flanagan calling loudly for help.
+
+The alarm bell of the convent had done its work. The villagers were
+up, enraged by the outrage, and armed with sticks and scythes and
+bill-hooks, an army of them was charging to avenge this infamy. The
+troopers reached the close no more than in time. Sergeant Flanagan, only
+half understanding the reason for so much anger, but understanding that
+this anger was very real and very dangerous, was desperately defending
+the horses with his two companions against the vanguard of the
+assailants. There was a swift rush of the dragoons and in an instant
+they were in the saddle, all but the lieutenant, of whose absence they
+were suddenly made conscious. Flanagan would have gone back for him, and
+he had in fact begun to issue an order with that object when a sudden
+surge of the swelling, roaring crowd cut off the dragoons from the door
+through which they had emerged. Sitting their horses, the little troop
+came together, their sabres drawn, solid as a rock in that angry
+human sea that surged about them. The moon riding now clear overhead
+irradiated that scene of impending strife.
+
+Flanagan, standing in his stirrups, attempted to harangue the mob. But
+he was at a loss what to say that would appease them, nor able to speak
+a language they could understand. An angry peasant made a slash at him
+with a billhook. He parried the blow on his sabre, and with the flat of
+it knocked his assailant senseless.
+
+Then the storm burst, and the mob flung itself upon the dragoons.
+
+"Bad cess to you!" cried Flanagan. "Will ye listen to me, ye murthering
+villains." Then in despair "Char-r-r-ge!" he roared, and headed for the
+gateway.
+
+The troopers attempted in vain to reach it. The mob hemmed them about
+too closely, and then a horrid hand-to-hand fight began, under the cold
+light of the moon, in that garden consecrated to peace and piety. Two
+saddles had been emptied, and the exasperated troopers were slashing now
+at their assailants with the edge, intent upon cutting a way out of that
+murderous press. It is doubtful if a man of them would have survived,
+for the odds were fully ten to one against them. To their aid came now
+the abbess. She stood on a balcony above, and called upon the people
+to desist, and hear her. Thence she harangued them for some moments,
+commanding them to allow the soldiers to depart. They obeyed with
+obvious reluctance, and at last a lane was opened in that solid,
+seething mass of angry clods.
+
+But Flanagan hesitated to pass down this lane and so depart. Three of
+his troopers were down by now, and his lieutenant was missing. He was
+exercised to resolve where his duty lay. Behind him the mob was solid,
+cutting off the dragoons from their fallen comrades. An attempt to go
+back might be misunderstood and resisted, leading to a renewal of the
+combat, and surely in vain, for he could not doubt but that the fallen
+troopers had been finished outright.
+
+Similarly the mob stood as solid between him and the door that led to
+the interior of the convent, where Mr. Butler was lingering alive or
+dead. A number of peasants had already invaded the actual building, so
+that in that connection too the sergeant concluded that there was little
+reason to hope that the lieutenant should have escaped the fate his own
+rashness had invoked. He had his remaining seven men to think of, and
+he concluded that it was his duty under all the circumstances to bring
+these off alive, and not procure their massacre by attempting fruitless
+quixotries.
+
+So "Forward!" roared the voice of Sergeant Flanagan, and forward went
+the seven through the passage that had opened out before them in that
+hooting, angry mob.
+
+Beyond the convent walls they found fresh assailants awaiting them,
+enemies these, who had not been soothed by the gentle, reassuring voice
+of the abbess. But here there was more room to manoeuvre.
+
+"Trot!" the sergeant commanded, and soon that trot became a gallop. A
+shower of stones followed them as they thundered out of Tavora, and the
+sergeant himself had a lump as large as a duck-egg on the middle of his
+head when next day he reported himself at Pesqueira to Cornet O'Rourke,
+whom he overtook there.
+
+When eventually Sir Robert Craufurd heard the story of the affair, he
+was as angry as only Sir Robert could be. To have lost four dragoons
+and to have set a match to a train that might end in a conflagration was
+reason and to spare.
+
+"How came such a mistake to be made?" he inquired, a scowl upon his full
+red countenance.
+
+Mr. O'Rourke had been investigating and was primed with knowledge.
+
+"It appears, sir, that at Tavora there is a convent of Dominican nuns as
+well as a monastery of Dominican friars. Mr. Butler will have used the
+word 'convento,' which more particularly applies to the nunnery, and so
+he was directed to the wrong house."
+
+"And you say the sergeant has reason to believe that Mr. Butler did not
+survive his folly?"
+
+"I am afraid there can be no hope, sir."
+
+"It's perhaps just as well," said Sir Robert. "For Lord Wellington would
+certainly have had him shot."
+
+And there you have the true account of the stupid affair of Tavora,
+which was to produce, as we shall see, such far-reaching effects upon
+persons nowise concerned in it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE ULTIMATUM
+
+
+News of the affair at Tavora reached Sir Terence O'Moy, the
+Adjutant-General at Lisbon, about a week later in dispatches from
+headquarters. These informed him that in the course of the humble
+apology and explanation of the regrettable occurrence offered by the
+Colonel of the 8th Dragoons in person to the Mother Abbess, it had
+transpired that Lieutenant Butler had left the convent alive, but that
+nevertheless he continued absent from his regiment.
+
+Those dispatches contained other unpleasant matters of a totally
+different nature, with which Sir Terence must proceed to deal at once;
+but their gravity was completely outweighed in the adjutant's mind by
+this deplorable affair of Lieutenant Butler's. Without wishing to convey
+an impression that the blunt and downright O'Moy was gifted with any
+undue measure of shrewdness, it must nevertheless be said that he was
+quick to perceive what fresh thorns the occurrence was likely to throw
+in a path that was already thorny enough in all conscience, what
+a semblance of justification it must give to the hostility of the
+intriguers on the Council of Regency, what a formidable weapon it must
+place in the hands of Principal Souza and his partisans. In itself this
+was enough to trouble a man in O'Moy's position. But there was more.
+Lieutenant Butler happened to be his brother-in-law, own brother to
+O'Moy's lovely, frivolous wife. Irresponsibility ran strongly in that
+branch of the Butler family.
+
+For the sake of the young wife whom he loved with a passionate and
+fearful jealousy such as is not uncommon in a man of O'Moy's temperament
+when at his age--he was approaching his forty-sixth birthday--he marries
+a girl of half his years, the adjutant had pulled his brother-in-law out
+of many a difficulty; shielded him on many an occasion from the proper
+consequences of his incurable rashness.
+
+This affair of the convent, however, transcended anything that had gone
+before and proved altogether too much for O'Moy. It angered him as much
+as it afflicted him. Yet when he took his head in his hands and groaned,
+it was only his sorrow that he was expressing, and it was a sorrow
+entirely concerned with his wife.
+
+The groan attracted the attention of his military secretary, Captain
+Tremayne, of Fletcher's Engineers, who sat at work at a littered
+writing-table placed in the window recess. He looked up sharply, sudden
+concern in the strong young face and the steady grey eyes he bent upon
+his chief. The sight of O'Moy's hunched attitude brought him instantly
+to his feet.
+
+"Whatever is the matter, sir?"
+
+"It's that damned fool Richard," growled O'Moy. "He's broken out again."
+
+The captain looked relieved. "And is that all?"
+
+O'Moy looked at him, white-faced, and in his blue eyes a blaze of that
+swift passion that had made his name a byword in the army.
+
+"All?" he roared. "You'll say it's enough, by God, when you hear what
+the fool's been at this time. Violation of a nunnery, no less." And he
+brought his massive fist down with a crash upon the document that had
+conveyed the information. "With a detachment of dragoons he broke into
+the convent of the Dominican nuns at Tavora one night a week ago.
+The alarm bell was sounded, and the village turned out to avenge the
+outrage. Consequences: three troopers killed, five peasants sabred to
+death and seven other casualties, Dick himself missing and reported to
+have escaped from the convent, but understood to remain in hiding--so
+that he adds desertion to the other crime, as if that in itself were not
+enough to hang him. That's all, as you say, and I hope you consider it
+enough even for Dick Butler--bad luck to him."
+
+"My God!" said Captain Tremayne.
+
+"I'm glad that you agree with me."
+
+Captain Tremayne stared at his chief, the utmost dismay upon his fine
+young face. "But surely, sir, surely--I mean, sir, if this report is
+correct some explanation--" He broke down, utterly at fault.
+
+"To be sure, there's an explanation. You may always depend upon a most
+elegant explanation for anything that Dick Butler does. His life is made
+up of mistakes and explanations." He spoke bitterly, "He broke into
+the nunnery under a misapprehension, according to the account of the
+sergeant who accompanied him," and Sir Terence read out that part of the
+report. "But how is that to help him, and at such a time as this, with
+public feeling as it is, and Wellington in his present temper about it?
+The provost's men are beating the country for the blackguard. When they
+find him it's a firing party he'll have to face."
+
+Tremayne turned slowly to the window and looked down the fair prospect
+of the hillside over a forest of cork oaks alive with fresh green
+shoots to the silver sheen of the river a mile away. The storms of the
+preceding week had spent their fury--the travail that had attended the
+birth of Spring--and the day was as fair as a day of June in England.
+Weaned forth by the generous sunshine, the burgeoning of vine and fig,
+of olive and cork went on apace, and the skeletons of trees which a
+fortnight since had stood gaunt and bare were already fleshed in tender
+green.
+
+From the window of this fine conventual house on the heights of
+Monsanto, above the suburb of Alcantara, where the Adjutant-General had
+taken up his quarters, Captain Tremayne stood a moment considering the
+panorama spread to his gaze, from the red-brown roofs of Lisbon on his
+left--that city which boasted with Rome that it was built upon a cluster
+of seven hills--to the lines of embarkation that were building about
+the fort of St. Julian on his left. Then he turned, facing again the
+spacious, handsome room with its heavy, semi-ecclesiastical furniture,
+and Sir Terence, who, hunched in his chair at the ponderously carved
+black writing-table, scowled fiercely at nothing.
+
+"What are you going to do, sir?" he inquired.
+
+Sir Terence shrugged impatiently and heaved himself up in his chair.
+
+"Nothing," he growled.
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+The interrogation, which seemed almost to cover a reproach, irritated
+the adjutant.
+
+"And what the devil can I do?" he rapped.
+
+"You've pulled Dick out of scrapes before now."
+
+"I have. That seems to have been my principal occupation ever since I
+married his sister. But this time he's gone too far. What can I do?"
+
+"Lord Wellington is fond of you," suggested Captain Tremayne. He was
+your imperturbable young man, and he remained as calm now as O'Moy was
+excited. Although by some twenty years the adjutant's junior, there was
+between O'Moy and himself, as well as between Tremayne and the Butler
+family, with which he was remotely connected, a strong friendship, which
+was largely responsible for the captain's present appointment as Sir
+Terence's military secretary.
+
+O'Moy looked at him, and looked away. "Yes," he agreed. "But he's still
+fonder of law and order and military discipline, and I should only
+be imperilling our friendship by pleading with him for this young
+blackguard."
+
+"The young blackguard is your brother-in-law," Tremayne reminded him.
+
+"Bad luck to you, Tremayne, don't I know it? Besides, what is there I
+can do?" he asked again, and ended testily: "Faith, man, I don't know
+what you're thinking of."
+
+"I'm thinking of Una," said Captain Tremayne in that composed way of
+his, and the words fell like cold water upon the hot iron of O'Moy's
+anger.
+
+The man who can receive with patience a reproach, implicit or explicit,
+of being wanting in consideration towards his wife is comparatively
+rare, and never a man of O'Moy's temperament and circumstances.
+Tremayne's reminder stung him sharply, and the more sharply because of
+the strong friendship that existed between Tremayne and Lady O'Moy. That
+friendship had in the past been a thorn in O'Moy's flesh. In the days of
+his courtship he had known a fierce jealousy of Tremayne, beholding in
+him for a time a rival who, with the strong advantage of youth, must in
+the end prevail. But when O'Moy, putting his fortunes to the test, had
+declared himself and been accepted by Una Butler, there had been an end
+to the jealousy, and the old relations of cordial friendship between the
+men had been resumed.
+
+O'Moy had conceived that jealousy of his to have been slain. But there
+had been times when from its faint, uneasy stirrings he should have
+taken warning that it did no more than slumber. Like most warm hearted,
+generous, big-natured men, O'Moy was of a singular humility where women
+were concerned, and this humility of his would often breathe a doubt
+lest in choosing between himself and Tremayne Una might have been guided
+by her head rather than her heart, by ambition rather than affection,
+and that in taking himself she had taken the man who could give her by
+far the more assured and affluent position.
+
+He had crushed down such thoughts as disloyal to his young wife,
+as ungrateful and unworthy; and at such times he would fall into
+self-contempt for having entertained them. Then Una herself had revived
+those doubts three months ago, when she had suggested that Ned Tremayne,
+who was then at Torres Vedras with Colonel Fletcher, was the very man to
+fill the vacant place of military secretary to the adjutant, if he would
+accept it. In the reaction of self-contempt, and in a curious surge
+of pride almost as perverse as his humility, O'Moy had adopted her
+suggestion, and thereafter--in the past-three months, that is to
+say--the unreasonable devil of O'Moy's jealousy had slept, almost
+forgotten. Now, by a chance remark whose indiscretion Tremayne could
+not realise, since he did not so much as suspect the existence of that
+devil, he had suddenly prodded him into wakefulness. That Tremayne
+should show himself tender of Lady O'Moy's feelings in a matter in which
+O'Moy himself must seem neglectful of them was gall and wormwood to the
+adjutant. He dissembled it, however, out of a natural disinclination to
+appear in the ridiculous role of the jealous husband.
+
+"That," he said, "is a matter that you may safely leave to me," and his
+lips closed tightly upon the words when they were uttered.
+
+"Oh, quite so," said Tremayne, no whit abashed. He persisted
+nevertheless. "You know Una's feelings for Dick."
+
+"When I married Una," the adjutant cut in sharply, "I did not marry the
+entire Butler family." It hardened him unreasonably against Dick to have
+the family cause pleaded in this way. "It's sick to death I am of Master
+Richard and his escapades. He can get himself out of this mess, or he
+can stay in it."
+
+"You mean that you'll not lift a hand to help him."
+
+"Devil a finger," said O'Moy.
+
+And Tremayne, looking straight into the adjutant's faintly smouldering
+blue eyes, beheld there a fierce and rancorous determination which
+he was at a loss to understand, but which he attributed to something
+outside his own knowledge that must lie between O'Moy and his
+brother-in-law.
+
+"I am sorry," he said gravely. "Since that is how you feel, it is to
+be hoped that Dick Butler may not survive to be taken. The alternative
+would weigh so cruelly upon Una that I do not care to contemplate it."
+
+"And who the devil asks you to contemplate it?" snapped O'Moy. "I am not
+aware that it is any concern of yours at all."
+
+"My dear O'Moy!" It was an exclamation of protest, something between
+pain and indignation, under the stress of which Tremayne stepped
+entirely outside of the official relations that prevailed between
+himself and the adjutant. And the exclamation was accompanied by such a
+look of dismay and wounded sensibilities that O'Moy, meeting this, and
+noting the honest manliness of Tremayne's bearing and countenance; was
+there and then the victim of reaction. His warm-hearted and impulsive
+nature made him at once profoundly ashamed of himself. He stood up,
+a tall, martial figure, and his ruggedly handsome, shaven countenance
+reddened under its tan. He held out a hand to Tremayne.
+
+"My dear boy, I beg your pardon. It's so utterly annoyed I am that the
+savage in me will be breaking out. Sure, it isn't as if it were
+only this affair of Dick's. That is almost the least part of the
+unpleasantness contained in this dispatch. Here! In God's name, read it
+for yourself, and judge for yourself whether it's in human nature to be
+patient under so much."
+
+With a shrug and a smile to show that he was entirely mollified, Captain
+Tremayne took the papers to his desk and sat down to con them. As he
+did so his face grew more and more grave. Before he had reached the end
+there was a tap at the door. An orderly entered with the announcement
+that Dom Miguel Forjas had just driven up to Monsanto to wait upon the
+adjutant-general.
+
+"Ha!" said O'Moy shortly, and exchanged a glance with his secretary.
+"Show the gentleman up."
+
+As the orderly withdrew, Tremayne came over and placed the dispatch on
+the adjutant's desk. "He arrives very opportunely," he said.
+
+"So opportunely as to be suspicious, bedad!" said O'Moy. He had
+brightened suddenly, his Irish blood quickening at the immediate
+prospect of strife which this visit boded. "May the devil admire me, but
+there's a warm morning in store for Mr. Forjas, Ned."
+
+"Shall I leave you?"
+
+"By no means."
+
+The door opened, and the orderly admitted Miguel Forjas, the Portuguese
+Secretary of State. He was a slight, dapper gentleman, all in black,
+from his silk stockings and steel-buckled shoes to his satin stock.
+His keen aquiline face was swarthy, and the razor had left his chin and
+cheeks blue-black. His sleek hair was iron-grey. A portentous gravity
+invested him this morning as he bowed with profound deference first to
+the adjutant and then to the secretary.
+
+"Your Excellencies," he said--he spoke an English that was smooth and
+fluent for all its foreign accent "Your Excellencies, this is a terrible
+affair."
+
+"To what affair will your Excellency be alluding?" wondered O'Moy.
+
+"Have you not received news of what has happened at Tavora? Of the
+violation of a convent by a party of British soldiers? Of the fight that
+took place between these soldiers and the peasants who went to succour
+the nuns?"
+
+"Oh, and is that all?" said O'Moy. "For a moment I imagined your
+Excellency referred to other matters. I have news of more terrible
+affairs than the convent business with which to entertain you this
+morning."
+
+"That, if you will pardon me, Sir Terence, is quite impossible."
+
+"You may think so. But you shall judge, bedad. A chair, Dom Miguel."
+
+The Secretary of State sat down, crossed his knees and placed his hat in
+his lap. The other two resumed their seats, O'Moy leaning forward, his
+elbows on the writing-table, immediately facing Senhor Forjas.
+
+"First, however," he said, "to deal with this affair of Tavora. The
+Council of Regency will, no doubt, have been informed of all the
+circumstances. You will be aware, therefore, that this very deplorable
+business was the result of a misapprehension, and that the nuns of
+Tavora might very well have avoided all this trouble had they behaved in
+a sensible, reasonable manner. If instead of shutting themselves up in
+the chapel and ringing the alarm bell the Mother-Abbess or one of the
+sisters had gone to the wicket and answered the demand of admittance
+from the officer commanding the detachment, he would instantly have
+realised his mistake and withdrawn."
+
+"What does your Excellency suggest was this mistake?" inquired the
+Secretary.
+
+"You have had your report, sir, and surely it was complete. You must
+know that he conceived himself to be knocking at the gates of the
+monastery of the Dominican fathers."
+
+"Can your Excellency tell me what was this officer's business at the
+monastery of the Dominican fathers?" quoth the Secretary, his manner
+frostily hostile.
+
+"I am without information on that point," O'Moy admitted; "no doubt
+because the officer in question is missing, as you will also have been
+informed. But I have no reason to doubt that, whatever his business may
+have been, it was concerned with the interests which are common alike to
+the British and the Portuguese nation."
+
+"That is a charitable assumption, Sir Terence."
+
+"Perhaps you will inform me, Dom Miguel, of the uncharitable assumption
+which the Principal Souza prefers," snapped O'Moy, whose temper began to
+simmer.
+
+A faint colour kindled in the cheeks of the Portuguese minister, but his
+manner remained unruffled.
+
+"I speak, sir, not with the voice of Principal Souza, but with that of
+the entire Council of Regency; and the Council has formed the opinion,
+which your own words confirm, that his Excellency Lord Wellington is
+skilled in finding excuses for the misdemeanours of the troops under his
+command."
+
+"That," said O'Moy, who would never have kept his temper in control but
+for the pleasant consciousness that he held a hand of trumps with which
+he would presently overwhelm this representative of the Portuguese
+Government, "that is an opinion for which the Council may presently like
+to apologise, admitting its entire falsehood."
+
+Senhor Forjas started as if he had been stung. He uncrossed his black
+silk legs and made as if to rise.
+
+"Falsehood, sir?" he cried in a scandalised voice.
+
+"It is as well that we should be plain, so as to be avoiding all
+misconceptions," said O'Moy. "You must know, sir, and your Council must
+know, that wherever armies move there must be reason for complaint.
+The British army does not claim in this respect to be superior to
+others--although I don't say, mark me, that it might not claim it with
+perfect justice. But we do claim for ourselves that our laws against
+plunder and outrage are as strict as they well can be, and that where
+these things take place punishment inevitably follows. Out of your own
+knowledge, sir, you must admit that what I say is true."
+
+"True, certainly, where the offenders are men from the ranks. But in
+this case, where the offender is an officer, it does not transpire that
+justice has been administered with the same impartial hand." "That,
+sir," answered O'Moy sharply, testily, "is because he is missing."
+
+The Secretary's thin lips permitted themselves to curve into the
+faintest ghost of a smile. "Precisely," he said.
+
+For answer O'Moy, red in the face, thrust forward the dispatch he had
+received relating to the affair.
+
+"Read, sir--read for yourself, that you may report exactly to the
+Council of Regency the terms of the report that has just reached me from
+headquarters. You will be able to announce that diligent search is being
+made for the offender."
+
+Forjas perused the document carefully, and returned it.
+
+"That is very good," he said, "and the Council will be glad to hear of
+it. It will enable us to appease the popular resentment in some degree.
+But it does not say here that when taken this officer will not be
+excused upon the grounds which yourself you have urged to me."
+
+"It does not. But considering that he has since been guilty of
+desertion, there can be no doubt--all else apart--that the finding of a
+court martial will result in his being shot."
+
+"Very well," said Forjas. "I will accept your assurance, and the Council
+will be relieved to hear of it." He rose to take his leave. "I am
+desired by the Council to express to Lord Wellington the hope that he
+will take measures to preserve better order among his troops and to
+avoid the recurrence of such extremely painful incidents."
+
+"A moment," said O'Moy, and rising waved his guest back into his chair,
+then resumed his own seat. Under a more or less calm exterior he was
+a seething cauldron of passion. "The matter is not quite at an end, as
+your Excellency supposes. From your last observation, and from a variety
+of other evidence, I infer that the Council is far from satisfied with
+Lord Wellington's conduct of the campaign."
+
+"That is an inference which I cannot venture to contradict. You will
+understand, General, that I do not speak for myself, but for the
+Council, when I say that many of his measures seem to us not merely
+unnecessary, but detrimental. The power having been placed in the hands
+of Lord Wellington, the Council hardly feels itself able to interfere
+with his dispositions. But it nevertheless deplores the destruction of
+the mills and the devastation of the country recommended and insisted
+upon by his lordship. It feels that this is not warfare as the Council
+understands warfare, and the people share the feelings of the Council.
+It is felt that it would be worthier and more commendable if Lord
+Wellington were to measure himself in battle with the French, making a
+definite attempt to stem the tide of invasion on the frontiers."
+
+"Quite so," said O'Moy, his hand clenching and unclenching, and
+Tremayne, who watched him, wondered how long it would be before the
+storm burst. "Quite so. And because the Council disapproves of the
+very measures which at Lord Wellington's instigation it has publicly
+recommended, it does not trouble to see that those measures are carried
+out. As you say, it does not feel itself able to interfere with his
+dispositions. But it does not scruple to mark its disapproval by
+passively hindering him at every turn. Magistrates are left to
+neglect these enactments, and because," he added with bitter sarcasm,
+"Portuguese valour is so red-hot and so devilish set on battle the
+Militia Acts calling all men to the colours are forgotten as soon as
+published. There is no one either to compel the recalcitrant to take
+up arms, or to punish the desertions of those who have been driven into
+taking them up. Yet you want battles, you want your frontiers defended.
+A moment, sir! there is no need for heat, no need for any words. The
+matter may be said to be at an end." He smiled--a thought viciously,
+be it confessed--and then played his trump card, hurled his bombshell.
+"Since the views of your Council are in such utter opposition to
+the views of the Commander-in-Chief, you will no doubt welcome Lord
+Wellington's proposal to withdraw from this country and to advise his
+Majesty's Government to withdraw the assistance which it is affording
+you."
+
+There followed a long spell of silence, O'Moy sitting back in his chair,
+his chin in his hand, to observe the result of his words. Nor was he in
+the least disappointed. Dom Miguel's mouth fell open; the colour slowly
+ebbed from his cheeks, leaving them an ivory-yellow; his eyes dilated
+and protruded. He was consternation incarnate.
+
+"My God!" he contrived to gasp at last, and his shaking hands clutched
+at the carved arms of his chair.
+
+"Ye don't seem as pleased as I expected," ventured O'Moy.
+
+"But, General, surely... surely his Excellency cannot mean to take so...
+so terrible a step?"
+
+"Terrible to whom, sir?" wondered O'Moy.
+
+"Terrible to us all." Forjas rose in his agitation. He came to lean
+upon O'Moy's writing-table, facing the adjutant. "Surely, sir, our
+interests--England's interests and Portugal's--are one in this."
+
+"To be sure. But England's interests can be defended elsewhere than in
+Portugal, and it is Lord Wellington's view that they shall be. He has
+already warned the Council of Regency that, since his Majesty and the
+Prince Regent have entrusted him with the command of the British and
+Portuguese armies, he will not suffer the Council or any of its members
+to interfere with his conduct of the military operations, or suffer any
+criticism or suggestion of theirs to alter system formed upon mature
+consideration. But when, finding their criticisms fail, the members of
+the Council, in their wrongheadedness, in their anxiety to allow private
+interest to triumph over public duty, go the length of thwarting the
+measures of which they do not approve, the end of Lord Wellington's
+patience has been reached. I am giving your Excellency his own words.
+He feels that it is futile to remain in a country whose Government is
+determined to undermine his every endeavour to bring this campaign to a
+successful issue.
+
+"Yourself, sir, you appear to be distressed. But the Council of Regency
+will no doubt take a different view. It will rejoice in the departure
+of a man whose military operations it finds so detestable. You will
+no doubt discover this when you come to lay Lord Wellington's decision
+before the Council, as I now invite you to do."
+
+Bewildered and undecided, Forjas stood there for a moment, vainly
+seeking words. Finally:
+
+"Is this really Lord Wellington's last word?" he asked in tones of
+profoundest consternation.
+
+"There is one alternative--one only," said O'Moy slowly.
+
+"And that?" Instantly Forjas was all eagerness.
+
+O'Moy considered him. "Faith, I hesitate to state it."
+
+"No, no. Please, please."
+
+"I feel that it is idle."
+
+"Let the Council judge. I implore you, General, let the Council judge."
+
+"Very well." O'Moy shrugged, and took up a sheet of the dispatch which
+lay before him. "You will admit, sir, I think, that the beginning of
+these troubles coincided with the advent of the Principal Souza upon
+the Council of Regency." He waited in vain for a reply. Forjas, the
+diplomat, preserved an uncompromising silence, in which presently O'Moy
+proceeded: "From this, and from other evidence, of which indeed there
+is no lack, Lord Wellington has come to the conclusion that all the
+resistance, passive and active, which he has encountered, results from
+the Principal Souza's influence upon the Council. You will not, I think,
+trouble to deny it, sir."
+
+Forjas spread his hands. "You will remember, General," he answered, in
+tones of conciliatory regret, "that the Principal Souza represents a
+class upon whom Lord Wellington's measures bear in a manner peculiarly
+hard."
+
+"You mean that he represents the Portuguese nobility and landed
+gentry, who, putting their own interests above those of the State, have
+determined to oppose and resist the devastation of the country which
+Lord Wellington recommends."
+
+"You put it very bluntly," Forjas admitted.
+
+"You will find Lord Wellington's own words even more blunt," said O'Moy,
+with a grim smile, and turned to the dispatch he held. "Let me read you
+exactly what he writes:
+
+"'As for Principal Souza, I beg you to tell him from me that as I have
+had no satisfaction in transacting the business of this country since he
+has become a member of the Government, no power on earth shall induce
+me to remain in the Peninsula if he is either to remain a member of the
+Government or to continue in Lisbon. Either he must quit the country, or
+I will do so, and this immediately after I have obtained his Majesty's
+permission to resign my charge.'"
+
+The adjutant put down the letter and looked expectantly at the Secretary
+of State, who returned the look with one of utter dismay. Never in all
+his career had the diplomat been so completely dumbfounded as he was
+now by the simple directness of the man of action. In himself Dom Miguel
+Forjas was both shrewd and honest. He was shrewd enough to apprehend to
+the full the military genius of the British Commander-in-Chief, fruits
+of which he had already witnessed. He knew that the withdrawal of
+Junot's army from Lisbon two years ago resulted mainly from the
+operations of Sir Arthur Wellesley--as he was then--before his
+supersession in the supreme command of that first expedition, and he
+more than suspected that but for that supersession the defeat of the
+first French army of invasion might have been even more signal. He had
+witnessed the masterly campaign of 1809, the battle of the Douro and
+the relentless operations which had culminated in hurling the shattered
+fragments of Soult's magnificent army over the Portuguese frontier,
+thus liberating that country for the second time from the thrall of the
+mighty French invader. And he knew that unless this man and the troops
+under his command remained in Portugal and enjoyed complete liberty of
+action there could be no hope of stemming the third invasion for which
+Massena--the ablest of all the Emperor's marshals was now gathering his
+divisions in the north. If Wellington were to execute his threat and
+withdraw with his army, Forjas beheld nothing but ruin for his country.
+The irresistible French would sweep forward in devastating conquest, and
+Portuguese independence would be ground to dust under the heel of the
+terrible Emperor.
+
+All this the clear-sighted Dom Miguel Forjas now perceived. To do him
+full justice, he had feared for some time that the unreasonable conduct
+of his Government might ultimately bring about some such desperate
+situation. But it was not for him to voice those fears. He was the
+servant of that Government, the "mere instrument and mouthpiece of the
+Council of Regency.
+
+"This," he said at length in a voice that was awed, "is an ultimatum."
+
+"It is that," O'Moy admitted readily.
+
+Forjas sighed, shook his dark head and drew himself up like a man who
+has chosen his part. Being shrewd, he saw the immediate necessity of
+choosing, and, being honest, he chose honestly.
+
+"Perhaps it is as well," he said.
+
+"That Lord Wellington should go?" cried O'Moy.
+
+"That Lord Wellington should announce intentions of going," Forjas
+explained. And having admitted so much, he now stripped off the official
+mask completely. He spoke with his own voice and not with that of the
+Council whose mouthpiece he was. "Of course it will never be permitted.
+Lord Wellington has been entrusted with the defence of the country by
+the Prince Regent; consequently it is the duty of every Portuguese to
+ensure that at all costs he shall continue in that office."
+
+O'Moy was mystified. Only a knowledge of the minister's inmost thoughts
+could have explained this oddly sudden change of manner.
+
+"But your Excellency understands the terms--the only terms upon which
+his lordship will so continue?"
+
+"Perfectly. I shall hasten to convey those terms to the Council. It is
+also quite clear--is it not?--that I may convey to my Government and
+indeed publish your complete assurance that the officer responsible for
+the raid on the convent at Tavora will be shot when taken?"
+
+Looking intently into O'Moy's face, Dom Miguel saw the clear blue eyes
+flicker under his gaze, he beheld a grey shadow slowly overspreading
+the adjutant's ruddy cheek. Knowing nothing of the relationship between
+O'Moy and the offender, unable to guess the sources of the hesitation
+of which he now beheld such unmistakable signs, the minister naturally
+misunderstood it.
+
+"There must be no flinching in this, General," he cried. "Let me
+speak to you for a moment quite frankly and in confidence, not as
+the Secretary of State of the Council of Regency, but as a Portuguese
+patriot who places his country and his country's welfare above every
+other consideration. You have issued your ultimatum. It may be harsh,
+it may be arbitrary; with that I have no concern. The interests,
+the feelings of Principal Souza or of any other individual, however
+high-placed, are without weight when the interests of the nation hang
+against them in the balance. Better that an injustice be done to one man
+than that the whole country should suffer. Therefore I do not argue with
+you upon the rights and wrongs of Lord Wellington's ultimatum. That is
+a matter apart. Lord Wellington demands the removal of Principal
+Souza from the Government, or, in the alternative, proposes himself to
+withdraw from Portugal. In the national interest the Government can come
+to only one decision. I am frank with you, General. Myself I shall stand
+ranged on the side of the national interest, and what my influence in
+the Council can do it shall do. But if you know Principal Souza at all,
+you must know that he will not relinquish his position without a fight.
+He has friends and influence--the Patriarch of Lisbon and many of the
+nobility will be on his side. I warn you solemnly against leaving any
+weapon in his hands."
+
+He paused impressively. But O'Moy, grey-faced now and haggard, waited in
+silence for him to continue.
+
+"From the message I brought you," Forjas resumed, "you will have
+perceived how Principal Souza has fastened upon this business at Tavora
+to support his general censure of Lord Wellington's conduct of the
+campaign. That is the weapon to which my warning refers. You must--if we
+who place the national interest supreme are to prevail--you must
+disarm him by the assurance that I ask for. You will perceive that I am
+disloyal to a member of my Council so that I may be loyal to my country.
+But I repeat, I speak to you in confidence. This officer has committed
+a gross outrage, which must bring the British army into odium with the
+people, unless we have your assurance that the British army is the first
+to censure and to punish the offender with the utmost rigour. Give me
+now, that I may publish everywhere, your official assurance that this
+man will be shot, and on my side I assure you that Principal Souza,
+thus deprived of his stoutest weapon, must succumb in the struggle that
+awaits us."
+
+"I hope," said O'Moy slowly, his head bowed, his voice dull and even
+unsteady, "I hope that I am not behind you in placing public duty above
+private consideration. You may publish my official assurance that the
+officer in question will be... shot when taken."
+
+"General, I thank you. My country thanks you. You may be confident
+of this issue." He bowed gravely to O'Moy and then to Tremayne. "Your
+Excellencies, I have the honour to wish you good-day." He was shown out
+by the orderly who had admitted him, and he departed well satisfied
+in his patriotic heart that the crisis which he had always known to
+be inevitable should have been reached at last. Yet, as he went, he
+wondered why the Adjutant-General had looked so downcast, why his voice
+had broken when he pledged his word that justice should be done upon
+the offending British officer. That, however, was no concern of Dom
+Miguel's, and there was more than enough to engage his thoughts when
+he came to consider the ultimatum to his Government with which he was
+charged.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. LADY O'MOY
+
+
+Across the frontier in the northwest was gathering the third army of
+invasion, some sixty thousand strong, commanded by Marshal Massena,
+Prince of Esslingen, the most skilful and fortunate of all Napoleon's
+generals, a leader who, because he had never known defeat, had come to
+be surnamed by his Emperor "the dear child of Victory."
+
+Wellington, at the head of a British force of little more than one
+third of the French host, watched and waited, maturing his stupendous
+strategic plan, which those in whose interests it had been conceived
+had done so much to thwart. That plan was inspired by and based upon
+the Emperor's maxim that war should support itself; that an army on the
+march must not be hampered and immobilised by its commissariat, but that
+it must draw its supplies from the country it is invading; that it must,
+in short, live upon that country.
+
+Behind the British army and immediately to the north of Lisbon, in an
+arc some thirty miles long, following the inflection of the hills from
+the sea at the mouth of the Zizandre to the broad waters of the Tagus
+at Alhandra, the lines of Torres Vedras were being constructed under the
+direction of Colonel Fletcher and this so secretly and with such careful
+measures as to remain unknown to British and Portuguese alike. Even
+those employed upon the works knew of nothing save the section upon
+which they happened to be engaged, and had no conception of the
+stupendous and impregnable whole that was preparing.
+
+To these lines it was the British commander's plan to effect a slow
+retreat before the French flood when it should sweep forward, thus
+luring the enemy onward into a country which he had commanded should be
+laid relentlessly waste, that there that enemy might fast be starved
+and afterwards destroyed. To this end had his proclamations gone forth,
+commanding that all the land lying between the rivers Tagus and Mondego,
+in short, the whole of the country between Beira and Torres Vedras,
+should be stripped naked, converted into a desert as stark and empty
+as the Sahara. Not a head of cattle, not a grain of corn, not a skin of
+wine, not a flask of oil, not a crumb of anything affording nourishment
+should be left behind. The very mills were to be rendered useless,
+bridges were to be broken down, the houses emptied of all property,
+which the refugees were to carry away with them from the line of
+invasion.
+
+Such was his terrible demand upon the country for its own salvation. But
+such, as we have seen, was not war as Principal Souza and some of his
+adherents understood it. They had not the foresight to perceive the
+inevitable result of this strategic plan if effectively and thoroughly
+executed. They did not even realise that the devastation had better be
+effected by the British in this defensive--and in its results at the
+same time overwhelmingly offensive--manner than by the French in the
+course of a conquering onslaught. They did not realise these things
+partly because they did not enjoy Wellington's full confidence, and in a
+greater measure because they were blinded by self-interest, because, as
+O'Moy told Forjas, they placed private considerations above public
+duty. The northern nobles whose lands must suffer opposed the measure
+violently; they even opposed the withdrawal of labour from those lands
+which the Militia Act had rendered necessary. And Antonio de Souza made
+himself their champion until he was broken by Wellington's ultimatum to
+the Council. For broken he was. The nation had come to a parting of the
+ways. It had been brought to the necessity of choosing, and however much
+the Principal, voicing the outcry of his party, might argue that the
+British plan was as detestable and ruinous as a French invasion, the
+nation preferred to place its confidence in the conqueror of Vimeiro and
+the Douro.
+
+Souza quitted the Government and the capital as had been demanded. But
+if Wellington hoped that he would quit intriguing, he misjudged his man.
+He was a fellow of monstrous vanity, pride and self-sufficiency, of
+the sort than which there is none more dangerous to offend. His wounded
+pride demanded a salve to be procured at any cost. The wound had been
+administered by Wellington, and must be returned with interest. So that
+he ruined Wellington it mattered nothing to Antonio de Souza that he
+should ruin himself and his own country at the same time. He was like
+some blinded, ferocious and unreasoning beast, ready, even eager, to
+sacrifice its own life so that in dying it can destroy its enemy and
+slake its blood-thirst.
+
+In that mood he passes out of the councils of the Portuguese Government
+into a brooding and secretly active retirement, of which the fruits
+shall presently be shown. With his departure the Council of Regency,
+rudely shaken by the ultimatum which had driven him forth, became
+more docile and active, and for a season the measures enjoined by the
+Commander-in-Chief were pursued with some show of earnestness.
+
+As a result of all this life at Monsanto became easier, and O'Moy was
+able to breathe more freely, and to devote more of his time to matters
+concerning the fortifications which Wellington had left largely in his
+charge. Then, too, as the weeks passed, the shadow overhanging him with
+regard to Richard Butler gradually lifted. No further word had there
+been of the missing lieutenant, and by the end of May both O'Moy and
+Tremayne had come to the conclusion that he must have fallen into the
+hands of some of the ferocious mountaineers to whom a soldier--whether
+his uniform were British or French--was a thing to be done to death.
+
+For his wife's sake O'Moy came thankfully to that conclusion. Under the
+circumstances it was the best possible termination to the episode. She
+must be told of her brother's death presently, when evidence of it
+was forthcoming; she would mourn him passionately, no doubt, for her
+attachment to him was deep--extraordinarily deep for so shallow a
+woman--but at least she would be spared the pain and shame she must
+inevitably have felt had he been taken and, shot.
+
+Meanwhile, however, the lack of news from him, in another sense, would
+have to be explained to Una sooner or later for a fitful correspondence
+was maintained between brother and sister--and O'Moy dreaded the moment
+when this explanation must be made. Lacking invention, he applied to
+Tremayne for assistance, and Tremayne glumly supplied him with the
+necessary lie that should meet Lady O'Moy's inquiries when they came.
+
+In the end, however, he was spared the necessity of falsehood. For the
+truth itself reached Lady O'Moy in an unexpected manner. It came about a
+month after that day when O'Moy had first received news of the escapade
+at Tavora. It was a resplendent morning of early June, and the adjutant
+was detained a few moments from breakfast by the arrival of a mail-bag
+from headquarters, now established at Vizeu. Leaving Captain Tremayne to
+deal with it, Sir Terence went down to breakfast, bearing with him only
+a few letters of a personal character which had reached him from friends
+on the frontier.
+
+The architecture of the house at Monsanto was of a semiclaustral
+character; three sides of it enclosed a sheltered luxuriant garden,
+whilst on the fourth side a connecting corridor, completing the
+quadrangle, spanned bridgewise the spacious archway through which
+admittance was gained directly from the parklands that sloped gently
+to Alcantara. This archway, closed at night by enormous wooden doors,
+opened wide during the day upon a grassy terrace bounded by a baluster
+of white marble that gleamed now in the brilliant sunshine. It was
+O'Moy's practice to breakfast out-of-doors in that genial climate, and
+during April, before the sun had reached its present intensity, the
+table had been spread out there upon the terrace. Now, however, it was
+wiser, even in the early morning, to seek the shade, and breakfast was
+served within the quadrangle, under a trellis of vine supported in the
+Portuguese manner by rough-hewn granite columns. It was a delicious
+spot, cool and fragrant, secluded without being enclosed, since through
+the broad archway it commanded a view of the Tagus and the hills of
+Alemtejo.
+
+Here O'Moy found himself impatiently awaited that morning by his wife
+and her cousin, Sylvia Armytage, more recently arrived from England.
+
+"You are very late," Lady O'Moy greeted him petulantly. Since she spent
+her life in keeping other people waiting, it naturally fretted her to
+discover unpunctuality in others.
+
+Her portrait, by Raeburn, which now adorns the National Gallery, had
+been painted in the previous year. You will have seen it, or at least
+you will have seen one of its numerous replicas, and you will have
+remarked its singular, delicate, rose-petal loveliness--the gleaming
+golden head, the flawless outline of face and feature, the immaculate
+skin, the dark blue eyes with their look of innocence awakening.
+
+Thus was she now in her artfully simple gown of flowered muslin with its
+white fichu folded across her neck that was but a shade less white; thus
+was she, just as Raeburn had painted her, saving, of course, that her
+expression, matching her words, was petulant.
+
+"I was detained by the arrival of a mail-bag from Vizeu," Sir Terence
+excused himself, as he took the chair which Mullins, the elderly,
+pontifical butler, drew out for him. "Ned is attending to it, and will
+be kept for a few moments yet."
+
+Lady O'Moy's expression quickened. "Are there no letters for me?"
+
+"None, my dear, I believe."
+
+"No word from Dick?" Again there was that note of ever ready petulance.
+"It is too provoking. He should know that he must make me anxious by his
+silence. Dick is so thoughtless--so careless of other people's feelings.
+I shall write to him severely."
+
+The adjutant paused in the act of unfolding his napkin. The prepared
+explanation trembled on his lips; but its falsehood, repellent to him,
+was not uttered.
+
+"I should certainly do so, my dear," was all he said, and addressed
+himself to his breakfast.
+
+"What news from headquarters?" Miss Armytage asked him. "Are things
+going well?"
+
+"Much better now that Principal Souza's influence is at an end. Cotton
+reports that the destruction of the mills in the Mondego valley is being
+carried out systematically."
+
+Miss Armytage's dark, thoughtful eyes became wistful.
+
+"Do you know, Terence," she said, "that I am not without some sympathy
+for the Portuguese resistance to Lord Wellington's decrees. They must
+bear so terribly hard upon the people. To be compelled with their own
+hands to destroy their homes and lay waste the lands upon which they
+have laboured--what could be more cruel?"
+
+"War can never be anything but cruel," he answered gravely. "God help
+the people over whose lands it sweeps. Devastation is often the least of
+the horrors marching in its train."
+
+"Why must war be?" she asked him, in intelligent rebellion against that
+most monstrous and infamous of all human madnesses.
+
+O'Moy proceeded to do his best to explain the unexplainable, and since,
+himself a professional soldier, he could not take the sane view of his
+sane young questioner, hot argument ensued between them, to the infinite
+weariness of Lady O'Moy, who out of self-protection gave herself to the
+study of the latest fashion plates from London and the consideration
+of a gown for the ball which the Count of Redondo was giving in the
+following week.
+
+It was thus in all things, for these cousins represented the two poles
+of womanhood. Miss Armytage without any of Lady O'Moy's insistent and
+excessive femininity, was nevertheless feminine to the core. But hers
+was the Diana type of womanliness. She was tall and of a clean-limbed,
+supple grace, now emphasised by the riding-habit which she was
+wearing--for she had been in the saddle during the hour which Lady
+O'Moy had consecrated to the rites of toilet and devotions done before
+her mirror. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, vivacity and intelligence lent her
+countenance an attraction very different from the allurement of her
+cousin's delicate loveliness. And because her countenance was a true
+mirror of her mind, she argued shrewdly now, so shrewdly that she drove
+O'Moy to entrench himself behind generalisations.
+
+"My dear Sylvia, war is most merciful where it is most merciless," he
+assured her with the Irish gift for paradox. "At home in the Government
+itself there are plenty who argue as you argue, and who are
+wondering when we shall embark for England. That is because they
+are intellectuals, and war is a thing beyond the understanding of
+intellectuals. It is not intellect but brute instinct and brute force
+that will help humanity in such a crisis as the present. Therefore,
+let me tell you, my child, that a government of intellectual men is the
+worst possible government for a nation engaged in a war."
+
+This was far from satisfying Miss Armytage. Lord Wellington himself was
+an intellectual, she objected. Nobody could deny it. There was the work
+he had done as Irish Secretary, and there was the calculating genius he
+had displayed at Vimeiro, at Oporto, at Talavera.
+
+And then, observing her husband to be in distress, Lady O'Moy put down
+her fashion plate and brought up her heavy artillery to relieve him.
+
+"Sylvia, dear," she interpolated, "I wonder that you will for ever be
+arguing about things you don't understand."
+
+Miss Armytage laughed good-humouredly. She was not easily put out of
+countenance. "What woman doesn't?" she asked.
+
+"I don't, and I am a woman, surely."
+
+"Ah, but an exceptional woman," her cousin rallied her affectionately,
+tapping the shapely white arm that protruded from a foam of lace. And
+Lady O'Moy, to whom words never had any but a literal meaning, set
+herself to purr precisely as one would have expected. Complacently she
+discoursed upon the perfection of her own endowments, appealing ever and
+anon to her husband for confirmation, and O'Moy, who loved her with all
+the passionate reverence which Nature working inscrutably to her ends so
+often inspires in just such strong, essentially masculine men for just
+such fragile and excessively feminine women, afforded this confirmation
+with all the enthusiasm of sincere conviction.
+
+Thus until Mullins broke in upon them with the announcement of a visit
+from Count Samoval, an announcement more welcome to Lady O'Moy than to
+either of her companions.
+
+The Portuguese nobleman was introduced. He had attained to a degree
+of familiarity in the adjutant's household that permitted of his being
+received without ceremony there at that breakfast-table spread in the
+open. He was a slender, handsome, swarthy man of thirty, scrupulously
+dressed, as graceful and elegant in his movements as a fencing master,
+which indeed he might have been; for his skill with the foils was a
+matter of pride to himself and notoriety to all the world. Nor was it by
+any means the only skill he might have boasted, for Jeronymo de Samoval
+was in many things, a very subtle, supple gentleman. His friendship
+with the O'Moys, now some three months old, had been considerably
+strengthened of late by the fact that he had unexpectedly become one
+of the most hostile critics of the Council of Regency as lately
+constituted, and one of the most ardent supporters of the Wellingtonian
+policy.
+
+He bowed with supremest grace to the ladies, ventured to kiss the fair,
+smooth hand of his hostess, undeterred by the frosty stare of O'Moy's
+blue eyes whose approval of all men was in inverse proportion to their
+approval of his wife--and finally proffered her the armful of early
+roses that he brought.
+
+"These poor roses of Portugal to their sister from England," said his
+softly caressing tenor voice.
+
+"Ye're a poet," said O'Moy tartly.
+
+"Having found Castalia here," said, the Count, "shall I not drink its
+limpid waters?"
+
+"Not, I hope, while there's an agreeable vintage of Port on the table. A
+morning whet, Samoval?" O'Moy invited him, taking up the decanter.
+
+"Two fingers, then--no more. It is not my custom in the morning. But
+here--to drink your lady's health, and yours, Miss Armytage." With
+a graceful flourish of his glass he pledged them both and sipped
+delicately, then took the chair that O'Moy was proffering.
+
+"Good news, I hear, General. Antonio de Souza's removal from the
+Government is already bearing fruit. The mills in the valley of the
+Mondego are being effectively destroyed at last."
+
+"Ye're very well informed," grunted O'Moy, who himself had but received
+the news. "As well informed, indeed, as I am myself." There was a note
+almost of suspicion in the words, and he was vexed that matters which
+it was desirable be kept screened as much as possible from general
+knowledge should so soon be put abroad.
+
+"Naturally, and with reason," was the answer, delivered with a rueful
+smile. "Am I not interested? Is not some of my property in question?"
+Samoval sighed. "But I bow to the necessities of war. At least it cannot
+be said of me, as was said of those whose interests Souza represented,
+that I put private considerations above public duty--that is the phrase,
+I think. The individual must suffer that the nation may triumph. A Roman
+maxim, my dear General."
+
+"And a British one," said O'Moy, to whom Britain was a second Rome.
+
+"Oh, admitted," replied the amiable Samoval. "You proved it by your
+uncompromising firmness in the affair of Tavora."
+
+"What was that?" inquired Miss Armytage.
+
+"Have you not heard?" cried Samoval in astonishment.
+
+"Of course not," snapped O'Moy, who had broken into a cold perspiration.
+"Hardly a subject for the ladies, Count."
+
+Rebuked for his intention, Samoval submitted instantly.
+
+"Perhaps not; perhaps not," he agreed, as if dismissing it, whereupon
+O'Moy recovered from his momentary breathlessness. "But in your own
+interests, my dear General, I trust there will be no weakening when this
+Lieutenant Butler is caught, and--"
+
+"Who?"
+
+Sharp and stridently came that single word from her ladyship.
+
+Desperately O'Moy sought to defend the breach.
+
+"Nothing to do with Dick, my dear. A fellow named Philip Butler, who--"
+
+But the too-well-informed Samoval corrected him. "Not Philip,
+General--Richard Butler. I had the name but yesterday from Forjas."
+
+In the scared hush that followed the Count perceived that he had
+stumbled headlong into a mystery. He saw Lady O'Moy's face turn whiter
+and whiter, saw her sapphire eyes dilating as they regarded him.
+
+"Richard Butler!" she echoed. "What of Richard Butler? Tell me. Tell me
+at once."
+
+Hesitating before such signs of distress, Samoval looked at O'Moy, to
+meet a dejected scowl.
+
+Lady O'Moy turned to her husband. "What is it?" she demanded. "You
+know something about Dick and you are keeping it from me. Dick is in
+trouble?"
+
+"He is," O'Moy admitted. "In great trouble."
+
+"What has he done? You spoke of an affair at Evora or Tavora, which is
+not to be mentioned before ladies. I demand to know." Her affection
+and anxiety for her brother invested her for a moment with a certain
+dignity, lent her a force that was but rarely displayed by her.
+
+Seeing the men stricken speechless, Samoval from bewildered
+astonishment, O'Moy from distress, she jumped to the conclusion, after
+what had been said, that motives of modesty accounted for their silence.
+
+"Leave us, Sylvia, please," she said. "Forgive me, dear. But you see
+they will not mention these things while you are present." She made a
+piteous little figure as she stood trembling there, her fingers tearing
+in agitation at one of Samoval's roses.
+
+She waited until the obedient and discreet Miss Armytage had passed from
+view into the wing that contained the adjutant's private quarters, then
+sinking limp and nerveless to her chair:
+
+"Now," she bade them, "please tell me."
+
+And O'Moy, with a sigh of regret for the lie so laboriously concocted
+which would never now be uttered, delivered himself huskily of the
+hideous truth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. COUNT SAMOVAL
+
+
+Miss Armytage's own notions of what might be fit and proper for her
+virginal ears were by no means coincident with Lady O'Moy's. Thus,
+although you have seen her pass into the private quarters of the
+adjutant's establishment, and although, in fact, she did withdraw to
+her own room, she found it impossible to abide there a prey to doubt and
+misgivings as to what Dick Butler might have done--doubt and misgivings,
+be it understood, entertained purely on Una's account and not at all on
+Dick's.
+
+By the corridor spanning the archway on the southern side of the
+quadrangle, and serving as a connecting bridge between the adjutant's
+private and official quarters, Miss Armytage took her way to Sir
+Terence's work-room, knowing that she would find Captain Tremayne there,
+and assuming that he would be alone.
+
+"May I come in?" she asked him from the doorway.
+
+He sprang to his feet. "Why, certainly, Miss Armytage." For so
+imperturbable a young man he seemed oddly breathless in his eagerness to
+welcome her. "Are you looking for O'Moy? He left me nearly half-an-hour
+ago to go to breakfast, and I was just about to follow."
+
+"I scarcely dare detain you, then."
+
+"On the contrary. I mean... not at all. But... were you wanting me?"
+
+She closed the door, and came forward into the room, moving with that
+supple grace peculiarly her own.
+
+"I want you to tell me something, Captain Tremayne, and I want you to be
+frank with me."
+
+"I hope I could never be anything else."
+
+"I want you to treat me as you would treat a man, a friend of your own
+sex."
+
+Tremayne sighed. He had recovered from the surprise of her coming and
+was again his imperturbable self.
+
+"I assure you that is the last way in which I desire to treat you. But
+if you insist--"
+
+"I do." She had frowned slightly at the earlier part of his speech, with
+its subtle, half-jesting gallantry, and she spoke sharply now.
+
+"I bow to your will," said Captain Tremayne.
+
+"What has Dick Butler been doing?"
+
+He looked into her face with sharply questioning eyes.
+
+"What was it that happened at Tavora?"
+
+He continued to look at her. "What have you heard?" he asked at last.
+
+"Only that he has done something at Tavora for which the consequences, I
+gather, may be grave. I am anxious for Una's sake to know what it is."
+
+"Does Una know?"
+
+"She is being told now. Count Samoval let slip just what I have
+outlined. And she has insisted upon being told everything."
+
+"Then why did you not remain to hear?"
+
+"Because they sent me away on the plea that--oh, on the silly plea of my
+youth and innocence, which were not to be offended."
+
+"But which you expect me to offend?"
+
+"No. Because I can trust you to tell me without offending."
+
+"Sylvia!" It was a curious exclamation of satisfaction and of gratitude
+for the implied confidence. We must admit that it betrayed a selfish
+forgetfulness of Dick Butler and his troubles, but it is by no means
+clear that it was upon such grounds that it offended her.
+
+She stiffened perceptibly. "Really, Captain Tremayne!"
+
+"I beg your pardon," said he. "But you seemed to imply--" He checked, at
+a loss.
+
+Her colour rose. "Well, sir? What do you suggest that I implied or
+seemed to imply?" But as suddenly her manner changed. "I think we are
+too concerned with trifles where the matter on which I have sought you
+is a serious one."
+
+"It is of the utmost seriousness," he admitted gravely.
+
+"Won't you tell me what it is?"
+
+He told her quite simply the whole story, not forgetting to give
+prominence to the circumstances extenuating it in Butler's favour. She
+listened with a deepening frown, rather pale, her head bowed.
+
+"And when he is taken," she asked, "what--what will happen to him?"
+
+"Let us hope that he will not be taken."
+
+"But if he is--if he is?" she insisted almost impatiently.
+
+Captain Tremayne turned aside and looked out of the window. "I should
+welcome the news that he is dead," he said softly. "For if he is taken
+he will find no mercy at the hands of his own people."
+
+"You mean that he will be shot?" Horror charged her voice, dilated her
+eyes.
+
+"Inevitably."
+
+A shudder ran through her, and she covered her face with her hands. When
+she withdrew then Tremayne beheld the lovely countenance transformed. It
+was white and drawn.
+
+"But surely Terence can save him!" she cried piteously.
+
+He shook his head, his lips tight pressed. "'There is no man less able
+to do so."
+
+"What do you mean? Why do you say that?"
+
+He looked at her, hesitating for a moment, then answered her: "'O'Moy
+has pledged his word to the Portuguese Government that Dick Butler shall
+be shot when taken."
+
+"Terence did that?"
+
+"He was compelled to it. Honour and duty demanded no less of him. I
+alone, who was present and witnessed the undertaking, know what it
+cost him and what he suffered. But he was forced to sink all private
+considerations. It was a sacrifice rendered necessary, inevitable for
+the success of this campaign." And he proceeded to explain to her
+all the circumstances that were interwoven with Lieutenant Butler's
+ill-timed offence. "Thus you see that from Terence you can hope for
+nothing. His honour will not admit of his wavering in this matter."
+
+"Honour?" She uttered the word almost with contempt. "And what of Una?"
+
+"I was thinking of Una when I said I should welcome the news of Dick's
+death somewhere in the hills. It is the best that can be hoped for."
+
+"I thought you were Dick's friend, Captain Tremayne."
+
+"Why, so I have been; so I am. Perhaps that is another reason why I
+should hope that he is dead."
+
+"Is it no reason why you should do what you can to save him?"
+
+He looked at her steadily for an instant, calm under the reproach of her
+eyes.
+
+"Believe me, Miss Armytage, if I saw a way to save him, to do anything
+to help him, I should seize it, both for the sake of my friendship for
+himself and because of my affection for Una. Since you yourself are
+interested in him, that is an added reason for me. But it is one thing
+to admit willingness to help and another thing actually to afford help.
+What is there that I can do? I assure you that I have thought of the
+matter. Indeed for days I have thought of little else. But I can see no
+light. I await events. Perhaps a chance may come."
+
+Her expression had softened. "I see." She put out a hand generously to
+ask forgiveness. "I was presumptuous, and I had no right to speak as I
+did."
+
+He took the hand. "I should never question your right to speak to me in
+any way that seemed good to you," he assured her.
+
+"I had better go to Una. She will be needing me, poor child. I am
+grateful to you, Captain Tremayne, for your confidence and for telling
+me." And thus she left him very thoughtful, as concerned for Una as she
+was herself.
+
+Now Una O'Moy was the natural product of such treatment. There had ever
+been something so appealing in her lovely helplessness and fragility
+that all her life others had been concerned to shelter her from every
+wind that blew. Because it was so she was what she was; and because she
+was what she was it would continue to be so.
+
+But Lady O'Moy at the moment did not stand in such urgent need of Miss
+Armytage as Miss Armytage imagined. She had heard the appalling story of
+her brother's escapade, but she had been unable to perceive in what
+it was so terrible as it was declared. He had made a mistake. He had
+invaded the convent under a misapprehension, for which it was ridiculous
+to blame him. It was a mistake which any man might have made in a
+foreign country. Lives had been lost, it is true; but that was owing to
+the stupidity of other people--of the nuns who had run for shelter when
+no danger threatened save in their own silly imaginations, and of the
+peasants who had come blundering to their assistance where no assistance
+was required; the latter were the people responsible for the bloodshed,
+since they had attacked the dragoons. Could it be expected of the
+dragoons that they should tamely suffer themselves to be massacred?
+
+Thus Lady O'Moy upon the affair of Tavora. The whole thing appeared to
+her to be rather silly, and she refused seriously to consider that it
+could have any grave consequences for Dick. His continued absence made
+her anxious. But if he should come to be taken, surely his punishment
+would be merely a formal matter; at the worst he might be sent home,
+which would be a very good thing, for after all the climate of the
+Peninsula had never quite suited him.
+
+In this fashion she nimbly pursued a train of vitiated logic, passing
+from inconsequence to inconsequence. And O'Moy, thankful that she should
+take such a view as this--mercifully hopeful that the last had been heard
+of his peccant and vexatious brother-in-law--content, more than content,
+to leave her comforted such illusions.
+
+And then, while she was still discussing the matter in terms of comparative
+calm, came an orderly to summon him away, so that he left her in the
+company of Samoval.
+
+The Count had been deeply shocked by the discovery that Dick Butler
+was Lady O'Moy's brother, and a little confused that he himself in his
+ignorance should have been the means of bringing to her knowledge a
+painful matter that touched her so closely and that hitherto had been
+so carefully concealed from her by her husband. He was thankful that
+she should take so optimistic a view, and quick to perceive O'Moy's
+charitable desire to leave her optimism undispelled. But he was no less
+quick to perceive the opportunities which the circumstances afforded him
+to further a certain deep intrigue upon which he was engaged.
+
+Therefore he did not take his leave just yet. He sauntered with Lady
+O'Moy on the terrace above the wooded slopes that screened the village
+of Alcantara, and there discovered her mind to be even more frivolous
+and unstable than his perspicuity had hitherto suspected. Under stress
+Lady O'Moy could convey the sense that she felt deeply. She could
+be almost theatrical in her displays of emotion. But these were as
+transient as they were intense. Nothing that was not immediately present
+to her senses was ever capable of a deep impression upon her spirit,
+and she had the facility characteristic of the self-loving and
+self-indulgent of putting aside any matter that was unpleasant. Thus,
+easily self-persuaded, as we have seen, that this escapade of Richard's
+was not to be regarded too seriously, and that its consequences were
+not likely to be grave, she chattered with gay inconsequence of other
+things--of the dinner-party last week at the house of the Marquis
+of Minas, that prominent member of the council of Regency, of the
+forthcoming ball to be given by the Count of Redondo, of the latest news
+from home, the latest fashion and the latest scandal, the amours of the
+Duke of York and the shortcomings of Mr. Perceval.
+
+Samoval, however, did not intend that the matter of her brother should
+be so entirely forgotten, so lightly treated. Deliberately at last he
+revived it.
+
+Considering her as she leant upon the granite balustrade, her pink
+sunshade aslant over her shoulder, her flimsy lace shawl festooned
+from the crook of either arm and floating behind her, a wisp of cloudy
+vapour, Samoval permitted himself a sigh.
+
+She flashed him a sidelong glance, arch and rallying.
+
+"You are melancholy, sir--a poor compliment," she told him.
+
+But do not misunderstand her. Hers was an almost childish coquetry,
+inevitable fruit of her intense femininity, craving ever the worship of
+the sterner sex and the incense of its flattery. And Samoval, after all,
+young, noble, handsome, with a half-sinister reputation, was something
+of a figure of romance, as a good many women had discovered to their
+cost.
+
+He fingered his snowy stock, and bent upon her eyes of glowing
+adoration. "Dear Lady O'Moy," his tenor voice was soft and soothing as
+a caress, "I sigh to think that one so adorable, so entirely made
+for life's sunshine and gladness, should have cause for a moment's
+uneasiness, perhaps for secret grief, at the thought of the peril of her
+brother."
+
+Her glance clouded under this reminder. Then she pouted and made a
+little gesture of impatience. "Dick is not in peril," she answered. "He
+is foolish to remain so long in hiding, and of course he will have to
+face unpleasantness when he is found. But to say that he is in peril
+is... just nonsense. Terence said nothing of peril. He agreed with me
+that Dick will probably be sent home. Surely you don't think--"
+
+"No, no." He looked down, studying his hessians for a moment, then his
+dark eyes returned to meet her own. "I shall see to it that he is in no
+danger. You may depend upon me, who ask but the happy chance to serve
+you. Should there be any trouble, let me know at once, and I will see
+to it that all is well. Your brother must not suffer, since he is your
+brother. He is very blessed and enviable in that."
+
+She stared at him, her brows knitting. "But I don't understand."
+
+"Is it not plain? Whatever happens, you must not suffer, Lady O'Moy. No
+man of feeling, and I least of any, could endure it. And since if your
+brother were to suffer that must bring suffering to you, you may count
+upon me to shield him."
+
+"You are very good, Count. But shield him from what?"
+
+"From whatever may threaten. The Portuguese Government may demand in
+self-protection, to appease the clamour of the people stupidly outraged
+by this affair, that an example shall be made of the offender."
+
+"Oh, but how could they? With what reason?" She displayed a vague alarm,
+and a less vague impatience of such hypotheses.
+
+He shrugged. "The people are like that--a fierce, vengeful god to whom
+appeasing sacrifices must be offered from time to time. If the people
+demand a scapegoat, governments usually provide one. But be comforted."
+In his eagerness of reassurance he caught her delicate mittened hand in
+his own, and her anxiety rendering her heedless, she allowed it to lie
+there gently imprisoned. "Be comforted. I shall be here to guard him.
+There is much that I can do and you may depend upon me to do it--for
+your sake, dear lady. The Government will listen to me. I would not
+have you imagine me capable of boasting. I have influence with the
+Government, that is all; and I give you my word that so far as the
+Portuguese Government is concerned your brother shall take no harm."
+
+She looked at him for a long moment with moist eyes, moved and flattered
+by his earnestness and intensity of homage. "I take this very kindly
+in you, sir. I have no thanks that are worthy," she said, her voice
+trembling a little. "I have no means of repaying you. You have made me
+very happy, Count."
+
+He bent low over the frail hand he was holding.
+
+"Your assurance that I have made you happy repays me very fully, since
+your happiness is my tenderest concern. Believe me, dear lady, you may
+ever count Jeronymo de Samoval your most devoted and obedient slave."
+
+He bore the hand to his lips and held it to them for a long moment,
+whilst with heightened colour and eyes that sparkled, more, be it
+confessed, from excitement than from gratitude, she stood passively
+considering his bowed dark head.
+
+As he came erect again a movement under the archway caught his eye, and
+turning he found himself confronting Sir Terence and Miss Armytage,
+who were approaching. If it vexed him to have been caught by a husband
+notoriously jealous in an attitude not altogether uncompromising,
+Samoval betrayed no sign of it.
+
+With smooth self-possession he hailed O'Moy:
+
+"General, you come in time to enable me to take my leave of you. I was
+on the point of going."
+
+"So I perceived," said O'Moy tartly. He had almost said: "So I had
+hoped."
+
+His frosty manner would have imposed constraint upon any man less master
+of himself than Samoval. But the Count ignored it, and ignoring it
+delayed a moment to exchange amiabilities politely with Miss Armytage,
+before taking at last an unhurried and unperturbed departure.
+
+But no sooner was he gone than O'Moy expressed himself full frankly to
+his wife.
+
+"I think Samoval is becoming too attentive and too assiduous."
+
+"He is a dear," said Lady O'Moy.
+
+"That is what I mean," replied Sir Terence grimly.
+
+"He has undertaken that if there should be any trouble with the
+Portuguese Government about Dick's silly affair he will put it right."
+
+"Oh!" said O'Moy, "that was it?" And out of his tender consideration for
+her said no more.
+
+But Sylvia Armytage, knowing what she knew from Captain Tremayne, was
+not content to leave the matter there. She reverted to it presently as
+she was going indoors alone with her cousin.
+
+"Una," she said gently, "I should not place too much faith in Count
+Samoval and his promises."
+
+"What do you mean?" Lady O'Moy was never very tolerant of advice,
+especially from an inexperienced young girl.
+
+"I do not altogether trust him. Nor does Terence."
+
+"Pooh! Terence mistrusts every man who looks at me. My dear, never marry
+a jealous man," she added with her inevitable inconsequence.
+
+"He is the last man--the Count, I mean--to whom, in your place, I should
+go for assistance if there is trouble about Dick." She was thinking of
+what Tremayne had told her of the attitude of the Portuguese Government,
+and her clear-sighted mind perceived an obvious peril in permitting
+Count Samoval to become aware of Dick's whereabouts should they ever be
+discovered.
+
+"What nonsense, Sylvia! You conceive the oddest and most foolish notions
+sometimes. But of course you have no experience of the world." And
+beyond that she refused to discuss the matter, nor did the wise Sylvia
+insist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE FUGITIVE
+
+
+Although Dick Butler might continue missing in the flesh, in the
+spirit he and his miserable affair seem to have been ever present and
+ubiquitous, and a most fruitful source of trouble.
+
+It would be at about this time that there befell in Lisbon the
+deplorable event that nipped in the bud the career of that most
+promising young officer, Major Berkeley of the famous Die-Hards, the
+29th Foot.
+
+Coming into Lisbon on leave from his regiment, which was stationed at
+Abrantes, and formed part of the division under Sir Rowland Hill, the
+major happened into a company that contained at least one member who was
+hostile to Lord Wellington's conduct of the campaign, or rather to
+the measures which it entailed. As in the case of the Principal Souza,
+prejudice drove him to take up any weapon that came to his hand by means
+of which he could strike a blow at a system he deplored.
+
+Since we are concerned only indirectly with the affair, it may be stated
+very briefly. The young gentleman in question was a Portuguese officer
+and a nephew of the Patriarch of Lisbon, and the particular criticism
+to which Major Berkeley took such just exception concerned the very
+troublesome Dick Butler. Our patrician ventured to comment with sneers
+and innuendoes upon the fact that the lieutenant of dragoons continued
+missing, and he went so far as to indulge in a sarcastic prophecy that
+he never would be found.
+
+Major Berkeley, stung by the slur thus slyly cast upon British honour,
+invited the young gentleman to make himself more explicit.
+
+"I had thought that I was explicit enough," says young impudence,
+leering at the stalwart red-coat. "But if you want it more clearly
+still, then I mean that the undertaking to punish this ravisher of
+nunneries is one that you English have never intended to carry out. To
+save your faces you will take good care that Lieutenant Butler is never
+found. Indeed I doubt if he was ever really missing."
+
+Major Berkeley was quite uncompromising and downright. I am afraid he
+had none of the graces that can exalt one of these affairs.
+
+"Ye're just a very foolish liar, sir, and you deserve a good caning," was
+all he said, but the way in which he took his cane from under his arm
+was so suggestive of more to follow there and then that several of the
+company laid preventive hands upon him instantly.
+
+The Patriarch's nephew, very white and very fierce to hear himself
+addressed in terms which--out of respect for his august and powerful
+uncle--had never been used to him before, demanded instant satisfaction.
+He got it next morning in the shape of half-an-ounce of lead through his
+foolish brain, and a terrible uproar ensued. To appease it a scapegoat
+was necessary. As Samoval so truly said, the mob is a ferocious god to
+whom sacrifices must be made. In this instance the sacrifice, of course,
+was Major Berkeley. He was broken and sent home to cut his pigtail (the
+adornment still clung to by the 29th) and retire into private life,
+whereby the British army was deprived of an officer of singularly
+brilliant promise. Thus, you see, the score against poor Richard
+Butler--that foolish victim of wine and circumstance--went on
+increasing.
+
+But in my haste to usher Major Berkeley out of a narrative which he
+touches merely at a tangent, I am guilty of violating the chronological
+order of the events. The ship in which Major Berkeley went home
+to England and the rural life was the frigate Telemachus, and the
+Telemachus had but dropped anchor in the Tagus at the date with which I
+am immediately concerned. She came with certain stores and a heavy load
+of mails for the troops, and it would be a full fortnight before she
+would sail again for home. Her officers would be ashore during the time,
+the welcome guests of the officers of the garrison, bearing their share
+in the gaieties with which the latter strove to kill the time of waiting
+for events, and Marcus Glennie, the captain of the frigate, an old
+friend of Tremayne's, was by virtue of that friendship an almost daily
+visitor at the adjutant's quarters.
+
+But there again I am anticipating. The Telemachus came to her moorings
+in the Tagus, at which for the present we may leave her, on the morning
+of the day that was to close with Count Redondo's semi-official ball.
+Lady O'Moy had risen late, taking from one end of the day what she must
+relinquish to the other, that thus fully rested she might look her
+best that night. The greater part of the afternoon was devoted to
+preparation. It was amazing even to herself what an amount of detail
+there was to be considered, and from Sylvia she received but very
+indifferent assistance. There were times when she regretfully suspected
+in Sylvia a lack of proper womanliness, a taint almost of masculinity.
+There was to Lady O'Moy's mind something very wrong about a woman who
+preferred a canter to a waltz. It was unnatural; it was suspicious; she
+was not quite sure that it wasn't vaguely immoral.
+
+At last there had been dinner--to which she came a full half-hour late,
+but of so ravishing and angelic an appearance that the sight of her was
+sufficient to mollify Sir Terence's impatience and stifle the withering
+sarcasms he had been laboriously preparing. After dinner--which was
+taken at six o'clock--there was still an hour to spare before the
+carriage would come to take them into Lisbon.
+
+Sir Terence pleaded stress of work, occasioned by the arrival of the
+Telemachus that morning, and withdrew with Tremayne to the official
+quarters, to spend that hour in disposing of some of the many matters
+awaiting his attention. Sylvia, who to Lady O'Moy's exasperation seemed
+now for the first time to give a thought to what she should wear that
+night, went off in haste to gown herself, and so Lady O'Moy was left to
+her own resources--which I assure you were few indeed.
+
+The evening being calm and warm, she sauntered out into the open. She
+was more or less annoyed with everybody--with Sir Terence and Tremayne
+for their assiduity to duty, and with Sylvia for postponing all thought
+of dressing until this eleventh hour, when she might have been better
+employed in beguiling her ladyship's loneliness. In this petulant mood,
+Lady O'Moy crossed the quadrangle, loitered a moment by the table and
+chairs placed under the trellis, and considered sitting there to await
+the others. Finally, however, attracted by the glory of the sunset
+behind the hills towards Abrantes, she sauntered out on to the terrace,
+to the intense thankfulness of a poor wretch who had waited there for
+the past ten hours in the almost despairing hope that precisely such a
+thing might happen.
+
+She was leaning upon the balustrade when a rustle in the pines below
+drew her attention. The rustle worked swiftly upwards and round to
+the bushes on her right, and her eyes, faintly startled, followed its
+career, what time she stood tense and vaguely frightened.
+
+Then the bushes parted and a limping figure that leaned heavily upon
+a stick disclosed itself; a shaggy, red-bearded man in the garb of a
+peasant; and marvel of marvels!--this figure spoke her name sharply,
+warningly almost, before she had time to think of screaming.
+
+"Una! Una! Don't move!"
+
+The voice was certainly the voice of Mr. Butler. But how came that voice
+into the body of this peasant? Terrified, with drumming pulses, yet
+obedient to the injunction, she remained without speech or movement,
+whilst crouching so as to keep below the level of the balustrade the man
+crept forward until he was immediately before and below her.
+
+She stared into that haggard face, and through the half-mask of stubbly
+beard gradually made out the features of her brother.
+
+"Richard!" The name broke from her in a scream.
+
+"'Sh!" He waved his hands in wild alarm to repress her. "For God's sake,
+be quiet! It's a ruined man I am if they find me here. You'll have heard
+what's happened to me?"
+
+She nodded, and uttered a half-strangled "Yes."
+
+"Is there anywhere you can hide me? Can you get me into the house
+without being seen? I am almost starving, and my leg is on fire. I was
+wounded three days ago to make matters worse than they were already. I
+have been lying in the woods there watching for the chance to find you
+alone since sunrise this morning, and it's devil a bite or sup I've had
+since this time yesterday."
+
+"Poor, poor Richard!" She leaned down towards him in an attitude of
+compassionate, ministering grace. "But why? Why did you not come up to
+the house and ask for me? No one would have recognised you."
+
+"Terence would if he had seen me."
+
+"But Terence wouldn't have mattered. Terence will help you."
+
+"Terence!" He almost laughed from excess of bitterness, labouring under
+an egotistical sense of wrong. "He's the last man I should wish to meet,
+as I have good reason to know. If it hadn't been for that I should have
+come to you a month ago--immediately after this trouble of mine. As
+it is, I kept away until despair left me no other choice. Una, on no
+account a word of my presence to Terence."
+
+"But... he's my husband!"
+
+"Sure, and he's also adjutant-general, and if I know him at all he's the
+very man to place official duty and honour and all the rest of it above
+family considerations."
+
+"Oh, Richard, how little you know Terence! How wrong you are to misjudge
+him like this!"
+
+"Right or wrong, I'd prefer not to take the risk. It might end in my
+being shot one fine morning before long."
+
+"Richard!"
+
+"For God's sake, less of your Richard! It's all the world will be
+hearing you. Can you hide me, do you think, for a day or two? If you
+can't, I'll be after shifting for myself as best I can. I've been
+playing the part of an English overseer from Bearsley's wine farm, and
+it has brought me all the way from the Douro in safety. But the strain
+of it and the eternal fear of discovery are beginning to break me.
+And now there's this infernal wound. I was assaulted by a footpad near
+Abrantes, as if I was worth robbing. Anyhow I gave the fellow more than
+I took. Unless I have rest I think I shall go mad and give myself up to
+the provost-marshal to be shot and done with."
+
+"Why do you talk of being shot? You have done nothing to deserve that.
+Why should you fear it?"
+
+Now Mr. Butler was aware--having gathered the information lately on
+his travels--of the undertaking given by the British to the Council
+of Regency with regard to himself. But irresponsible egotist though he
+might be, yet in common with others he was actuated by the desire which
+his sister's fragile loveliness inspired in every one to spare her
+unnecessary pain or anxiety.
+
+"It's not myself will take any risks," he said again. "We are at war,
+and when men are at war killing becomes a sort of habit, and one life
+more or less is neither here nor there." And upon that he renewed his
+plea that she should hide him if she could and that on no account should
+she tell a single soul--and Sir Terence least of any--of his presence.
+
+Having driven him to the verge of frenzy by the waste of precious
+moments in vain argument, she gave him at last the promise he required.
+"Go back to the bushes there," she bade him, "and wait until I come for
+you. I will make sure that the coast is clear."
+
+Contiguous to her dressing-room, which overlooked the quadrangle, there
+was a small alcove which had been converted into a storeroom for
+the array of trunks and dress boxes that Lady O'Moy had brought from
+England. A door opening directly from her dressing room communicated
+with this alcove, and of that door Bridget, her maid, was in possession
+of the key.
+
+As she hurried now indoors she happened to meet Bridget on the stairs.
+The maid announced herself on her way to supper in the servants'
+quarters, and apologised for her presumption in assuming that her
+ladyship would no further require her services that evening. But since
+it fell in so admirably with her ladyship's own wishes, she insisted
+with quite unusual solicitude, with vehemence almost, that Bridget
+should proceed upon her way.
+
+"Just give me the key of the alcove," she said. "There are one or two
+things I want to get."
+
+"Can't I get them, your ladyship?"
+
+"Thank you, Bridget. I prefer to get them, myself."
+
+There was no more to be said. Bridget produced a bunch of keys, which
+she surrendered to her mistress, having picked out for her the one
+required.
+
+Lady O'Moy went up, to come down again the moment that Bridget had
+disappeared. The quadrangle was deserted, the household disposed of,
+and it wanted yet half-an-hour to the time for which the carriage was
+ordered. No moment could have been more propitious. But in any case
+no concealment was attempted--since, if detected it must have provoked
+suspicions hardly likely to be aroused in any other way.
+
+When Lady O'Moy returned indoors in the gathering dusk she was followed
+at a respectful distance by the limping fugitive, who might, had he been
+seen, have been supposed some messenger, or perhaps some person employed
+about the house or gardens coming to her ladyship for instructions. No
+one saw them, however, and they gained the dressing-room and thence the
+alcove in complete safety.
+
+There, whilst Richard, allowing his exhaustion at last to conquer him,
+sank heavily down upon one of his sister's many trunks, recking nothing
+of the havoc wrought in its priceless contents, her ladyship all
+a-tremble collapsed limply upon another.
+
+But there was no rest for her. Richard's wound required attention, and
+he was faint for want of meat and drink. So having procured him the
+wherewithal to wash and dress his hurt--a nasty knife-slash which had
+penetrated to the bone of his thigh, the very sight of which turned her
+ladyship sick and faint--she went to forage for him in a haste increased
+by the fact that time was growing short.
+
+On the dining-room sideboard, from the remains of dinner, she found and
+furtively abstracted what she needed--best part of a roast chicken, a
+small loaf and a half-flask of Collares. Mullins, the butler, would no
+doubt be exercised presently when he discovered the abstraction. Let him
+blame one of the footmen, Sir Terence's orderly, or the cat. It mattered
+nothing to Lady O'Moy.
+
+Having devoured the food and consumed the wine, Richard's exhaustion
+assumed the form of a lethargic torpor. To sleep was now his
+overmastering desire. She fetched him rugs and pillows, and he made
+himself a couch upon the floor. She had demurred, of course, when he
+himself had suggested this. She could not conceive of any one sleeping
+anywhere but in a bed. But Dick made short work of that illusion.
+
+"Haven't I been in hiding for the last six weeks?" he asked her. "And
+haven't I been thankful to sleep in a ditch? And wasn't I campaigning
+before that? I tell you I couldn't sleep in a bed. It's a habit I've
+lost entirely."
+
+Convinced, she gave way.
+
+"We'll talk to-morrow, Una," he promised her, as he stretched himself
+luxuriously upon that hard couch. "But meanwhile, on your life, not a
+word to any one. You understand?"
+
+"Of course I understand, my poor Dick."
+
+She stooped to kiss him. But he was fast asleep already.
+
+She went out and locked the door, and when, on the point of setting out
+for Count Redondo's, she returned the bunch of keys to Bridget the key
+of the alcove was missing.
+
+"I shall require it again in the morning, Bridget," she explained
+lightly. And then added kindly, as it seemed: "Don't wait for me, child.
+Get to bed. I shall be late in coming home, and I shall not want you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. MISS ARMYTAGE'S PEARLS
+
+
+Lady O'Moy and Miss Armytage drove alone together into Lisbon. The
+adjutant, still occupied, would follow as soon as he possibly could,
+whilst Captain Tremayne would go on directly from the lodgings which
+he shared in Alcantara with Major Carruthers--also of the adjutant's
+staff--whither he had ridden to dress some twenty minutes earlier.
+
+"Are you ill, Una?" had been Sylvia's concerned greeting of her cousin
+when she came within the range of the carriage lamps. "You are pale as
+a ghost." To this her ladyship had replied mechanically that a slight
+headache troubled her.
+
+But now that they sat side by side in the well upholstered carriage Miss
+Armytage became aware that her companion was trembling.
+
+"Una, dear, whatever is the matter?"
+
+Had it not been for the dominant fear that the shedding of tears would
+render her countenance unsightly, Lady O'Moy would have yielded to her
+feelings and wept. Heroically in the cause of her own flawless beauty
+she conquered the almost overmastering inclination.
+
+"I--I have been so troubled about Richard," she faltered. "It is preying
+upon my mind."
+
+"Poor dear!" In sheer motherliness Miss Armytage put an arm about her
+cousin and drew her close. "We must hope for the best."
+
+Now if you have understood anything of the character of Lady O'Moy you
+will have understood that the burden of a secret was the last burden
+that such a nature was capable of carrying. It was because Dick was
+fully aware of this that he had so emphatically and repeatedly impressed
+upon her the necessity for saying not a word to any one of his presence.
+She realised in her vague way--or rather she believed it since he
+had assured her--that there would be grave danger to him if he were
+discovered. But discovery was one thing, and the sharing of a confidence
+as to his presence another. That confidence must certainly be shared.
+
+Lady O'Moy was in an emotional maelstrom that swept her towards a
+cataract. The cataract might inspire her with dread, standing as it did
+for death and disaster, but the maelstrom was not to be resisted. She
+was helpless in it, unequal to breasting such strong waters, she who in
+all her futile, charming life had been borne snugly in safe crafts that
+were steered by others.
+
+Remained but to choose her confidant. Nature suggested Terence. But it
+was against Terence in particular that she had been warned. Circumstance
+now offered Sylvia Armytage. But pride, or vanity if you prefer it,
+denied her here. Sylvia was an inexperienced young girl, as she herself
+had so often found occasion to remind her cousin. Moreover, she fostered
+the fond illusion that Sylvia looked to her for precept, that upon
+Sylvia's life she exercised a precious guiding influence. How, then,
+should the supporting lean upon the supported? Yet since she must, there
+and then, lean upon something or succumb instantly and completely, she
+chose a middle course, a sort of temporary assistance.
+
+"I have been imagining things," she said. "It may be a premonition, I
+don't know. Do you believe in premonitions, Sylvia?"
+
+"Sometimes," Sylvia humoured her.
+
+"I have been imagining that if Dick is hiding, a fugitive, he might
+naturally come to me for help. I am fanciful, perhaps," she added
+hastily, lest she should have said too much. "But there it is. All day
+the notion has clung to me, and I have been asking myself desperately
+what I should do in such a case."
+
+"Time enough to consider it when it happens, Una. After all--"
+
+"I know," her ladyship interrupted on that ever-ready note of petulance
+of hers. "I know, of course. But I think I should be easier in my mind
+if I could find an answer to my doubt. If I knew what to do, to whom to
+appeal for assistance, for I am afraid that I should be very helpless
+myself. There is Terence, of course. But I am a little afraid of
+Terence. He has got Dick out of so many scrapes, and he is so impatient
+of poor Dick. I am afraid he doesn't understand him, and so I should be
+a little frightened of appealing to Terence again."
+
+"No," said Sylvia gravely, "I shouldn't go to Terence. Indeed he is the
+last man to whom I should go."
+
+"You say that too!" exclaimed her ladyship.
+
+"Why?" quoth Sylvia sharply. "Who else has said it?"
+
+There was a brief pause in which Lady O'Moy shuddered. She had been so
+near to betraying herself. How very quick and shrewd Sylvia was! She
+made, however, a good recovery.
+
+"Myself, of course. It is what I have thought myself. There is Count
+Samoval. He promised that if ever any such thing happened he would help
+me. And he assured me I could count upon him. I think it may have been
+his offer that made me fanciful."
+
+"I should go to Sir Terence before I went to Count Samoval. By which
+I mean that I should not go to Count Samoval at all under any
+circumstances. I do not trust him."
+
+"You said so once before, dear," said Lady O'Moy.
+
+"And you assured me that I spoke out of the fullness of my ignorance and
+inexperience."
+
+"Ah, forgive me."
+
+"There is nothing to forgive. No doubt you were right. But remember
+that instinct is most alive in the ignorant and inexperienced, and that
+instinct is often a surer guide than reason. Yet if you want reason, I
+can supply that too. Count Samoval is the intimate friend of the Marquis
+of Minas, who remains a member of the Government, and who next to the
+Principal Souza was, and no doubt is, the most bitter opponent of
+the British policy in Portugal. Yet Count Samoval, one of the largest
+landowners in the north, and the nobleman who has perhaps suffered
+most severely from that policy, represents himself as its most vigorous
+supporter."
+
+Lady O'Moy listened in growing amazement. Also she was a little shocked.
+It seemed to her almost indecent that a young girl should know so much
+about politics--so much of which she herself, a married woman, and the
+wife of the adjutant-general, was completely in ignorance.
+
+"Save us, child!" she ejaculated. "You are so extraordinarily informed."
+
+"I have talked to Captain Tremayne," said Sylvia. "He has explained all
+this."
+
+"Extraordinary conversation for a young man to hold with a young girl,"
+pronounced her ladyship. "Terence never talked of such things to me."
+
+"Terence was too busy making love to you," said Sylvia, and there was
+the least suspicion of regret in her almost boyish voice.
+
+"That may account for it," her ladyship confessed, and fell for a moment
+into consideration of that delicious and rather amusing past, when
+O'Moy's ferocious hesitancy and flaming jealousy had delighted her with
+the full perception of her beauty's power. With a rush, however, the
+present forced itself back upon her notice. "But I still don't see why
+Count Samoval should have offered me assistance if he did not intend to
+grant it when the time came."
+
+Sylvia explained that it was from the Portuguese Government that the
+demand for justice upon the violator of the nunnery at Tavora emanated,
+and that Samoval's offer might be calculated to obtain him information
+of Butler's whereabouts when they became known, so that he might
+surrender him to the Government.
+
+"My dear!" Lady O'Moy was shocked almost beyond expression. "How you
+must dislike the man to suggest that he could be such a--such a Judas."
+
+"I do not suggest that he could be. I warn you never to run the risk of
+testing him. He may be as honest in this matter as he pretends. But if
+ever Dick were to come to you for help, you must take no risk."
+
+The phrase was a happier one than Sylvia could suppose. It was almost
+the very phrase that Dick himself had used; and its reiteration by
+another bore conviction to her ladyship.
+
+"To whom then should I go?" she demanded plaintively. And Sylvia,
+speaking with knowledge, remembering the promise that Tremayne had given
+her, answered readily: "There is but one man whose assistance you could
+safely seek. Indeed I wonder you should not have thought of him in
+the first instance, since he is your own, as well as Dick's lifelong
+friend."
+
+"Ned Tremayne?" Her ladyship fell into thought. "Do you know, I am
+a little afraid of Ned. He is so very sober and cold. You do mean
+Ned--don't you?"
+
+"Whom else should I mean?"
+
+"But what could he do?"
+
+"My dear, how should I know? But at least I know--for I think I can be
+sure of this--that he will not lack the will to help you; and to have
+the will, in a man like Captain Tremayne, is to find a way."
+
+The confident, almost respectful, tone in which she spoke arrested her
+ladyship's attention. It promptly sent her off at a tangent:
+
+"You like Ned, don't you, dear?"
+
+"I think everybody likes him." Sylvia's voice was now studiously cold.
+
+"Yes; but I don't mean quite in that way." And then before the subject
+could be further pursued the carriage rolled to a standstill in a flood
+of light from gaping portals, scattering a mob of curious sight-seers
+intersprinkled with chairmen, footmen, linkmen and all the valetaille
+that hovers about the functions of the great world.
+
+The carriage door was flung open and the steps let down. A brace of
+footmen, plump as capons, in gorgeous liveries, bowed powdered heads and
+proffered scarlet arms to assist the ladies to alight.
+
+Above in the crowded, spacious, colonnaded vestibule at the foot of the
+great staircase they were met-by Captain Tremayne, who had just arrived
+with Major Carruthers, both resplendent in full dress, and Captain
+Marcus Glennie of the Telemachus in blue and gold. Together they
+ascended the great staircase, lined with chatting groups, and ablaze
+with uniforms, military, naval and diplomatic, British and Portuguese,
+to be welcomed above by the Count and Countess of Redondo.
+
+Lady O'Moy's entrance of the ballroom produced the effect to which
+custom had by now inured her. Soon she found herself the centre of
+assiduous attentions. Cavalrymen in blue, riflemen in green, scarlet
+officers of the line regiments, winged light-infantrymen, rakishly
+pelissed, gold-braided hussars and all the smaller fry of court and camp
+fluttered insistently about her. It was no novelty to her who had been
+the recipient of such homage since her first ball five years ago at
+Dublin Castle, and yet the wine of it had gone ever to her head a
+little. But to-night she was rather pale and listless, her rose-petal
+loveliness emphasised thereby perhaps. An unusual air of indifference
+hung about her as she stood there amid this throng of martial jostlers
+who craved the honour of a dance and at whom she smiled a thought
+mechanically over the top of her slowly moving fan.
+
+The first quadrille impended, and the senior service had carried off
+the prize from under the noses of the landsmen. As she was swept away
+by Captain Glennie, she came face to face with Tremayne, who was passing
+with Sylvia on his arm. She stopped and tapped his arm with her fan.
+
+"You haven't asked to dance, Ned," she reproached him.
+
+"With reluctance I abstained."
+
+"But I don't intend that you shall. I have something to say to you." He
+met her glance, and found it oddly serious--most oddly serious for her.
+Responding to its entreaty, he murmured a promise in courteous terms of
+delight at so much honour.
+
+But either he forgot the promise or did not conceive its redemption to
+be an urgent matter, for the quadrille being done he sauntered through
+one of the crowded ante-rooms with Miss Armytage and brought her to the
+cool of a deserted balcony above the garden. Beyond this was the river,
+agleam with the lights of the British fleet that rode at anchor on its
+placid bosom.
+
+"Una will be waiting for you," Miss Armytage reminded him. She was
+leaning on the sill of the balcony. Standing erect beside her, he
+considered the graceful profile sharply outlined against a background
+of gloom by the light from the windows behind them. A heavy curl of her
+dark hair lay upon a neck as flawlessly white as the rope of pearls
+that swung from it, with which her fingers were now idly toying. It
+were difficult to say which most engaged his thoughts: the profile; the
+lovely line of neck; or the rope of pearls. These latter were of price,
+such things as it might seldom--and then only by sacrifice--lie within
+the means of Captain Tremayne to offer to the woman whom he took to
+wife.
+
+He so lost himself upon that train of thought that she was forced to
+repeat her reminder.
+
+"Una will be waiting for you, Captain Tremayne."
+
+"Scarcely as eagerly," he answered, "as others will be waiting for you."
+
+She laughed amusedly, a frank, boyish laugh. "I thank you for not saying
+as eagerly as I am waiting for others."
+
+"Miss Armytage, I have ever cultivated truth."
+
+"But we are dealing with surmise."
+
+"Oh, no surmise at all. I speak of what I know."
+
+"And so do I." And yet again she repeated: "Una will be waiting for you."
+
+He sighed, and stiffened slightly. "Of course if you insist," said he,
+and made ready to reconduct her.
+
+She swung round as if to go, but checked, and looked him frankly in the
+eyes.
+
+"Why will you for ever be misunderstanding me?" she challenged him.
+
+"Perhaps it is the inevitable result of my overanxiety to understand."
+
+"Then begin by taking me more literally, and do not read into my words
+more meaning than I intend to give them. When I say Una is waiting for
+you, I state a simple fact, not a command that you shall go to her.
+Indeed I want first to talk to you."
+
+"If I might take you literally now--"
+
+"Should I have suffered you to bring me here if I did not?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said, contrite, and something shaken out of his
+imperturbability. "Sylvia," he ventured very boldly, and there checked,
+so terrified as to be a shame to his brave scarlet, gold-laced uniform.
+
+"Yes?" she said. She was leaning upon the balcony again, and in such a
+way now that he could no longer see her profile. But her fingers were
+busy at the pearls once more, and this he saw, and seeing, recovered
+himself.
+
+"You have something to say to me?" he questioned in his smooth, level
+voice.
+
+Had he not looked away as he spoke he might have observed that her
+fingers tightened their grip of the pearls almost convulsively, as if to
+break the rope. It was a gesture slight and trivial, yet arguing perhaps
+vexation. But Tremayne did not see it, and had he seen it, it is odds it
+would have conveyed no message to him.
+
+There fell a long pause, which he did not venture to break. At last she
+spoke, her voice quiet and level as his own had been.
+
+"It is about Una."
+
+"I had hoped," he spoke very softly, "that it was about yourself."
+
+She flashed round upon him almost angrily. "Why do you utter these set
+speeches to me?" she demanded. And then before he could recover from his
+astonishment to make any answer she had resumed a normal manner, and was
+talking quickly.
+
+She told him of Una's premonitions about Dick. Told him, in short, what
+it was that Una desired to talk to him about.
+
+
+"You bade her come to me?" he said.
+
+"Of course. After your promise to me."
+
+He was silent and very thoughtful for a moment. "I wonder that Una
+needed to be told that she had in me a friend," he said slowly.
+
+"I wonder to whom she would have gone on her own impulse?"
+
+"To Count Samoval," Miss Armytage informed him.
+
+"Samoval!" he rapped the name out sharply. He was clearly angry. "That
+man! I can't understand why O'Moy should suffer him about the house so
+much."
+
+"Terence, like everybody else, will suffer anything that Una wishes."
+
+
+"Then Terence is more of a fool than I ever suspected."
+
+There was a brief pause. "If you were to fail Una in this," said Miss
+Armytage presently, "I mean that unless you yourself give her the
+assurance that you are ready to do what you can for Dick, should the
+occasion arise, I am afraid that in her present foolish mood she may
+still avail herself of Count Samoval. That would be to give Samoval a
+hold upon her; and I tremble to think what the consequences might be.
+That man is a snake--a horror."
+
+The frankness with which she spoke was to Tremayne full evidence of her
+anxiety. He was prompt to allay it.
+
+"She shall have that assurance this very evening," he promised.
+
+"I at least have not pledged my word to anything or to any one. Even
+so," he added slowly, "the chances of my services being ever required
+grow more slender every day. Una may be full of premonitions about Dick.
+But between premonition and event there is something of a gap."
+
+Again a pause, and then: "I am glad," said Miss Armytage, "to think that
+Una has a friend, a trustworthy friend, upon whom she can depend. She is
+so incapable of depending upon herself. All her life there has been some
+one at hand to guide her and screen her from unpleasantness until she
+has remained just a sweet, dear child to be taken by the hand in every
+dark lane of life."
+
+"But she has you, Miss Armytage."
+
+"Me?" Miss Armytage spoke deprecatingly. "I don't think I am a very able
+or experienced guide. Besides, even such as I am, she may not have me
+very long now. I had letters from home this morning. Father is not very
+well, and mother writes that he misses me. I am thinking of returning
+soon."
+
+"But--but you have only just come!"
+
+She brightened and laughed at the dismay in his voice. "Indeed, I have
+been here six weeks." She looked out over the shimmering moonlit waters
+of the Tagus and the shadowy, ghostly ships of the British fleet that
+rode at anchor there, and her eyes were wistful. Her fingers, with that
+little gesture peculiar to her in moments of constraint, were again
+entwining themselves in her rope of pearls. "Yes," she said almost
+musingly, "I think I must be going soon."
+
+He was dismayed. He realised that the moment for action had come. His
+heart was sounding the charge within him. And then that cursed rope of
+pearls, emblem of the wealth and luxury in which she had been nurtured,
+stood like an impassable abattis across his path.
+
+"You--you will be glad to go, of course?" he suggested.
+
+"Hardly that. It has been very pleasant here." She sighed.
+
+"We shall miss you very much," he said gloomily. "The house at Monsanto
+will not be the same when you are gone. Una will be lost and desolate
+without you."
+
+"It occurs to me sometimes," she said slowly, "that the people about Una
+think too much of Una and too little of themselves."
+
+It was a cryptic speech. In another it might have signified a
+spitefulness unthinkable in Sylvia Armytage; therefore it puzzled him
+very deeply. He stood silent, wondering what precisely she might mean,
+and thus in silence they continued for a spell. Then slowly she turned
+and the blaze of light from the windows fell about her irradiantly.
+She was rather pale, and her eyes were of a suspiciously excessive
+brightness. And again she made use of the phrase:
+
+"Una will be waiting for you."
+
+Yet, as before, he stood silent and immovable, considering her,
+questioning himself, searching her face and his own soul. All he saw was
+that rope of shimmering pearls.
+
+"And after all, as yourself suggested, it is possible that others may be
+waiting for me," she added presently.
+
+Instantly he was crestfallen and contrite. "I sincerely beg your pardon,
+Miss Armytage," and with a pang of which his imperturbable exterior gave
+no hint he proffered her his arm.
+
+She took it, barely touching it with her finger-tips, and they
+re-entered the ante-room.
+
+"When do you think that you will be leaving?" he asked her gently.
+
+There was a note of harshness in the voice that answered him.
+
+"I don't know yet. But very soon. The sooner the better, I think."
+
+And then the sleek and courtly Samoval, detaching from, seeming to
+materialise out of, the glittering throng they had entered, was bowing
+low before her, claiming her attention. Knowing her feelings, Tremayne
+would not have relinquished her, but to his infinite amazement she
+herself slipped her fingers from his scarlet sleeve, to place them
+upon the black one that Samoval was gracefully proffering, and greeted
+Samoval with a gay raillery as oddly in contrast with her grave
+demeanour towards the captain as with her recent avowal of detestation
+for the Count.
+
+Stricken and half angry, Tremayne stood looking after them as they
+receded towards the ballroom. To increase his chagrin came a laugh from
+Miss Armytage, sharp and rather strident, floating towards him, and Miss
+Armytage's laugh was wont to be low and restrained. Samoval, no doubt,
+had resources to amuse a woman--even a woman who instinctively, disliked
+him--resources of which Captain Tremayne himself knew nothing.
+
+And then some one tapped him on the shoulder. A very tall, hawk-faced
+man in a scarlet coat and tightly strapped blue trousers stood beside
+him. It was Colquhoun Grant, the ablest intelligence officer in
+Wellington's service.
+
+"Why, Colonel!" cried Tremayne, holding out his hand. "I didn't know you
+were in Lisbon."
+
+"I arrived only this afternoon." The keen eyes flashed after the
+disappearing figures of Sylvia and her cavalier. "Tell me, what is the
+name of the irresistible gallant who has so lightly ravished you of your
+quite delicious companion?"
+
+"Count Samoval," said Tremayne shortly.
+
+Grant's face remained inscrutable. "Really!" he said softly. "So that is
+Jeronymo de Samoval, eh? How very interesting. A great supporter of the
+British policy; therefore an altruist, since himself he is a sufferer by
+it; and I hear that he has become a great friend of O'Moy's."
+
+"He is at Monsanto a good deal certainly," Tremayne admitted.
+
+"Most interesting." Grant was slowly nodding, and a faint smile curled
+his thin, sensitive lips. "But I'm keeping you, Tremayne, and no doubt
+you would be dancing. I shall perhaps see you to-morrow. I shall be
+coming up to Monsanto."
+
+And with a wave of the hand he passed on and was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE ALLY
+
+
+Tremayne elbowed his way through the gorgeous crowd, exchanging
+greetings here and there as he went, and so reached the ballroom during
+a pause in the dancing. He looked round for Lady O'Moy, but he could see
+her nowhere, and would never have found her had not Carruthers pointed
+out a knot of officers and assured him that the lady was in the heart of
+it and in imminent peril of being suffocated.
+
+Thither the captain bent his steps, looking neither to right nor left in
+his singleness of purpose. Thus it happened that he saw neither O'Moy,
+who had just arrived, nor the massive, decorated bulk of Marshal
+Beresford, with whom the adjutant stood in conversation on the skirts of
+the throng that so assiduously worshipped at her ladyship's shrine.
+
+Captain Tremayne went through the group with all a sapper's skill at
+piercing obstacles, and so came face to face with the lady of his quest.
+Seeing her so radiant now, with sparkling eyes and ready laugh, it was
+difficult to conceive her haunted by any such anxieties as Miss Armytage
+had mentioned. Yet the moment she perceived him, as if his presence
+acted as a reminder to lift her out of the delicious present, something
+of her gaiety underwent eclipse.
+
+Child of impulse that she was, she gave no thought to her action and the
+construction it might possibly bear in the minds of men chagrined and
+slighted.
+
+"Why, Ned," she cried, "you have kept me waiting." And with a complete
+and charming ignoring of the claims of all who had been before him, and
+who were warring there for precedence of one another, she took his arm
+in token that she yielded herself to him before even the honour was so
+much as solicited.
+
+With nods and smiles to right and left--a queen dismissing her
+court--she passed on the captain's arm through the little crowd that
+gave way before her dismayed and intrigued, and so away.
+
+O'Moy, who had been awaiting a favourable moment to present the marshal
+by the marshal's own request, attempted to thrust forward now with
+Beresford at his side. But the bowing line of officers whose backs were
+towards him effectively barred his progress, and before they had broken
+up that formation her ladyship and her cavalier were out of sight, lost
+in the moving crowd.
+
+The marshal laughed good-humouredly. "The infallible reward of
+patience," said he. And O'Moy laughed with him. But the next moment he
+was scowling at what he overheard.
+
+"On my soul, that was impudence!" an Irish infantryman had protested.
+
+"Have you ever heard," quoth a heavy dragoon, who was also a heavy
+jester, "that in heaven the last shall be first? If you pay court to an
+angel you must submit to celestial customs."
+
+"And bedad," rejoined the infantryman, "as there's no marryin' in heaven
+ye've got to make the best of it with other men's wives. Sure it's a
+great success that fellow should be in paradise. Did ye remark the way
+she melted to him beauty swooning at the sight of temptation! Bad luck
+to him! Who is he at all?"
+
+They dispersed laughing and followed by O'Moy's scowling eyes. It
+annoyed him that his wife's thoughtless conduct should render her the
+butt of such jests as these, and perhaps a subject for lewd gossip. He
+would speak to her about it later. Meanwhile the marshal had linked arms
+with him.
+
+"Since the privilege must be postponed," said he, "suppose that we seek
+supper. I have always found that a man can best heal in his stomach
+the wounds taken by his heart." His fleshy bulk afforded a certain
+prima-facie confirmation of the dictum.
+
+With a roll more suggestive of the quarter-deck than the saddle, the
+great man bore off O'Moy in quest of material consolation. Yet as they
+went the adjutant's eyes raked the ballroom in quest of his wife.
+That quest, however, was unsuccessful, for his wife was already in the
+garden.
+
+"I want to talk to you most urgently, Ned. Take me somewhere where we
+can be quite private," she had begged the captain. "Somewhere where
+there is no danger of being overheard."
+
+Her agitation, now uncontrolled, suggested to Tremayne that the matter
+might be far more serious and urgent than Miss Armytage had represented
+it. He thought first of the balcony where he had lately been. But then
+the balcony opened immediately from the ante-room and was likely at
+any moment to be invaded. So, since the night was soft and warm, he
+preferred the garden. Her ladyship went to find a wrap, then arm in
+arm they passed out, and were lost in the shadows of an avenue of
+palm-trees.
+
+"It is about Dick," she said breathlessly.
+
+"I know--Miss Armytage told me."
+
+"What did she tell you?"
+
+"That you had a premonition that he might come to you for assistance."
+
+"A premonition!" Her ladyship laughed nervously. "It is more than a
+premonition, Ned. He has come."
+
+The captain stopped in his stride, and stood quite still.
+
+"Come?" he echoed. "Dick?"
+
+"Sh!" she warned him, and sank her voice from very instinct. "He came to
+me this evening, half an hour before we left home. I have put him in an
+alcove adjacent to my dressing-room for the present."
+
+"You have left him there?" He was alarmed.
+
+"Oh, there's no fear. No one ever goes there except Bridget. And I have
+locked the alcove. He's fast asleep. He was asleep before I left. The
+poor fellow was so worn and weary." Followed details of his appearance
+and a recital of his wanderings so far as he had made them known to her.
+"And he was so insistent that no one should know, not even Terence."
+
+"Terence must not know," he said gravely.
+
+"You think that too!"
+
+"If Terence knows--well, you will regret it all the days of your life,
+Una."
+
+He was so stern, so impressive, that she begged for explanation. He
+afforded it. "You would be doing Terence the utmost cruelty if you told
+him. You would be compelling him to choose between his honour and
+his concern for you. And since he is the very soul of honour, he must
+sacrifice you and himself, your happiness and his own, everything that
+makes life good for you both, to his duty."
+
+She was aghast, for all that she was far from understanding. But he went
+on relentlessly to make his meaning clear, for the sake of O'Moy as much
+as for her own--for the sake of the future of these two people who were
+perhaps his dearest friends. He saw in what danger of shipwreck their
+happiness now stood, and he took the determination of clearly pointing
+out to her every shoal in the water through which she must steer her
+course.
+
+"Since this has happened, Una, you must be told the whole truth; you
+must listen, and, above all, be reasonable. I am Dick's friend, as I am
+your own and Terence's. Your father was my best friend, perhaps, and
+my gratitude to him is unbounded, as I hope you know. You and Dick are
+almost as brother and sister to me. In spite of this--indeed, because of
+this, I have prayed for news that Dick was dead."
+
+Her grasp interrupted him, and he felt the tightening clutch of her
+hands upon his arm in the gloom.
+
+"I have prayed this for Dick's sake, and more than all for the sake of
+your happiness and Terence's. If Dick is taken the choice before Terence
+is a tragic one. You will realise it when I tell you that duty forced
+him to pledge his word to the Portuguese Government that Dick should be
+shot when found."
+
+"Oh!" It was a gasp of horror, of incredulity. She loosed his arm and
+drew away from him. "It is infamous! I can't believe it. I can't."
+
+"It is true. I swear it to you. I was present, and I heard."
+
+"And you allowed it?"
+
+"What could I do? How could I interfere? Besides, the minister who
+demanded that undertaking knew nothing of the relationship between O'Moy
+and this missing officer."
+
+"But--but he could have been told."
+
+"That would have made no difference--unless it were to create fresh
+difficulties."
+
+She stood there ghostly white against the gloom. A dry sob broke from
+her. "Terence did that! Terence did that!" she moaned. And then in a
+surge of anger: "I shall never speak to Terence again. I shall not live
+with him another day. It was infamous! Infamous!"
+
+"It was not infamous. It was almost noble, almost heroic," he amazed
+her. "Listen, Una, and try to understand." He took her arm again and
+drew her gently on down that avenue of moonlight-fretted darkness.
+
+"Oh, I understand," she cried bitterly. "I understand perfectly. He has
+always been hard on Dick! He has always made mountains out of molehills
+where Dick was concerned. He forgets that Dick is young a mere boy. He
+judges Dick from the standpoint of his own sober middle age. Why, he's
+an old man--a wicked old man!"
+
+Thus her rage, hurling at O'Moy what in the insolence of her youth
+seemed the last insult.
+
+"You are very unjust, Una. You are even a little stupid," he said,
+deeming the punishment necessary and salutary.
+
+"Stupid! I stupid! I have never been called stupid before."
+
+"But you have undoubtedly deserved to be," he assured her with perfect
+calm.
+
+It took her aback by its directness, and for a moment left her without
+an answer. Then: "I think you had better leave me," she told him
+frostily. "You forget yourself."
+
+"Perhaps I do," he admitted. "That is because I am more concerned to
+think of Dick and Terence and yourself. Sit down, Una."
+
+They had reached a little circle by a piece of ornamental water, facing
+which a granite-hewn seat had been placed. She sank to it obediently, if
+sulkily.
+
+"It may perhaps help you to understand what Terence has done when I tell
+you that in his place, loving Dick as I do, I must have pledged myself
+precisely as he did or else despised myself for ever. And being pledged,
+I must keep my word or go in the same self-contempt." He elaborated his
+argument by explaining the full circumstances under which the pledge had
+been exacted. "But be in no doubt about it," he concluded. "If Terence
+knows of Dick's presence at Monsanto he has no choice. He must deliver
+him up to a firing party--or to a court-martial which will inevitably
+sentence him to death, no matter what the defence that Dick may urge.
+He is a man prejudged, foredoomed by the necessities of war. And Terence
+will do this although it will break his heart and ruin all his life.
+Understand me, then, that in enjoining you never to allow Terence to
+suspect that Dick is present, I am pleading not so much for you or for
+Dick, but for Terence himself--for it is upon Terence that the hardest
+and most tragic suffering must fall. Now do you understand?"
+
+"I understand that men are very stupid," was her way of admitting it.
+
+"And you see that you were wrong in judging Terence as you did?"
+
+"I--I suppose so."
+
+She didn't understand it all. But since Tremayne was so insistent she
+supposed there must be something in his point of view. She had been
+brought up in the belief that Ned Tremayne was common sense incarnate;
+and although she often doubted it--as you may doubt the dogmas of a
+religion in which you have been bred--yet she never openly rebelled
+against that inculcated faith. Above all she wanted to cry. She knew
+that it would be very good for her. She had often found a singular
+relief in tears when vexed by things beyond her understanding. But she
+had to think of that flock of gallants in the ballroom waiting to pay
+court to her and of her duty towards them of preserving her beauty
+unimpaired by the ravages of a vented sorrow.
+
+Tremayne sat down beside her. "So now that we understand each other on
+that score, let us consider ways and means to dispose of Dick."
+
+At once she was uplifted and became all eagerness.
+
+"Yes, Yes. You will help me, Ned?"
+
+"You can depend upon me to do all in human power."
+
+He thought rapidly, and gave voice to some of his thoughts. "If I could
+I would take him to my lodgings at Alcantara. But Carruthers knows him
+and would see him there. So that is out of the question. Then again
+it is dangerous to move him about. At any moment he might be seen and
+recognised."
+
+"Hardly recognised," she said. "His beard disguises him, and his
+dress--" She shuddered at the very thought of the figure he had cut, he,
+the jaunty, dandy Richard Butler.
+
+"That is something, of course," he agreed. And then asked: "How long do
+you think that you could keep him hidden?"
+
+"I don't know. You see, there's Bridget. She is the only danger, as she
+has charge of my dressing-room."
+
+"It may be desperate, but--Can you trust her?"
+
+"Oh, I am sure I can. She is devoted to me; she would do anything--"
+
+"She must be bought as well. Devotion and gain when linked together will
+form an unbreakable bond. Don't let us be stingy, Una. Take her into
+your confidence boldly, and promise her a hundred guineas for her
+silence--payable on the day that Dick leaves the country."
+
+"But how are we to get him out of the country?"
+
+"I think I know a way. I can depend on Marcus Glennie. I may tell him
+the whole truth and the identity of our man, or I may not. I must think
+about that. But, whatever I decide, I am sure I can induce Glennie to
+take our fugitive home in the Telemachus and land him safely somewhere
+in Ireland, where he will have to lose himself for awhile. Perhaps for
+Glennie's sake it will be safer not to disclose Dick's identity. Then if
+there should be trouble later, Glennie, having known nothing of the real
+facts, will not be held responsible. I will talk to him to-night."
+
+"Do you think he will consent?" she asked in strained anxiety--anxiety
+to have her anxieties dispelled.
+
+"I am sure he will. I can almost pledge my word on it. Marcus would
+do anything to serve me. Oh, set your mind at rest. Consider the thing
+done. Keep Dick safely hidden for a week or so until the Telemachus is
+ready to sail--he mustn't go on board until the last moment, for several
+reasons--and I will see to the rest."
+
+Under that confident promise her troubles fell from her, as lightly as
+they ever did.
+
+"You are very good to me, Ned. Forgive me what I said just now. And I
+think I understand about Terence--poor dear old Terence."
+
+"Of course you do." Moved to comfort her as he might have been moved to
+comfort a child, he flung his arm along the seat behind her, and patted
+her shoulder soothingly. "I knew you would understand. And not a word
+to Terence, not a word that could so much as awaken his suspicions.
+Remember that."
+
+"Oh, I shall."
+
+Fell a step upon the patch behind them crunching the gravel. Captain
+Tremayne, his arm still along the back of the seat, and seeming to
+envelop her ladyship, looked over her shoulder. A tall figure was
+advancing briskly. He recognised it even in the gloom by its height and
+gait and swing for O'Moy's.
+
+"Why, here is Terence," he said easily--so easily, with such frank and
+obvious honesty of welcome, that the anger in which O'Moy came wrapped
+fell from him on the instant, to be replaced by shame.
+
+"I have been looking for you everywhere, my dear," he said to Una.
+"Marshal Beresford is anxious to pay you his respects before he leaves,
+and you have been so hedged about by gallants all the evening that
+it's devil a chance he's had of approaching you." There was a certain
+constraint in his voice, for a man may not recover instantly from such
+feelings as those which had fetched him hot-foot down that path at sight
+of those two figures sitting so close and intimate, the young man's arm
+so proprietorialy about the lady's shoulders--as it seemed.
+
+Lady O'Moy sprang up at once, with a little silvery laugh that was
+singularly care-free; for had not Tremayne lifted the burden entirely
+from her shoulders?
+
+"You should have married a dowd," she mocked him. "Then you'd have found
+her more easily accessible."
+
+"Instead of finding her dallying in the moonlight with my secretary,"
+he rallied back between good and ill humour. And he turned to Tremayne:
+"Damned indiscreet of you, Ned," he added more severely. "Suppose you
+had been seen by any of the scandalmongering old wives of the garrison?
+A nice thing for Una and a nice thing for me, begad, to be made the
+subject of fly-blown talk over the tea-cups."
+
+Tremayne accepted the rebuke in the friendly spirit in which it appeared
+to be conveyed. "Sorry, O'Moy," he said. "You're quite right. We should
+have thought of it. Everybody isn't to know what our relations are." And
+again he was so manifestly honest and so completely at his ease that it
+was impossible to harbour any thought of evil, and O'Moy felt again the
+glow of shame of suspicions so utterly unworthy and dishonouring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
+
+
+In a small room of Count Redondo's palace, a room that had been set
+apart for cards, sat three men about a card-table. They were Count
+Samoval, the elderly Marquis of Minas, lean, bald and vulturine of
+aspect, with a deep-set eye that glared fiercely through a single
+eyeglass rimmed in tortoise-shell, and a gentleman still on the fair
+side of middle age, with a clear-cut face and iron-grey hair, who wore
+the dark green uniform of a major of Cacadores.
+
+Considering his Portuguese uniform, it is odd that the low-toned,
+earnest conversation amongst them should have been conducted in French.
+
+There were cards on the table; but there was no pretence of play. You
+might have conceived them a group of players who, wearied of their game,
+had relinquished it for conversation. They were the only tenants of
+the room, which was small, cedar-panelled and lighted by a girandole of
+sparkling crystal. Through the closed door came faintly from the distant
+ballroom the strains of the dance music.
+
+With perhaps the single exception of the Principal Souza, the British
+policy had no more bitter opponent in Portugal than the Marquis of
+Minas. Once a member of the Council of Regency--before Souza had been
+elected to that body--he had quitted it in disgust at the British
+measures. His chief ground of umbrage had been the appointment of
+British officers to the command of the Portuguese regiments which formed
+the division under Marshal Beresford. In this he saw a deliberate insult
+and slight to his country and his countrymen. He was a man of burning
+and blinded patriotism, to whom Portugal was the most glorious nation
+in the world. He lived in his country's splendid past, refusing to
+recognise that the days of Henry the Navigator, of Vasco da Gama, of
+Manuel the Fortunate--days in which Portugal had been great indeed
+among the nations of the Old World were gone and done with. He respected
+Britons as great merchants and industrious traders; but, after all,
+merchants and traders are not the peers of fighters on land and sea, of
+navigators, conquerors and civilisers, such as his countrymen had been,
+such as he believed them still to be. That the descendants of Gamas,
+Cunhas, Magalhaes and Albuquerques--men whose names were indelibly
+written upon the very face of the world--should be passed over, whilst
+alien officers lead been brought in to train and command the Portuguese
+legions, was an affront to Portugal which Minas could never forgive.
+
+It was thus that he had become a rebel, withdrawing from a government
+whose supineness he could not condone. For a while his rebellion had
+been passive, until the Principal Souza had heated him in the fire of
+his own rage and fashioned him into an intriguing instrument of the
+first power. He was listening intently now to the soft, rapid speech of
+the gentleman in the major's uniform.
+
+"Of course, rumours had reached the Prince of this policy of
+devastation," he was saying, "but his Highness has been disposed to
+treat these rumours lightly, unable to see, as indeed are we all, what
+useful purpose such a policy could finally serve. He does not underrate
+the talents of milord Wellington as a commander. He does not imagine
+that he would pursue such operations out of pure wantonness; yet if
+such operations are indeed being pursued, what can they be but wanton? A
+moment, Count," he stayed Samoval, who was about to interrupt. His
+mind and manner were authoritative. "We know most positively from the
+Emperor's London agents that the war is unpopular in England; we know
+that public opinion is being prepared for a British retreat, for the
+driving of the British into the sea, as must inevitably happen once
+Monsieur le Prince decides to launch his bolt. Here in the Tagus the
+British fleet lies ready to embark the troops, and the British
+Cabinet itself" (he spoke more slowly and emphatically) "expects that
+embarkation to take place at latest in September, which is just about
+the time that the French offensive should be at its height and the
+French troops under the very walls of Lisbon. I admit that by this
+policy of devastation if, indeed, it be true--added to a stubborn
+contesting of every foot of ground, the French advance may be retarded.
+But the process will be costly to Britain in lives and money."
+
+"And more costly still to Portugal," croaked the Marquis of Minas.
+
+"And, as you, say, Monsieur le Marquis, more costly still to Portugal.
+Let me for a moment show you another side of the picture. The French
+administration, so sane, so cherishing, animated purely by ideas of
+progress, enforcing wise and beneficial laws, making ever for the
+prosperity and well-being of conquered nations, knows how to render
+itself popular wherever it is established. This Portugal knows
+already--or at least some part of it. There was the administration of
+Soult in Oporto, so entirely satisfactory to the people that it was no
+inconsiderable party was prepared, subject to the Emperor's consent, to
+offer him the crown and settle down peacefully under his rule. There was
+the administration of Junot in Lisbon. I ask you: when was Lisbon better
+governed?
+
+"Contrast, for a moment, with these the present British
+administration--for it amounts to an administration. Consider the
+burning grievances that must be left behind by this policy of laying the
+country waste, of pauperising a million people of all degrees, driving
+them homeless from the lands on which they were born, after compelling
+them to lend a hand in the destruction of all that their labour has
+built up through long years. If any policy could better serve the
+purposes of France, I know it not. The people from here to Beira should
+be ready to receive the French with open arms, and to welcome their
+deliverance from this most costly and bitter British protection.
+
+"Do you, Messieurs, detect a flaw in these arguments?"
+
+Both shook their heads.
+
+"Bien!" said the major of Portuguese Cacadores. "Then we reach one
+or two only possible conclusions: either these rumours of a policy of
+devastation which have reached the Prince of Esslingen are as utterly
+false as he believes them to be, or--"
+
+"To my cost I know them to be true, as I have already told you," Samoval
+interrupted bitterly.
+
+"Or," the major persisted, raising a hand to restrain the Count, "or
+there is something further that has not been yet discovered--a mystery
+the enucleation of which will shed light upon all the rest. Since you
+assure me, Monsieur le Comte, that milord Wellington's policy is beyond
+doubt, as reported to Monsieur, le Marechal, it but remains to
+address ourselves to the discovery of the mystery underlying it.
+What conclusions have you reached? You, Monsieur de Samoval, have had
+exceptional opportunities of observation, I understand."
+
+"I am afraid my opportunities have been none so exceptional as you
+suppose," replied Samoval, with a dubious shake of his sleek, dark head.
+"At one time I founded great hopes in Lady O'Moy. But Lady O'Moy is a
+fool, and does not enjoy her husband's confidence in official matters.
+What she knows I know. Unfortunately it does not amount to very much.
+One conclusion, however, I have reached: Wellington is preparing in
+Portugal a snare for Massena's army."
+
+"A snare? Hum!" The major pursed his full lips into a smile of scorn.
+"There cannot be a trap with two exits, my friend. Massena enters
+Portugal at Almeida and marches to Lisbon and the open sea. He may be
+inconvenienced or hampered in his march; but its goal is certain. Where,
+then, can lie the snare? Your theory presupposes an impassable
+barrier to arrest the French when they are deep in the country and
+an overwhelming force to cut off their retreat when that barrier
+is reached. The overwhelming force does not exist and cannot be
+manufactured; as for the barrier, no barrier that it lies within human
+power to construct lies beyond French power to over-stride."
+
+"I should not make too sure of that," Samoval warned him. "And you have
+overlooked something."
+
+The major glanced at the Count sharply and without satisfaction. He
+accounted himself--trained as he had been under the very eye of the
+great Emperor--of some force in strategy and tactics, a player too well
+versed in the game to overlook the possible moves of an opponent.
+
+"Ha!" he said, with the ghost of a sneer. "For instance, Monsieur le
+Comte?"
+
+"The overwhelming force exists," said Samoval.
+
+"Where is it then? Whence has it been created? If you refer to the
+united British and Portuguese troops, you will be good enough to bear in
+mind that they will be retreating before the Prince. They cannot at once
+be before and behind him."
+
+The man's cool assurance and cooler contempt of Samoval's views stung
+the Count into some sharpness.
+
+"Are you seeking information, sir, or are you bestowing it?" he
+inquired.
+
+"Ah! Your pardon, Monsieur le Comte. I inquire of course. I put forward
+arguments to anticipate conditions that may possibly be erroneous."
+
+Samoval waived the point. "There is another force besides the British
+and Portuguese troops that you have left out of your calculations."
+
+"And that?" The major was still faintly incredulous.
+
+"You should remember what Wellington obviously remembers: that a French
+army depends for its sustenance upon the country it is invading. That
+is why Wellington is stripping the French line of penetration as bare
+of sustenance as this card-table. If we assume the existence of the
+barrier--an impassable line of fortifications encountered within many
+marches of the frontier--we may also assume that starvation will be the
+overwhelming force that will cut off the French retreat."
+
+The other's keen eyes flickered. For a moment his face lost its
+assurance, and it was Samoval's turn to smile. But the major made a
+sharp recovery. He slowly shook his iron-grey head.
+
+"You have no right to assume an impassable barrier. That is an
+inadmissible hypothesis. There is no such thing as a line of
+fortifications impassable to the French."
+
+"You will pardon me, Major, but it is yourself have no right to your own
+assumptions. Again you overlook something. I will grant that technically
+what you say is true. No fortifications can be built that cannot be
+destroyed--given adequate power, with which it is yet to prove that
+Massena not knowing what may await him, will be equipped.
+
+"But let us for a moment take so much for granted, and now consider
+this: fortifications are unquestionably building in the region of Torres
+Vedras, and Wellington guards the secret so jealously that not even the
+British--either here or in England--are aware of their nature. That is
+why the Cabinet in London takes for granted an embarkation in September.
+Wellington has not even taken his Government into his confidence. That
+is the sort of man he is. Now these fortifications have been building
+since last October. Best part of eight months have already gone in their
+construction. It may be another two or three months before the French
+army reaches them. I do not say that the French cannot pass them, given
+time. But how long will it take the French to pull down what it will
+have taken ten or eleven months to construct? And if they are unable
+to draw sustenance from a desolate, wasted country, what time will they
+have at their disposal? It will be with them a matter of life or
+death. Having come so far they must reach Lisbon or perish; and if the
+fortifications can delay them by a single month, then, granted that all
+Lord Wellington's other dispositions have been duly carried out, perish
+they must. It remains, Monsieur le Major, for you to determine whether,
+with all their energy, with all their genius and all their valour, the
+French can--in an ill-nourished condition--destroy in a few weeks the
+considered labour of nearly a year."
+
+The major was aghast. He had changed colour, and through his eyes, wide
+and staring, his stupefaction glared forth at them.
+
+Minas uttered a dry cough under cover of his hand, and screwed up his
+eyeglass to regard the major more attentively. "You do not appear to
+have considered all that," he said.
+
+"But, my dear Marquis," was the half-indignant answer, "why was I
+not told all this to begin with? You represented yourself as but
+indifferently informed, Monsieur de Samoval. Whereas--"
+
+"So I am, my dear Major, as far as information goes. If I did not use
+these arguments before, it was because it seemed to me an impertinence
+to offer what, after all, are no more than the conclusions of my own
+constructive and deductive reasoning to one so well versed in strategy
+as yourself."
+
+The major was silenced for a moment. "I congratulate you, Count," he
+said. "Monsieur le Marechal shall have your views without delay. Tell
+me," he begged. "You say these fortifications lie in the region of
+Torres Vedras. Can you be more precise?"
+
+"I think so. But again I warn you that I can tell you only what I infer.
+I judge they will run from the sea, somewhere near the mouth of the
+Zizandre, in a semicircle to the Tagus, somewhere to the south of
+Santarem. I know that they do not reach as far north as San, because
+the roads there are open, whereas all roads to the south, where I am
+assuming that the fortifications lie, are closed and closely guarded."
+
+"Why do you suggest a semicircle?"
+
+"Because that is the formation of the hills, and presumably the line of
+heights would be followed."
+
+"Yes," the major approved slowly. "And the distance, then, would be some
+thirty or forty miles?"
+
+"Fully."
+
+The major's face relaxed its gravity. He even smiled. "You will agree,
+Count, that in a line of that extent a uniform strength is out of the
+question. It must perforce present many weak, many vulnerable, places."
+
+"Oh, undoubtedly."
+
+"Plans of these lines must be in existence."
+
+"Again undoubtedly. Sir Terence O'Moy will have plans in his possession
+showing their projected extent. Colonel Fletcher, who is in charge
+of the construction, is in constant communication with the adjutant,
+himself an engineer; and--as I partly imagine, partly infer from odd
+phrases that I have overheard--especially entrusted by Lord Wellington
+with the supervision of the works."
+
+"Two things, then, are necessary," said the major promptly. "The first
+is, that the devastation of the country should be retarded, and as far
+as possible hindered altogether."
+
+"That," said Minas, "you may safely leave to myself and Souza's other
+friends, the northern noblemen who have no intention of becoming the
+victims of British disinclination to pitched battles."
+
+"The second--and this is more difficult--is that we should obtain by
+hook or by crook a plan of the fortifications." And he looked directly
+at Samoval.
+
+The Count nodded slowly, but his face expressed doubt.
+
+"I am quite alive to the necessity. I always have been. But--"
+
+"To a man of your resource and intelligence--an intelligence of which
+you have just given such very signal proof--the matter should be
+possible." He paused a moment. Then: "If I understand you correctly,
+Monsieur de Samoval, your fortunes have suffered deeply, and you are
+almost ruined by this policy of Wellington's. You are offered the
+opportunity of making a magnificent recovery. The Emperor is the most
+generous paymaster in the world, and he is beyond measure impatient at
+the manner in which the campaign in the Peninsula is dragging on. He has
+spoken of it as an ulcer that is draining the Empire of its resources.
+For the man who could render him the service of disclosing the weak
+spot in this armour, the Achilles heel of the British, there would be a
+reward beyond all your possible dreams. Obtain the plans, then, and--"
+
+He checked abruptly. The door had opened, and in a Venetian mirror
+facing him upon the wall the major caught the reflection of a British
+uniform, the stiff gold collar surmounted by a bronzed hawk face with
+which he was acquainted.
+
+"I beg your pardon, gentlemen," said the officer in Portuguese, "I was
+looking for--"
+
+His voice became indistinct, so that they never knew who it was that
+he had been seeking when he intruded upon their privacy. The door had
+closed again and the reflection had vanished from the mirror. But there
+were beads of perspiration on the major's brow.
+
+"It is fortunate," he muttered breathlessly, "that my back was towards
+him. I would as soon meet the devil face to face. I didn't dream he was
+in Lisbon."
+
+"Who is he?" asked Minas.
+
+"Colonel Grant, the British Intelligence officer. Phew! Name of a Name!
+What an escape!" The major mopped his brow with a silk handkerchief.
+"Beware of him, Monsieur de Samoval."
+
+He rose. He was obviously shaken by the meeting.
+
+"If one of you will kindly make quite sure that he is not about I think
+that I had better go. If we should meet everything might be ruined."
+Then with a change of manner he stayed Samoval, who was already on his
+way to the door. "We understand each other, then?" he questioned them.
+"I have my papers, and at dawn I leave Lisbon. I shall report your
+conclusions to the Prince, and in anticipation I may already offer you
+the expression of his profoundest gratitude. Meanwhile, you know what
+is to do. Opposition to the policy, and the plans of the
+fortifications--above all the plans."
+
+He shook hands with them, and having waited until Samoval assured him
+that the corridor outside was clear, he took his departure, and was soon
+afterwards driving home, congratulating himself upon his most fortunate
+escape from the hawk eye of Colquhoun Grant.
+
+But when in the dead of that night he was awakened to find a British
+sergeant with a halbert and six redcoats with fixed bayonets surrounding
+his bed it occurred to him belatedly that what one man can see in a
+mirror is also visible to another, and that Marshal Massena, Prince of
+Esslingen, waiting for information beyond Ciudad Rodrigo, would
+never enjoy the advantages of a report of Count Samoval's masterly
+constructive and deductive reasoning.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE GENERAL ORDER
+
+
+Sir Terence sat alone in his spacious, severely furnished private room
+in the official quarters at Monsanto. On the broad carved writing-table
+before him there was a mass of documents relating to the clothing and
+accoutrement of the forces, to leaves of absence, to staff appointments;
+there were returns from the various divisions of the sick and wounded
+in hospital, from which a complete list was to be prepared for the
+Secretary of State for War at home; there were plans of the lines at
+Torres Vedras just received, indicating the progress of the works at
+various points; and there were documents and communications of all kinds
+concerned with the adjutant-general's multifarious and arduous duties,
+including an urgent letter from Colonel Fletcher suggesting that the
+Commander-in-Chief should take an early opportunity of inspecting in
+person the inner lines of fortification.
+
+Sir Terence, however, sat back in his chair, his work neglected, his
+eyes dreamily gazing through the open window, but seeing nothing of the
+sun-drenched landscape beyond, a heavy frown darkening his bronzed and
+rugged face. His mind was very far from his official duties and the mass
+of reminders before him--this Augean stable of arrears. He was lost in
+thought of his wife and Tremayne.
+
+Five days had elapsed since the ball at Count Redondo's, where Sir
+Terence had surprised the pair together in the garden and his suspicions
+had been fired by the compromising attitude in which he had discovered
+them. Tremayne's frank, easy bearing, so unassociable with guilt, had,
+as we know, gone far, to reassure him, and had even shamed him, so that
+he had trampled his suspicions underfoot. But other things had happened
+since to revive his bitter doubts. Daily, constantly, had he been coming
+upon Tremayne and Lady O'Moy alone together in intimate, confidential
+talk which was ever silenced on his approach. The two had taken to
+wandering by themselves in the gardens at all hours, a thing that had
+never been so before, and O'Moy detected, or imagined that he detected,
+a closer intimacy between them, a greater warmth towards the captain on
+the part of her ladyship.
+
+Thus matters had reached a pass in which peace of mind was impossible to
+him. It was not merely what he saw, it was his knowledge of what was; it
+was his ever-present consciousness of his own age and his wife's youth;
+it was the memory of his ante-nuptial jealousy of Tremayne which had
+been awakened by the gossip of those days--a gossip that pronounced
+Tremayne Una Butler's poor suitor, too poor either to declare himself or
+to be accepted if he did. The old wound which that gossip had dealt him
+then was reopened now. He thought of Tremayne's manifest concern for
+Una; he remembered how in that very room some six weeks ago, when
+Butler's escapade had first been heard of, it was from avowed concern
+for Una that Tremayne had urged him to befriend and rescue his rascally
+brother-in-law. He remembered, too, with increasing bitterness that it
+was Una herself had induced him to appoint Tremayne to his staff.
+
+There were moments when the conviction of Tremayne's honesty, the
+thought of Tremayne's unswerving friendship for himself, would surge up
+to combat and abate the fires of his devastating jealousy.
+
+But evidence would kindle those fires anew until they flamed up to
+scorch his soul with shame and anger. He had been a fool in that he had
+married a woman of half his years; a fool in that he had suffered her
+former lover to be thrown into close association with her.
+
+Thus he assured himself. But he would abide by his folly, and so must
+she. And he would see to it that whatever fruits that folly yielded,
+dishonour should not be one of them. Through all his darkening rage
+there beat the light of reason. To avert, he bethought him, was better
+than to avenge. Nor were such stains to be wiped out by vengeance. A
+cuckold remains a cuckold though he take the life of the man who has
+reduced him to that ignominy.
+
+Tremayne must go before the evil transcended reparation. Let him return
+to his regiment and do his work of sapping and mining elsewhere than in
+O'Moy's household.
+
+Eased by that resolve he rose, a tall, martial figure, youth and energy
+in every line of it for all his six and forty years. Awhile he paced the
+room in thought. Then, suddenly, with hands clenched behind his back, he
+checked by the window, checked on a horrible question that had flashed
+upon his tortured mind. What if already the evil should be irreparable?
+What proof had he that it was not so?
+
+The door opened, and Tremayne himself came in quickly.
+
+"Here's the very devil to pay, sir," he announced, with that odd mixture
+of familiarity towards his friend and deference to his chief.
+
+O'Moy looked at him in silence with smouldering, questioning eyes,
+thinking of anything but the trouble which the captain's air and manner
+heralded.
+
+"Captain Stanhope has just arrived from headquarters with messages for
+you. A terrible thing has happened, sir. The dispatches from home by the
+Thunderbolt which we forwarded from here three weeks ago reached Lord
+Wellington only the day before yesterday."
+
+Sir Terence became instantly alert.
+
+"Garfield, who carried them, came into collision at Penalva with an
+officer of Anson's Brigade. There was a meeting, and Garfield was shot
+through the lung. He lay between life and death for a fortnight,
+with the result that the dispatches were delayed until he recovered
+sufficiently to remember them and to have them forwarded by other hands.
+But you had better see Stanhope himself."
+
+The aide-de-camp came in. He was splashed from head to foot in witness
+of the fury with which he had ridden, his hair was caked with dust and
+his face haggard. But he carried himself with soldierly uprightness, and
+his speech was brisk. He repeated what Tremayne had already stated, with
+some few additional details.
+
+"This wretched fellow sent Lord Wellington a letter dictated from his
+bed, in which he swore that the duel was forced upon him, and that his
+honour allowed him no alternative. I don't think any feature of the case
+has so deeply angered Lord Wellington as this stupid plea. He mentioned
+that when Sir John Moore was at Herrerias, in the course of his retreat
+upon Corunna, he sent forward instructions for the leading division to
+halt at Lugo, where he designed to deliver battle if the enemy would
+accept it. That dispatch was carried to Sir David Baird by one of Sir
+John's aides, but Sir David forwarded it by the hand of a trooper who
+got drunk and lost it. That, says Lord Wellington, is the only parallel,
+so far as he is aware, of the present case, with this difference, that
+whilst a common trooper might so far fail to appreciate the importance
+of his mission, no such lack of appreciation can excuse Captain
+Garfield."
+
+"I am glad of that," said Sir Terence, who had been bristling. "For a
+moment I imagined that it was to be implied I had been as indiscreet in
+my choice of a messenger as Sir David Baird."
+
+"No, no, Sir Terence. I merely repeated Lord Wellington's words that
+you may realise how deeply angered he is. If Garfield recovers from
+his wound he will be tried by court-martial. He is under open arrest
+meanwhile, as is his opponent in the duel--a Major Sykes of the 23rd
+Dragoons. That they will both be broke is beyond doubt. But that is not
+all. This affair, which might have had such grave consequences, coming
+so soon upon the heels of Major Berkeley's business, has driven Lord
+Wellington to a step regarding which this letter will instruct you."
+
+Sir Terence broke the seal. The letter, penned by a secretary, but
+bearing Wellington's own signature, ran as follows:
+
+"The bearer, Captain Stanhope, will inform you of the particulars of
+this disgraceful business of Captain Garfield's. The affair following
+so soon upon that of Major Berkeley has determined me to make it clearly
+understood to the officers in his Majesty's service that they have been
+sent to the Peninsula to fight the French and not each other or members
+of the civilian population. While this campaign continues, and as long
+as I am in charge of it, I am determined not to suffer upon any plea
+whatever the abominable practice of duelling among those under my
+command. I desire you to publish this immediately in general orders,
+enjoining upon officers of all ranks without exception the necessity to
+postpone the settlement of private quarrels at least until the close
+of this campaign. And to add force to this injunction you will make
+it known that any infringement of this order will be considered as a
+capital offence; that any officer hereafter either sending or accepting
+a challenge will, if found guilty by a general court-martial, be
+immediately shot."
+
+Sir Terence nodded slowly.
+
+"Very well," he said. "The measure is most wise, although I doubt if it
+will be popular. But, then, unpopularity is the fate of wise measures.
+I am glad the matter has not ended more seriously. The dispatches in
+question, so far as I can recollect, were not of great urgency."
+
+"There is something more," said Captain Stanhope. "The dispatches bore
+signs of having been tampered with."
+
+"Tampered with?" It was a question from Tremayne, charged with
+incredulity. "But who would have tampered with them?"
+
+"There were signs, that is all. Garfield was taken to the house of the
+parish priest, where he lay lost until he recovered sufficiently to
+realise his position for himself. No doubt you will have a schedule of
+the contents of the dispatch, Sir Terence?"
+
+"Certainly. It is in your possession, I think, Tremayne."
+
+Tremayne turned to his desk, and a brief search in one of its
+well-ordered drawers brought to light an oblong strip of paper folded
+and endorsed. He unfolded and spread it on Sir Terence's table, whilst
+Captain Stanhope, producing a note with which he came equipped, stooped
+to check off the items. Suddenly he stopped, frowned, and finally placed
+his finger under one of the lines of Tremayne's schedule, carefully
+studying his own note for a moment.
+
+"Ha!" he said quietly at last. "What's this?" And he read: "'Note from
+Lord Liverpool of reinforcements to be embarked for Lisbon in June or
+July.'" He looked at the adjutant and the adjutant's secretary. "That
+would appear to be the most important document of all--indeed the
+only document of any vital importance. And it was not included in the
+dispatch as it reached Lord Wellington."
+
+The three looked gravely at one another in silence.
+
+"Have you a copy of the note, sir?" inquired the aide-de-camp.
+
+"Not a copy--but a summary of its contents, the figures it contained,
+are pencilled there on the margin," Tremayne answered.
+
+"Allow me, sir," said Stanhope, and taking up a quill from the
+adjutant's table he rapidly copied the figures. "Lord Wellington must
+have this memorandum as soon as possible. The rest, Sir Terence, is
+of course a matter for yourself. You will know what to do. Meanwhile I
+shall report to his lordship what has occurred. I had best set out at
+once."
+
+"If you will rest for an hour, and give my wife the pleasure of your
+company at luncheon, I shall have a letter ready for Lord Wellington,"
+replied Sir Terence. "Perhaps you'll see to it, Tremayne," he added,
+without waiting for Captain Stanhope's answer to an invitation which
+amounted to a command.
+
+Thus Stanhope was led away, and Sir Terence, all other matters forgotten
+for the moment, sat down to write his letter.
+
+Later in the day, after Captain Stanhope had taken his departure, the
+duty fell to Tremayne of framing the general order and seeing to the
+dispatch of a copy to each division.
+
+"I wonder," he said to Sir Terence, "who will be the first to break it?"
+
+"Why, the fool who's most anxious to be broke himself," answered Sir
+Terence.
+
+There appeared to be reservations about it in Tremayne's mind.
+
+"It's a devilish stringent regulation," he criticised.
+
+"But very salutary and very necessary."
+
+"Oh, quite." Tremayne's agreement was unhesitating. "But I shouldn't
+care to feel the restraint of it, and I thank heaven I have no enemy
+thirsting for my blood."
+
+Sir Terence's brow darkened. His face was turned away from his
+secretary. "How can a man be confident of that?" he wondered.
+
+"Oh, a clean conscience, I suppose," laughed Tremayne, and he gave his
+attention to his papers.
+
+Frankness, honesty and light-heartedness rang so clear in the words that
+they sowed in Sir Terence's mind fresh doubts of the galling suspicion
+he had been harbouring.
+
+"Do you boast a clean conscience, eh, Ned?" he asked, not without a
+lurking shame at this deliberate sly searching of the other's mind. Yet
+he strained his ears for the answer.
+
+"Almost clean," said Tremayne. "Temptation doesn't stain when it's
+resisted, does it?"
+
+Sir Terence trembled. But he controlled himself.
+
+"Nay, now, that's a question for the casuists. They right answer you
+that it depends upon the temptation." And he asked point-blank: "What's
+tempting you?"
+
+Tremayne was in a mood for confidences, and Sir Terence was his friend.
+But he hesitated. His answer to the question was an irrelevance.
+
+"It's just hell to be poor, O'Moy," he said.
+
+The adjutant turned to stare at him. Tremayne was sitting with his head
+resting on one hand, the fingers thrusting through the crisp fair hair,
+and there was gloom in his clear-cut face, a dullness in the usually
+keen grey eyes.
+
+"Is there anything on your mind?" quoth Sir Terence.
+
+"Temptation," was the answer. "It's an unpleasant thing to struggle
+against."
+
+"But you spoke of poverty?"
+
+"To be sure. If I weren't poor I could put my fortunes to the test, and
+make an end of the matter one way or the other."
+
+There was a pause. "Sure I hope I am the last man to force a confidence,
+Ned," said O'Moy. "But you certainly seem as if it would do you good to
+confide."
+
+Tremayne shook himself mentally. "I think we had better deal with the
+matter of this dispatch that was tampered with at Penalva."
+
+"So we will, to be sure. But it can wait a minute." Sir Terence pushed
+back his chair, and rose. He crossed slowly to his secretary's side.
+"What's on your mind, Ned?" he asked with abrupt solicitude, and Ned
+could not suspect that it was the matter on Sir Terence's own mind that
+was urging him--but urging him hopefully.
+
+Captain Tremayne looked up with a rueful smile. "I thought you boasted
+that you never forced a confidence." And then he looked away. "Sylvia
+Armytage tells me that she is thinking of returning to England."
+
+For a moment the words seemed to Sir Terence a fresh irrelevance;
+another attempt to change the subject. Then quite suddenly a light broke
+upon his mind, shedding a relief so great and joyous that he sought to
+check it almost in fear.
+
+"It is more than she has told me," he answered steadily. "But then, no
+doubt, you enjoy her confidence."
+
+Tremayne flashed him a wry glance and looked away again.
+
+"Alas!" he said, and fetched a sigh.
+
+"And is Sylvia the temptation, Ned?"
+
+Tremayne was silent for a while, little dreaming how Sir Terence hung
+upon his answer, how impatiently he awaited it.
+
+"Of course," he said at last. "Isn't it obvious to any one?" And he grew
+rhapsodical: "How can a man be daily in her company without succumbing
+to her loveliness, to her matchless grace of body and of mind, without
+perceiving that she is incomparable, peerless, as much above other women
+as an angel perhaps might be above herself?"
+
+Before his glum solemnity, and before something else that Tremayne could
+not suspect, Sir Terence exploded into laughter. Of the immense and
+joyous relief in it his secretary caught no hint; all he heard was its
+sheer amusement, and this galled and shamed him. For no man cares to be
+laughed at for such feelings as Tremayne had been led into betraying.
+
+"You think it something to laugh at?" he said tartly.
+
+"Laugh, is it?" spluttered Sir Terence. "God grant I don't burst a
+blood-vessel."
+
+Tremayne reddened. "When you've indulged your humour, sir," he said
+stiffly, "perhaps you'll consider the matter of this dispatch."
+
+But Sir Terence laughed more uproariously than ever. He came to stand
+beside Tremayne, and slapped him heartily on the shoulder.
+
+"Ye'll kill me, Ned!" he protested. "For God's sake, not so glum. It's
+that makes ye ridiculous."
+
+"I am sorry you find me ridiculous."
+
+"Nay, then, it's glad ye ought to be. By my soul, if Sylvia tempts you,
+man, why the devil don't ye just succumb and have done with it? She's
+handsome enough and well set up with her air of an Amazon, and she rides
+uncommon straight, begad! Indeed it's a broth of a girl she is in the
+hunting-field, the ballroom, or at the breakfast-table, although riper
+acquaintance may discover her not to be quite all that you imagine her
+at present. Let your temptation lead you then, entirely, and good luck
+to you, my boy."
+
+"Didn't I tell you, O'Moy," answered the captain, mollified a little
+by the sympathy and good feeling peeping through the adjutant's
+boisterousness, "that poverty is just hell. It's my poverty that's in
+the way."
+
+"And is that all? Then it's thankful you should be that Sylvia Armytage
+has got enough for two."
+
+"That's just it."
+
+"Just what?"
+
+"The obstacle. I could marry a poor woman. But Sylvia--"
+
+"Have you spoken to her?"
+
+Tremayne was indignant. "How do you suppose I could?"
+
+"It'll not have occurred to you that the lady may have feelings which
+having aroused you ought to be considering?"
+
+A wry smile and a shake of the head was Tremayne's only answer; and then
+Carruthers came in fresh from Lisbon, where he had been upon business
+connected with the commissariat, and to Tremayne's relief the subject
+was perforce abandoned.
+
+Yet he marvelled several times that day that the hilarity he should have
+awakened in Sir Terence continued to cling to the adjutant, and that
+despite the many vexatious matters claiming attention he should preserve
+an irrepressible and almost boyish gaiety.
+
+Meanwhile, however, the coming of Carruthers had brought the adjutant
+a moment's seriousness, and he reverted to the business of Captain
+Garfield. When he had mentioned the missing note, Carruthers very
+properly became grave. He was a short, stiffly built man with a round,
+good-humoured, rather florid face.
+
+"The matter must be probed at once, sir," he ventured. "We know that we
+move in a tangle of intrigues and espionage. But such a thing as this
+has never happened before. Have you anything to go upon?"
+
+"Captain Stanhope gave us nothing," said the adjutant.
+
+"It would be best perhaps to get Grant to look into it," said Tremayne.
+
+"If he is still in Lisbon," said Sir Terence.
+
+"I passed him in the street an hour ago," replied Carruthers.
+
+"Then by all means let a note be sent to him asking him if he will step
+up to Monsanto as soon as he conveniently can. You might see to it,
+Tremayne."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE STIFLED QUARREL
+
+
+It was noon of the next day before Colonel Grant came to the house at
+Monsanto from whose balcony floated the British flag, and before whose
+portals stood a sentry in the tall bearskin of the grenadiers.
+
+He found the adjutant alone in his room, and apologised for the delay in
+responding to his invitation, pleading the urgency of other matters that
+he had in hand.
+
+"A wise enactment this of Lord Wellington's," was his next comment. "I
+mean this prohibition of duelling. It may be resented by some of our
+young bloods as an unwarrantable interference with their privileges, but
+it will do a deal of good, and no one can deny that there is ample cause
+for the measure."
+
+"It is on the subject of the cause that I'm wanting to consult you,"
+said Sir Terence, offering his visitor a chair. "Have you been informed
+of the details? No? Let me give you them." And he related how the
+dispatch bore signs of having been tampered with, and how the only
+document of any real importance came to be missing from it.
+
+Colonel Grant, sitting with his sabre across his knees, listened gravely
+and thoughtfully. In the end he shrugged his shoulders, the keen hawk
+face unmoved.
+
+"The harm is done, and cannot very well be repaired. The information
+obtained, no doubt on behalf of Massena, will by now be on its way to
+him. Let us be thankful that the matter is not more grave, and thankful,
+too, that you were able to supply a copy of Lord Liverpool's figures.
+What do you want me to do?"
+
+"Take steps to discover the spy whose existence is disclosed by this
+event."
+
+Colquhoun Grant smiled. "That is precisely the matter which has brought
+me to Lisbon."
+
+"How?" Sir Terence was amazed. "You knew?"
+
+"Oh, not that this had happened. But that the spy--or rather a network
+of espionage--existed. We move here in a web of intrigue wrought by
+ill-will, self-interest, vindictiveness and every form of malice. Whilst
+the great bulk of the Portuguese people and their leaders are loyally
+co-operating with us, there is a strong party opposing us which would
+prefer even to see the French prevail. Of course you are aware of this.
+The heart and brain of all this is--as I gather the Principal Souza.
+Wellington has compelled his retirement from the Government. But if by
+doing so he has restricted the man's power for evil, he has certainly
+increased his will for evil and his activities.
+
+"You tell me that Garfield was cared for by the parish priest at
+Penalva. There you are. Half the priesthood of the country are on
+Souza's side, since the Patriarch of Lisbon himself is little more than
+a tool of Souza's. What happens? This priest discovers that the British
+officer whom he has so charitably put to bed in his house is the bearer
+of dispatches. A loyal man would instantly have communicated with
+Marshal Beresford at Thomar. This fellow, instead, advises the
+intriguers in Lisbon. The captain's dispatches are examined and the only
+document of real value is abstracted. Of course it would be difficult
+to establish a case against the priest, and it is always vexatious and
+troublesome to have dealings with that class, as it generally means
+trouble with the peasantry. But the case is as clear as crystal."
+
+"But the intriguers here? Can you not deal with them?"
+
+"I have them under observation," replied the colonel. "I already knew
+the leaders, Souza's lieutenants in Lisbon, and I can put my hand upon
+them at any moment. If I have not already done so it is because I find
+it more profitable to leave them at large; it is possible, indeed, that
+I may never proceed to extremes against them. Conceive that they have
+enabled me to seize La Fleche, the most dangerous, insidious and skilful
+of all Napoleon's agents. I found him at Redondo's ball last week in the
+uniform of a Portuguese major, and through him I was able to track down
+Souza's chief instrument--I discovered them closeted with him in one of
+the card-rooms."
+
+"And you didn't arrest them?"
+
+"Arrest them! I apologised for my intrusion, and withdrew. La Fleche
+took his leave of them. He was to have left Lisbon at dawn equipped with
+a passport countersigned by yourself, my dear adjutant."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"A passport for Major Vieira of the Portuguese Cacadores. Do you
+remember it?"
+
+"Major Vieira!" Sir Terence frowned thoughtfully. Suddenly he
+recollected. "But that was countersigned by me at the request of Count
+Samoval, who represented himself a personal friend of the major's."
+
+"So indeed he is. But the major in question was La Fleche nevertheless."
+
+"And Samoval knew this?"
+
+Sir Terence was incredulous.
+
+Colonel Grant did not immediately answer the question. He preferred to
+continue his narrative. "That night I had the false major arrested very
+quietly. I have caused him to disappear for the present. His Lisbon
+friends believe him to be on his way to Massena with the information
+they no doubt supplied him. Massena awaits his return at Salamanca, and
+will continue to wait. Thus when he fails to be seen or heard of there
+will be a good deal of mystification on all sides, which is the proper
+state of mind in which to place your opponents. Lord Liverpool's
+figures, let me add, were not among the interesting notes found upon
+him--possibly because at that date they had not yet been obtained."
+
+"And you say that Samoval was aware of the man's real identity?"
+insisted Sir Terence, still incredulous. "Aware of it?" Colonel Grant
+laughed shortly. "Samoval is Souza's principal agent--the most dangerous
+man in Lisbon and the most subtle. His sympathies are French through and
+through."
+
+Sir Terence stared at him in frank amazement, in utter unbelief. "Oh,
+impossible!" he ejaculated at last.
+
+"I saw Samoval for the first time," said Colonel Grant by way of answer,
+"in Oporto at the time of Soult's occupation. He did not call himself
+Samoval just then, any more than I called myself Colquhoun Grant. He was
+very active there in the French interest; I should indeed be more precise
+and say in Bonaparte's interest, for he was the man instrumental in
+disclosing to Soult the Bourbon conspiracy which was undermining the
+marshal's army. You do not know, perhaps, that French sympathy runs in
+Samoval's family. You may not be aware that the Portuguese Marquis of
+Alorna, who holds a command in the Emperor's army, and is at present
+with Massena at Salamanca, is Samoval's cousin."
+
+"But," faltered Sir Terence, "Count Samoval has been a regular visitor
+here for the past three months."
+
+"So I understand," said Grant coolly. "If I had known of it before I
+should have warned you. But, as you are aware, I have been in Spain on
+other business. You realise the danger of having such a man about the
+place. Scraps of information--"
+
+"Oh, as to that," Sir Terence interrupted, "I can assure you that none
+have fallen from my official table."
+
+"Never be too sure, Sir Terence. Matters here must ever be under
+discussion. There are your secretaries and the ladies--and Samoval has a
+great way with the women. What they know you may wager that he knows."
+
+"They know nothing."
+
+"That is a great deal to say. Little odds and ends now; a hint at one
+time; a word dropped at another; these things picked up naturally by
+feminine curiosity and retailed thoughtlessly under Samoval's charming
+suasion and display of Britannic sympathies. And Samoval has the devil's
+own talent for bringing together the pieces of a puzzle. Take the lines
+now: you may have parted with no details. But mention of them will
+surely have been made in this household. However," he broke off
+abruptly, "that is all past and done with. I am as sure as you are that
+any real indiscretions in this household are unimaginable, and so we may
+be confident that no harm has yet been done. But you will gather from
+what I have now told you that Samoval's visits here are not a mere
+social waste of time. That he comes, acquires familiarity and makes
+himself the friend of the family with a very definite aim in view."
+
+"He does not come again," said Sir Terence, rising.
+
+"That is more than I should have ventured to suggest. But it is a very
+wise resolve. It will need tact to carry it out, for Samoval is a man to
+be handled carefully."
+
+"I'll handle him carefully, devil a fear," said Sir Terence. "You can
+depend upon my tact."
+
+Colonel Grant rose. "In this matter of Penalva, I will consider further.
+But I do not think there is anything to be done now. The main thing is
+to stop up the outlets through which information reaches the French, and
+that is my chief concern. How is the stripping of the country proceeding
+now?"
+
+"It was more active immediately after Souza left the Government. But the
+last reports announce a slackening again."
+
+"They are at work in that, too, you see. Souza will not slumber while
+there's vengeance and self-interest to keep him awake." And he held out
+his hand to take his leave.
+
+"You'll stay to luncheon?" said Sir Terence. "It is about to be served."
+
+"You are very kind, Sir Terence."
+
+They descended, to find luncheon served already in the open under the
+trellis vine, and the party consisted of Lady O'Moy, Miss Armytage,
+Captain Tremayne, Major Carruthers, and Count Samoval, of whose presence
+this was the adjutant's first intimation.
+
+As a matter of fact the Count had been at Monsanto for the past hour,
+the first half of which he had spent most agreeably on the terrace
+with the ladies. He had spoken so eulogistically of the genius of Lord
+Wellington and the valour of the British soldier, and, particularly-of
+the Irish soldier, that even Sylvia's instinctive distrust and dislike
+of him had been lulled a little for the moment.
+
+"And they must prevail," he had exclaimed in a glow of enthusiasm, his
+dark eyes flashing. "It is inconceivable that they should ever yield
+to the French, although the odds of numbers may lie so heavily against
+them."
+
+"Are the odds of numbers so heavy?" said Lady O'Moy in surprise, opening
+wide those almost childish eyes of hers.
+
+"Alas! anything from three to five to one. Ah, but why should we despond
+on that account?" And his voice vibrated with renewed confidence. "The
+country is a difficult one, easy to defend, and Lord Wellington's
+genius will have made the best of it. There are, for example, the
+fortifications at Torres Vedras."
+
+"Ah yes! I have heard of them. Tell me about them, Count."
+
+"Tell you about them, dear lady? Shall I carry perfumes to the rose?
+What can I tell you that you do not know so much better than myself?"
+
+"Indeed, I know nothing. Sir Terence is ridiculously secretive," she
+assured him, with a little frown of petulance. She realised that her
+husband did not treat her as an intelligent being to be consulted upon
+these matters. She was his wife, and he had no right to keep secrets
+from her. In fact she said so.
+
+"Indeed no," Samoval agreed. "And I find it hard to credit that it
+should be so."
+
+"Then you forget," said Sylvia, "that these secrets are not Sir
+Terence's own. They are the secrets of his office."
+
+"Perhaps so," said the unabashed Samoval. "But if I were Sir Terence
+I should desire above all to allay my wife's natural anxiety. For I am
+sure you must be anxious, dear Lady O'Moy."'
+
+"Naturally," she agreed, whose anxieties never transcended the fit of
+her gowns or the suitability of a coiffure. "But Terence is like that."
+
+"Incredible!" the Count protested, and raised his dark eyes to heaven as
+if invoking its punishment upon so unnatural a husband. "Do you tell me
+that you have never so much as seen the plans of these fortifications?"
+
+"The plans, Count!" She almost laughed.
+
+"Ah!" he said. "I dare swear then that you do not even know of their
+existence." He was jocular now.
+
+"I am sure that she does not," said Sylvia, who instinctively felt that
+the conversation was following an undesirable course.
+
+"Then you are wrong," she was assured. "I saw them once, a week ago, in
+Sir Terence's room."
+
+"Why, how would you know them if you saw them?" quoth Sylvia, seeking to
+cover what might be an indiscretion.
+
+"Because they bore the name: 'Lines of Torres Vedras.' I remember."
+
+"And this unsympathetic Sir Terence did not explain them to you?"
+laughed Samoval.
+
+"Indeed, he did not."
+
+"In fact, I could swear that he locked them away from you at once?" the
+Count continued on a jocular note.
+
+"Not at once. But he certainly locked them away soon after, and whilst I
+was still there."
+
+"In your place, then," said Samoval, ever on the same note of banter, "I
+should have been tempted to steal the key."
+
+"Not so easily done," she assured him. "It never leaves his person. He
+wears it on a gold chain round his neck."
+
+"What, always?"
+
+"Always, I assure you."
+
+"Too bad," protested Samoval. "Too bad, indeed. What, then, should you
+have done, Miss Armytage?"
+
+It was difficult to imagine that he was drawing information from them,
+so bantering and frivolous was his manner; more difficult still to
+conceive that he had obtained any. Yet you will observe that he had been
+placed in possession of two facts: that the plans of the lines of Torres
+Vedras were kept locked up in Sir Terence's own room--in the strong-box,
+no doubt--and that Sir Terence always carried the key on a gold chain
+worn round his neck.
+
+Miss Armytage laughed. "Whatever I might do, I should not be guilty of
+prying into matters that my husband kept hidden."
+
+"Then you admit a husband's right to keep matters hidden from his wife?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Madam," Samoval bowed to her, "your future husband is to be envied on
+yet another count."
+
+And thus the conversation drifted, Samoval conceiving that he had
+obtained all the information of which Lady O'Moy was possessed, and
+satisfied that he had obtained all that for the moment he required.
+How to proceed now was a more difficult matter, to be very seriously
+considered--how to obtain from Sir Terence the key in question, and
+reach the plans so essential to Marshal Massena.
+
+He was at table with them, as you know, when Sir Terence and Colonel
+Grant arrived. He and the colonel were presented to each other, and
+bowed with a gravity quite cordial on the part of Samoval, who was by
+far the more subtle dissembler of the two. Each knew the other perfectly
+for what he was; yet each was in complete ignorance of the extent of the
+other's knowledge of himself; and certainly neither betrayed anything by
+his manner.
+
+At table the conversation was led naturally enough by Tremayne to
+Wellington's general order against duelling. This was inevitable when
+you consider that it was a topic of conversation that morning at every
+table to which British officers sat down. Tremayne spoke of the measure
+in terms of warm commendation, thereby provoking a sharp disagreement
+from Samoval. The deep and almost instinctive hostility between these
+two men, which had often been revealed in momentary flashes, was such
+that it must invariably lead them to take opposing sides in any matter
+admitting of contention.
+
+"In my opinion it is a most arbitrary and degrading enactment," said
+Samoval. "I say so without hesitation, notwithstanding my profound
+admiration and respect for Lord Wellington and all his measures."
+
+"Degrading?" echoed Grant, looking across at him. "In what can it be
+degrading, Count?"
+
+"In that it reduces a gentleman to the level of the clod," was the
+prompt answer. "A gentleman must have his quarrels, however sweet his
+disposition, and a means must be afforded him of settling them."
+
+"Ye can always thrash an impudent fellow," opined the adjutant.
+
+"Thrash?" echoed Samoval. His sensitive lip curled in disdain. "To use
+your hands upon a man!" He shuddered in sheer disgust. "To one of
+my temperament it would be impossible, and men of my temperament are
+plentiful, I think."
+
+"But if you were thrashed yourself?" Tremayne asked him, and the light
+in his grey eyes almost hinted at a dark desire to be himself the
+executioner.
+
+Samoval's dark, handsome eyes considered the captain steadily. "To be
+thrashed myself?" he questioned. "My dear Captain, the idea of having
+hands laid upon me, soiling me, brutalising me, is so nauseating, so
+repugnant, that I assure you I should not hesitate to shoot the man who
+did it just as I should shoot any other wild beast that attacked me.
+Indeed the two instances are exactly parallel, and my country's courts
+would uphold in such a case the justice of my conduct."
+
+"Then you may thank God," said O'Moy, "that you are not under British
+jurisdiction."
+
+"I do," snapped Samoval, to make an instant recovery: "at least so far
+as the matter is concerned." And he elaborated: "I assure you, sirs, it
+will be an evil day for the nobility of any country when its Government
+enacts against the satisfaction that one gentleman has the right to
+demand from another who offends him."
+
+"Isn't the conversation rather too bloodthirsty for a luncheon-table?"
+wondered Lady O'Moy. And tactlessly she added, thinking with flattery
+to mollify Samoval and cool his obvious heat: "You are yourself such a
+famous swordsman, Count."
+
+And then Tremayne's dislike of the man betrayed him into his deplorable
+phrase.
+
+"At the present time Portugal is in urgent need of her famous swordsmen
+to go against the French and not to increase the disorders at home."
+
+A silence complete and ominous followed the rash words, and Samoval,
+white to the lips, pondered the imperturbable captain with a baleful
+eye.
+
+"I think," he said at last, speaking slowly and softly, and picking
+his words with care, "I think that is innuendo. I should be relieved,
+Captain Tremayne, to hear you say that it is not."
+
+Tremayne was prompt to give him the assurance. "No innuendo at all. A
+plain statement of fact."
+
+"The innuendo I suggested lay in the application of the phrase. Do you
+make it personal to myself?"
+
+"Of course not," said Sir Terence, cutting in and speaking sharply.
+"What an assumption!"
+
+"I am asking Captain Tremayne," the Count insisted, with grim firmness,
+notwithstanding his deferential smile to Sir Terence.
+
+"I spoke quite generally, sir," Tremayne assured him, partly under the
+suasion of Sir Terence's interposition, partly out of consideration for
+the ladies, who were looking scared. "Of course, if you choose to take
+it to yourself, sir, that is a matter for your own discretion. I think,"
+he added, also with a smile, "that the ladies find the topic tiresome."
+
+"Perhaps we may have the pleasure of continuing it when they are no
+longer present."
+
+"Oh, as you please," was the indifferent answer. "Carruthers, may I
+trouble you to pass the salt? Lady O'Callaghan was complaining the other
+night of the abuse of salt in Portuguese cookery. It is an abuse I have
+never yet detected."
+
+"I can't conceive Lady O'Callaghan complaining of too much salt in
+anything, begad," quoth O'Moy, with a laugh. "If you had heard the story
+she told me about--"
+
+"Terence, my dear!" his wife checked him, her fine brows raised, her
+stare frigid.
+
+"Faith, we go from bad to worse," said Carruthers. "Will you try to
+improve the tone of the conversation, Miss Armytage? It stands in urgent
+need of it."
+
+With a general laugh, breaking the ice of the restraint that was in
+danger of settling about the table, a semblance of ease was restored,
+and this was maintained until the end of the repast. At last the ladies
+rose, and, leaving the men at table, they sauntered off towards the
+terrace. But under the archway Sylvia checked her cousin.
+
+"Una," she said gravely, "you had better call Captain Tremayne and take
+him away for the present."
+
+Una's eyes opened wide. "Why?" she inquired.
+
+Miss Armytage was almost impatient with her. "Didn't you see? Resentment
+is only slumbering between those men. It will break out again now that
+we have left them unless you can get Captain Tremayne away."
+
+Una continued to look at her cousin, and then, her mind fastening ever
+upon the trivial to the exclusion of the important, her glance became
+arch. "For whom is your concern? For Count Samoval or Ned?" she
+inquired, and added with a laugh: "You needn't answer me. It is Ned you
+are afraid for."
+
+"I am certainly not afraid for him," was the reply on a faint note of
+indignation. She had reddened slightly. "But I should not like to see
+Captain Tremayne or any other British officer embroiled in a duel.
+You forget Lord Wellington's order which they were discussing, and the
+consequences of infringing it."
+
+Lady O'Moy became scared.
+
+"You don't imagine--"
+
+Sylvia spoke quickly: "I am certain that unless you take Captain
+Tremayne away, and at once, there will! be serious trouble."
+
+And now behold Lady O'Moy thrown into a state of alarm that bordered
+upon terror. She had more reason than Sylvia could dream, more reason
+she conceived than Sylvia herself, to wish to keep Captain Tremayne out
+of trouble just at present. Instantly, agitatedly, she turned and called
+to him.
+
+"Ned!" floated her silvery voice across the enclosed garden. And again:
+"Ned! I want you at once, please."
+
+Captain Tremayne rose. Grant was talking briskly at the time, his
+intention being to cover Tremayne's retreat, which he himself desired.
+Count Samoval's smouldering eyes were upon the captain, and full of
+menace. But he could not be guilty of the rudeness of interrupting Grant
+or of detaining Captain Tremayne when a lady called him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE CHALLENGE
+
+
+Rebuke awaited Captain Tremayne at the hands of Lady O'Moy, and it came
+as soon as they were alone together sauntering in the thicket of pine
+and cork-oak on the slope of the hill below the terrace.
+
+"How thoughtless of you, Ned, to provoke Count Samoval at such a time as
+this!"
+
+"Did I provoke him? I thought it was the Count himself who was
+provoking." Tremayne spoke lightly.
+
+"But suppose anything were to happen to you? You know the man's dreadful
+reputation."
+
+Tremayne looked at her kindly. This apparent concern for himself touched
+him. "My dear Una, I hope I can take care of myself, even against so
+formidable a fellow; and after all a man must take his chances a soldier
+especially."
+
+"But what of Dick?" she cried. "Do you forget that he is depending
+entirely upon you--that if you should fail him he will be lost?" And
+there was something akin to indignation in the protesting eyes she
+turned upon him.
+
+For a moment Tremayne was so amazed that he was at a loss for an answer.
+Then he smiled. Indeed his inclination was to laugh outright. The
+frank admission that her concern which he had fondly imagined to be
+for himself was all for Dick betrayed a state of mind that was entirely
+typical of Una. Never had she been able to command more than one point
+of view of any question, and that point of view invariably of her own
+interest. All her life she had been accustomed to sacrifices great and
+small made by others on her own behalf, until she had come to look upon
+such sacrifices her absolute right.
+
+"I am glad you reminded me," he said with an irony that never touched
+her. "You may depend upon me to be discreetness itself, at least until
+after Dick has been safely shipped."
+
+"Thank you, Ned. You are very good to me." They sauntered a little way
+in silence. Then: "When does Captain Glennie sail?" she asked him. "Is
+it decided yet?"
+
+"Yes. I have just heard from him that the Telemachus will put to sea on
+Sunday morning at two o'clock."
+
+"At two o'clock in the morning! What an uncomfortable hour!"
+
+"Tides, as King Canute discovered, are beyond mortal control. The
+Telemachus goes out with the ebb. And, after all, for our purposes
+surely no hour could be more suitable. If I come for Dick at midnight
+tomorrow that will just give us time to get him snugly aboard before she
+sails. I have made all arrangements with Glennie. He believes Dick to
+be what he has represented himself--one of Bearsley's overseers named
+Jenkinson, who is a friend of mine and who must be got out of the
+country quietly. Dick should thank his luck for a good deal. My chief
+anxiety was lest his presence here should be discovered by any one."
+
+"Beyond Bridget not a soul knows that he is here not even Sylvia."
+
+"You have been the soul of discreetness."
+
+"Haven't I?" she purred, delighted to have him discover a virtue so
+unusual in her.
+
+Thereafter they discussed details; or, rather, Tremayne discussed them.
+He would come up to Monsanto at twelve o'clock to-morrow night in a
+curricle in which he would drive Dick down to the river at a point where
+a boat would be waiting to take him out to the Telemachus. She must see
+that Dick was ready in time. The rest she could safely leave to him. He
+would come in through the official wing of the building. The guard would
+admit him without question, accustomed to seeing him come and go at
+all hours, nor would it be remarked that he was accompanied by a man
+in civilian dress when he departed. Dick was to be let down from
+her ladyship's balcony to the quadrangle by a rope ladder with which
+Tremayne would come equipped, having procured it for the purpose from
+the Telemachus.
+
+She hung upon his arm, overwhelming him now with her gratitude, her
+parasol sheltering them both from the rays of the sun as they emerged
+from the thicket intro the meadowland in full view of the terrace where
+Count Samoval and Sir Terence were at that moment talking earnestly
+together.
+
+You will remember that O'Moy had undertaken to provide that Count
+Samoval's visits to Monsanto should be discontinued. About this task
+he had gone with all the tact of which he had boasted himself master to
+Colquhoun Grant. You shall judge of the tact for yourself. No sooner had
+the colonel left for Lisbon, and Carruthers to return to his work, than,
+finding himself alone with the Count, Sir Terence considered the moment
+a choice one in which to broach the matter.
+
+"I take it ye're fond of walking, Count," had been his singular opening
+move. They had left the table by now, and were sauntering together on
+the terrace.
+
+"Walking?" said Samoval. "I detest it."
+
+"And is that so? Well, well! Of course it's not so very far from your
+place at Bispo."
+
+"Not more than half-a-league, I should say."
+
+"Just so," said O'Moy. "Half-a-league there, and half-a-league back: a
+league. It's nothing at all, of course; yet for a gentleman who detests
+walking it's a devilish long tramp for nothing."
+
+"For nothing?" Samoval checked and looked at his host in faint surprise.
+Then he smiled very affably. "But you must not say that, Sir Terence. I
+assure you that the pleasure of seeing yourself and Lady O'Moy cannot be
+spoken of as nothing."
+
+"You are very good." Sir Terence was the very quintessence of
+courtliness, of concern for the other. "But if there were not that
+pleasure?"
+
+"Then, of course, it would be different." Samoval was beginning to be
+slightly intrigued.
+
+"That's it," said Sir Terence. "That's just what I'm meaning."
+
+"Just what you're meaning? But, my dear General, you are assuming
+circumstances which fortunately do not exist."
+
+"Not at present, perhaps. But they might."
+
+Again Samoval stood still and looked at O'Moy. He found something in the
+bronzed, rugged face that was unusually sardonic. The blue eyes seemed
+to have become hard, and yet there were wrinkles about their corners
+suggestive of humour that might be mockery. The Count stiffened; but
+beyond that he preserved his outward calm whilst confessing that he did
+not understand Sir Terence's meaning.
+
+"It's this way," said Sir Terence. "I've noticed that ye're not looking
+so very well lately, Count."
+
+"Really? You think that?" The words were mechanical. The dark eyes
+continued to scrutinise that bronzed face suspiciously.
+
+"I do, and it's sorry I am to see it. But I know what it is. It's this
+walking backwards and forwards between here and Bispo that's doing the
+mischief. Better give it up, Count. Better not come toiling up here any
+more. It's not good for your health. Why, man, ye're as white as a ghost
+this minute."
+
+He was indeed, having perceived at last the insult intended. To be
+denied the house at such a time was to checkmate his designs, to set a
+term upon his crafty and subtle espionage, precisely in the season when
+he hoped to reap its harvest. But his chagrin sprang not at all from
+that. His cold anger was purely personal. He was a gentleman--of the
+fine flower, as he would have described himself--of the nobility of
+Portugal; and that a probably upstart Irish soldier--himself, from
+Samoval's point of view, a guest in that country--should deny him his
+house, and choose such terms of ill-considered jocularity in which to do
+it, was an affront beyond all endurance.
+
+For a moment passion blinded him, and it was only by an effort that he
+recovered and kept his self-control. But keep it he did. You may trust
+your practised duellist for that when he comes face to face with the
+necessity to demand satisfaction. And soon the mist of passion clearing
+from his keen wits, he sought swiftly for a means to fasten the quarrel
+upon Sir Terence in Sir Terence's own coin of galling mockery. Instantly
+he found it. Indeed it was not very far to seek. O'Moy's jealousy, which
+was almost a byword, as we know, had been apparent more than once to
+Samoval. Remembering it now, it discovered to him at once Sir Terence's
+most vulnerable spot, and cunningly Samoval proceeded to gall him there.
+
+A smile spread gradually over his white face--a smile of immeasurable
+malice.
+
+"I am having a very interesting and instructive morning in this
+atmosphere of Irish boorishness," said he. "First Captain Tremayne--"
+
+"Now don't be after blaming old Ireland for Tremayne's shortcomings.
+Tremayne's just a clumsy mannered Englishman."
+
+"I am glad to know there is a distinction. Indeed I might have perceived
+it for myself. In motives, of course, that distinction is great indeed,
+and I hope that I am not slow to discover it, and in your case to excuse
+it. I quite understand and even sympathise with your feelings, General."
+
+"I am glad of that now," said Sir Terence, who had understood nothing of
+all this.
+
+"Naturally," the Count pursued on a smooth, level note of amiability,
+"when a man, himself no longer young, commits the folly of taking a
+young and charming wife, he is to be forgiven when a natural anxiety
+drives him to lengths which in another might be resented." He bowed
+before the empurpling Sir Terence.
+
+"Ye're a damned coxcomb, it seems," was the answering roar.
+
+"Of course you would assume it. It was to be expected. I condone it with
+the rest. And because I condone it, because I sympathise with what in a
+man of your age and temperament must amount to an affliction, I hasten
+to assure you upon my honour that so far as I am concerned there are no
+grounds for your anxiety."
+
+"And who the devil asks for your assurances? It's stark mad ye are to
+suppose that I ever needed them."
+
+"Of course you must say that," Samoval insisted, with a confident and
+superior smile. He shook his head, his expression one of amused sorrow.
+"Sir Terence, you have knocked at the wrong door. You are youthful
+at least in your impulsiveness, but you are surely as blind as old
+Pantaloon in the comedy or you would see where your industry would be
+better employed in shielding your wife's honour and your own."
+
+Goaded to fury, his blue eyes aflame now with passion, Sir Terence
+considered the sleek and subtle gentleman before him, and it was in
+that moment that the Count's subtlety soared to its finest heights. In a
+flash of inspiration he perceived the advantages to be drawn by himself
+from conducting this quarrel to extremes.
+
+This is not mere idle speculation. Knowledge of the real motives
+actuating him rests upon the evidence of a letter which Samoval was
+to write that same evening to La Fleche--afterwards to be
+discovered--wherein he related what had passed, how deliberately he had
+steered the matter, and what he meant to do. His object was no longer
+the punishing of an affront. That would happen as a mere incident, a
+thing done, as it were, in passing. His real aim now was to obtain
+the keys of the adjutant's strong-box, which never left Sir Terence's
+person, and so become possessed of the plans of the lines of Torres
+Vedras. When you consider in the light of this the manner in which
+Samoval proceeded now you will admire with me at once the opportunism
+and the subtlety of the man.
+
+"You'll be after telling me exactly what you mean," Sir Terence had
+said.
+
+It was in that moment that Tremayne and Lady O'Moy came arm in arm
+into the open on the hill-side, half-a-mile away--very close and
+confidential. They came most opportunely to the Count's need, and he
+flung out a hand to indicate them to Sir Terence, a smile of pity on his
+lips.
+
+"You need but to look to take the answer for yourself," said he.
+
+Sir Terence looked, and laughed. He knew the secret of Ned Tremayne's
+heart and could laugh now with relish at that which hitherto had left
+him darkly suspicious.
+
+"And who shall blame Lady O'Moy?" Count Samoval pursued. "A lady
+so charming and so courted must seek her consolation for the almost
+unnatural union Fate has imposed upon her. Captain Tremayne is of her
+own age, convenient to her hand, and for an Englishman not ill-looking."
+
+He smiled at O'Moy with insolent compassion, and O'Moy, losing all his
+self-control, struck him slapped him resoundingly upon the cheek.
+
+"Ye're a dirty liar, Samoval, a muck-rake," said he.
+
+Samoval stepped back, breathing hard, one cheek red, the other white.
+Yet by a miracle he still preserved his self-control.
+
+"I have proved my courage too often," he said, "to be under the
+necessity of killing you for this blow. Since my honour is safe I will
+not take advantage of your overwrought condition."
+
+"Ye'll take advantage of it whether ye like it or not," blazed Sir
+Terence at him. "I mean you to take advantage of it. D' ye think I'll
+suffer any man to cast a slur upon Lady O'Moy? I'll be sending my
+friends to wait on you to-day, Count; and--by God!--Tremayne himself
+shall be one of them."
+
+Thus did the hot-headed fellow deliver himself into the hands of his
+enemy. Nor was he warned when he saw the sudden gleam in Samoval's dark
+eyes.
+
+"Ha!" said the Count. It was a little exclamation of wicked
+satisfaction. "You are offering me a challenge, then?"
+
+"If I may make so bold. And as I've a mind to shoot you dead--"
+
+"Shoot, did you say?" Samoval interrupted gently.
+
+"I said 'shoot'--and it shall be at ten paces, or across a handkerchief,
+or any damned distance you please."
+
+The Count shook his head. He sneered. "I think not--not shoot." And he
+waved the notion aside with a hand white and slender as a woman's. "That
+is too English, or too Irish. The pistol, I mean--appropriately a fool's
+weapon." And he explained himself, explained at last his extraordinary
+forbearance under a blow. "If you think I have practised the small-sword
+every day of my life for ten years to suffer myself to be shot at like
+a rabbit in the end--ho, really!" He laughed aloud. "You have challenged
+me, I think, Sir Terence. Because I feared the predilection you have
+discovered, I was careful to wait until the challenge came from you. The
+choice of weapons lies, I think, with me. I shall instruct my friends to
+ask for swords."
+
+"Sorry a difference will it make to me," said Sir Terence. "Anything
+from a horsewhip to a howitzer." And then recollection descending like a
+cold hand upon him chilled his hot rage, struck the fine Irish arrogance
+all out of him, and left him suddenly limp. "My God!" he said, and
+it was almost a groan. He detained Samoval, who had already turned to
+depart. "A moment, Count," he cried. "I--I had forgotten. There is the
+general order--Lord Wellington's enactment."
+
+"Awkward, of course," said Samoval, who had never for a moment been
+oblivious of that enactment, and who had been carefully building upon
+it. "But you should have considered it before committing yourself so
+irrevocably."
+
+Sir Terence steadied himself. He recovered his truculence. "Irrevocable
+or not, it will just have to be revocable. The meeting's impossible."
+
+"I do not see the impossibility. I am not surprised you should shelter
+yourself behind an enactment; but you will remember this enactment does
+not apply to me, who am not a soldier."
+
+"But it applies to me, who am not only a soldier, but the
+Adjutant-General here, the man chiefly responsible for seeing the order
+carried out. It would be a fine thing if I were the first to disregard
+it."
+
+"I am afraid it is too late. You have disregarded it already, sir."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"The letter of the law is against sending or receiving a challenge, I
+think."
+
+O'Moy was distracted. "Samoval," he said, drawing himself up, "I will
+admit that I have been a fool. I will apologise to you for the blow and
+for the word that accompanied it."
+
+"The apology would imply that my statement was a true one and that you
+recognised it. If you mean that--"
+
+"I mean nothing of the kind. Damme! I've a mind to horsewhip you, and
+leave it at that. D' ye think I want to face a firing party on your
+account?"
+
+"I don't think there is the remotest likelihood of any such
+contingency," replied Samoval.
+
+But O'Moy went headlong on. "And another thing. Where will I be finding
+a friend to meet your friends? Who will dare to act for me in view of
+that enactment?"
+
+The Count considered. He was grave now. "Of course that is a
+difficulty," he admitted, as if he perceived it now for the first time.
+"Under the circumstances, Sir Terence, and entirely to accommodate you,
+I might consent to dispense with seconds."
+
+"Dispense with seconds?" Sir Terence was horrified at the suggestion.
+"You know that that is irregular--that a charge of murder would lie
+against the survivor."
+
+"Oh, quite so. But it is for your own convenience that I suggest it,
+though I appreciate your considerate concern on the score of what may
+happen to me afterwards should it come to be known that I was your
+opponent."
+
+"Afterwards? After what?"
+
+"After I have killed you."
+
+"And is it like that?" cried O'Moy, his countenance inflaming again, his
+mind casting all prudence to the winds.
+
+It followed, of course, that without further thought for anything but
+the satisfaction of his rage Sir Terence became as wax in the hands of
+Samoval's desires.
+
+"Where do you suggest that we meet?" he asked.
+
+"There is my place at Bispo. We should be private in the gardens there.
+As for time, the sooner the better, though for secrecy's sake we had
+better meet at night. Shall we say at midnight?"
+
+But Sir Terence would agree to none of this.
+
+"To-night is out of the question for me. I have an engagement that will
+keep me until late. To-morrow night, if you will, I shall be at your
+service." And because he did not trust Samoval he added, as Samoval
+himself had almost reckoned: "But I should prefer not to come to Bispo.
+I might be seen going or returning."
+
+"Since there are no such scruples on my side, I am ready to come to you
+here if you prefer it."
+
+"It would suit me better."
+
+"Then expect me promptly at midnight to-morrow, provided that you
+can arrange to admit me without my being seen. You will perceive my
+reasons."
+
+"Those gates will be closed," said O'Moy, indicating the now gaping
+massive doors that closed the archway at night. "But if you knock I
+shall be waiting for you, and I will admit you by the wicket."
+
+"Excellent," said Samoval suavely. "Then--until to-morrow night,
+General." He bowed with almost extravagant submission, and turning
+walked sharply away, energy and suppleness in every line of his slight
+figure, leaving Sir Terence to the unpleasant, almost desperate,
+thoughts that reflection must usher in as his anger faded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE DUEL
+
+
+It was a time of stress and even of temptation for Sir Terence. Honour
+and pride demanded that he should keep the appointment made with
+Samoval; common sense urged him at all costs to avoid it. His frame of
+mind, you see, was not at all enviable. At moments he would consider
+his position as adjutant-general, the enactment against duelling, the
+irregularity of the meeting arranged, and, consequently, the danger in
+which he stood on every score; at others he could think of nothing but
+the unpardonable affront that had been offered him and the venomously
+insulting manner in which it had been offered, and his rage welled up to
+blot out every consideration other than that of punishing Samoval.
+
+For two days and a night he was a sort of shuttlecock tossed between
+these alternating moods, and he was still the same when he paced the
+quadrangle with bowed head and hands clasped behind him awaiting Samoval
+at a few minutes before twelve of the following night. The windows that
+looked down from the four sides of that enclosed garden were all in
+darkness. The members of the household had withdrawn over an hour ago
+and were asleep by now. The official quarters were closed. The rising
+moon had just mounted above the eastern wing and its white light
+fell upon the upper half of the facade of the residential site. The
+quadrangle itself remained plunged in gloom.
+
+Sir Terence, pacing there, was considering the only definite conclusion
+he had reached. If there were no way even now of avoiding this duel, at
+least it must remain secret. Therefore it could not take place here in
+the enclosed garden of his own quarters, as he had so rashly consented.
+It should be fought upon neutral ground, where the presence of the body
+of the slain would not call for explanations by the survivor.
+
+From distant Lisbon on the still air came softly the chimes of
+midnight, and immediately there was a sharp rap upon the little door set
+in one of the massive gates that closed the archway.
+
+Sir Terence went to open the wicket, and Samoval stepped quickly over
+the sill. He was wrapped in a dark cloak, a broad-brimmed hat obscured
+his face. Sir Terence closed the door again. The two men bowed to each
+other in silence, and as Samoval's cloak fell open he produced a pair of
+duelling-swords swathed together in a skin of leather.
+
+"You are very punctual, sir," said O'Moy.
+
+"I hope I shall never be so discourteous as to keep an opponent waiting.
+It is a thing of which I have never yet been guilty," replied Samoval,
+with deadly smoothness in that reminder of his victorious past. He
+stepped forward and looked about the quadrangle. "I am afraid the moon
+will occasion us some delay," he said. "It were perhaps better to
+wait some five or ten minutes, by then the light in here should have
+improved."
+
+"We can avoid the delay by stepping out into the open," said Sir
+Terence. "Indeed it is what I had to suggest in any case. There are
+inconveniences here which you may have overlooked."
+
+But Samoval, who had purposes to serve of which this duel was but a
+preliminary, was of a very different mind.
+
+"We are quite private here, your household being abed," he answered,
+"whilst outside one can never be sure even at this hour of avoiding
+witnesses and interruption. Then, again, the turf is smooth as a table
+on that patch of lawn, and the ground well known to both of us; that, I
+can assure you, is a very necessary condition in the dark and one not to
+be found haphazard in the open."
+
+"But there is yet another consideration, sir. I prefer that we engage
+on neutral ground, so that the survivor shall not be called upon for
+explanations that might be demanded if we fought here."
+
+Even in the gloom Sir Terence caught the flash of Samoval's white teeth
+as he smiled.
+
+"You trouble yourself unnecessarily on my account," was the smoothly
+ironic answer. "No one has seen me come, and no one is likely to see me
+depart."
+
+"You may be sure that no one shall, by God," snapped O'Moy, stung by the
+sly insolence of the other's assurance.
+
+"Shall we get to work, then?" Samoval invited.
+
+"If you're set on dying here, I suppose I must be after humouring you,
+and make the best of it. As soon as you please, then." O'Moy was very
+fierce.
+
+They stepped to the patch of lawn in the middle of the quadrangle, and
+there Samoval threw off altogether his cloak and hat. He was closely
+dressed in black, which in that light rendered him almost invisible. Sir
+Terence, less practised and less calculating in these matters, wore an
+undress uniform, the red coat of which showed greyish. Samoval observed
+this rather with contempt than with satisfaction in the advantage
+it afforded him. Then he removed the swathing from the swords, and,
+crossing them, presented the hilts to Sir Terence. The adjutant took
+one and the Count retained the other, which he tested, thrashing the air
+with it so that it hummed like a whip. That done, however, he did not
+immediately fall on.
+
+"In a few minutes the moon will be more obliging," he suggested. "If you
+would prefer to wait--"
+
+But it occurred to Sir Terence that in the gloom the advantage might
+lie slightly with himself, since the other's superior sword-play would
+perhaps be partly neutralised. He cast a last look round at the dark
+windows.
+
+"I find it light enough," he answered.
+
+Samoval's reply was instantaneous. "On guard, then," he cried, and on
+the words, without giving Sir Terence so much as time to comply with
+the invitation, he whirled his point straight and deadly at the greyish
+outline of his opponent's body. But a ray of moonlight caught the
+blade and its livid flash gave Sir Terence warning of the thrust so
+treacherously delivered. He saved himself by leaping backwards--just
+saved himself with not an inch to spare--and threw up his blade to meet
+the thrust.
+
+"Ye murderous villain," he snarled under his breath, as steel ground on
+steel, and he flung forward to the attack.
+
+But from the gloom came a little laugh to answer him, and his angry
+lunge was foiled by an enveloping movement that ended in a ripost. With
+that they settled down to it, Sir Terence in a rage upon which that
+assassin stroke had been fresh fuel; the Count cool and unhurried,
+delaying until the moonlight should have crept a little farther, so as
+to enable him to make quite sure that his stroke when delivered should
+be final.
+
+Meanwhile he pressed Sir Terence towards the side where the moonlight
+would strike first, until they were fighting close under the windows of
+the residential wing, Sir Terence with his back to them, Samoval facing
+them. It was Fate that placed them so, the Fate that watched over Sir
+Terence even now when he felt his strength failing him, his sword
+arm turning to lead under the strain of an unwonted exercise. He knew
+himself beaten, realised the dexterous ease, the masterly economy of
+vigour and the deadly sureness of his opponent's play. He knew that he
+was at the mercy of Samoval; he was even beginning to wonder why the
+Count should delay to make an end of a situation of which he was so
+completely master. And then, quite suddenly, even as he was returning
+thanks that he had taken the precaution of putting all his affairs in
+order, something happened.
+
+A light showed; it flared up suddenly, to be as suddenly extinguished,
+and it had its source in the window of Lady O'Moy's dressing-room, which
+Samoval was facing.
+
+That flash drawing off the Count's eyes for one instant, and leaving
+them blinded for another, had revealed him clearly at the same time to
+Sir Terence. Sir Terence's blade darted in, driven by all that was left
+of his spent strength, and Samoval, his eyes unseeing, in that moment
+had fumbled widely and failed to find the other's steel until he felt it
+sinking through his body, searing him from breast to back.
+
+His arms sank to his sides quite nervelessly. He uttered a faint
+exclamation of astonishment, almost instantly interrupted by a cough. He
+swayed there a moment, the cough increasing until it choked him. Then,
+suddenly limp, he pitched forward upon his face, and lay clawing and
+twitching at Sir Terence's feet.
+
+Sir Terence himself, scarcely realising what had taken place, for the
+whole thing had happened within the time of a couple of heart-beats,
+stood quite still, amazed and awed, in a half-crouching attitude,
+looking down at the body of the fallen man. And then from above, ringing
+upon the deathly stillness, he caught a sibilant whisper:
+
+"What was that? 'Sh!"
+
+He stepped back softly, and flattened himself instinctively against the
+wall; thence profoundly intrigued and vaguely alarmed on several scores
+he peered up at the windows of his wife's room whence the sound had
+come, whence the sudden light had come which--as he now realised--had
+given him the victory in that unequal contest. Looking up at the balcony
+in whose shadow he stood concealed, he saw two figures there--his wife's
+and another's--and at the same time he caught sight of something
+black that dangled from the narrow balcony, and peered more closely to
+discover a rope ladder.
+
+He felt his skin roughening, bristling like a dog's; he was conscious
+of being cold from head to foot, as if the flow of his blood had been
+suddenly arrested; and a sense of sickness overcame him. And then to
+turn that horrible doubt of his into still more horrible certainty came
+a man's voice, subdued, yet not so subdued but that he recognised it for
+Ned Tremayne's.
+
+"There's some one lying there. I can make out the figure."
+
+"Don't go down! For pity's sake, come back. Come back and wait, Ned. If
+any one should come and find you we shall be ruined."
+
+Thus hoarsely whispering, vibrating with terror, the voice of his
+wife reached O'Moy, to confirm him the unsuspecting blind cuckold that
+Samoval had dubbed him to his face, for which Samoval--warning the
+guilty pair with his last breath even as he had earlier so mockingly
+warned Sir Terence--had coughed up his soul on the turf of that enclosed
+garden.
+
+Crouching there for a moment longer, a man bereft of movement and of
+reason, stood O'Moy, conscious only of pain, in an agony of mind and
+heart that at one and the same time froze his blood and drew the sweat
+from his brow.
+
+Then he was for stepping out into the open, and, giving flow to the
+rage and surging violence that followed, calling down the man who had
+dishonoured him and slaying him there under the eyes of that trull who
+had brought him to this shame. But he controlled the impulse, or else
+Satan controlled it for him. That way, whispered the Tempter, was too
+straight and simple. He must think. He must have time to readjust his
+mind to the horrible circumstances so suddenly revealed.
+
+Very soft and silently, keeping well within the shadow of the wall,
+he sidled to the door which he had left ajar. Soundlessly he pushed
+it open, passed in and as soundlessly closed it again. For a moment he
+stood leaning heavily against its timbers, his breath coming in short
+panting sobs. Then he steadied himself and turning, made his way down
+the corridor to the little study which had been fitted up for him in the
+residential wing, and where sometimes he worked at night. He had been
+writing there that evening ever since dinner, and he had quitted the
+room only to go to his assignation with Samoval, leaving the lamp
+burning on his open desk.
+
+He opened the door, but before passing in he paused a moment, straining
+his ears to listen for sounds overhead. His eyes, glancing up and down,
+were arrested by a thin blade of light under a door at the end of the
+corridor. It was the door of the butler's pantry, and the line of light
+announced that Mullins had not yet gone to bed. At once Sir Terence
+understood that, knowing him to be at work, the old servant had himself
+remained below in case his master should want anything before retiring.
+
+Continuing to move without noise, Sir Terence entered his study, closed
+the door and crossed to his desk. Wearily he dropped into the chair
+that stood before it, his face drawn and ghastly, his smouldering eyes
+staring vacantly ahead. On the desk before him lay the letters that
+he had spent the past hours in writing--one to his wife; another
+to Tremayne; another to his brother in Ireland; and several others
+connected with his official duties, making provision for their
+uninterrupted continuance in the event of his not surviving the
+encounter.
+
+Now it happened that amongst the latter there was one that was
+destined hereafter to play a considerable part; it was a note for the
+Commissary-General upon a matter that demanded immediate attention, and
+the only one of all those letters that need now survive. It was marked
+"Most Urgent," and had been left by him for delivery first thing in the
+morning. He pulled open a drawer and swept into it all the letters he
+had written save that one.
+
+He locked that drawer; then unlocked another, and took thence a case of
+pistols. With shaking hands he lifted out one of the weapons to examine
+it, and all the while, of course, his thoughts were upon his wife and
+Tremayne. He was considering how well-founded had been his every twinge
+of jealousy; how wasted, how senseless the reactions of shame that had
+followed them; how insensate his trust in Tremayne's honesty, and, above
+all, with what crafty, treacherous subtlety Tremayne had drawn a
+red herring across the trail of his suspicions by pretending to an
+unutterable passion for Sylvia Armytage. It was perhaps that piece of
+duplicity, worthy, he thought, of the Iscariot himself, that galled Sir
+Terence now most sorely; that and the memory of his own silly credulity.
+He had been such a ready dupe. How those two together must have laughed
+at him! Oh, Tremayne had been very subtle! He had been the friend, the
+quasi-brother, parading his affection for the Butler family to excuse
+the familiarities with Lady O'Moy which he had permitted himself under
+Sir Terence's very eyes. O'Moy thought of them as he had seen them
+in the garden on the night of Redondo's ball, remembered the air of
+transparent honesty by which that damned hypocrite when discovered had
+deflected his just resentment.
+
+Oh, there was no doubt that the treacherous blackguard had been subtle.
+But--by God!--subtlety should be repaid with subtlety! He would deal
+with Tremayne as cruelly as Tremayne had dealt with him; and his wanton
+wife, too, should be repaid in kind. He beheld the way clear, in a flash
+of wicked inspiration. He put back the pistol, slapped down the lid of
+the box and replaced it in its drawer.
+
+He rose, took up the letter to the Commissary-general, stepped briskly
+to the door and pulled it open.
+
+"Mullins!" he called sharply. "Are you there? Mullins?"
+
+Came the sound of a scraping chair, and instantly that door at the end
+of the corridor was thrown open, and Mullins stood silhouetted against
+the light behind him. A moment he stood there, then came forward.
+
+"You called, Sir Terence?"
+
+"Yes." Sir Terence's voice was miraculously calm. His back was to the
+light and his face in shadow, so that its drawn, haggard look was not
+perceptible to the butler. "I am going to bed. But first I want you
+to step across to the sergeant of the guard with this letter for the
+Commissary-General. Tell him that it is of the utmost importance, and
+ask him to arrange to have it taken into Lisbon first thing in the
+morning."
+
+Mullins bowed, venerable as an archdeacon in aspect and bearing, as he
+received the letter from his master: "Certainly, Sir Terence."
+
+As he departed Sir Terence turned and slowly paced back to his desk,
+leaving the door open. His eyes had narrowed; there was a cruel, an
+almost evil smile on his lips. Of the generous, good-humoured nature
+imprinted upon his face every sign had vanished. His countenance was a
+mask of ferocity restrained by intelligence, cold and calculating.
+
+Oh, he would pay the score that lay between himself and those two who
+had betrayed him. They should receive treachery for treachery, mockery
+for mockery, and for dishonour death. They had deemed him an old fool!
+What was the expression that Samoval had used--Pantaloon in the comedy?
+Well, well! He had been Pantaloon in the comedy so far. But now they
+should find him Pantaloon in the tragedy--nay, not Pantaloon at all,
+but Polichinelle, the sinister jester, the cynical clown, who laughs in
+murdering. And in anguished silence should they bear the punishment he
+would mete out to them, or else in no less anguished speech themselves
+proclaim their own dastardy to the world.
+
+His wife he beheld now in a new light. It was out of vanity and greed
+that she had married him, because of the position in the world that he
+could give her. Having done so, at least she might have kept faith; she
+might have been honest, and abided by the bargain. If she had not done
+so, it was because honesty was beyond her shallow nature. He should have
+seen before what he now saw so clearly. He should have known her for
+a lovely, empty husk; a silly, fluttering butterfly; a toy; a thing of
+vanities, emotions, and nothing else.
+
+Thus Sir Terence, cursing the day when he had mated with a fool. Thus
+Sir Terence whilst he stood there waiting for the outcry from Mullins
+that should proclaim the discovery of the body, and afford him a pretext
+for having the house searched for the slayer. Nor had he long to wait.
+
+"Sir Terence! Sir Terence! For God's sake, Sir Terence!" he heard the
+voice of his old servant. Came the loud crash of the door thrust back
+until it struck the wall and quick steps along the passage.
+
+Sir Terence stepped out to meet him.
+
+"Why, what the devil--" he was beginning in his bluff, normal tones,
+when the servant, showing a white, scared face, cut him short.
+
+"A terrible thing, Sir Terence! Oh, the saints protect us, a dreadful
+thing! This way, sir! There's a man killed--Count Samoval, I think it
+is!"
+
+"What? Where?"
+
+"Out yonder, in the quadrangle, sir."
+
+"But--" Sir Terence checked. "Count Samoval, did ye say? Impossible!"
+and he went out quickly, followed by the butler.
+
+In the quadrangle he checked. In the few minutes that were sped since
+he had left the place the moon had overtopped the roof of the opposite
+wing, so that full upon the enclosed garden fell now its white light,
+illumining and revealing.
+
+There lay the black still form of Samoval supine, his white face staring
+up into the heavens, and beside him knelt Tremayne, whilst in the
+balcony above leaned her ladyship. The rope ladder, Sir Terence's swift
+glance observed, had disappeared.
+
+He halted in his advance, standing at gaze a moment. He had hardly
+expected so much. He had conceived the plan of causing the house to
+be searched immediately upon Mullins's discovery of the body. But
+Tremayne's rashness in adventuring down in this fashion spared him even
+that necessity. True, it set up other difficulties. But he was not sure
+that the matter would not be infinitely more interesting thus.
+
+He stepped forward, and came to a standstill beside the two--his dead
+enemy and his living one.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. POLICHINELLE
+
+
+"Why, Ned," he asked gravely, "what has happened?"
+
+"It is Samoval," was Tremayne's quiet answer. "He is quite dead."
+
+He stood up as he spoke, and Sir Terence observed with terrible inward
+mirth that his tone had the frank and honest ring, his bearing the
+imperturbable ease which more than once before had imposed upon him as
+the outward signs of an easy conscience. This secretary of his was a
+cool scoundrel.
+
+"Samoval, is it?" said Sir Terence, and went down on one knee beside
+the body to make a perfunctory examination. Then he looked up at the
+captain.
+
+"And how did this happen?"
+
+"Happen?" echoed Tremayne, realising that the question was being
+addressed particularly to himself. "That is what I am wondering. I found
+him here in this condition."
+
+"You found him here? Oh, you found him here in this condition! Curious!"
+Over his shoulder he spoke to the butler: "Mullins, you had better call
+the guard." He picked up the slender weapon that lay beside Samoval.
+"A duelling sword!" Then he looked searchingly about him until his eyes
+caught the gleam of the other blade near the wall, where himself he had
+dropped it. "Ah!" he said, and went to pick it up. "Very odd!" He looked
+up at the balcony, over the parapet of which his wife was leaning.
+"Did you see anything, my dear?" he asked, and neither Tremayne nor she
+detected the faint note of wicked mockery in the question.
+
+There was a moment's pause before she answered him, faltering:
+
+"N-no. I saw nothing." Sir Terence's straining ears caught no faintest
+sound of the voice that had prompted her urgently from behind the
+curtained windows.
+
+"How long have you been there?" he asked her.
+
+"A--a moment only," she replied, again after a pause. "I--I thought I
+heard a cry, and--and I came to see what had happened." Her voice shook
+with terror; but what she beheld would have been quite enough to account
+for that.
+
+The guard filed in through the doors from the official quarters, a
+sergeant with a halbert in one hand and a lantern in the other, followed
+by four men, and lastly by Mullins. They halted and came to attention
+before Sir Terence. And almost at the same moment there was a sharp
+rattling knock on the wicket in the great closed gates through which
+Samoval had entered. Startled, but without showing any signs of it, Sir
+Terence bade Mullins go open, and in a general silence all waited to see
+who it was that came.
+
+A tall man, bowing his shoulders to pass under the low lintel of that
+narrow door, stepped over the sill and into the courtyard. He wore a
+cocked hat, and as his great cavalry cloak fell open the yellow rays of
+the sergeant's lantern gleamed faintly on a British uniform. Presently,
+as he advanced into the quadrangle, he disclosed the aquiline features
+of Colquhoun Grant.
+
+"Good-evening, General. Good-evening, Tremayne," he greeted one and the
+other. Then his eyes fell upon the body lying between them. "Samoval,
+eh? So I am not mistaken in seeking him here. I have had him under very
+close observation during the past day or two, and when one of my men
+brought me word tonight that he had left his place at Bispo on foot and
+alone, going along the upper Alcantara road, If had a notion that he
+might be coming to Monsanto and I followed. But I hardly expected to
+find this. How has it happened?"
+
+"That is what I was just asking Tremayne," replied Sir Terence. "Mullins
+discovered him here quite by chance with the body."
+
+"Oh!" said Grant, and turned to the captain. "Was it you then--"
+
+"I?" interrupted Tremayne with sudden violence. He seemed now to become
+aware for the first time of the gravity of his position. "Certainly not,
+Colonel Grant. I heard a cry, and I came out to see what it was. I found
+Samoval here, already dead."
+
+"I see," said Grant. "You were with Sir Terence, then, when this--"
+
+"Nay," Sir Terence interrupted. "I have been alone since dinner,
+clearing up some arrears of work. I was in my study there when Mullins
+called me to tell me what he had discovered. It looks as if there had
+been a duel. Look at these swords." Then he turned to his secretary. "I
+think, Captain Tremayne," he said gravely, "that you had better report
+yourself under arrest to your colonel."
+
+Tremayne stiffened suddenly. "Report myself under arrest?" he cried. "My
+God, Sir Terence, you don't believe that I--"
+
+Sir Terence interrupted him. The voice in which he spoke was stern,
+almost sad; but his eyes gleamed with fiendish mockery the while. It
+was Polichinelle that spoke--Polichinelle that mocks what time he
+slays. "What were you doing here?" he asked, and it was like moving the
+checkmating piece.
+
+Tremayne stood stricken and silent. He cast a desperate upward glance
+at the balcony overhead. The answer was so easy, but it would entail
+delivering Richard Butler to his death. Colonel Grant, following his
+upward glance, beheld Lady O'Moy for the first time. He bowed, swept off
+his cocked hat, and "Perhaps her ladyship," he suggested to Sir Terence,
+"may have seen something."
+
+"I have already asked her," replied O'Moy.
+
+And then she herself was feverishly assuring Colonel Grant that she had
+seen nothing at all, that she had heard a cry and had come out on to the
+balcony to see what was happening.
+
+"And was Captain Tremayne here when you came out?" asked O'Moy, the
+deadly jester.
+
+"Ye-es," she faltered. "I was only a moment or two before yourself."
+
+"You see?" said Sir Terence heavily to Grant, and Grant, with pursed
+lips, nodded, his eyes moving from O'Moy to Tremayne.
+
+"But, Sir Terence," cried Tremayne, "I give you my word--I swear to
+you--that I know absolutely nothing of how Samoval met his death."
+
+"What were you doing here?" O'Moy asked again, and this time the
+sinister, menacing note of derision vibrated clearly in the question.
+
+Tremayne for the first time in his honest, upright life found himself
+deliberately choosing between truth and falsehood. The truth would
+clear him--since with that truth he would produce witnesses to it,
+establishing his movements completely. But the truth would send a man
+to his death; and so for the sake of that man's life he was driven into
+falsehood.
+
+"I was on my way to see you," he said.
+
+"At midnight?" cried Sir Terence on a note of grim doubt. "To what
+purpose?"
+
+"Really, Sir Terence, if my word is not sufficient, I refuse to submit
+to cross-examination."
+
+Sir Terence turned to the sergeant of the guard, "How long is it since
+Captain Tremayne arrived?" he asked.
+
+The sergeant stood to attention. "Captain Tremayne, sir, arrived rather
+more than half-an-hour ago. He came in a curricle, which is still
+waiting at the gates."
+
+"Half-an-hour ago, eh?" said Sir Terence, and from Colquhoun Grant
+there was a sharp and audible intake of breath, expressive either of
+understanding, or surprise, or both. The adjutant looked at Tremayne
+again. "As my questions seem only to entangle you further," he said,
+"I think you had better do as I suggest without more protests: report
+yourself under arrest to Colonel Fletcher in the morning, sir."
+
+Still Tremayne hesitated for a moment. Then drawing himself up, he
+saluted curtly. "Very well, sir," he replied.
+
+"But, Terence--" cried her ladyship from above.
+
+"Ah?" said Sir Terence, and he looked up. "You would say--?" he
+encouraged her, for she had broken off abruptly, checked again--although
+none below could guess it--by the one behind who prompted her.
+
+"Couldn't you--couldn't you wait?" she was faltering, compelled to it by
+his question.
+
+"Certainly. But for what?" quoth he, grimly sardonic.
+
+"Wait until you have some explanation," she concluded lamely.
+
+"That will be the business of the court-martial," he answered. "My duty
+is quite clear and simple; I think. You needn't wait, Captain Tremayne."
+
+And so, without another word, Tremayne turned and departed. The
+soldiers, in compliance with the short command issued by Sir Terence,
+took up the body and bore it away to a room in the official quarters;
+and in their wake went Colonel Grant, after taking his leave of Sir
+Terence. Her ladyship vanished from the balcony and closed her windows,
+and finally Sir Terence, followed by Mullins, slowly, with bowed head
+and dragging steps, reentered the house. In the quadrangle, flooded
+now by the cold, white light of the moon, all was peace once more. Sir
+Terence turned into his study, sank into the chair by his desk and sat
+there awhile staring into vacancy, a diabolical smile upon his handsome,
+mobile mouth. Gradually the smile faded and horror overspread his face.
+Finally he flung himself forward and buried his head in his arms.
+
+There were steps in the hall outside, a quick mutter of voices, and then
+the door of his study was flung open, and Miss Armytage came sharply to
+rouse him.
+
+"Terence! What has happened to Captain Tremayne?"
+
+He sat up stiffly, as she sped across the room to him. She was wrapped
+in a blue quilted bed-gown, her dark hair hung in two heavy plaits, and
+her bare feet had been hastily thrust into slippers.
+
+Sir Terence looked at her with eyes that were dull and heavy and that
+yet seemed to search her white, startled face.
+
+She set a hand on his shoulder, and looked down into his ravaged,
+haggard countenance. He seemed suddenly to have been stricken into an
+old man.
+
+"Mullins has just told me that Captain Tremayne has been ordered under
+arrest for--for killing Count Samoval. Is it true? Is it true?" she
+demanded wildly.
+
+"It is true," he answered her, and there was a heavy, sneering curl on
+his upper lip.
+
+"But--" She stopped, and put a hand to her throat; she looked as if she
+would stifle. She sank to her knees beside him, and caught his hand in
+both her own that were trembling. "Oh, you can't believe it! Captain
+Tremayne is not the man to do a murder."
+
+"The evidence points to a duel," he answered dully.
+
+"A duel!" She looked at him, and then, remembering what had passed
+that morning between Tremayne and Samoval, remembering, too, Lord
+Wellington's edict, "Oh, God!" she gasped. "Why did you let them take
+him?"
+
+"They didn't take him. I ordered him under arrest. He will report
+himself to Colonel Fletcher in the morning."
+
+"You ordered him? You! You, his friend!" Anger, scorn, reproach and
+sorrow all blending in her voice bore him a clear message.
+
+He looked down at her most closely, and gradually compassion crept into
+his face. He set his hands on her shoulders, she suffering it passively,
+insensibly.
+
+"You care for him, Sylvia?" he said, between inquiry and wonder.
+"Well, well! We are both fools together, child. The man is a dastard,
+a blackguard, a Judas, to be repaid with betrayal for betrayal. Forget
+him, girl. Believe me, he isn't worth a thought."
+
+"Terence!" She looked in her turn into that distorted face. "Are you
+mad?" she asked him.
+
+"Very nearly," he answered, with a laugh that was horrible to hear.
+
+She drew back and away from him, bewildered and horrified. Slowly
+she rose to her feet. She controlled with difficulty the deep emotion
+swaying her. "Tell me," she said slowly, speaking with obvious effort,
+"what will they do to Captain Tremayne?"
+
+"What will they do to him?" He looked at her. He was smiling. "They will
+shoot him, of course."
+
+"And you wish it!" she denounced him in a whisper of horror.
+
+"Above all things," he answered. "A more poetic justice never overtook a
+blackguard."
+
+"Why do you call him that? What do you mean?"
+
+"I will tell you--afterwards, after they have shot him; unless the truth
+comes out before."
+
+"What truth do you mean? The truth of how Samoval came by his death?"
+
+"Oh, no. That matter is quite clear, the evidence complete. I mean--oh,
+I will tell you afterwards what I mean. It may help you to bear your
+trouble, thankfully."
+
+She approached him again. "Won't you tell me now?" she begged him.
+
+"No," he answered, rising, and speaking with finality. "Afterwards if
+necessary, afterwards. And now get back to bed, child, and forget the
+fellow. I swear to you that he isn't worth a thought. Later I shall hope
+to prove it to you."
+
+"That you never will," she told him fiercely.
+
+He laughed, and again his laugh was harsh and terrible in its bitter
+mockery. "Yet another trusting fool," he cried. "The world is full of
+them--it is made up of them, with just a sprinkling of knaves to batten
+on their folly. Go to bed, Sylvia, and pray for understanding of men. It
+is a possession beyond riches."
+
+"I think you are more in need of it than I am," she told him, standing
+by the door.
+
+"Of course you do. You trust, which is why you are a fool. Trust," he
+said, speaking the very language of Polichinelle, "is the livery of
+fools."
+
+She went without answering him and toiled upstairs with dragging feet.
+She paused a moment in the corridor above, outside Una's door. She was
+in such need of communion with some one that for a moment she thought of
+going in. But she knew beforehand the greeting that would await her;
+the empty platitudes, the obvious small change of verbiage which her
+ladyship would dole out. The very thought of it restrained her, and so
+she passed on to her own room and a sleepless night in which to piece
+together the puzzle which the situation offered her, the amazing enigma
+of Sir Terence's seeming access of insanity.
+
+And the only conclusion that she reached was that intertwined with the
+death of Samoval there was some other circumstance which had aroused in
+the adjutant an unreasoning hatred of his friend, converting him into
+Tremayne's bitterest enemy, intent--as he had confessed--upon seeing him
+shot for that night's work. And because she knew them both for men of
+honour above all, the enigma was immeasurably deepened.
+
+Had she but obeyed the transient impulse to seek Lady O'Moy she might
+have discovered all the truth at once. For she would have come upon her
+ladyship in a frame of mind almost as distraught as her own; and she
+might--had she penetrated to the dressing-room where her ladyship
+was--have come upon Richard Butler at the same time.
+
+Now, in view of what had happened, her ladyship, ever impulsive, was
+all for going there and then to her husband to confess the whole truth,
+without pausing to reflect upon the consequences to others than Ned
+Tremayne. As you know, it was beyond her to see a thing from two points
+of view at one and the same time. It was also beyond her brother--the
+failing, as I think I have told you, was a family one--and her brother
+saw this matter only from the point of view of his own safety.
+
+"A single word to Terence," he had told her, putting his back to the
+door of the dressing-room to bar her intended egress, "and you realise
+that it will be a court-martial and a firing party for me."
+
+That warning effectively checked her. Yet certain stirrings of
+conscience made her think of the man who had imperilled himself for her
+sake and her brother's.
+
+"But, Dick, what is to become of Ned?" she had asked him.
+
+"Oh, Ned will be all right. What is the evidence against him after all?
+Men are not shot for things they haven't done. Justice will out, you
+know. Leave Ned to shift for himself for the present. Anyhow his danger
+isn't grave, nor is it immediate, and mine is."
+
+Helplessly distraught, she sank to an ottoman. The night had been a very
+trying one for her ladyship. She gave way to tears.
+
+"It is all your fault, Dick," she reproached him.
+
+"Naturally you would blame me," he said with resignation--the complete
+martyr.
+
+"If only you had been ready at the time, as he told you to be, there
+would have been no delays, and you would have got away before any of
+this happened."
+
+"Was it my fault that I should have reopened my wound--bad luck to
+it!--in attempting to get down that damned ladder?" he asked her. "Is it
+my fault that I am neither an ape nor an acrobat? Tremayne should have
+come up at once to assist me, instead of waiting until he had to come up
+to help me bandage my leg again. Then time would not have been lost, and
+very likely my life with it." He came to a gloomy conclusion.
+
+"Your life? What do you mean, Dick?"
+
+"Just that. What are my chances of getting away now?" he asked her. "Was
+there ever such infernal luck as mine? The Telemachus will sail without
+me, and the only man who could and would have helped me to get out of
+this damned country is under arrest. It's clear I shall have to shift
+for myself again, and I can't even do that for a day or two with my leg
+in this state. I shall have to go back into that stuffy store-cupboard
+of yours till God knows when." He lost all self-control at the prospect
+and broke into imprecations of his luck.
+
+She attempted to soothe him. But he wasn't easy to soothe.
+
+"And then," he grumbled on, "you have so little sense that you want to
+run straight off to Terence and explain to him what Tremayne was doing
+here. You might at least have the grace to wait until I am off the
+premises, and give me the mercy of a start before you set the dogs on my
+trail."
+
+"Oh, Dick, Dick, you are so cruel!" she protested. "How can you say such
+things to me, whose only thought is for you, to save you."
+
+"Then don't talk any more about telling Terence," he replied.
+
+"I won't, Dick. I won't." She drew him down beside her on the ottoman
+and her fingers smoothed his rather tumbled red hair, just as her words
+attempted to smooth the ruffles in his spirit. "You know I didn't
+realise, or I should not have thought of it even. I was so concerned for
+Ned for the moment."
+
+"Don't I tell you there's not the need?" he assured her. "Ned will be
+safe enough, devil a doubt. It's for you to keep to what you told
+them from the balcony; that you heard a cry, went out to see what was
+happening and saw Tremayne there bending over the body. Not a word more,
+and not a word less, or it will be all over with me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE CHAMPION
+
+
+With the possible exception of her ladyship, I do not think that there
+was much sleep that night at Monsanto for any of the four chief actors
+in this tragicomedy. Each had his own preoccupations. Sylvia's we
+know. Mr. Butler found his leg troubling him again, and the pain of
+the reopened wound must have prevented him from sleeping even had his
+anxieties about his immediate future not sufficed to do so. As for Sir
+Terence, his was the most deplorable case of all. This man who had lived
+a life of simple and downright honesty in great things and in small, a
+man who had never stooped to the slightest prevarication, found
+himself suddenly launched upon the most horrible and infamous course of
+duplicity to encompass the ruin of another. The offence of that other
+against himself might be of the most foul and hideous, a piece of
+treachery that only treachery could adequately avenge; yet this
+consideration was not enough to appease the clamours of Sir Terence's
+self-respect.
+
+In the end, however, the primary desire for vengeance and vengeance of
+the bitterest kind proved master of his mind. Captain Tremayne had been
+led by his villainy into a coil that should presently crush him, and Sir
+Terence promised himself an infinite balm for his outraged honour in the
+entertainment which the futile struggles of the victim should provide.
+With Captain Tremayne lay the cruel choice of submitting in tortured
+silence to his fate, or of turning craven and saving his miserable
+life by proclaiming himself a seducer and a betrayer. It should be
+interesting to observe how the captain would decide, and his punishment
+was certain whatever the decision that he took.
+
+Sir Terence came to breakfast in the open, grey-faced and haggard, but
+miraculously composed for a man who had so little studied the art
+of concealing his emotions. Voice and glance were calm as he gave a
+good-morning to his wife and to Miss Armytage.
+
+"What are you going to do about Ned?" was one of his wife's first
+questions.
+
+It took him aback. He looked askance at her, marvelling at the
+steadiness with which she bore his glance, until it occurred to him that
+effrontery was an essential part of the equipment of all harlots.
+
+"What am I going to do?" he echoed. "Why, nothing. The matter is out of
+my hands. I may be asked to give evidence; I may even be called to sit
+upon the court-martial that will try him. My evidence can hardly assist
+him. My conclusions will naturally be based upon the evidence that is
+laid before the court."
+
+Her teaspoon rattled in her saucer. "I don't understand you, Terence.
+Ned has always been your best friend."
+
+"He has certainly shared everything that was mine."
+
+"And you know," she went on, "that he did not kill Samoval."
+
+"Indeed?" His glance quickened a little. "How should I know that?"
+
+"Well... I know it, anyway."
+
+He seemed moved by that statement. He leaned forward with an odd
+eagerness, behind which there was something terrible that went
+unperceived by her.
+
+"Why did you not say so before? How do you know? What do you know?"
+
+"I am sure that he did not."
+
+"Yes, yes. But what makes you so sure? Do you possess some knowledge
+that you have not revealed?"
+
+He saw the colour slowly shrinking from her cheeks under his burning
+gaze. So she was not quite shameless then, after all. There were limits
+to her effrontery.
+
+"What knowledge should I possess?" she filtered.
+
+"That is what I am asking."
+
+She made a good recovery. "I possess the knowledge that you should
+possess yourself," she told him. "I know Ned for a man incapable of such
+a thing. I am ready to swear that he could not have done it."
+
+"I see: evidence as to character." He sank back into his chair and
+thoughtfully stirred his chocolate. "It may weigh with the court. But I
+am not the court, and my mere opinions can do nothing for Ned Tremayne."
+
+Her ladyship looked at him wildly. "The court?" she cried. "Do you mean
+that I shall have to give evidence?"
+
+"Naturally," he answered. "You will have to say what you saw."
+
+"But--but I saw nothing."
+
+"Something, I think."
+
+"Yes; but nothing that can matter."
+
+"Still the court will wish to hear it and perhaps to examine you upon
+it."
+
+"Oh no, no!" In her alarm she half rose, then sank again to her chair.
+"You must keep me out of this, Terence. I couldn't--I really couldn't."
+
+He laughed with an affectation of indulgence, masking something else.
+
+"Why," he said, "you would not deprive Tremayne of any of the advantages
+to be derived from your testimony? Are you not ready to bear witness as
+to his character? To swear that from your knowledge of the man you are
+sure he could not have done such a thing? That he is the very soul of
+honour, a man incapable of anything base or treacherous or sly?"
+
+And then at last Sylvia, who had been watching them, and seeking to
+apply to what she heard the wild expressions that Sir Terence had used
+to herself last night, broke into the conversation.
+
+"Why do you apply these words to Captain Tremayne?" she asked.
+
+He turned sharply to meet the opposition he detected in her. "I don't
+apply them. On the contrary, I say that, as Una knows, they are not
+applicable."
+
+"Then you make an unnecessary statement, a statement that has nothing to
+do with the case. Captain Tremayne has been arrested for killing Count
+Samoval in a duel. A duel may be a violation of the law as recently
+enacted by Lord Wellington, but it is not an offence against honour; and
+to say that a man cannot have fought a duel because a man is incapable
+of anything base or treacherous or sly is just to say a very foolish and
+meaningless thing."
+
+"Oh, quite so," the adjutant, admitted. "But if Tremayne denies having
+fought, if he shelters himself behind a falsehood, and says that he has
+not killed Samoval, then I think the statement assumes some meaning."
+
+"Does Captain Tremayne say that?" she asked him sharply.
+
+"It is what I understood him to say last night when I ordered him under
+arrest."
+
+"Then," said Sylvia, with full conviction, "Captain Tremayne did not do
+it."
+
+"Perhaps he didn't," Sir Terence admitted. "The court will no doubt
+discover the truth. The truth, you know, must prevail," and he looked at
+his wife again, marking the fresh signs of agitation she betrayed.
+
+Mullins coming to set fresh covers, the conversation was allowed to
+lapse. Nor was it ever resumed, for at that moment, with no other
+announcement save such as was afforded by his quick step and the
+click-click of his spurs, a short, slight man entered the quadrangle
+from the doorway of the official wing.
+
+The adjutant, turning to look, caught his breath suddenly in an
+exclamation of astonishment.
+
+"Lord Wellington!" he cried, and was immediately on his feet.
+
+At the exclamation the new-comer checked and turned. He wore a plain
+grey undress frock and white stock, buckskin breeches and lacquered
+boots, and he carried a riding-crop tucked under his left arm. His
+features were bold and sternly handsome; his fine eyes singularly
+piercing and keen in their glance; and the sweep of those eyes now took
+in not merely the adjutant, but the spread table and the ladies seated
+before it. He halted a moment, then advanced quickly, swept his cocked
+hat from a brown head that was but very slightly touched with grey, and
+bowed with a mixture of stiffness and courtliness to the ladies.
+
+"Since I have intruded so unwittingly, I had best remain to make my
+apologies," he said. "I was on my way to your residential quarters,
+O'Moy, not imagining that I should break in upon your privacy in this
+fashion."
+
+O'Moy with a great deference made haste to reassure him on the score of
+the intrusion, whilst the ladies themselves rose to greet him. He bore
+her ladyship's hand to his lips with perfunctory courtesy, then insisted
+upon her resuming her chair. Then he bowed--ever with that mixture of
+stiffness and deference--to Miss Armytage upon her being presented to
+him by the adjutant.
+
+"Do not suffer me to disturb you," he begged them. "Sit down, O'Moy. I
+am not pressed, and I shall be monstrous glad of a few moments' rest.
+You are very pleasant here," and he looked about the luxuriant garden
+with approving eyes.
+
+Sir Terence placed the hospitality of his table at his lordship's
+disposal. But the latter declined graciously.
+
+"A glass of wine and water, if you will. No more. I breakfasted at
+Torres Vedras with Fletcher." Then to the look of astonishment on the
+faces of the ladies he smiled. "Oh yes," he assured them, "I was early
+astir, for time is very precious just at present, which is why I drop
+unannounced upon you from the skies, O'Moy." He took the glass that
+Mullins proffered on a salver, sipped from it, and set it down.
+"There is so much vexation, so much hindrance from these pestilential
+intriguers here in Lisbon, that I have thought it as well to come in
+person and speak plainly to the gentlemen of the Council of Regency." He
+was peeling off his stout riding-gloves as he spoke. "If this campaign
+is to go forward at all, it will go forward as I dispose. Then, too, I
+wanted to see Fletcher and the works. By gad, O'Moy, he has performed
+miracles, and I am very pleased with him--oh, and with you too. He told
+me how ably you have seconded him and counselled him where necessary.
+You must have worked night and day, O'Moy." He sighed. "I wish that I
+were as well served in every direction." And then he broke off abruptly.
+"But this is monstrous tedious for your ladyship, and for you, Miss
+Armytage. Forgive me."
+
+Her ladyship protested the contrary, professing a deep interest
+in military matters, and inviting his lordship to continue. Lord
+Wellington, however, ignoring the invitation, turned the conversation
+upon life in Lisbon, inquiring hopefully whether they found the place
+afforded them adequate entertainment.
+
+"Indeed yes," Lady O'Moy assured him. "We are very gay at times. There
+are private theatricals and dances, occasionally an official ball, and
+we are promised picnics and water-parties now that the summer is here."
+
+"And in the autumn, ma'am, we may find you a little hunting," his
+lordship promised them. "Plenty of foxes; a rough country, though;
+but what's that to an Irishwoman?" He caught the quickening of Miss
+Armytage's eye. "The prospect interests you, I see."
+
+Miss Armytage admitted it, and thus they made conversation for a while,
+what time the great soldier sipped his wine and water to wash the dust
+of his morning ride from his throat. When at last he set down an empty
+glass Sir Terence took this as the intimation of his readiness to deal
+with official matters, and, rising, he announced himself entirely at his
+lordship's service.
+
+Lord Wellington claimed his attention for a full hour with the details
+of several matters that are not immediately concerned with this
+narrative. Having done, he rose at last from Sir Terence's desk, at
+which he had been sitting, and took up his riding-crop and cocked hat
+from the chair where he had placed them.
+
+"And now," he said, "I think I will ride into Lisbon and endeavour to
+come to an understanding with Count Redondo and Don Miguel Forjas."
+
+Sir Terence advanced to open the door. But Wellington checked him with a
+sudden sharp inquiry.
+
+"You published my order against duelling, did you not?"
+
+"Immediately upon receiving it, sir."
+
+"Ha! It doesn't seem to have taken long for the order to be infringed,
+then." His manner was severe, his eyes stern. Sir Terence was conscious
+of a quickening of his pulses. Nevertheless his answer was calmly
+regretful:
+
+"I am afraid not."
+
+The great man nodded. "Disgraceful! I heard of it from Fletcher this
+morning. Captain What's-his-name had just reported himself under arrest,
+I understand, and Fletcher had received a note from you giving the
+grounds for this. The deplorable part of these things is that they
+always happen in the most troublesome manner conceivable. In Berkeley's
+case the victim was a nephew of the Patriarch's. Samoval, now, was a
+person of even greater consequence, a close friend of several members
+of the Council. His death will be deeply resented, and may set up fresh
+difficulties. It is monstrous vexatious." And abruptly he asked "What
+did they quarrel about?"
+
+O'Moy trembled, and his glance avoided the other's gimlet eye. "The only
+quarrel that I am aware of between them," he said, "was concerned with
+this very enactment of your lordship's. Samoval proclaimed it infamous,
+and Tremayne resented the term. Hot words passed between them, but
+the altercation was allowed to go no further at the time by myself and
+others who were present."
+
+His lordship had raised his brows. "By gad, sir," he ejaculated, "there
+almost appears to be some justification for the captain. He was one of
+your military secretaries, was he not?"
+
+"He was."
+
+"Ha! Pity! Pity!" His lordship was thoughtful for a moment. Then he
+dismissed the matter. "But then orders are orders, and soldiers must
+learn to obey implicitly. British soldiers of all degrees seem to find
+the lesson difficult. We must inculcate it more sternly, that is all."
+
+O'Moy's honest soul was in torturing revolt against the falsehoods he
+had implied--and to this man of all men, to this man whom he reverenced
+above all others, who stood to him for the very fount of military honour
+and lofty principle! He was in such a mood that one more question on
+the subject from Wellington and the whole ghastly truth must have come
+pouring from his lips. But no other question came. Instead his lordship
+turned on the threshold and held out his hand.
+
+"Not a step farther, O'Moy. I've left you a mass of work, and you are
+short of a secretary. So don't waste any of your time on courtesies. I
+shall hope still to find the ladies in the garden so that I may take my
+leave without inconveniencing them."
+
+And he was gone, stepping briskly with clicking spurs, leaving O'Moy
+hunched now in his chair, his body the very expression of the dejection
+that filled his soul.
+
+In the garden his lordship came upon Miss Armytage alone, still seated
+by the table under the trellis, from which the cloth had by now been
+removed. She rose at his approach and in spite of gesture to her to
+remain seated.
+
+"I was seeking Lady O'Moy," said he, "to take my leave of her. I may not
+have the pleasure of coming to Monsanto again."
+
+"She is on the terrace, I think," said Miss Armytage. "I will find her
+for your lordship."
+
+"Let us find her together," he said amiably, and so turned and went with
+her towards the archway. "You said your name is Armytage, I think?" he
+commented.
+
+"Sir Terence said so."
+
+His eyes twinkled. "You possess an exceptional virtue," said he. "To be
+truthful is common; to be accurate rare. Well, then, Sir Terence said
+so. Once I had a great friend of the name of Armytage. I have lost sight
+of him these many years. We were at school together in Brussels."
+
+"At Monsieur Goubert's," she surprised him by saying. "That would be
+John Armytage, my uncle."
+
+"God bless my soul, ma'am!" he ejaculated. "But I gathered you were
+Irish, and Jack Armytage came from Yorkshire."
+
+"My mother is Irish, and we live in Ireland now. I was born there. But
+father, none the less, was John Armytage's brother."
+
+He looked at her with increased interest, marking the straight, supple
+lines of her, and the handsome, high-bred face. His lordship, remember,
+never lacked an appreciative eye for a fine woman. "So you're Jack
+Armytage's niece. Give me news of him, my dear."
+
+She did so. Jack Armytage was well and prospering, had made a
+rich marriage and retired from the Blues many years ago to live at
+Northampton. He listened with interest, and thus out of his boyhood
+friendship for her uncle, which of late years he had had no opportunity
+to express, sprang there and then a kindness for the niece. Her own
+personal charms may have contributed to it, for the great soldier was
+intensely responsive to the appeal of beauty.
+
+
+They reached the terrace. Lady O'Moy was nowhere in sight. But Lord
+Wellington was too much engrossed in his discovery to be troubled.
+
+"My dear," he said, "if I can serve you at any time, both for Jack's
+sake and your own, I hope that you will let me know of it."
+
+She looked at him a moment, and he saw her colour come and go, arguing a
+sudden agitation.
+
+"You tempt me, sir," she said, with a wistful smile.
+
+"Then yield to the temptation, child," he urged her kindly, those keen,
+penetrating eyes of his perceiving trouble here.
+
+"It isn't for myself," she responded. "Yet there is something I would
+ask you if I dare--something I had intended to ask you in any case if I
+could find the opportunity. To be frank, that is why I was waiting there
+in the garden just now. It was to waylay you. I hoped for a word with
+you."
+
+"Well, well," he encouraged her. "It should be the easier now, since in
+a sense we find that we are old friends."
+
+He was so kind, so gentle, despite that stern, strong face of his, that
+she melted at once to his persuasion.
+
+"It is about Lieutenant Richard Butler," she began.
+
+"Ah," said he lightly, "I feared as much when you said it was not for
+yourself you had a favour to ask."
+
+But, looking at him, she instantly perceived how he had misunderstood
+her.
+
+"Mr. Butler," she said, "is the officer who was guilty of the affair at
+Tavora."
+
+He knit his brow in thought. "Butler-Tavora?" he muttered questioningly.
+Suddenly his memory found what it was seeking. "Oh yes, the violated
+nunnery." His thin lips tightened; the sternness of his ace increased.
+"Yes?" he inquired, but the tone was now forbidding.
+
+Nevertheless she was not deterred. "Mr. Butler is Lady O'Moy's brother,"
+she said.
+
+He stared a moment, taken aback. "Good God! Ye don't say so, child! Her
+brother! O'Moy's brother-in-law! And O'Moy never said a word to me about
+it.
+
+"What should he say? Sir Terence himself pledged his word to the Council
+of Regency that Mr. Butler would be shot when taken."
+
+"Did he, egad!" He was still further surprised out of his sternness.
+"Something of a Roman this O'Moy in his conception of duty! Hum! The
+Council no doubt demanded this?"
+
+"So I understand, my lord. Lady O'Moy, realising her brother's grave
+danger, is very deeply troubled."
+
+"Naturally," he agreed. "But what can I do, Miss Armytage? What were the
+actual facts, do you happen to know?"
+
+She recited them, putting the case bravely for the scapegrace Mr.
+Butler, dwelling particularly upon the error under which he was
+labouring, that he had imagined himself to be knocking at the gates of
+a monastery of Dominican friars, that he had broken into the convent
+because denied admittance, and because he suspected some treacherous
+reason for that denial.
+
+He heard her out, watching her with those keen eyes of his the while.
+
+"Hum! You make out so good a case for him that one might almost believe
+you instructed by the gentleman himself. Yet I gather that nothing has
+since been heard of him?"
+
+"Nothing, sir, since he vanished from Tavora, nearly, two months ago.
+And I have only repeated to your lordship the tale that was told by the
+sergeant and the troopers who reported the matter to Sir Robert Craufurd
+on their return."
+
+He was very thoughtful. Leaning on the balustrade, he looked out
+across the sunlit valley, turning his boldly chiselled profile to his
+companion. At last he spoke slowly, reflectively: "But if this were
+really so--a mere blunder--I see no sufficient grounds to threaten him
+with capital punishment. His subsequent desertion, if he has deserted--I
+mean if nothing has happened to him--is really the graver matter of the
+two."
+
+"I gathered, sir, that he was to be sacrificed to the Council of
+Regency--a sort of scapegoat."
+
+He swung round sharply, and the sudden blaze of his eyes almost
+terrified her. Instantly he was cold again and inscrutable. "Ah! You are
+oddly well informed throughout. But of course you would be," he added,
+with an appraising look into that intelligent face in which he now
+caught a faint likeness of Jack Armytage. "Well, well, my dear, I am
+very glad you have told me of this. If Mr. Butler is ever taken and in
+danger--there will be a court-martial, of course--send me word of it,
+and I will see what I can do, both for your sake and for the sake of
+strict justice."
+
+"Oh, not for my sake," she protested, reddening slightly at the gentle
+imputation. "Mr. Butler is nothing to me--that is to say, he is just my
+cousin. It is for Una's sake that I am asking this."
+
+"Why, then, for Lady O'Moy's sake, since you ask it," he replied
+readily. "But," he warned her, "say nothing of it until Mr. Butler is
+found." It is possible he believed that Butler never would be found.
+"And remember, I promise only to give the matter my attention. If it is
+as you represent it, I think you may be sure that the worst that will
+befall Mr. Butler will be dismissal from the service. He deserves that.
+But I hope I should be the last man to permit a British officer to be
+used as a scapegoat or a burnt-offering to the mob or to any Council of
+Regency. By the way, who told you this about a scapegoat?"
+
+"Captain Tremayne."
+
+"Captain Tremayne? Oh, the man who killed Samoval?"
+
+"He didn't," she cried.
+
+On that almost fierce denial his lordship looked at her, raising his
+eyebrows in astonishment.
+
+"But I am told that he did, and he is under arrest for it this
+moment--for that, and for breaking my order against duelling."
+
+"You were not told the truth, my lord. Captain Tremayne says that he
+didn't, and if he says so it is so."
+
+"Oh, of course, Miss Armytage!" He was a man of unparalleled valour and
+boldness, yet so fierce was she in that moment that for the life of him
+he dared not have contradicted her.
+
+"Captain Tremayne is the most honourable man I know," she continued,
+"and if he had killed Samoval he would never have denied it; he would
+have proclaimed it to all the world."
+
+"There is no need for all this heat, my dear," he reassured her. "The
+point is not one that can remain in doubt. The seconds of the duel will
+be forthcoming; and they will tell us who were the principals."
+
+"There were no seconds," she informed him.
+
+"No seconds!" he cried in horror. "D' ye mean they just fought a rough
+and tumble fight?"
+
+"I mean they never fought at all. As for this tale of a duel, I ask
+your lordship: Had Captain Tremayne desired a secret meeting with Count
+Samoval, would he have chosen this of all places in which to hold it?"
+
+"This?"
+
+"This. The fight--whoever fought it--took place in the quadrangle there
+at midnight."
+
+He was overcome with astonishment, and he showed it.
+
+"Upon my soul," he said, "I do not appear to have been told any of
+the facts. Strange that O'Moy should never have mentioned that," he
+muttered, and then inquired suddenly: "Where was Tremayne arrested?"
+
+"Here," she informed him.
+
+"Here? He was here, then, at midnight? What was he doing here?"
+
+"I don't know. But whatever he was doing, can your lordship believe that
+he would have come here to fight a secret duel?"
+
+"It certainly puts a monstrous strain upon belief," said he. "But what
+can he have been doing here?"
+
+"I don't know," she repeated. She wanted to add a warning of O'Moy. She
+was tempted to tell his lordship of the odd words that O'Moy had used to
+her last night concerning Tremayne. But she hesitated, and her courage
+failed her. Lord Wellington was so great a man, bearing the destinies of
+nations on his shoulders, and already he had wasted upon her so much
+of the time that belonged to the world and history, that she feared to
+trespass further; and whilst she hesitated came Colquhoun Grant clanking
+across the quadrangle looking for his lordship. He had come up, he
+announced, standing straight and stiff before them, to see O'Moy, but
+hearing of Lord Wellington's presence, had preferred to see his lordship
+in the first instance.
+
+"And indeed you arrive very opportunely, Grant," his lordship confessed.
+
+He turned to take his leave of Jack Armytage's niece.
+
+"I'll not forget either Mr. Butler or Captain Tremayne," he promised
+her, and his stern face softened into a gentle, friendly smile. "They
+are very fortunate in their champion."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE WALLET
+
+
+"A queer, mysterious business this death of Samoval," said Colonel
+Grant.
+
+"So I was beginning to perceive," Wellington agreed, his brow dark.
+
+They were alone together in the quadrangle under the trellis, through
+which the sun, already high, was dappling the table at which his
+lordship sat.
+
+"It would be easier to read if it were not for the duelling swords.
+Those and the nature of Samoval's wound certainly point unanswerably to
+a duel. Otherwise there would be considerable evidence that Samoval was
+a spy caught in the act and dealt with out of hand as he deserved."
+
+"How? Count Samoval a spy?"
+
+"In the French interest," answered the colonel without emotion, "acting
+upon the instructions of the Souza faction, whose tool he had become."
+And Colonel Grant proceeded to relate precisely what he knew of Samoval.
+
+Lord Wellington sat awhile in silence, cogitating. Then he rose, and
+his piercing eyes looked up at the colonel, who stood a good head taller
+than himself.
+
+"Is this the evidence of which you spoke?"
+
+"By no means," was the answer. "The evidence I have secured is much more
+palpable. I have it here." He produced a little wallet of red morocco
+bearing the initial "S" surmounted by a coronet. Opening it, he selected
+from it some papers, speaking the while. "I thought it as well before
+I left last night to make an examination of the body. This is what I
+found, and it contains, among other lesser documents, these to which I
+would draw your lordship's attention. First this." And he placed in
+Lord Wellington's hand a holograph note from the Prince of Esslingen
+introducing the bearer, M. de la Fleche, his confidential agent, who
+would consult with the Count, and thanking the Count for the valuable
+information already received from him.
+
+His lordship sat down again to read the letter. "It is a full
+confirmation of what you have told me," he said calmly.
+
+"Then this," said Colonel Grant, and he placed upon the table a note in
+French of the approximate number and disposition of the British troops
+in Portugal at the time. "The handwriting is Samoval's own, as those who
+know it will have no difficulty in discerning. And now this, sir." He
+unfolded a small sketch map, bearing the title also in French: Probable
+position and extent of the fortifications north of Lisbon.
+
+"The notes at the foot," he added, "are in cipher, and it is the
+ordinary cipher employed by the French, which in itself proves how
+deeply Samoval was involved. Here is a translation of it." And he placed
+before his chief a sheet of paper on which Lord Wellington read:
+
+"This is based upon my own personal knowledge of the country, odd scraps
+of information received from time to time, and my personal verification
+of the roads closed to traffic in that region. It is intended merely
+as a guide to the actual locale of the fortifications, an exact plan of
+which I hope shortly to obtain."
+
+His lordship considered it very attentively, but without betraying the
+least discomposure.
+
+"For a man working upon such slight data as he himself confesses," was
+the quiet comment, "he is damnably accurate. It is as well, I think,
+that this did not reach Marshal Massena."
+
+"My own assumption is that he put off sending it, intending to replace
+it by the actual plan--which he here confesses to the expectation of
+obtaining shortly."
+
+"I think he died at the right moment. Anything else?"
+
+"Indeed," said Colonel Grant, "I have kept the best for the last."
+And unfolding yet another document, he placed it in the hands of the
+Commander-in-Chief. It was Lord Liverpool's note of the troops to be
+embarked for Lisbon in June and July--the note abstracted from the
+dispatch carried by Captain Garfield.
+
+His lordship's lips tightened as he considered it. "His death was
+timely indeed, damned timely; and the man who killed him deserves to be
+mentioned in dispatches. Nothing else, I suppose?"
+
+"The rest is of little consequence, sir."
+
+"Very well." He rose. "You will leave these with me, and the wallet as
+well, if you please. I am on my way to confer with the members of the
+Council of Regency, and I am glad to go armed with so stout a weapon
+as this. Whatever may be the ultimate finding of the court-martial, the
+present assumption must be that Samoval met the death of a spy caught
+in the act, as you suggested. That is the only conclusion the Portuguese
+Government can draw when I lay these papers before it. They will
+effectively silence all protests."
+
+"Shall I tell O'Moy?" inquired the colonel.
+
+"Oh, certainly," answered his lordship, instantly to change his mind.
+"Stay!" He considered, his chin in his hand, his eyes dreamy. "Better
+not, perhaps. Better not tell anybody. Let us keep this to ourselves for
+the present. It has no direct bearing on the matter to be tried. By the
+way, when does the court-martial sit?"
+
+"I have just heard that Marshal Beresford has ordered it to sit on
+Thursday here at Monsanto."
+
+His lordship considered. "Perhaps I shall be present. I may be at Torres
+Vedras until then. It is a very odd affair. What is your own impression
+of it, Grant? Have you formed any?"
+
+Grant smiled darkly. "I have been piecing things together. The result
+is rather curious, and still very mystifying, still leaving a deal to be
+explained, and somehow this wallet doesn't fit into the scheme at all."
+
+"You shall tell me about it as we ride into Lisbon. I want you to come
+with me. Lady O'Moy must forgive me if I take French leave, since she is
+nowhere to be found."
+
+The truth was, that her ladyship had purposely gone into hiding, after
+the fashion of suffering animals that are denied expression of their
+pain. She had gone off with her load of sorrow and anxiety into the
+thicket on the flank of Monsanto, and there Sylvia found her presently,
+dejectedly seated by a spring on a bank that was thick with flowering
+violets. Her ladyship was in tears, her mind swollen to bursting-point
+by the secret which it sought to contain but felt itself certainly
+unable to contain much longer.
+
+"Why, Una dear," cried Miss Armytage, kneeling beside her and putting a
+motherly arm about that full-grown child, "what is this?"
+
+Her ladyship wept copiously, the springs of her grief gushing forth in
+response to that sympathetic touch.
+
+"Oh, my dear, I am so distressed. I shall go mad, I think. I am sure I
+have never deserved all this trouble. I have always been considerate
+of others. You know I wouldn't give pain to any one. And--and Dick has
+always been so thoughtless."
+
+"Dick?" said Miss Armytage, and there was less sympathy in her voice.
+"It is Dick you are thinking about at present?"
+
+"Of course. All this trouble has come through Dick. I mean," she
+recovered, "that all my troubles began with this affair of Dick's. And
+now there is Ned under arrest and to be court-martialled."
+
+"But what has Captain Tremayne to do with Dick?"
+
+"Nothing, of course," her ladyship agreed, with more than usual
+self-restraint. "But it's one trouble on another. Oh, it's more than I
+can bear."
+
+"I know, my dear, I know," Miss Armytage said soothingly, and her own
+voice was not so steady.
+
+"You don't know! How can you? It isn't your brother or your friend. It
+isn't as if you cared very much for either of them. If you did, if you
+loved Dick or Ned, you might realise what I am suffering."
+
+Miss Armytage's eyes looked straight ahead into the thick green foliage,
+and there was an odd smile, half wistful, half scornful, on her lips.
+
+"Yet I have done what I could," she said presently. "I have spoken to
+Lord Wellington about them both."
+
+Lady O'Moy checked her tears to look at her companion, and there was
+dread in her eyes.
+
+"You have spoken to Lord Wellington?"
+
+"Yes. The opportunity came, and I took it."
+
+"And whatever did you tell him?" She was all a-tremble now, as she
+clutched Miss Armytage's hand.
+
+Miss Armytage related what had passed; how she had explained the true
+facts of Dick's case to his lordship; how she had protested her faith
+that Tremayne was incapable of lying, and that if he said he had not
+killed Samoval it was certain that he had not done so; and, finally, how
+his lordship had promised to bear both cases in his mind.
+
+"That doesn't seem very much," her ladyship complained.
+
+"But he said that he would never allow a British officer to be made a
+scapegoat, and that if things proved to be as I stated them he would
+see that the worst that happened to Dick would be his dismissal from the
+army. He asked me to let him know immediately if Dick were found."
+
+More than ever was her ladyship on the very edge of confiding. A chance
+word might have broken down the last barrier of her will. But that word
+was not spoken, and so she was given the opportunity of first consulting
+her brother.
+
+He laughed when he heard the story.
+
+"A trap to take me, that's all," he pronounced it. "My dear girl,
+that stiff-necked martinet knows nothing of forgiveness for a military
+offence. Discipline is the god at whose shrine he worships." And he
+afforded her anecdotes to illustrate and confirm his assertion of Lord
+Wellington's ruthlessness. "I tell you," he concluded, "it's nothing
+but a trap to catch me. And if you had been fool enough to yield, and to
+have blabbed of my presence to Sylvia, you would have had it proved to
+you."
+
+She was terrified and of course convinced, for she was easy of
+conviction, believing always the last person to whom she spoke. She sat
+down on one of the boxes that furnished that cheerless refuge of Mr.
+Butler's.
+
+"Then what's to become of Ned?" she cried. "Oh, I had hoped that we had
+found a way out at last."
+
+He raised himself on his elbow on the camp-bed they had fitted up for
+him.
+
+"Be easy now," he bade her impatiently. "They can't do anything to Ned
+until they find him guilty; and how are they going to find him guilty
+when he's innocent?"
+
+"Yes; but the appearances!"
+
+"Fiddlesticks!" he answered her--and the expression chosen was a
+mere concession to her sex, and not at all what Mr. Butler intended.
+"Appearances can't establish guilt. Do be sensible, and remember that
+they will have to prove that he killed Samoval. And you can't prove a
+thing to be what it isn't. You can't!"
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Certain sure," he replied with emphasis.
+
+"Do you know that I shall have to give evidence before the court?" she
+announced resentfully.
+
+It was an announcement that gave him pause. Thoughtfully he stroked his
+abominable tuft of red beard. Then he dismissed the matter with a shrug
+and a smile.
+
+"Well, and what of it?" he cried. "They are not likely to bully you or
+cross-examine you. Just tell them what you saw from the balcony. Indeed
+you can't very well say anything else, or they will see that you are
+lying, and then heaven alone knows what may happen to you, as well as to
+me."
+
+She got up in a pet. "You're callous, Dick--callous!" she told him. "Oh,
+I wish you had never come to me for shelter."
+
+He looked at her and sneered. "That's a matter you can soon mend," he
+told her. "Call up Terence and the others and have me shot. I promise
+I shall make no resistance. You see, I'm not able to resist even if I
+would."
+
+"Oh, how can you think it?" She was indignant.
+
+"Well, what is a poor devil to think? You blow hot and cold all in a
+breath. I'm sick and ill and feverish," he continued with self-pity,
+"and now even you find me a trouble. I wish to God they'd shoot me and
+make an end. I'm sure it would be best for everybody."
+
+And now she was on her knees beside him, soothing him; protesting that
+he had misunderstood her; that she had meant--oh, she didn't know what
+she had meant, she was so distressed on his account.
+
+"And there's never the need to be," he assured her. "Surely you can be
+guided by me if you want to help me. As soon as ever my leg gets well
+again I'll be after fending for myself, and trouble you no further. But
+if you want to shelter me until then, do it thoroughly, and don't give
+way to fear at every shadow without substance that falls across your
+path."
+
+She promised it, and on that promise left him; and, believing him, she
+bore herself more cheerfully for the remainder of the day. But that
+evening after they had dined her fears and anxieties drove her at last
+to seek her natural and legal protector.
+
+Sir Terence had sauntered off towards the house, gloomy and silent as he
+had been throughout the meal. She ran after him now, and came tripping
+lightly at his side up the steps. She put her arm through his.
+
+"Terence dear, you are not going back to work again?" she pleaded.
+
+He stopped, and from his fine height looked down upon her with a curious
+smile. Slowly he disengaged his arm from the clasp of her own. "I am
+afraid I must," he answered coldly. "I have a great deal to do, and I am
+short of a secretary. When this inquiry is over I shall have more time
+to myself, perhaps." There was something so repellent in his voice, in
+his manner of uttering those last words, that she stood rebuffed and
+watched him vanish into the building.
+
+Then she stamped her foot and her pretty mouth trembled.
+
+"Oaf!" she said aloud.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE EVIDENCE
+
+
+The board of officers convened by Marshal Beresford to form the court
+that was to try Captain Tremayne, was presided over by General Sir Harry
+Stapleton, who was in command of the British troops quartered in Lisbon.
+It included, amongst others, the adjutant-general, Sir Terence O'Moy;
+Colonel Fletcher of the Engineers, who had come in haste from Torres
+Vedras, having first desired to be included in the board chiefly on
+account of his friendship for Tremayne; and Major Carruthers. The
+judge-advocate's task of conducting the case against the prisoner was
+deputed to the quartermaster of Tremayne's own regiment, Major Swan.
+
+The court sat in a long, cheerless hall, once the refectory of the
+Franciscans, who had been the first tenants of Monsanto. It was
+stone-flagged, the windows set at a height of some ten feet from the
+ground, the bare, whitewashed walls hung with very wooden portraits of
+long-departed kings and princes of Portugal who had been benefactors of
+the order.
+
+The court occupied the abbot's table, which was set on a shallow dais at
+the end of the room--a table of stone with a covering of oak, over which
+a green cloth had been spread; the officers--twelve in number, besides
+the president--sat with their backs to the wall, immediately under the
+inevitable picture of the Last Supper.
+
+The court being sworn, Captain Tremayne was brought in by the
+provost-marshal's guard and given a stool placed immediately before and
+a few paces from the table. Perfectly calm and imperturbable, he saluted
+the court, and sat down, his guards remaining some paces behind him.
+
+He had declined all offers of a friend to represent him, on the grounds
+that the court could not possibly afford him a case to answer.
+
+The president, a florid, rather pompous man, who spoke with a faint
+lisp, cleared his throat and read the charge against the prisoner from
+the sheet with which he had been supplied--the charge of having violated
+the recent enactment against duelling made by the Commander-in-Chief
+of his Majesty's forces in the Peninsula, in so far as he had fought:
+a duel with Count Jeronymo de Samoval, and of murder in so far as that
+duel, conducted in an irregular manner, and without any witnesses, had
+resulted in the death of the said Count Jeronymo de Samoval.
+
+"How say you, then, Captain Tremayne?" the judge-advocate challenged
+him. "Are you guilty of these charges or not guilty?"
+
+"Not guilty."
+
+The president sat back and observed the prisoner with an eye that was
+officially benign. Tremayne's glance considered the court and met the
+concerned and grave regard of his colonel, of his friend Carruthers and
+of two other friends of his own regiment, the cold indifference of three
+officers of the Fourteenth--then stationed in Lisbon with whom he was
+unacquainted, and the utter inscrutability of O'Moy's rather lowering
+glance, which profoundly intrigued him, and, lastly, the official
+hostility of Major Swan, who was on his feet setting forth the case
+against him. Of the remaining members of the court he took no heed.
+
+From the opening address it did not seem to Captain Tremayne as if this
+case--which had been hurriedly prepared by Major Swan, chiefly that
+same morning would amount to very much. Briefly the major announced his
+intention of establishing to the satisfaction of the court how, on the
+night of the 28th of May, the prisoner, in flagrant violation of an
+enactment in a general order of the 26th of that same month, had
+engaged in a duel with Count Jeronymo de Samoval, a peer of the realm of
+Portugal.
+
+Followed a short statement of the case from the point of view of the
+prosecution, an anticipation of the evidence to be called, upon which
+the major thought--rather sanguinely, opined Captain Tremayne--to
+convict the accused. He concluded with an assurance that the evidence of
+the prisoner's guilt was as nearly direct as evidence could be in a case
+of murder.
+
+The first witness called was the butler, Mullins. He was introduced by
+the sergeant-major stationed by the double doors at the end of the hall
+from the ante-room where the witnesses commanded to be present were in
+waiting.
+
+Mullins, rather less venerable than usual, as a consequence of agitation
+and affliction on behalf of Captain Tremayne, to whom he was attached,
+stated nervously the facts within his knowledge. He was occupied with
+the silver in his pantry, having remained up in case Sir Terence, who
+was working late in his study, should require anything before going to
+bed. Sir Terence called him, and--
+
+"At what time did Sir Terence call you?" asked the major.
+
+"It was ten minutes past twelve, sir, by the clock in my pantry."
+
+"You are sure that the clock was right?"
+
+
+"Quite sure, sir; I had put it right that same evening."
+
+"Very well, then. Sir Terence called you at ten minutes past twelve.
+Pray continue."
+
+"He gave me a letter addressed to the Commissary-general. 'Take that,'
+says he, 'to the sergeant of the guard at once, and tell him to be
+sure that it is forwarded to the Commissary-General first thing in the
+morning.' I went out at once, and on the lawn in the quadrangle I saw a
+man lying on his back on the grass and another man kneeling beside him.
+I ran across to them. It was a bright, moonlight night--bright as day
+it was, and you could see quite clear. The gentleman that was kneeling
+looks up, at me, and I sees it was Captain Tremayne, sir. 'What's this,
+Captain dear?' says I. 'It's Count Samoval, and he's kilt,' says he,
+'for God's sake, go and fetch somebody.' So I ran back to tell Sir
+Terence, and Sir Terence he came out with me, and mighty startled he
+was at what he found there. 'What's happened?'says he, and the captain
+answers him just as he had answered me: 'It's Count Samoval, and he's
+kilt. 'But how did it happen?' says Sir Terence. 'Sure and that's just
+what I want to know,' says the captain; 'I found him here.' And then Sir
+Terence turns to me, and 'Mullins,' says he, 'just fetch the guard,' and
+of course, I went at once."
+
+"Was there any one else present?" asked the prosecutor.
+
+"Not in the quadrangle, sir. But Lady O'Moy was on the balcony of her
+room all the time."
+
+"Well, then, you fetched the guard. What happened when you returned?"
+
+"Colonel Grant arrived, sir, and I understood him to say that he had
+been following Count Samoval..."
+
+"Which way did Colonel Grant come?" put in the president.
+
+"By the gate from the terrace."
+
+"Was it open?"
+
+"No, sir. Sir Terence himself went to open the wicket when Colonel Grant
+knocked."
+
+Sir Harry nodded and Major Swan resumed the examination.
+
+"What happened next?"
+
+"Sir Terence ordered the captain under arrest."
+
+"Did Captain Tremayne submit at once?"
+
+"Well, not quite at once, sir. He naturally made some bother. 'Good
+God!' he says, 'ye'll never be after thinking I kilt him? I tell you I
+just found him here like this.' 'What were ye doing here, then?' says
+Sir Terence. 'I was coming to see you,' says the captain. 'What about?'
+says Sir Terence, and with that the captain got angry, said he refused
+to be cross-questioned and went off to report himself under arrest as he
+was bid."
+
+That closed the butler's evidence, and the judge-advocate looked across
+at the prisoner.
+
+"Have you any questions for the witness?" he inquired.
+
+"None," replied Captain Tremayne. "He has given his evidence very
+faithfully and accurately."
+
+Major Swan invited the court to question the witness in any manner it
+considered desirable. The only one to avail himself of the invitation
+was Carruthers, who, out of his friendship and concern for Tremayne--and
+a conviction of Tremayne's innocence begotten chiefly by that friendship
+desired to bring out anything that might tell in his favour.
+
+"What was Captain Tremayne's bearing when he spoke to you and to Sir
+Terence?"
+
+"Quite as usual, sir."
+
+"He was quite calm, not at all perturbed?"
+
+"Devil a bit; not until Sir Terence ordered him under arrest, and then
+he was a little hot."
+
+"Thank you, Mullins."
+
+Dismissed by the court, Mullins would have departed, but that upon being
+told by the sergeant-major that he was at liberty to remain if he chose
+he found a seat on one of the benches ranged against the wall.
+
+The next witness was Sir Terence, who gave his evidence quietly from his
+place at the board immediately on the president's right. He was pale,
+but otherwise composed, and the first part of his evidence was no more
+than a confirmation of what Mullins had said, an exact and strictly
+truthful statement of the circumstances as he had witnessed them from
+the moment when Mullins had summoned him.
+
+"You were present, I believe, Sir Terence," said Major Swan, "at an
+altercation that arose on the previous day between Captain Tremayne and
+the deceased?"
+
+"Yes. It happened at lunch here at Monsanto."
+
+"What was the nature of it?"
+
+"Count Samoval permitted himself to criticise adversely Lord
+Wellington's enactment against duelling, and Captain Tremayne defended
+it. They became a little heated, and the fact was mentioned that Samoval
+himself was a famous swordsman. Captain Tremayne made the remark that
+famous swordsmen were required by Count Samoval's country to, save it
+from invasion. The remark was offensive to the deceased, and although
+the subject was abandoned out of regard for the ladies present, it was
+abandoned on a threat from Count Samoval to continue it later."
+
+"Was it so continued?"
+
+"Of that I have no knowledge."
+
+Invited to cross-examine the witness, Captain Tremayne again declined,
+admitting freely that all that Sir Terence had said was strictly true.
+Then Carruthers, who appeared to be intent to act as the prisoner's
+friend, took up the examination of his chief.
+
+"It is of course admitted that Captain Tremayne enjoyed free access
+to Monsanto practically at all hours in his capacity as your military
+secretary, Sir Terence?"
+
+"Admitted," said Sir Terence.
+
+"And it is therefore possible that he might have come upon the body of
+the deceased just as Mullins came upon it?"
+
+"It is possible, certainly. The evidence to come will no doubt determine
+whether it is a tenable opinion."
+
+"Admitting this, then, the attitude in which Captain Tremayne was
+discovered would be a perfectly natural one? It would be natural that he
+should investigate the identity and hurt of the man he found there?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"But it would hardly be natural that he should linger by the body of
+a man he had himself slain, thereby incurring the risk of being
+discovered?"
+
+"That is a question for the court rather than for me."
+
+"Thank you, Sir Terence." And, as no one else desired to question him,
+Sir Terence resumed his seat, and Lady O'Moy was called.
+
+She came in very white and trembling, accompanied by Miss Armytage,
+whose admittance was suffered by the court, since she would not be
+called upon to give evidence. One of the officers of the Fourteenth
+seated on the extreme right of the table made gallant haste to set a
+chair for her ladyship, which she accepted gratefully.
+
+The oath administered, she was invited gently by Major Swan to tell the
+court what she knew of the case before them.
+
+"But--but I know nothing," she faltered in evident distress, and Sir
+Terence, his elbow leaning on the table, covered his mouth with his hand
+that its movements might not betray him. His eyes glowered upon her with
+a ferocity that was hardly dissembled.
+
+"If you will take the trouble to tell the court what you saw from your
+balcony," the major insisted, "the court will be grateful."
+
+Perceiving her agitation, and attributing it to nervousness, moved
+also by that delicate loveliness of hers, and by deference to the
+adjutant-generates lady, Sir Harry Stapleton intervened.
+
+"Is Lady O'Moy's evidence really necessary?" he asked. "Does it
+contribute any fresh fact regarding the discovery of the body?"
+
+"No, sir," Major Swan admitted. "It is merely a corroboration of what we
+have already heard from Mullins and Sir Terence."
+
+"Then why unnecessarily distress this lady?"
+
+"Oh, for my own part, sir--" the prosecutor was submitting, when Sir
+Terence cut in:
+
+"I think that in the prisoner's interest perhaps Lady O'Moy will not
+mind being distressed a little." It was at her he looked, and for
+her and Tremayne alone that he intended the cutting lash of sarcasm
+concealed from the rest of the court by his smooth accent. "Mullins has
+said, I think, that her ladyship was on the balcony when he came into
+the quadrangle. Her evidence therefore, takes us further back in point
+of time than does Mullins's." Again the sarcastic double meaning was
+only for those two. "Considering that the prisoner is being tried for
+his life, I do not think we should miss anything that may, however
+slightly, affect our judgment."
+
+"Sir Terence is right, I think, sir," the judge-advocate supported.
+
+"Very well, then," said the president. "Proceed, if you please."
+
+"Will you be good enough to tell the court, Lady O'Moy, how you came to
+be upon the balcony?"
+
+Her pallor had deepened, and her eyes looked more than ordinarily large
+and child-like as they turned this way and that to survey the members
+of the court. Nervously she dabbed her lips with a handkerchief before
+answering mechanically as she had been schooled:
+
+"I heard a cry, and I ran out--"
+
+"You were in bed at the time, of course?" quoth her husband,
+interrupting.
+
+"What on earth has that to do with it, Sir Terence?" the president
+rebuked him, out of his earnest desire to cut this examination as short
+as possible.
+
+"The question, sir, does not seem to me to be without point," replied
+O'Moy. He was judicially smooth and self-contained. "It is intended
+to enable us to form an opinion as to the lapse of time between her
+ladyship's hearing the cry and reaching the balcony."
+
+Grudgingly the president admitted the point, and the question was
+repeated.
+
+"Ye-es," came Lady O'Moy's tremulous, faltering answer, "I was in bed."
+
+"But not asleep--or were you asleep?" rapped O'Moy again, and in answer
+to the president's impatient glance again explained himself: "We should
+know whether perhaps the cry might not have been repeated several times
+before her ladyship heard it. That is of value."
+
+"It would be more regular," ventured the judge-advocate, "if Sir Terence
+would reserve his examination of the witness until she has given her
+evidence."
+
+"Very well," grumbled Sir Terence, and he sat back, foiled for the
+moment in his deliberate intent to torture her into admissions that must
+betray her if made.
+
+"I was not asleep," she told the court, thus answering her husband's
+last question. "I heard the cry, and ran to the balcony at once.
+That--that is all."
+
+"But what did you see from the balcony?" asked Major Swan.
+
+"It was night, and of course--it--it was dark," she answered.
+
+"Surely not dark, Lady O'Moy? There was a moon, I think--a full moon?"
+
+"Yes; but--but--there was a good deal of shadow in the garden, and--and
+I couldn't see anything at first."
+
+"But you did eventually?"
+
+"Oh, eventually! Yes, eventually." Her fingers were twisting and
+untwisting the handkerchief they held, and her distressed loveliness was
+very piteous to see. Yet it seems to have occurred to none of them that
+this distress and the minor contradictions into which it led her were
+the result of her intent to conceal the truth, of her terror lest it
+should nevertheless be wrung from her. Only O'Moy, watching her and
+reading in her every word and glance and gesture the signs of her
+falsehood, knew the hideous thing she strove to hide, even, it seemed,
+at the cost of her lover's life. To his lacerated soul her torture was a
+balm. Gloating, he watched her, then, and watched her lover, marvelling
+at the blackguard's complete self-mastery and impassivity even now.
+
+Major Swan was urging her gently.
+
+"Eventually, then, what was it that you saw?"
+
+"I saw a man lying on the ground, and another kneeling over him, and
+then--almost at once--Mullins came out, and--"
+
+"I don't think we need take this any further, Major Swan," the president
+again interposed. "We have heard what happened after Mullins came out."
+
+"Unless the prisoner wishes--" began the judge-advocate.
+
+"By no means," said Tremayne composedly. Although outwardly impassive,
+he had been watching her intently, and it was his eyes that had
+perturbed her more than anything in that court. It was she who must
+determine for him how to proceed; how far to defend himself. He had
+hoped that by now Dick Butler might have been got away, so that it would
+have been safe to tell the whole truth, although he began to doubt how
+far that could avail him, how far, indeed, it would be believed in the
+absence of Dick Butler. Her evidence told him that such hopes as he may
+have entertained had been idle, and that he must depend for his life
+simply upon the court's inability to bring the guilt home to him. In
+this he had some confidence, for, knowing himself innocent, it seemed
+to him incredible that he could be proven guilty. Failing that, nothing
+short of the discovery of the real slayer of Samoval could save him--and
+that was a matter wrapped in the profoundest mystery. The only man who
+could conceivably have fought Samoval in such a place was Sir Terence
+himself. But then it was utterly inconceivable that in that case Sir
+Terence, who was the very soul of honour, should not only keep silent
+and allow another man to suffer, but actually sit there in judgment
+upon that other; and, besides, there was no quarrel, nor ever had been,
+between Sir Terence and Samoval.
+
+"There is," Major Swan was saying, "just one other matter upon which I
+should like to question Lady O'Moy." And thereupon he proceeded to do
+so: "Your ladyship will remember that on the day before the event in
+which Count Samoval met his death he was one of a small luncheon party
+at your house here in Monsanto."
+
+"Yes," she replied, wondering fearfully what might be coming now.
+
+"Would your ladyship be good enough to tell the court who were the other
+members of that party?"
+
+"It--it was hardly a party, sir," she answered, with her unconquerable
+insistence upon trifles. "We were just Sir Terence and myself, Miss
+Armytage, Count Samoval, Colonel Grant, Major Carruthers and Captain
+Tremayne."
+
+"Can your ladyship recall any words that passed between the deceased and
+Captain Tremayne on that occasion--words of disagreement, I mean?"
+
+She knew that there had been something, but in her benumbed state of
+mind she was incapable of remembering what it was. All that remained in
+her memory was Sylvia's warning after she and her cousin had left the
+table, Sylvia's insistence that she should call Captain Tremayne away to
+avoid trouble between himself and the Count. But, search as she would,
+the actual subject of disagreement eluded her. Moreover, it occurred to
+her suddenly, and sowed fresh terror in her soul, that, whatever it was,
+it would tell against Captain Tremayne.
+
+"I--I am afraid I don't remember," she faltered at last.
+
+"Try to think, Lady O'Moy."
+
+"I--I have tried. But I--I can't." Her voice had fallen almost to a
+whisper.
+
+"Need we insist?" put in the president compassionately. "There are
+sufficient witnesses as to what passed on that occasion without further
+harassing her ladyship."
+
+"Quite so, sir," the major agreed in his dry voice. "It only remains for
+the prisoner to question the witness if he so wishes."
+
+Tremayne shook his head. "It is quite unnecessary, sir," he assured the
+president, and never saw the swift, grim smile that flashed across Sir
+Terence's stern face.
+
+Of the court Sir Terence was the only member who could have desired to
+prolong the painful examination of her ladyship. But he perceived from
+the president's attitude that he could not do so without betraying the
+vindictiveness actuating him; and so he remained silent for the present.
+He would have gone so far as to suggest that her ladyship should be
+invited to remain in court against the possibility of further evidence
+being presently required from her but that he perceived there was no
+necessity to do so. Her deadly anxiety concerning the prisoner must in
+itself be sufficient to determine her to remain, as indeed it proved.
+Accompanied and half supported by Miss Armytage, who was almost as pale
+as herself, but otherwise very steady in her bearing, Lady O'Moy made
+her way, with faltering steps to the benches ranged against the side
+wall, and sat there to hear the remainder of the proceedings.
+
+After the uninteresting and perfunctory evidence of the sergeant of the
+guard who had been present when the prisoner was ordered under arrest,
+the next witness called was Colonel Grant. His testimony was strictly in
+accordance with the facts which we know him to have witnessed, but when
+he was in the middle of his statement an interruption occurred.
+
+At the extreme right of the dais on which the table stood there was a
+small oaken door set in the wall and giving access to a small ante-room
+that was known, rightly or wrongly, as the abbot's chamber. That
+anteroom communicated directly with what was now the guardroom, which
+accounts for the new-comer being ushered in that way by the corporal at
+the time.
+
+At the opening of that door the members of the court looked round in
+sharp annoyance, suspecting here some impertinent intrusion. The next
+moment, however, this was changed to respectful surprise. There was a
+scraping of chairs and they were all on their feet in token of respect
+for the slight man in the grey undress frock who entered. It was Lord
+Wellington.
+
+Saluting the members of the court with two fingers to his cocked hat,
+he immediately desired them to sit, peremptorily waving his hand, and
+requesting the president not to allow his entrance to interrupt or
+interfere with the course of the inquiry.
+
+"A chair here for me, if you please, sergeant," he called and, when it
+was fetched, took his seat at the end of the table, with his back to the
+door through which he had come and immediately facing the prosecutor.
+He retained his hat, but placed his riding-crop on the table before
+him; and the only thing he would accept was an officer's notes of the
+proceedings as far as they had gone, which that officer himself was
+prompt to offer. With a repeated injunction to the court to proceed,
+Lord Wellington became instantly absorbed in the study of these notes.
+
+Colonel Grant, standing very straight and stiff in the originally red
+coat which exposure to many weathers had faded to an autumnal brown,
+continued and concluded his statement of what he had seen and heard on
+the night of the 28th of May in the garden at Monsanto.
+
+The judge-advocate now invited him to turn his memory back to the
+luncheon-party at Sir Terence's on the 27th, and to tell the court
+of the altercation that had passed on that occasion between Captain
+Tremayne and Count Samoval.
+
+"The conversation at table," he replied, "turned, as was perhaps quite
+natural, upon the recently published general order prohibiting duelling
+and making it a capital offence for officers in his Majesty's service
+in the Peninsula. Count Samoval stigmatised the order as a degrading
+and arbitrary one, and spoke in defence of single combat as the only
+honourable method of settling differences between gentlemen. Captain
+Tremayne dissented rather sharply, and appeared to resent the term
+'degrading' applied by the Count to the enactment. Words followed, and
+then some one--Lady O'Moy, I think, and as I imagine with intent
+to soothe the feelings of Count Samoval, which appeared to be
+ruffled--appealed to his vanity by mentioning the fact that he was
+himself a famous swordsman. To this Captain Tremayne's observation was
+a rather unfortunate one, although I must confess that I was fully in
+sympathy with it at the time. He said, as nearly as I remember, that at
+the moment Portugal was in urgent need of famous swords to defend her
+from invasion and not to increase the disorders at home."
+
+Lord Wellington looked up from the notes and thoughtfully stroked his
+high-bridged nose. His stern, handsome face was coldly impassive, his
+fine eyes resting upon the prisoner, but his attention all to what
+Colonel Grant was saying.
+
+"It was a remark of which Samoval betrayed the bitterest resentment.
+He demanded of Captain Tremayne that he should be more precise, and
+Tremayne replied that, whilst he had spoken generally, Samoval was
+welcome to the cap if he found it fitted him. To that he added a
+suggestion that, as the conversation appeared to be tiresome to the
+ladies, it would be better to change its topic. Count Samoval consented,
+but with the promise, rather threateningly delivered, that it should be
+continued at another time. That, sir, is all, I think."
+
+"Have you any questions for the witness, Captain Tremayne?" inquired the
+judge-advocate.
+
+As before, Captain Tremayne's answer was in the negative, coupled
+with the now usual admission that Colonel Grant's statement accorded
+perfectly with his own recollection of the facts.
+
+The court, however, desired enlightenment on several subjects. Came
+first of all Carruthers's inquiries as to the bearing of the prisoner
+when ordered under arrest, eliciting from Colonel Grant a variant of the
+usual reply.
+
+"It was not inconsistent with innocence," he said.
+
+It was an answer which appeared to startle the court, and perhaps
+Carruthers would have acted best in Tremayne's interest had he left the
+question there. But having obtained so much he eagerly sought for more.
+
+"Would you say that it was inconsistent with guilt?" he cried.
+
+Colonel Grant smiled slowly, and slowly shook his head. "I fear I could
+not go so far, as that," he answered, thereby plunging poor Carruthers
+into despair.
+
+And now Colonel Fletcher voiced a question agitating the minds of
+several members of the count.
+
+"Colonel Grant," he said, "you have told us that on the night in
+question you had Count Samoval under observation, and that upon word
+being brought to you of his movements by one of your agents you yourself
+followed him to Monsanto. Would you be good enough to tell the court why
+you were watching the deceased's movements at the time?"
+
+Colonel Grant glanced at Lord Wellington. He smiled a little
+reflectively and shook his head.
+
+"I am afraid that the public interest will not allow me to answer your
+question. Since, however, Lord Wellington himself is present, I
+would suggest that you ask his lordship whether I am to give you the
+information you require."
+
+"Certainly not," said his lordship crisply, without awaiting further
+question. "Indeed, one of my reasons for being present is to ensure that
+nothing on that score shall transpire."
+
+There followed a moment's silence. Then the president ventured a
+question. "May we ask, sir, at least whether Colonel Grant's observation
+of Count Samoval resulted from any knowledge of, or expectation of, this
+duel that was impending?"
+
+"Certainly you may ask that," Lord Wellington, consented.
+
+"It did not, sir," said Colonel Grant in answer to the question.
+
+"What grounds had you, Colonel Grant, for assuming that Count Samoval
+was going to Monsanto?" the president asked.
+
+"Chiefly the direction taken."
+
+"And nothing else?"
+
+"I think we are upon forbidden ground again," said Colonel Grant, and
+again he looked at Lord Wellington for direction.
+
+"I do not see the point of the question," said Lord Wellington, replying
+to that glance. "Colonel Grant has quite plainly informed the court that
+his observation of Count Samoval had no slightest connection with this
+duel, nor was inspired by any knowledge or suspicion on his part that
+any such duel was to be fought. With that I think the court should be
+content. It has been necessary for Colonel Grant to explain to the court
+his own presence at Monsanto at midnight on the 28th. It would have been
+better, perhaps, had he simply stated that it was fortuitous, although
+I can understand that the court might have hesitated to accept such
+a statement. That, however, is really all that concerns the matter.
+Colonel Grant happened to be there. That is all that the court need
+remember. Let me add the assurance that it would not in the least
+assist the court to know more, so far as the case under consideration is
+concerned."
+
+In view of that the president notified that he had nothing further to
+ask the witness, and Colonel Grant saluted and withdrew to a seat near
+Lady O'Moy.
+
+There followed the evidence of Major Carruthers with regard to the
+dispute between Count Samoval and Captain Tremayne, which substantially
+bore out what Sir Terence and Colonel Grant had already said,
+notwithstanding that it manifested a strong bias in favour of the
+prisoner.
+
+"The conversation which Samoval threatened to resume does not appear to
+have been resumed," he added in conclusion.
+
+"How can you say that?" Major Swan asked him.
+
+"I may state my opinion, sir," flashed Carruthers, his chubby face
+reddening.
+
+"Indeed, sir, you may not," the president assured him. "You are upon
+oath to give evidence of facts directly within your own personal
+knowledge."
+
+"It is directly within my own personal knowledge that Captain Tremayne
+was called away from the table by Lady O'Moy, and that he did not have
+another opportunity of speaking with Count Samoval that day. I saw the
+Count leave shortly after, and at the time Captain Tremayne was still
+with her ladyship--as her ladyship can testify if necessary. He spent
+the remainder of the afternoon with me at work, and we went home
+together in the evening. We share the same lodging in Alcantara."
+
+"There was still all of the next day," said Sir Harry. "Do you say that
+the prisoner was never out of your sight on that day too?"
+
+"I do not; but I can't believe--"
+
+"I am afraid you are going to state opinions again," Major Swan
+interposed.
+
+"Yet it is evidence of a kind," insisted Carruthers, with the tenacity
+of a bull-dog. He looked as if he would make it a personal matter
+between himself and Major Swan if he were not allowed to proceed. "I
+can't believe that Captain Tremayne would have embroiled himself
+further with Count Samoval. Captain Tremayne has too high a regard for
+discipline and for orders, and he is the least excitable man I have ever
+known. Nor do I believe that he would have consented to meet Samoval
+without my knowledge."
+
+"Not perhaps unless Captain Tremayne desired to keep the matter secret,
+in view of the general order, which is precisely what it is contended
+that he did."
+
+"Falsely contended, then," snapped Major Carruthers, to be instantly
+rebuked by the president.
+
+He sat down in a huff, and the judge-advocate called Private Bates, who
+had been on sentry duty on the night of the 28th, to corroborate the
+evidence of the sergeant of the guard as to the hour at which the
+prisoner had driven up to Monsanto in his curricle.
+
+Private Bates having been heard, Major Swan announced that he did not
+propose to call any further witnesses, and resumed his seat. Thereupon,
+to the president's invitation, Captain Tremayne replied that he had no
+witnesses to call at all.
+
+"In that case, Major Swan," said Sir Harry, "the court will be glad to
+hear you further."
+
+And Major Swan came to his feet again to address the court for the
+prosecution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. BITTER WATER
+
+
+Major Swan may or may not have been a gifted soldier. History is silent
+on the point. But the surviving records of the court-martial with which
+we are concerned go to show that he was certainly not a gifted speaker.
+His vocabulary was limited, his rhetoric clumsy, and Major Carruthers
+denounces his delivery as halting, his very voice dull and monotonous;
+also his manner, reflecting his mind on this occasion, appears to have
+been perfectly unimpassioned. He had been saddled with a duty and he
+must perform it. He would do so conscientiously to the best of his
+ability, for he seems to have been a conscientious man; but he could not
+be expected to put his heart into the matter, since he was not inflamed
+by any zeal born of conviction, nor had he any of the incentives of a
+civil advocate to sway his audience by all possible means.
+
+Nevertheless the facts themselves, properly marshalled, made up a
+dangerous case against the prisoner. Major Swan began by dwelling upon
+the evidence of motive: there had been a quarrel, or the beginnings of
+a quarrel, between the deceased and the accused; the deceased had shown
+himself affronted, and had been heard quite unequivocally to say that
+the matter could not be left at the stage at which it was interrupted
+at Sir Terence's luncheon-table. Major Swan dwelt for a moment upon
+the grounds of the quarrel. They were by no means discreditable to the
+accused, but it was singularly unfortunate, ironical almost, that he
+should have involved himself in a duel as a result of his out-spoken
+defence of a wise measure which made duelling in the British army a
+capital offence. With that, however, he did not think that the court
+was immediately concerned. By the duel itself the accused had offended
+against the recent enactment, and, moreover, the irregular manner in
+which the encounter had been conducted, without seconds or witnesses,
+rendered the accused answerable to a charge of murder, if it could be
+proved that he actually did engage and kill the deceased. Major Swan
+thought this could be proved.
+
+The irregularity of the meeting must be assigned to the enactment
+against which it offended. A matter which, under other circumstances,
+considering the good character borne by Captain Tremayne, would
+have been quite incomprehensible, was, he thought, under existing
+circumstances, perfectly clear. Because Captain Tremayne could not have
+found any friend to act for him, he was forced to forgo witnesses to the
+encounter, and because of the consequences to himself of the encounter's
+becoming known, he was forced to contrive that it should be held
+in secret. They knew, from the evidence of Colonel Grant and Major
+Carruthers, that the meeting was desired by Count Samoval, and they were
+therefore entitled to assume that, recognising the conditions arising
+out of the recent enactment, the deceased had consented that the meeting
+should take place in this irregular fashion, since otherwise it could
+not have been held at all, and he would have been compelled to forgo the
+satisfaction he desired.
+
+He passed to the consideration of the locality chosen, and there he
+confessed that he was confronted with a mystery. Yet the mystery
+would have been no less in the case of any other opponent than Captain
+Tremayne, since it was clear beyond all doubt that a duel had been
+fought and Count Samoval killed, and no less clear that it was a
+premeditated combat, and that the deceased had gone to Monsanto
+expressly to engage in it, since the duelling swords found had been
+identified as his property and must have been carried by him to the
+encounter.
+
+The mystery, he repeated, would have been no less in the case of any
+other opponent than Captain Tremayne; indeed, in the case of some other
+opponent it might even have been deeper. It must be remembered, after
+all, that the place was one to which the accused had free access at all
+hours.
+
+And it was clearly proven that he availed himself of that access on the
+night in question. Evidence had been placed before the court showing
+that he had come to Monsanto in a curricle at twenty minutes to twelve
+at the latest, and there was abundant evidence to show that he was found
+kneeling beside the body of the dead man at ten minutes past twelve--the
+body being quite warm at the time and the breath hardly out of it,
+proving that he had fallen but an instant before the arrival of Mullins
+and the other witnesses who had testified.
+
+Unless Captain Tremayne could account to the satisfaction of the court
+for the manner in which he had spent that half-hour, Major Swan did not
+perceive, when all the facts of motive and circumstance were considered,
+what conclusion the court could reach other than that Captain Tremayne
+was guilty of the death of Count Jeronymo de Samoval in a single combat
+fought under clandestine and irregular conditions, transforming the deed
+into technical murder.
+
+Upon that conclusion the major sat down to mop a brow that was
+perspiring freely. From Lady O'Moy in the background came faintly, the
+sound of a half-suppressed moan. Terrified, she clutched the hand of
+Miss Armytage,--and found that hand to lie like a thing of ice in
+her own, yet she suspected nothing of the deep agitation under her
+companion's outward appearance of calm.
+
+Captain Tremayne rose slowly to address the court in reply to the
+prosecution. As he faced his, judges now he met the smouldering eyes of
+Sir Terence considering him with such malevolence that he was shocked
+and bewildered. Was he prejudged already, and by his best friend? If
+so, what must be the attitude of the others? But the kindly, florid
+countenance of the president was friendly and encouraging; there was
+eager anxiety for him in the gaze of his friend Caruthers. He glanced at
+Lord Wellington sitting at the table's end sternly inscrutable, a mere
+spectator, yet one whose habit of command gave him an air that was
+authoritative and judicial.
+
+At length he began to speak. He had considered his defence, and he
+had based it mainly upon a falsehood--since the strict truth must have
+proved ruinous to Richard Butler.
+
+"My answer, gentlemen," he said, "will be a very brief one as brief,
+indeed, as the prosecution merits--for I entertain the hope that no
+member of this court is satisfied that the case made out against me is
+by any means complete." He spoke easily, fluently, and calmly: a man
+supremely self-controlled. "It amounts, indeed, to throwing upon me the
+onus of proving myself innocent, and that is a burden which no British
+laws, civil or miliary, would ever commit the injustice of imposing upon
+an accused.
+
+"That certain words of disagreement passed between Count Samoval and
+myself on the eve of the affair in which the Count met his death, as
+you have heard from various witnesses, I at once and freely admitted.
+Thereby I saved the court time and trouble, and some other witnesses who
+might have been caused the distress of having to testify against me.
+But that the dispute ever had any sequel, that the further subsequent
+discussion threatened at the time by Count Samoval ever took place,
+I most solemnly deny. From the moment that I left Sir Terence's
+luncheon-table on the Saturday I never set eyes on Count Samoval again
+until I discovered him dead or dying in the garden here at Monsanto on
+Sunday night. I can call no witnesses to support me in this, because it
+is not a matter susceptible to proof by evidence. Nor have I troubled
+to call the only witnesses I might have called--witnesses as to my
+character and my regard for discipline--who might have testified that
+any such encounter as that of which I am accused would be utterly
+foreign to my nature. There are officers in plenty in his Majesty's
+service who could bear witness that the practice of duelling is one that
+I hold in the utmost abhorrence, since I have frequently avowed it, and
+since in all my life I have never fought a single duel. My service in
+his Majesty's army has happily afforded me the means of dispensing with
+any such proof of courage as the duel is supposed to give. I say I
+might have called witnesses to that fact and I have not done so. This is
+because, fortunately, there are several among the members of this court
+to whom I have been known for many years, and who can themselves, when
+this court comes to consider its finding, support my present assertion.
+
+"Let me ask you, then, gentlemen, whether it is conceivable that,
+entertaining such feelings as these towards single combat, I should have
+been led to depart from them under circumstances that might very well
+have afforded me an ample shield for refusing satisfaction to a too
+eager and pressing adversary? It was precisely because I hold the duel
+in such contempt that I spoke with such asperity to the deceased when he
+pronounced Lord Wellington's enactment a degrading one to men of birth.
+The very sentiments which I then expressed proclaimed my antipathy to
+the practice. How, then, should I have committed the inconsistency of
+accepting a challenge upon such grounds from Count Samoval? There is
+even more irony than Major Swan supposes in a situation which himself
+has called ironical.
+
+"So much, then, for the motives that are alleged to have actuated me.
+I hope you will conclude that I have answered the prosecution upon that
+matter.
+
+"Coming to the question of fact, I cannot find that there is anything to
+answer, for nothing has been proved against me. True, it has been proved
+that I arrived at Monsanto at half-past eleven or twenty minutes to
+twelve on the night of the 28th, and it has been further proved that
+half-an-hour later I was discovered kneeling beside the dead body of
+Count Samoval. But to say that this proves that I killed him is more, I
+think, if I understood him correctly, than Major Swan himself dares to
+assert.
+
+"Major Swan is quite satisfied that Samoval came to Monsanto for the
+purpose of fighting a duel that had been prearranged; and I admit that
+the two swords found, which have been proven the property of Count
+Samoval, and which, therefore, he must have brought with him, are a
+prima-facie proof of such a contention. But if we assume, gentlemen,
+that I had accepted a challenge from the Count, let me ask you, can you
+think of any place less likely to have been appointed or agreed to by
+me for the encounter than the garden of the adjutant-general's quarters?
+Secrecy is urged as the reason for the irregularity of the meeting. What
+secrecy was ensured in such a place, where interruption and discovery
+might come at any moment, although the duel was held at midnight? And
+what secrecy did I observe in my movements, considering that I drove
+openly to Monsanto in a curricle, which I left standing at the gates in
+full view of the guard, to await my return? Should I have acted thus
+if I had been upon such an errand as is alleged? Common sense, I think,
+should straightway acquit me on the grounds of the locality alone, and I
+cannot think that it should even be necessary for me, so as to complete
+my answer to an accusation entirely without support in fact or in logic,
+to account for my presence at Monsanto and my movements during the
+half-hour in question."
+
+He paused. So far his clear reasoning had held and impressed the
+court. This he saw plainly written on the faces of all--with one single
+exception. Sir Terence alone the one man from whom he might have looked
+for the greatest relief--watched him ever malevolently, sardonically,
+with curling lip. It gave him pause now that he stood upon the threshold
+of falsehood; and because of that inexplicable but obvious hostility,
+that attitude of expectancy to ensnare and destroy him, Captain Tremayne
+hesitated to step from the solid ground of reason, upon which he had
+confidently walked thus far, on to the uncertain bogland of mendacity.
+
+"I cannot think," he said, "that the court should consider it necessary
+for me to advance an alibi, to make a statement in proof of my innocence
+where I contend that no proof has been offered of my guilt."
+
+"I think it will be better, sir, in your own interests, so that you may
+be the more completely cleared," the president replied, and so compelled
+him to continue.
+
+"There was," he resumed, then, "a certain matter connected with the
+Commissary-General's department which was of the greatest urgency, yet
+which, under stress of work, had been postponed until the morrow. It was
+concerned with some tents for General Picton's division at Celorico. It
+occurred to me that night that it would be better dealt with at once,
+so that the documents relating to it could go forward early on Monday
+morning to the Commissary-General. Accordingly, I returned to Monsanto,
+entered the official quarters, and was engaged upon that task when a
+cry from the garden reached my ears. That cry in the dead of night was
+sufficiently alarming, and I ran out at once to see what might have
+occasioned it. I found Count Samoval either just dead or just dying, and
+I had scarcely made the discovery when Mullins, the butler, came out of
+the residential wing, as he has testified.
+
+"That, sirs, is all that I know of the death of Count Samoval, and I
+will conclude with my solemn affirmation, on my honour as a soldier,
+that I am as innocent of having procured it as I am ignorant of how it
+came about.
+
+"I leave myself with confidence in your hands, gentlemen," he ended, and
+resumed his seat.
+
+That he had favourably impressed the court was clear. Miss Armytage
+whispered it to Lady O'Moy, exultation quivering in her whisper.
+
+"He is safe!" And she added: "He was magnificent."
+
+Lady O'Moy pressed her hand in return. "Thank God! Oh, thank God!" she
+murmured under her breath.
+
+"I do," said Miss Armytage.
+
+There was silence, broken only by the rustle of the president's notes
+as he briefly looked them over as a preliminary to addressing the court.
+And then suddenly, grating harshly upon that silence, came the voice of
+O'Moy.
+
+"Might I suggest, Sir Harry, that before we hear you three of the
+witnesses be recalled? They are Sergeant Flynn, Private Bates and
+Mullins."
+
+The president looked round in surprise, and Carruthers took advantage of
+the pause to interpose an objection.
+
+"Is such a course regular, Sir Harry?" He too had become conscious at
+last of Sir Terence's relentless hostility to the accused. "The court
+has been given an opportunity of examining those witnesses, the accused
+has declined to call any on his own behalf, and the prosecution has
+already closed its case."
+
+Sir Harry considered a moment. He had never been very clear upon matters
+of procedure, which he looked upon as none of a soldier's real business.
+Instinctively in this difficulty he looked at Lord Wellington as if
+for guidance; but his lordship's face told him absolutely nothing, the
+Commander-in-Chief remaining an impassive spectator. Then, whilst the
+president coughed and pondered, Major Swan came to the rescue.
+
+"The court," said the judge-advocate, "is entitled at any time before
+the finding to call or recall any witnesses, provided that the prisoner
+is afforded an opportunity of answering anything further that may be
+elicited in re-examination of these witnesses."
+
+"That is the rule," said Sir Terence, "and rightly so, for, as in the
+present instance, the prisoner's own statement may make it necessary."
+
+The president gave way, thereby renewing Miss Armytage's terrors and
+shaking at last even the prisoner's calm.
+
+Sergeant Flynn was the first of the witnesses recalled at Sir Terence's
+request, and it was Sir Terence who took up his re-examination.
+
+"You said, I think, that you were standing in the guardroom doorway when
+Captain Tremayne passed you at twenty minutes to twelve on the night of
+the 28th?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I had turned out upon hearing the curricle draw up. I had
+come to see who it was."
+
+"Naturally. Well, now, did you observe which way Captain Tremayne
+went?--whether he went along the passage leading to the garden or up the
+stairs to the offices?"
+
+The sergeant considered for a moment, and Captain Tremayne became
+conscious for the first time that morning that his pulses were
+throbbing. At last his dreadful suspense came to an end.
+
+"No, sir. Captain Tremayne turned the corner, and was out of my sight,
+seeing that I didn't go beyond the guardroom doorway."
+
+Sir Terence's lips parted with a snap of impatience. "But you must have
+heard," he insisted. "You must have heard his steps--whether they went
+upstairs or straight on."
+
+"I am afraid I didn't take notice, sir."
+
+"But even without taking notice it seems impossible that you should not
+have heard the direction of his steps. Steps going up stairs sound quite
+differently from steps walking along the level. Try to think."
+
+The sergeant considered again. But the president interposed. The
+testiness which Sir Terence had been at no pains to conceal annoyed Sir
+Harry, and this insistence offended his sense of fair play.
+
+"The witness has already said that the didn't take notice. I am afraid
+it can serve no good purpose to compel him to strain his memory. The
+court could hardly rely upon his answer after what he has said already."
+
+"Very well," said Sir Terence curtly. "We will pass on. After the body
+of Count Samoval had been removed from the courtyard, did Mullins, my
+butler, come to you?"
+
+"Yes, Sir Terence."
+
+"What was his message? Please tell the court."
+
+"He brought me a letter with instructions that it was to be forwarded
+first thing in the morning to the Commissary-General's office."
+
+"Did he make any statement beyond that when he delivered that letter?"
+
+The sergeant pondered a moment. "Only that he had been bringing it when
+he found Count Samoval's body."
+
+"That is all I wish to ask, Sir Harry," O'Moy intimated, and looked
+round at his fellow-members of that court as if to inquire whether they
+had drawn any inference from the sergeant's statements.
+
+"Have you any questions to ask the witness, Captain Tremayne?" the
+president inquired.
+
+"None, sir," replied the prisoner.
+
+Came Private Bates next, and Sir Terence proceeded to question him..
+
+"You said in your evidence that Captain Tremayne arrived at Monsanto
+between half-past eleven and twenty minutes to twelve?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You told us, I think, that you determined this by the fact that you
+came on duty at eleven o'clock, and that it would be half-an-hour or a
+little more after that when Captain Tremayne arrived?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"That is quite in agreement with the evidence of your sergeant. Now tell
+the court where you were during the half-hour that followed--until you
+heard the guard being turned out by the sergeant."
+
+"Pacing in front of quarters, sir."
+
+"Did you notice the windows of the building at all during that time?"
+
+"I can't say that I did, sir."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why not?" echoed the private.
+
+"Yes--why not? Don't repeat my words. How did it happen that you didn't
+notice the windows?"
+
+"Because they were in darkness, sir."
+
+O'Moy's eyes gleamed. "All of them?"
+
+"Certainly, sir, all of them."
+
+"You are quite certain of that?"
+
+"Oh, quite certain, sir. If a light had shown from one of them I
+couldn't have failed to notice it."
+
+"That will do."
+
+"Captain Tremayne--" began the president.
+
+"I have no questions for the witness, sir," Tremayne announced.
+
+Sir Harry's face expressed surprise. "After the statement he has just
+made?" he exclaimed, and thereupon he again invited the prisoner, in a
+voice that was as grave as his countenance, to cross-examine he witness;
+he did more than invite--he seemed almost to plead. But Tremayne,
+preserving by a miracle his outward calm, for all that inwardly he was
+filled with despair and chagrin to see what a pit he had dug for himself
+by his falsehood, declined to ask any questions.
+
+Private Bates retired, and Mullins was recalled. A gloom seemed to have
+settled now upon the court. A moment ago their way had seemed fairly
+clear to its members, and they had been inwardly congratulating
+themselves that they were relieved from the grim necessity of passing
+sentence upon a brother officer esteemed by all who knew him. But now a
+subtle change had crept in. The statement drawn by Sir Terence from the
+sentry appeared flatly to contradict Captain Tremayne's own account of
+his movements on the night in question.
+
+"You told the court," O'Moy addressed the witness Mullins, consulting
+his notes as he did so, "that on the night on which Count Samoval met
+his death, I sent you at ten minutes past twelve to take a letter to the
+sergeant of the guard, an urgent letter which was to be forwarded to its
+destination first thing on the following morning. And it was in fact in
+the course of going upon this errand that you discovered the prisoner
+kneeling beside the body of Count Samoval. This is correct, is it not?"
+
+"It is, sir."
+
+"Will you now inform the court to whom that letter was addressed?"
+
+"It was addressed to the Commissary-General."
+
+"You read the superscription?"
+
+"I am not sure whether I did that, but I clearly remember, sir, that you
+told me at the time that it was for the Commissary-General."
+
+Sir Terence signified that he had no more to ask, and again the
+president invited the prisoner to question the witness, to receive again
+the prisoner's unvarying refusal.
+
+And now O'Moy rose in his place to announce that he had himself a
+further statement to, make to the court, a statement which he had not
+conceived necessary until he had heard the prisoner's account of his
+movements during the half-hour he had spent at Monsanto on the night of
+the duel.
+
+"You have heard from Sergeant Flynn and my butler Mullins that the
+letter carried from me by the latter to the former on the night of the
+28th was a letter for the Commissary-General of an urgent character, to
+be forwarded first thing in the morning. If the prisoner insists upon
+it, the Commissary-General himself may be brought before this court to
+confirm my assertion that that communication concerned a complaint from
+headquarters on the subject of the tents supplied to the third division
+Sir Thomas Picton's--at Celorico. The documents concerning that
+complaint--that is to say, the documents upon which we are to presume
+that the prisoner was at work during tine half-hour in question--were at
+the time in my possession in my own private study and in another wing of
+the building altogether."
+
+Sir Terence sat down amid a rustling stir that ran through the court,
+but was instantly summoned to his feet again by the president.
+
+"A moment, Sir Terence. The prisoner will no doubt desire to question
+you on that statement." And he looked with serious eyes at Captain
+Tremayne.
+
+"I have no questions for Sir Terence, sir," was his answer.
+
+Indeed, what question could he have asked? The falsehoods he had uttered
+had woven themselves into a rope about his neck, and he stood before
+his brother officers now in an agony of shame, a man discredited, as he
+believed.
+
+"But no doubt you will desire the presence of the Commissary-General?"
+This was from Colonel Fletcher his own colonel and a man who esteemed
+him--and it was asked in accents that were pleadingly insistent.
+
+"What purpose could it serve, sir? Sir Terence's words are partly
+confirmed by the evidence he has just elicited from Sergeant Flynn and
+his butler Mullins. Since he spent the night writing a letter to the
+Commissary, it is not to be doubted that the subject would be such as he
+states, since from my own knowledge it was the most urgent matter in
+our hands. And, naturally, he would not have written without having
+the documents at his side. To summon the Commissary-General would be
+unnecessarily to waste the time of the court. It follows that I must
+have been mistaken, and this I admit."
+
+"But how could you be mistaken?" broke from the president.
+
+"I realise your difficulty in crediting, it. But there it is. Mistaken
+I was."
+
+"Very well, sir." Sir Harry paused and then added "The court will be
+glad to hear you in answer to the further evidence adduced to refute
+your statement in your own defence."
+
+"I have nothing further to say, sir," was Tremayne's answer.
+
+"Nothing further?" The president seemed aghast. "Nothing, sir."
+
+And now Colonel Fletcher leaned forward to exhort him. "Captain
+Tremayne," he said, "let me beg you to realise the serious position in
+which you are placed."
+
+"I assure you, sir, that I realise it fully."
+
+"Do you realise that the statements you have made to account for your
+movements during the half-hour that you were at Monsanto have been
+disproved? You have heard Private Bates's evidence to the effect that
+at the time when you say you were at work in the offices, those offices
+remained in darkness. And you have heard Sir Terence's statement that
+the documents upon which you claim to have been at work were at the
+time in his own hands. Do you realise what inference the court will be
+compelled to draw from this?"
+
+"The court must draw whatever inference it pleases," answered the
+captain without heat.
+
+Sir Terence stirred. "Captain Tremayne," said he, "I wish to add my own
+exhortation to that of your colonel! Your position has become extremely
+perilous. If you are concealing anything that may extricate you from
+it, let me enjoin you to take the court frankly and fully into your
+confidence."
+
+The words in themselves were kindly, but through them ran a note of
+bitterness, of cruel derision, that was faintly perceptible to Tremayne
+and to one or two others.
+
+Lord Wellington's piercing eyes looked a moment at O'Moy, then turned
+upon the prisoner. Suddenly he spoke, his voice as calm and level as his
+glance.
+
+"Captain Tremayne--if the president will permit me to address you in
+the interests of truth and justice--you bear, to my knowledge, the
+reputation of an upright, honourable man. You are a man so unaccustomed
+to falsehood that when you adventure upon it, as you have obviously just
+done, your performance is a clumsy one, its faults easily distinguished.
+That you are concealing something the court must have perceived. If you
+are not concealing something other than that Count Samoval fell by
+your hand, let me enjoin you to speak out. If you are shielding any
+one--perhaps the real perpetrator of this deed--let me assure you that
+your honour as a soldier demands, in the interests of truth and justice,
+that you should not continue silent."
+
+Tremayne looked into the stern face of the great soldier, and his glance
+fell away. He made a little gesture of helplessness, then drew himself
+stiffly up.
+
+"I have nothing more to say."
+
+"Then, Captain Tremayne," said the president, "the court will pass to
+the consideration of its finding. And if you cannot account for the
+half-hour that you spent at Monsanto while Count Samoval was meeting his
+death, I am afraid that, in view of all the other evidences against you,
+your position is likely to be one of extremest gravity.
+
+"For the last time, sir, before I order your removal, let me add my own
+to the exhortations already addressed to you, that you should speak. If
+still you elect to remain silent, the court, I fear, will be unable to
+draw any conclusion but one from your attitude."
+
+For a long moment Captain Tremayne stood there in tense, expectant
+silence. Yet he was not considering; he was waiting. Lady O'Moy he knew
+to be in court, behind him. She had heard, even as he had heard, that
+his fate hung perhaps upon whether Richard Butler's presence were to be
+betrayed or not. Not for him to break faith with her. Let her decide.
+And, awaiting that decision, he stood there, silent, like a man
+considering. And then, because no woman's voice broke the silence to
+proclaim at once his innocence, and the alibi that must ensure his
+acquittal, he spoke at last.
+
+"I thank you, sir. Indeed, I am very grateful to the court for the
+consideration it has shown me. I appreciate it deeply, but I have
+nothing more to say."
+
+And then, when all seemed lost, a woman's voice rang out at last:
+
+"But I have!"
+
+Its sharp, almost strident note acted like an electric discharge upon
+the court; but no member of the assembly was more deeply stricken than
+Captain Tremayne. For though the voice was a woman's, yet it was not the
+voice for which he had been waiting.
+
+In his excitement he turned, to see Miss Armytage standing there,
+straight and stiff, her white face stamped with purpose; and beside
+her, still seated, clutching her arm in an agony of fear, Lady O'Moy,
+murmuring for all to hear her:
+
+"No, no, Sylvia. Be silent, for God's sake!"
+
+But Sylvia had risen to speak, and speak she did, and though the words
+she uttered were such as a virgin might wish to whisper with veiled
+countenance and averted glance, yet her utterance of them was bold to
+the point of defiance.
+
+"I can tell you why Captain Tremayne is silent. I can tell you whom he
+shields."
+
+"Oh God!" gasped Lady O'Moy, wondering through her anguish how Sylvia
+could have become possessed of her secret.
+
+"Miss Armytage--I implore you!" cried Tremayne, forgetting where he
+stood, his voice shaking at last, his hand flung out to silence her.
+
+And then the heavy voice of O'Moy crashed in:
+
+"Let her speak. Let us have the truth--the truth!" And he smote the
+table with his clenched fist.
+
+"And you shall have it," answered Miss Armytage. "Captain Tremayne keeps
+silent to shield a woman--his mistress."
+
+Sir Terence sucked in his breath with a whistling sound. Lady O'Moy
+desisted from her attempts to check the speaker and fell to staring at
+her in stony astonishment, whilst Tremayne was too overcome by the
+same emotion to think of interrupting. The others preserved a watchful,
+unbroken silence.
+
+"Captain Tremayne spent that half-hour at Monsanto in her room. He was
+with her when he heard the cry that took him to the window. Thence he
+saw the body in the courtyard, and in alarm went down at once--without
+considering the consequences to the woman. But because he has considered
+them since, he now keeps silent."
+
+"Sir, sir," Captain Tremayne turned in wild appeal to the president,
+"this is not true." He conceived at once the terrible mistake that Miss
+Armytage had made. She must have seen him climb down from Lady O'Moy's
+balcony, and she had come to the only possible, horrible conclusion.
+"This lady is mistaken, I am ready to--"
+
+"A moment, sir. You are interrupting," the president rebuked.
+
+And then the voice of O'Moy on the note of terrible triumph sounded
+again like a trumpet through the long room.
+
+"Ah, but it is the truth at last. We have it now. Her name! Her name!"
+he shouted. "Who was this wanton?"
+
+Miss Armytage's answer was as a bludgeon-stroke to his ferocious
+exultation.
+
+"Myself. Captain Tremayne was with me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII FOOL'S MATE
+
+
+Writing years afterwards of this event--in the rather tedious volume
+of reminiscences which he has left us--Major Carruthers ventures the
+opinion that the court should never have been deceived; that it should
+have perceived at once that Miss Armytage was lying. He argues
+this opinion upon psychological grounds, contending that the lady's
+deportment in that moment of self-accusation was the very last that
+in the circumstances she alleged would have been natural to such a
+character as her own.
+
+"Had she indeed," he writes, "been Tremayne's mistress, as she
+represented herself, it was not in her nature to have announced it after
+the manner in which she did so. She bore herself before us with all the
+effrontery of a harlot; and it was well known to most of us that a
+more pure, chaste, and modest lady did not live. There was here a
+contradiction so flagrant that it should have rendered her falsehood
+immediately apparent."
+
+Major Carruthers, of course, is writing in the light of later knowledge,
+and even, setting that aside, I am very far from agreeing with his
+psychological deduction. Just as a shy man will so overreach himself
+in his efforts to dissemble his shyness as to assume an air of positive
+arrogance, so might a pure lady who had succumbed as Miss Armytage
+pretended, upon finding herself forced to such self-accusation, bear
+herself with a boldness which was no more than a mask upon the shame and
+anguish of her mind.
+
+And this, I think, was the view that was taken by those present. The
+court it was--being composed of honest gentlemen--that felt the shame
+which she dissembled. There were the eyes that fell away before the
+spurious effrontery of her own glance. They were disconcerted one and
+all by this turn of events, without precedent in the experience of
+any, and none more disconcerted--though not in the same sense--than Sir
+Terence. To him this was checkmate--fool's mate indeed. An unexpected
+yet ridiculously simple move had utterly routed him at the very outset
+of the deadly game that he was playing. He had sat there determined to
+have either Tremayne's life or the truth, publicly avowed, of Tremayne's
+dastardly betrayal. He could not have told you which he preferred. But
+one or the other he was fiercely determined to have, and now the springs
+of the snare in which he had so cunningly taken Tremayne had been forced
+apart by utterly unexpected hands.
+
+"It's a lie!" he bellowed angrily. But he bellowed, it seemed, upon deaf
+ears. The court just sat and stared, utterly and hopelessly at a loss
+how to proceed. And then the dry voice of Wellington followed Sir
+Terence, cutting sharply upon the dismayed silence.
+
+"How can you know that?" he asked the adjutant. "The matter is one
+upon which few would be qualified to contradict Miss Armytage. You will
+observe, Sir Harry, that even Captain Tremayne has not thought it worth
+his while to do so."
+
+Those words pulled the captain from the spell of sheer horrified
+amazement in which he had stood, stricken dumb, ever since Miss Armytage
+had spoken.
+
+"I--I--am so overwhelmed by the amazing falsehood with which Miss
+Armytage has attempted to save me from the predicament in which I stand.
+For it is that, gentlemen. On my oath as a soldier and a gentleman,
+there is not a word of truth in what Miss Armytage has said."
+
+"But if there were," said Lord Wellington, who seemed the only person
+present to retain a cool command of his wits, "your honour as a soldier
+and a gentleman--and this lady's honour--must still demand of you the
+perjury."
+
+"But, my lord, I protest--"
+
+"You are interrupting me, I think," Lord Wellington rebuked him coldly,
+and under the habit of obedience and the magnetic eye of his lordship
+the captain lapsed into anguished silence.
+
+"I am of opinion, gentlemen," his lordship addressed the court, "that
+this affair has gone quite far enough. Miss Armytage's testimony has
+saved a deal of trouble. It has shed light upon much that was obscure,
+and it has provided Captain Tremayne with an unanswerable alibi. In
+my view--and without wishing unduly to influence the court in its
+decision--it but remains to pronounce Captain Tremayne's acquittal,
+thereby enabling him to fulfil towards this lady a duty which the
+circumstances would seem to have rendered somewhat urgent."
+
+They were words that lifted an intolerable burden from Sir Harry's
+shoulders.
+
+In immense relief, eager now to make an end, he looked to right and
+left. Everywhere he met nodding heads and murmurs of "Yes, Yes."
+Everywhere with one exception. Sir Terence, white to the lips, gave
+no sign of assent, and yet dared give none of dissent. The eye of Lord
+Wellington was upon him, compelling him by its eagle glance.
+
+"We are clearly agreed," the president began, but Captain Tremayne
+interrupted him.
+
+"But you are wrongly agreed."
+
+"Sir, sir!"
+
+"You shall listen. It is infamous that I should owe my acquittal to the
+sacrifice of this lady's good name."
+
+"Damme! That is a matter that any parson can put right," said his
+lordship.
+
+"Your lordship is mistaken," Captain Tremayne insisted, greatly daring.
+"The honour of this lady is more dear to me than my life."
+
+"So we perceive," was the dry rejoinder. "These outbursts do you a
+certain credit, Captain Tremayne. But they waste the time of the court."
+
+And then the president made his announcement
+
+"Captain Tremayne, you are acquitted of the charge of killing Count
+Samoval, and you are at liberty to depart and to resume your usual
+duties. The court congratulates you and congratulates itself upon
+having reached this conclusion in the case of an officer so estimable as
+yourself."
+
+"Ah, but, gentlemen, hear me yet a moment. You, my lord--"
+
+"The court has pronounced. The matter is at an end," said Wellington,
+with a shrug, and immediately upon the words he rose, and the court
+rose with him. Immediately, with rattle of sabres and sabretaches, the
+officers who had composed the board fell into groups and broke into
+conversation out of a spirit of consideration for Tremayne, and
+definitely to mark the conclusion of the proceedings.
+
+Tremayne, white and trembling, turned in time to see Miss Armytage
+leaving the hall and assisting Colonel Grant to support Lady O'Moy, who
+was in a half-swooning condition.
+
+He stood irresolute, prey to a torturing agony of mind, cursing himself
+now for his silence, for not having spoken the truth and taken the
+consequences together with Dick Butler. What was Dick Butler to him,
+what was his own life to him--if they should demand it for
+the grave breach of duty he had committed by his readiness to assist
+a proscribed offender to escape--compared with the honour of Sylvia
+Armytage? And she, why had she done this for him? Could it be possible
+that she cared, that she was concerned so much for his life as to
+immolate her honour to deliver him from peril? The event would seem to
+prove it. Yet the overmastering joy that at any other time, and in
+any other circumstances, such a revelation must have procured him, was
+stifled now by his agonised concern for the injustice to which she had
+submitted herself.
+
+And then, as he stood there, a suffering, bewildered man, came
+Carruthers to grasp his hand and in terms of warm friendship to express
+satisfaction at his acquittal.
+
+"Sooner than have such a price as that paid--" he said bitterly, and
+with a shrug left his sentence unfinished.
+
+O'Moy came stalking past him, pale-faced, with eyes that looked neither
+to right nor left.
+
+"O'Moy!" he cried.
+
+Sir Terence checked, and stood stiffly as if to attention, his handsome
+blue eyes blazing into the captain's own. Thus a moment. Then:
+
+"We will talk of this again, you and I," he said grimly, and passed
+on and out with clanking step, leaving Tremayne to reflect that the
+appearances certainly justified Sir Terence's resentment.
+
+"My God, Carruthers! What must he think of me?" he ejaculated.
+
+"If you ask me, I think that he has suspected this from the very
+beginning. Only that could account for the hostility of his attitude
+towards you, for the persistence with which he has sought either to
+convict or wring the truth from you."
+
+Tremayne looked askance at the major. In such a tangle as this it was
+impossible to keep the attention fixed upon any single thread.
+
+"His mind must be disabused at once," he answered. "I must go to him."
+
+O'Moy had already vanished.
+
+There were one or two others would have checked the adjutant's
+departure, but he had heeded none. In the quadrangle he nodded curtly to
+Colonel Grant, who would have detained him. But he passed on and went to
+shut himself up in his study with his mental anguish that was compounded
+of so many and so diverse emotions. He needed above all things to be
+alone and to think, if thought were possible to a mind so distraught
+as his own. There were now so many things to be faced, considered, and
+dealt with. First and foremost--and this was perhaps the product of
+inevitable reaction--was the consideration of his own duplicity, his
+villainous betrayal of trust undertaken deliberately, but with an aim
+very different from that which would appear. He perceived how men must
+assume now, when the truth of Samoval's death became known as become
+known it must--that he had deliberately fastened upon another his own
+crime. The fine edifice of vengeance he had been so skilfully erecting
+had toppled about his ears in obscene ruin, and he was a man not only
+broken, but dishonoured. Let him proclaim the truth now and none would
+believe it. Sylvia Armytage's mad and inexplicable self-accusation was a
+final bar to that. Men of honour would scorn him, his friends would
+turn from him in disgust, and Wellington, that great soldier whom he
+worshipped, and whose esteem he valued above all possessions, would be
+the first to cast him out. He would appear as a vulgar murderer who,
+having failed by falsehood to fasten the guilt upon an innocent man,
+sought now by falsehood still more damnable, at the cost of his wife's
+honour, to offer some mitigation of his unspeakable offence.
+
+Conceive this terrible position in which his justifiable jealousy--his
+naturally vindictive rage--had so irretrievably ensnared him. He had
+been so intent upon the administration of poetic justice, so intent
+upon condignly punishing the false friend who had dishonoured him, upon
+finding a balm for his lacerated soul in the spectacle of Tremayne's own
+ignominy, that he had never paused to see whither all this might lead
+him.
+
+He had been a fool to have adopted these subtle, tortuous ways; a fool
+not to have obeyed the earlier and honest impulse which had led him to
+take that case of pistols from the drawer. And he was served as a fool
+deserves to be served. His folly had recoiled upon him to destroy him.
+Fool's mate had checked his perfidious vengeance at a blow.
+
+Why had Sylvia Armytage discarded her honour to make of it a cloak
+for the protection of Tremayne? Did she love Tremayne and take that
+desperate way to save a life she accounted lost, or was it that she knew
+the truth, and out of affection for Una had chosen to immolate herself?
+
+Sir Terence was no psychologist. But he found it difficult to believe in
+so much of self-sacrifice from a woman for a woman's sake, however
+dear. Therefore he held to the first alternative. To confirm it came the
+memory of Sylvia's words to him on the night of Tremayne's arrest. And
+it was to such a man that she gave the priceless treasure of her love;
+for such a man, and in such a sordid cause, that she sacrificed the
+inestimable jewel of her honour? He laughed through clenched teeth at
+a situation so bitterly ironical. Presently he would talk to her. She
+should realise what she had done, and he would wish her joy of it.
+First, however, there was something else to do. He flung himself wearily
+into the chair at his writing-table, took up a pen and began to write.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. THE TRUTH
+
+
+To Captain Tremayne, fretted with impatience in the diningroom, came,
+at the end of a long hour of waiting, Sylvia Armytage. She entered
+unannounced, at a moment when for the third time he was on the point of
+ringing for Mullins, and for a moment they stood considering each
+other mutually ill at ease. Then Miss Armytage closed the door and came
+forward, moving with that grace peculiar to her, and carrying her head
+erect, facing Captain Tremayne now with some lingering signs of the
+defiance she had shown the members of the court-martial.
+
+"Mullins tells me that you wish to see me," she said the merest
+conventionality to break the disconcerting, uneasy silence.
+
+"After what has happened that should not surprise you," said Tremayne.
+His agitation was clear to behold, his usual imperturbability all
+departed. "Why," he burst out suddenly, "why did you do it?"
+
+She looked at him with the faintest ghost of a smile on her lips, as if
+she found the question amusing. But before she could frame any answer he
+was speaking again, quickly and nervously.
+
+"Could you suppose that I should wish to purchase my life at such a
+price? Could you suppose that your honour was not more precious to me
+than my life? It was infamous that you should have sacrificed yourself
+in this manner."
+
+"Infamous of whom?" she asked him coolly.
+
+The question gave him pause. "I don't know!" he cried desperately.
+"Infamous of the circumstances, I suppose."
+
+She shrugged. "The circumstances were there, and they had to be met. I
+could think of no other way of meeting them."
+
+Hastily he answered her out of his anger for her sake: "It should not
+have been your affair to meet them at all."
+
+He saw the scarlet flush sweep over her face and leave it deathly white,
+and instantly he perceived how horribly he had blundered.
+
+"I'm sorry to have been interfering," she answered stiffly, "but, after
+all, it is not a matter that need trouble you." And on the words she
+turned to depart again. "Good-day, Captain Tremayne."
+
+"Ah, wait!" He flung himself between her and the door. "We must
+understand each other, Miss Armytage."
+
+"I think we do, Captain Tremayne," she answered, fire dancing in her
+eyes. And she added: "You are detaining me."
+
+"Intentionally." He was calm again; and he was masterful for the
+first time in all his dealings with her. "We are very far from any
+understanding. Indeed, we are overhead in a misunderstanding already.
+You misconstrue my words. I am very angry with you. I do not think that
+in all my life I have ever been so angry with anybody. But you are not
+to mistake the source of my anger. I am angry with you for the great
+wrong you have done yourself."
+
+"That should not be your affair," she answered him, thus flinging back
+the offending phrase.
+
+"But it is. I make it mine," he insisted.
+
+"Then I do not give you the right. Please let me pass." She looked him
+steadily in the face, and her voice was calm to coldness. Only the heave
+of her bosom betrayed the agitation under which she was labouring.
+
+"Whether you give me the right or not, I intend to take it," he
+insisted.
+
+"You are very rude," she reproved him.
+
+He laughed. "Even at the risk of being rude, then. I must make myself
+clear to you. I would suffer anything sooner than leave you under any
+misapprehension of the grounds upon which I should have preferred to
+face a firing party rather than have been rescued at the sacrifice of
+your good name."
+
+"I hope," she said, with faint but cutting irony, "you do not intend to
+offer me the reparation of marriage."
+
+It took his breath away for a moment. It was a solution that in his
+confused and irate state of mind he had never even paused to consider.
+Yet now that it was put to him in this scornfully reproachful manner he
+perceived not only that it was the only possible course, but also that
+on that very account it might be considered by her impossible.
+
+Her testiness was suddenly plain to him. She feared that he was come to
+her with an offer of marriage out of a sense of duty, as an amende,
+to correct the false position into which, for his sake, she had placed
+herself. And he himself by his blundering phrase had given colour to
+that hideous fear of hers.
+
+He considered a moment whilst he stood there meeting her defiant glance.
+Never had she been more desirable in his eyes; and hopeless as his
+love for her had always seemed, never had it been in such danger of
+hopelessness as at this present moment, unless he proceeded here with
+the utmost care. And so Ned Tremayne became subtle for the first time in
+his honest, straightforward, soldierly life. "No," he answered boldly,
+"I do not intend it."
+
+"I am glad that you spare me that," she answered him, yet her pallor
+seemed to deepen under his glance.
+
+"And that," he continued, "is the source of all my anger, against
+you, against myself, and against circumstances. If I had deemed myself
+remotely worthy of you," he continued, "I should have asked you weeks
+ago to be my wife. Oh, wait, and hear me out. I have more than once been
+upon the point of doing so--the last time was that night on the balcony
+at Count Redondo's. I would have spoken then; I would have taken my
+courage in my hands, confessed my unworthiness and my love. But I was
+restrained because, although I might confess, there was nothing I could
+ask. I am a poor man, Sylvia, you are the daughter of a wealthy one; men
+speak of you as an heiress. To ask you to marry me--" He broke off.
+"You realise that I could not; that I should have been deemed a
+fortune-hunter, not only by the world, which matters nothing, but
+perhaps by yourself, who matter everything. I--I--" he faltered,
+fumbling for words to express thoughts of an overwhelming intricacy. "It
+was not perhaps that so much as the thought that, if my suit should
+come to prosper, men would say you had thrown yourself away on a
+fortune-hunter. To myself I should have accounted the reproach well
+earned, but it seemed to me that it must contain something slighting to
+you, and to shield you from all slights must be the first concern of my
+deep worship for you. That," he ended fiercely, "is why I am so angry,
+so desperate at the slight you have put upon yourself for my sake--for
+me, who would have sacrificed life and honour and everything I hold of
+any account, to keep you up there, enthroned not only in my own eyes,
+but in the eyes of every man."
+
+He paused, and looked at her and she at him. She was still very white,
+and one of her long, slender hands was pressed to her bosom as if to
+contain and repress tumult. But her eyes were smiling, and yet it was a
+smile he could not read; it was compassionate, wistful, and yet tinged,
+it seemed to him, with mockery.
+
+"I suppose," he said, "it would be expected of me in the circumstances
+to seek words in which to thank you for what you have done. But I have
+no such words. I am not grateful. How could I be grateful? You have
+destroyed the thing that I most valued in this world."
+
+"What have I destroyed?" she asked him.
+
+"Your own good name; the respect that was your due from all men."
+
+"Yet if I retain your own?"
+
+"What is that worth?" he asked almost resentfully.
+
+"Perhaps more than all the rest." She took a step forward and set her
+hand upon his arm. There was no mistaking now her smile. It was all
+tenderness, and her eyes were shining. "Ned, there is only one thing to
+be done."
+
+He looked down at her who was only a little less tall than himself, and
+the colour faded from his own face now.
+
+"You haven't understood me after all," he said. "I was afraid you would
+not. I have no clear gift of words, and if I had, I am trying to say
+something that would overtax any gift."
+
+"On the contrary, Ned, I understand you perfectly. I don't think I have
+ever understood you until now. Certainly never until now could I be sure
+of what I hoped."
+
+"Of what you hoped?" His voice sank as if in awe. "What?" he asked.
+
+She looked away, and her persisting, yet ever-changing smile grew
+slightly arch.
+
+"You do not then intend to ask me to marry you?" she said.
+
+"How could I?" It was an explosion almost of anger. "You yourself
+suggested that it would be an insult; and so it would. It is to take
+advantage of the position into which your foolish generosity has
+betrayed you. Oh!" he clenched his fists and shook them a moment at his
+sides.
+
+"Very well," she said. "In that case I must ask you to marry me."
+
+"You?" He was thunderstruck.
+
+"What alternative do you leave me? You say that I have destroyed my good
+name. You must provide me with a new one. At all costs I must become an
+honest woman. Isn't that the phrase?"
+
+"Don't!" he cried, and pain quivered in his voice. "Don't jest upon it."
+
+"My dear," she said, and now she held out both hands to him, "why
+trouble yourself with things of no account, when the only thing that
+matters to us is within our grasp? We love each other, and--"
+
+Her glance fell away, her lip trembled, and her smile at last took
+flight. He caught her hands, holding them in a grip that hurt her; he
+bent his head, and his eyes sought her own, but sought in vain.
+
+"Have you considered--" he was beginning, when she interrupted him. Her
+face flushed upward, surrendering to that questing glance of his, and
+its expression was now between tears and laughter.
+
+"You will be for ever considering, Ned. You consider too much, where the
+issues are plain and simple. For the last time--will you marry me?"
+
+The subtlety he had employed had been greater than he knew, and it had
+achieved something beyond his utmost hopes.
+
+He murmured incoherently and took her to his arms. I really do not see
+that he could have done anything else. It was a plain and simple issue,
+and she herself had protested that the issue was plain and simple.
+
+And then the door opened abruptly and Sir Terence came in. Nor did he
+discreetly withdraw as a man of feeling should have done before the
+intimate and touching spectacle that met his eyes. On the contrary, he
+remained like the infernal marplot that he intended to be.
+
+"Very proper," he sneered. "Very fit and proper that he should put right
+in the eyes of the world the reputation you have damaged for his sake,
+Sylvia. I suppose you're to be married."
+
+They moved apart, and each stared at O'Moy--Sylvia in cold anger,
+Tremayne in chagrin.
+
+"You see, Sylvia," the captain cried, at this voicing of the world's
+opinion he feared so much on her behalf.
+
+"Does she?" said Sir Terence, misunderstanding. "I wonder? Unless you've
+made all plain."
+
+The captain frowned.
+
+"Made what plain?" he asked. "There is something here I don't
+understand, O'Moy. Your attitude towards me ever since you ordered me
+under arrest has been entirely extraordinary. It has troubled me more
+than anything else in all this deplorable affair."
+
+"I believe you," snorted O'Moy, as with his hands behind his back
+he strode forward into the room. He was pale, and there was a set,
+malignant sneer upon his lip, a malignant look in the blue eyes that
+were habitually so clear and honest.
+
+"There have been moments," said Tremayne, "when I have almost felt you
+to be vindictive."
+
+"D'ye wonder?" growled O'Moy. "Has no suspicion crossed your mind that I
+may know the whole truth?"
+
+Tremayne was taken aback. "That startles you, eh?" cried O'Moy, and
+pointed a mocking finger at the captain's face, whose whole expression
+had changed to one of apprehension.
+
+"What is it?" cried Sylvia. Instinctively she felt that under this
+troubled surface some evil thing was stirring, that the issues perhaps
+were not quite as simple as she had deemed them.
+
+There was a pause. O'Moy, with his back to the window now, his hands
+still clasped behind him, looked mockingly at Tremayne and waited.
+
+"Why don't you answer her?" he said at last. "You were confidential
+enough when I came in. Can it be that you are keeping something back,
+that you have secrets from the lady who has no doubt promised by now to
+become your wife as the shortest way to mending her recent folly?"
+
+Tremayne was bewildered. His answer, apparently an irrelevance, was the
+mere enunciation of the thoughts O'Moy's announcement had provoked.
+
+"Do you mean to say that you have known throughout that I did not kill
+Samoval?" he asked.
+
+"Of course. How could I have supposed you killed him when I killed him
+myself?"
+
+"You? You killed him!" cried Tremayne, more and more intrigued. And--
+
+"You killed Count Samoval?" exclaimed Miss Armytage.
+
+"To be sure I did," was the answer, cynically delivered, accompanied by
+a short, sharp laugh. "When I have settled other accounts, and put all
+my affairs in order, I shall save the provost-marshal the trouble of
+further seeking the slayer. And you didn't know then, Sylvia, when you
+lied so glibly to the court, that your future husband was innocent of
+that?"
+
+"I was always sure of it," she answered, and looked at Tremayne for
+explanation.
+
+O'Moy laughed again. "But he had not told you so. He preferred that you
+should think him guilty of bloodshed, of murder even, rather than tell
+you the real truth. Oh, I can understand. He is the very soul of honour,
+as you remarked yourself, I think, the other night. He knows how much
+to tell and how much to withhold. He is master of the art of discreet
+suppression. He will carry it to any lengths. You had an instance of
+that before the court this morning. You may come to regret, my dear,
+that you did not allow him to have his own obstinate way; that you
+should have dragged your own spotless purity in the mud to provide
+him with an alibi. But he had an alibi all the time, my child; an
+unanswerable alibi which he preferred to withhold. I wonder would you
+have been so ready to make a shield of your honour could you have known
+what you were really shielding?"
+
+"Ned!" she cried. "Why don't you speak? Is he to go on in this fashion?
+Of what is he accusing you? If you were not with Samoval that night,
+where were you?"
+
+"In a lady's room, as you correctly informed the court," came O'Moy's
+bitter mockery. "Your only mistake was in the identity of the lady. You
+imagined that the lady was yourself. A delusion purely. But you and I
+may comfort each other, for we are fellow-sufferers at the hands of this
+man of honour. My wife was the lady who entertained this gallant in her
+room that night."
+
+"My God, O'Moy!" It was a strangled cry from Tremayne. At last he saw
+light; he understood, and, understanding, there entered his heart a
+great compassion for O'Moy, a conception that he must have suffered all
+the agonies of the damned in these last few days. "My God, you don't
+believe that I--"
+
+"Do you deny it?"
+
+"The imputation? Utterly."
+
+"And if I tell you that myself with these eyes I saw you at the window
+of her room with her; if I tell you that I saw the rope ladder dangling
+from her balcony; if I tell you that crouching there after I had killed
+Samoval--killed him, mark me, for saying that you and my wife betrayed
+me; killed him for telling me the filthy truth--if I tell you that I
+heard her attempting to restrain you from going down to see what had
+happened--if I tell you all this, will you still deny it, will you still
+lie?"
+
+"I will still say that all that you imply is false as hell and your own
+senseless jealousy can make it.
+
+"All that I imply? But what I state--the facts themselves, are they
+true?"
+
+"They are true. But--"
+
+"True!" cried Miss Armytage in horror.
+
+"Ah, wait," O'Moy bade her with his heavy sneer. "You interrupt him.
+He is about to construe those facts so that they shall wear an innocent
+appearance. He is about to prove himself worthy of the great sacrifice
+you made to save his life. Well?" And he looked expectantly at Tremayne.
+
+Miss Armytage looked at him too, with eyes from which the dread
+passed almost at once. The captain was smiling, wistfully, tolerantly,
+confidently, almost scornfully. Had he been guilty of the thing imputed
+he could not have stood so in her presence.
+
+"O'Moy," he said slowly, "I should tell you that you have played the
+knave in this were it not clear to me that you have played the fool." He
+spoke entirely without passion. He saw his way quite clearly. Things had
+reached a pass in which for the sake of all concerned, and perhaps for
+the sake of Miss Armytage more than any one, the whole truth must be
+spoken without regard to its consequences to Richard Butler.
+
+"You dare to take that tone?" began O'Moy in a voice of thunder.
+
+"Yourself shall be the first to justify it presently. I should be angry
+with you, O'Moy, for what you have done. But I find my anger vanishing
+in regret. I should scorn you for the lie you have acted, for your scant
+regard to your oath in the court-martial, for your attempt to combat
+an imagined villainy by a real villainy. But I realise what you have
+suffered, and in that suffering lies the punishment you fully deserve
+for not having taken the straight course, for not having taxed me there
+and then with the thing that you suspected."
+
+"The gentleman is about to lecture me upon morals, Sylvia." But Tremayne
+let pass the interruption.
+
+"It is quite true that I was in Una's room while you were killing
+Samoval. But I was not alone with her, as you have so rashly assumed.
+Her brother Richard was there, and it was on his behalf that I was
+present. She had been hiding him for a fortnight. She begged me, as
+Dick's friend and her own, to save him; and I undertook to do so. I
+climbed to her room to assist him to descend by the rope ladder you saw,
+because he was wounded and could not climb without assistance. At the
+gates I had the curricle waiting in which I had driven up. In this I
+was to have taken him on board a ship that was leaving that night for
+England, having made arrangements with her captain. You should have
+seen, had you reflected, that--as I told the court--had I been coming
+to a clandestine meeting, I should hardly have driven up in so open a
+fashion, and left the curricle to wait for me at the gates.
+
+"The death of Samoval and my own arrest thwarted our plans and prevented
+Dick's escape. That is the truth. Now that you have it I hope you like
+it, and I hope that you thoroughly relish your own behaviour in the
+matter."
+
+There was a fluttering sigh of relief from Miss Armytage. Then silence
+followed, in which O'Moy stared at Tremayne, emotion after emotion
+sweeping across his mobile face.
+
+"Dick Butler?" he said at last, and cried out: "I don't believe a word
+of it! Ye're lying, Tremayne."
+
+"You have cause enough to hope so."
+
+The captain was faintly scornful.
+
+"If it were true, Una would not have kept it from me. It was to me she
+would have come."
+
+"The trouble with you, O'Moy, is that jealousy seems to have robbed you
+of the power of coherent thought, or else you would remember that you
+were the last man to whom Una could confide Dick's presence here. I
+warned her against doing so. I told her of the promise you had been
+compelled to give the secretary, Forjas, and I was even at pains to
+justify you to her when she was indignant with you for that. It would
+perhaps be better," he concluded, "if you were to send for Una."
+
+"It's what I intend," said Sir Terence in a voice that made a threat
+of the statement. He strode stiffly across the room and pulled open the
+door. There was no need to go farther. Lady O'Moy, white and tearful,
+was discovered on the threshold. Sir Terence stood aside, holding the
+door for her, his face very grim.
+
+She came in slowly, looking from one to another with her troubled
+glance, and finally accepting the chair that Captain Tremayne made haste
+to offer her. She had so much to say to each person present that it was
+impossible to know where to begin. It remained for Sir Terence to give
+her the lead she needed, and this he did so soon as he had closed the
+door again. Planted before it like a sentry, he looked at her between
+anger and suspicion.
+
+"How much did you overhear?" he asked her.
+
+"All that you said about Dick," she answered without hesitation.
+
+"Then you stood listening?"
+
+"Of course. I wanted to know what you were saying."
+
+"There are other ways of ascertaining that without stooping to
+keyholes," said her husband.
+
+"I didn't stoop," she said, taking him literally. "I could hear what
+was said without that--especially what you said, Terence. You will raise
+your voice so on the slightest provocation."
+
+"And the provocation in this instance was, of course, of the slightest.
+Since you have heard Captain Tremayne's story of course you'll have no
+difficulty in confirming it."
+
+"If you still can doubt, O'Moy," said Tremayne, "it must be because you
+wish to doubt; because you are afraid to face the truth now that it has
+been placed before you. I think, Una, it will spare a deal of trouble,
+and save your husband from a great many expressions that he may
+afterwards regret, if you go and fetch Dick. God knows, Terence has
+enough to overwhelm him already."
+
+At the suggestion of producing Dick, O'Moy's anger, which had begun to
+simmer again, was stilled. He looked at his wife almost in alarm, and
+she met his look with one of utter blankness.
+
+"I can't," she said plaintively. "Dick's gone."
+
+"Gone?" cried Tremayne.
+
+"Gone?" said O'Moy, and then he began to laugh. "Are you quite sure that
+he was ever here?"
+
+"But--" She was a little bewildered, and a frown puckered her perfect
+brow. "Hasn't Ned told you, then?"
+
+"Oh, Ned has told me. Ned has told!" His face was terrible.
+
+"And don't you believe him? Don't you believe me?" She was more
+plaintive than ever. It was almost as if she called heaven to witness
+what manner of husband she was forced to endure. "Then you had better
+call Mullins and ask him. He saw Dick leave."
+
+"And no doubt," said Miss Armytage mercilessly, "Sir Terence will
+believe his butler where he can believe neither his wife nor his
+friend."
+
+He looked at her in a sort of amazement. "Do you believe them, Sylvia?"
+he cried.
+
+"I hope I am not a fool," said she impatiently.
+
+"Meaning--" he began, but broke off. "How long do you say it is since
+Dick left the house?"
+
+"Ten minutes at most," replied her ladyship.
+
+He turned and pulled the door open again. "Mullins?" he called.
+"Mullins!"
+
+"What a man to live with!" sighed her ladyship, appealing to Miss
+Armytage. "What a man!" And she applied a vinaigrette delicately to her
+nostrils.
+
+Tremayne smiled, and sauntered to the window. And then at last came
+Mullins.
+
+"Has any one left the house within the last ten minutes, Mullins?" asked
+Sir Terence.
+
+Mullins looked ill at ease.
+
+"Sure, sir, you'll not be after--"
+
+"Will you answer my question, man?" roared Sir Terence.
+
+"Sure, then, there's nobody left the house at all but Mr. Butler, sir."
+
+"How long had he been here?" asked O'Moy, after a brief pause.
+
+"'Tis what I can't tell ye, sir. I never set eyes on him until I saw him
+coming downstairs from her ladyship's room as it might be."
+
+"You can go, Mullins."
+
+"I hope, sir--"
+
+"You can go." And Sir Terence slammed the door upon the amazed servant,
+who realised that some unhappy mystery was perturbing the adjutant's
+household.
+
+Sir Terence stood facing them again. He was a changed man. The fire had
+all gone out of him. His head was bowed and his face looked haggard and
+suddenly old. His lip curled into a sneer.
+
+"Pantaloon in the comedy," he said, remembering in that moment the
+bitter gibe that had cost Samoval his life.
+
+"What did you say?" her ladyship asked him.
+
+"I pronounced my own name," he answered lugubriously.
+
+"It didn't sound like it, Terence."
+
+"It's the name I ought to bear," he said. "And I killed that liar for
+it--the only truth he spoke."
+
+He came forward to the table. The full sense of his position suddenly
+overwhelmed him, as Tremayne had said it would. A groan broke from him
+and he collapsed into a chair, a stricken, broken man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. THE RESIGNATION
+
+
+At once, as he sat there, his elbows on the table, his head in his
+hands, he found himself surrounded by those three, against each of whom
+he had sinned under the spell of the jealousy that had blinded him and
+led him by the nose.
+
+His wife put an arm about his neck in mute comfort of a grief of which
+she only understood the half--for of the heavier and more desperate
+part of his guilt she was still in ignorance. Sylvia spoke to him kindly
+words of encouragement where no encouragement could avail. But what
+moved him most was the touch of Tremayne's hand upon his shoulder, and
+Tremayne's voice bidding him brace himself to face the situation and
+count upon them to stand by him to the end.
+
+He looked up at his friend and secretary in an amazement that overcame
+his shame.
+
+"You can forgive me, Ned?"
+
+Ned looked across at Sylvia Armytage. "You have been the means of
+bringing me to such happiness as I should never have reached without
+these happenings," he said. "What resentment can I bear you, O'Moy?
+Besides, I understand, and who understands can never do anything but
+forgive. I realise how sorely you have been tried. No evidence more
+conclusive that you were being wronged could have been placed before
+you."
+
+"But the court-martial," said O'Moy in horror. He covered his face with
+his hand. "Oh, my God! I am dishonoured. I--I--" He rose, shaking
+off the arm of his wife and the hand of the friend he had wronged so
+terribly. He broke away from them and strode to the window, his face set
+and white. "I think I was mad," he said. "I know I was mad. But to have
+done what I did--" He shuddered in very horror of himself now that he
+was bereft of the support of that evil jealousy that had fortified
+him against conscience itself and the very voice of honour. Lady O'Moy
+turned to them, pleading for explanation.
+
+"What does he mean? What has he done?"
+
+Himself he answered her: "I killed Samoval. It was I who fought that
+duel. And then believing what I did, I fastened the guilt upon Ned, and
+went the lengths of perjury in my blind effort to avenge myself. That
+is what I have done. Tell me, one of you, of your charity, what is there
+left for me to do?"
+
+"Oh!" It was an outcry of horror and indignation from Una, instantly
+repressed by the tightening grip of Sylvia's hand upon her arm. Miss
+Armytage saw and understood, and sorrowed for Sir Terence. She must
+restrain his wife from adding to his present anguish. Yet, "How could
+you, Terence! Oh, how could you!" cried her ladyship, and so gave way to
+tears, easier than words to express such natures.
+
+"Because I loved you, I suppose," he answered on a note of bitter
+self-mockery. "That was the justification I should have given had I been
+asked; that was the justification I accounted sufficient."
+
+"But then," she cried, a new horror breaking on her mind--"if this is
+discovered--Terence, what will become of you?"
+
+He turned and came slowly back until he stood beside her. Facing now the
+inevitable, he recovered some of his calm.
+
+"It must be discovered," he said quietly. "For the sake of everybody
+concerned it must--"
+
+"Oh, no, no!" She sprang up and clutched his arm in terror. "They may
+fail to discover the truth."
+
+"They must not, my dear," he answered her; stroking the fair head that
+lay against his breast. "They must not fail. I must see to that."
+
+"You? You?" Her eyes dilated as she looked at him. She caught her breath
+on a gasping sob. "Ah no, Terence," she cried wildly. "You must not; you
+must not. You must say nothing--for my sake, Terence, if you love me,
+oh, for my sake, Terence!"
+
+"For honour's sake, I must," he answered her. "And for the sake of
+Sylvia and of Tremayne, whom I have wronged, and--"
+
+"Not for my sake, Terence," Sylvia interrupted him.
+
+He looked at her, and then at Tremayne.
+
+"And you, Ned--what do you say?" he asked.
+
+"Ned could not wish--" began her ladyship.
+
+"Please let him speak for himself, my dear," her husband interrupted
+her.
+
+"What can I say?" cried Tremayne, with a gesture that was almost of
+anger. "How can I advise? I scarcely know. You realise what you must
+face if you confess?"
+
+"Fully, and the only part of it I shrink from is the shame and scorn I
+have deserved. Yet it is inevitable. You agree, Ned?"
+
+"I am not sure. None who understands as I understand can feel anything
+but regret. Oh, I don't know. The evidence of what you suspected was
+overwhelming, and it betrayed you into this mistake. The punishment you
+would have to face is surely too heavy, and you have suffered far more
+already than you can ever be called upon to suffer again, no matter what
+is done to you. Oh, I don't know! The problem is too deep for me. There
+is Una to be considered, too. You owe a duty to her, and if you keep
+silent it may be best for all. You can depend upon us to stand by you in
+this."
+
+"Indeed, indeed," said Sylvia.
+
+He looked at them and smiled very tenderly.
+
+"Never was a man blessed with nobler friends who deserved so little of
+them," he said slowly. "You heap coals of fire upon my head. You shame
+me through and through. But have you considered, Ned, that all may not
+depend upon my silence? What if the provost-marshal, investigating now,
+were to come upon the real facts?"
+
+"It is impossible that sufficient should be discovered to convict you."
+
+"How can you be sure of that? And if it were possible, if it came to
+pass, what then would be my position? You see, Ned! I must accept the
+punishment I have incurred lest a worse overtake me--to put it at its
+lowest. I must voluntarily go forward and denounce myself before another
+denounces me. It is the only way to save some rag of honour."
+
+There was a tap at the door, and Mullins came to announce that Lord
+Wellington was asking to see Sir Terence.
+
+"He is waiting in the study, Sir Terence."
+
+"Tell his lordship I will be with him at once."
+
+Mullins departed, and Sir Terence prepared to follow. Gently he
+disengaged himself from the arms her ladyship now flung about him.
+
+"Courage, my dear," he said. "Wellington may show me more mercy than I
+deserve."
+
+"You are going to tell him?" she questioned brokenly.
+
+"Of course, sweetheart. What else can I do? And since you and Tremayne
+find it in your hearts to forgive me, nothing else matters very much."
+He kissed her tenderly and put her from him. He looked at Sylvia
+standing beside her and at Tremayne beyond the table. "Comfort her," he
+implored them, and, turning, went out quickly.
+
+Awaiting him in the study he found not only Lord Wellington, but Colonel
+Grant, and by the cold gravity of both their faces he had an inspiration
+that in some mysterious way the whole hideous truth was already known to
+them.
+
+The slight figure of his lordship in its grey frock was stiff and
+erect, his booted leg firmly planted, his hands behind him clutching his
+riding-crop and cocked hat. His face was set and his voice as he greeted
+O'Moy sharp and staccato.
+
+"Ah, O'Moy, there are one or two matters to be discussed before I leave
+Lisbon."
+
+"I had written to you, sir," replied O'Moy. "Perhaps you will first read
+my letter." And he went to fetch it from the writing-table, where he had
+left it when completed an hour earlier.
+
+His lordship took the letter in silence, and after one piercing glance
+at O'Moy broke the seal. In the background, near the window, the
+tall figure of Colquhoun Grant stood stiffly erect, his hawk face
+inscrutable.
+
+"Ah! Your resignation, O'Moy. But you give no reasons." Again his keen
+glance stabbed into the adjutant's face. "Why this?" he asked sharply.
+
+"Because," said Sir Terence, "I prefer to tender it before it is asked
+of me." He was very white, yet by an effort those deep blue eyes of his
+met the terrible gaze of his chief without flinching.
+
+"Perhaps you'll explain," said his lordship coldly.
+
+"In the first place," said O'Moy, "it was myself killed Samoval, and
+since your lordship was a witness of what followed, you will realise
+that that was the least part of my offence."
+
+The great soldier jerked his head sharply backward, tilting forward
+his chin. "So!" he said. "Ha! I beg your pardon, Grant, for having
+disbelieved you." Then, turning to O'Moy again: "Well," he demanded, his
+voice hard, "have you nothing to add?"
+
+"Nothing that can matter," said O'Moy, with a shrug, and they stood
+facing each other in silence for a long moment.
+
+At last when Wellington spoke his voice had assumed a gentler note.
+
+"O'Moy," he said, "I have known you these fifteen years, and we have
+been friends. Once you carried your friendship, appreciation, and
+understanding of me so far as nearly to ruin yourself on my behalf.
+You'll not have forgotten the affair of Sir Harry Burrard. In all these
+years I have known you for a man of shining honour, an honest, upright
+gentleman, whom I would have trusted when I should have distrusted every
+other living man. Yet you stand there and confess to me the basest,
+the most dishonest villainy that I have ever known a British officer to
+commit, and you tell me that you have no explanation to offer for your
+conduct. Either I have never known you, O'Moy, or I do not know you now.
+Which is it?"
+
+O'Moy raised his arms, only to let them fall heavily to his sides again.
+
+"What explanation can there be?" he asked. "How can a man who has
+been--as I hope I have--a man of honour in the past explain such an act
+of madness? It arose out of your order against duelling," he went on.
+"Samoval offended me mortally. He said such things to me of my wife's
+honour that no man could suffer, and I least of any man. My temper
+betrayed me. I consented to a clandestine meeting without seconds. It
+took place here, and I killed him. And then I had, as I imagined--quite
+wrongly, as I know now--overwhelming evidence that what he had told
+me was true, and I went mad." Briefly he told the story of Tremayne's
+descent from Lady O'Moy's balcony and the rest.
+
+"I scarcely know," he resumed, "what it was I hoped to accomplish in the
+end. I do not know--for I never stopped to consider--whether I should
+have allowed Captain Tremayne to have been shot if it had come to that.
+All that I was concerned to do was to submit him to the ordeal which I
+conceived he must undergo when he saw himself confronted with the choice
+of keeping silence and submitting to his fate, or saving himself by an
+avowal that could scarcely be less bitter than death itself."
+
+"You fool, O'Moy-you damned, infernal fool!" his lordship swore at him.
+"Grant overheard more than you imagined that night outside the gates.
+His conclusions ran the truth very close indeed. But I could not believe
+him, could not believe this of you."'
+
+"Of course not," said O'Moy gloomily. "I can't believe it of myself."
+
+"When Miss Armytage intervened to afford Tremayne an alibi, I believed
+her, in view of what Grant had told me; I concluded that hers was the
+window from which Tremayne had climbed down. Because of what I knew I
+was there to see that the case did not go to extremes against Tremayne.
+If necessary Grant must have given full evidence of all he knew, and
+there and then left you to your fate. Miss Armytage saved us from that,
+and left me convinced, but still not understanding your own attitude.
+And now comes Richard Butler to surrender to me and cast himself upon
+my mercy with another tale which completely gives the lie to Miss
+Armytage's, but confirms your own."
+
+"Richard Butler!" cried O'Moy. "He has surrendered to you?"
+
+"Half-an-hour ago."
+
+Sir Terence turned aside with a weary shrug. A little laugh that was
+more a sob broke from him. "Poor Una!" he muttered.
+
+"The tangle is a shocking one--lies, lies everywhere, and in the places
+where they were least to be expected." Wellington's anger flashed
+out. "Do you realise what awaits you as a result of all this damned
+insanity?"
+
+"I do, sir. That is why I place my resignation in your hands. The
+disregard of a general order punishable in any officer is beyond pardon
+in your adjutant-general."
+
+"But that is the least of it, you fool."
+
+"Sure, don't I know? I assure you that I realise it all."
+
+"And you are prepared to face it?" Wellington was almost savage in an
+anger proceeding from the conflict that went on within him. There was
+his duty as commander-in-chief, and there was his friendship for O'Moy
+and his memory of the past in which O'Moy's loyalty had almost been the
+ruin of him.
+
+"What choice have I?"
+
+His lordship turned away, and strode the length of the room, his head
+bent, his lips twitching. Suddenly he stopped and faced the silent
+intelligence officer.
+
+"What is to be done, Grant?"
+
+"That is a matter for your lordship. But if I might venture--"
+
+"Venture and be damned," snapped Wellington.
+
+"The signal service rendered the cause of the allies by the death
+of Samoval might perhaps be permitted to weigh against the offence
+committed by O'Moy."
+
+"How could it?" snapped his lordship. "You don't know, O'Moy, that upon
+Samoval's body were found certain documents intended for Massena. Had
+they reached him, or had Samoval carried out the full intentions that
+dictated his quarrel with you, and no doubt sent him here depending
+upon his swordsmanship to kill you, all my plans for the undoing of the
+French would have been ruined. Ay, you may stare. That is another matter
+in which you have lacked discretion. You may be a fine engineer, O'Moy,
+but I don't think I could have found a less judicious adjutant-general
+if I had raked the ranks of the army on purpose to find an idiot.
+Samoval was a spy--the cleverest spy that we have ever had to deal with.
+Only his death revealed how dangerous he was. For killing him when
+you did you deserve the thanks of his Majesty's Government, as Grant
+suggests. But before you can receive those you will have to stand a
+court-martial for the manner in which you killed him, and you will
+probably be shot. I can't help you. I hope you don't expect it of me."
+
+"The thought had not so much as occurred to me. Yet what you tell me,
+sir, lifts something of the load from my mind."
+
+"Does it? Well, it lifts no load from mine," was the angry retort. He
+stood considering. Then with an impatient gesture he seemed to dismiss
+his thoughts. "I can do nothing," he said, "nothing without being false
+to my duty and becoming as bad as you have been, O'Moy, and without
+any of the sentimental justification that existed in your case. I can't
+allow the matter to be dropped, stifled. I have never been guilty of
+such a thing, and I refuse to become guilty of it now. I refuse--do you
+understand? O'Moy, you have acted; and you must take the consequences,
+and be damned to you."
+
+"Faith, I've never asked you to help me, sir," Sir Terence protested.
+
+"And you don't intend to, I suppose?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"I am glad of that." He was in one of those rages which were as terrible
+as they were rare with him. "I wouldn't have you suppose that I make
+laws for the sake of rescuing people from the consequences of disobeying
+them. Here is this brother-in-law of yours, this fellow Butler, who has
+made enough mischief in the country to imperil our relations with
+our allies. And I am half pledged to condone his adventure at Tavora.
+There's nothing for it, O'Moy. As your friend, I am infernally angry
+with you for placing yourself in this position; as your commanding
+officer I can only order you under arrest and convene a court-martial to
+deal with you."
+
+Sir Terence bowed his head. He was a little surprised by all this heat.
+"I never expected anything else," he said. "And it's altogether at a
+loss I am to understand why your lordship should be vexing yourself in
+this manner."
+
+"Because I've a friendship for you, O'Moy. Because I remember that
+you've been a loyal friend to me. And because I must forget all this
+and remember only that my duty is absolutely rigid and inflexible. If I
+condoned your offence, if I suppressed inquiry, I should be in duty and
+honour bound to offer my own resignation to his Majesty's Government.
+And I have to think of other things besides my personal feelings, when
+at any moment now the French may be over the Agueda and into Portugal."
+
+Sir Terence's face flushed, and his glance brightened.
+
+"From my heart I thank you that you can even think of such things at
+such a time and after what I have done."
+
+"Oh, as to what you have done--I understand that you are a fool, O'Moy.
+There's no more to be said. You are to consider yourself under arrest.
+I must do it if you were my own brother, which, thank God, you're not.
+Come, Grant. Good-bye, O'Moy." And he held out his hand to him.
+
+Sir Terence hesitated, staring.
+
+"It's the hand of your friend, Arthur Wellesley, I'm offering you, not
+the hand of your commanding officer," said his lordship savagely.
+
+Sir Terence took it, and wrung it in silence, perhaps more deeply moved
+than he had yet been by anything that had happened to him that morning.
+
+There was a knock at the door, and Mullins opened it to admit the
+adjutant's orderly, who came stiffly to attention.
+
+"Major Carruthers's compliments, sir," he said to O'Moy, "and his
+Excellency the Secretary of the Council of Regency wishes to see you
+very urgently."
+
+There was a pause. O'Moy shrugged and spread his hands. This message was
+for the adjutant-general and he no longer filled the office.
+
+"Pray tell Major Carruthers that I--" he was beginning, when Lord
+Wellington intervened.
+
+"Desire his Excellency to step across here. I will see him myself."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. SANCTUARY
+
+
+"I will withdraw, sir," said Terence.
+
+But Wellington detained him. "Since Dom Miguel asked for you, you had
+better remain, perhaps."
+
+"It is the adjutant-general Dom Miguel desires to see, and I am
+adjutant-general no longer."
+
+"Still, the matter may concern you. I have a notion that it may be
+concerned with the death of Count Samoval, since I have acquainted the
+Council of Regency with the treason practised by the Count. You had
+better remain."
+
+Gloomy and downcast, Sir Terence remained as he was bidden.
+
+The sleek and supple Secretary of State was ushered in. He came forward
+quickly, clicked his heels together and bowed to the three men present.
+
+"Sirs, your obedient servant," he announced himself, with a courtliness
+almost out of fashion, speaking in his extraordinarily fluent English.
+His sallow countenance was extremely grave. He seemed even a little ill
+at ease.
+
+"I am fortunate to find you here, my lord. The matter upon which I
+seek your adjutant-general is of considerable gravity--so much that of
+himself he might be unable to resolve it. I feared you might already
+have departed for the north."
+
+"Since you suggest that my presence may be of service to you, I am happy
+that circumstances should have delayed my departure," was his lordship's
+courteous answer. "A chair, Dom Miguel."
+
+Dom Miguel Forjas accepted the proffered chair, whilst Wellington seated
+himself at Sir Terence's desk. Sir Terence himself remained standing
+with his shoulders to the overmantel, whence he faced them both as well
+as Grant, who, according to his self-effacing habit, remained in the
+background by the window.
+
+"I have sought you," began Dom Miguel, stroking his square chin, "on a
+matter concerned with the late Count Samoval, immediately upon hearing
+that the court-martial pronounced the acquittal of Captain Tremayne."
+
+His lordship frowned, and his eagle glance fastened upon the Secretary's
+face.
+
+"I trust, sir, you have not come to question the finding of the
+court-martial."
+
+"Oh, on the contrary--on the contrary!" Dom Miguel was emphatic. "I
+represent not only the Council, but the Samoval family as well. Both
+realise that it is perhaps fortunate for all concerned that in arresting
+Captain Tremayne the military authorities arrested the wrong man, and
+both have reason to dread the arrest of the right one."
+
+He paused, and the frown deepened between Wellington's brows.
+
+"I am afraid," he said slowly, "that I do not quite perceive their
+concern in this matter."
+
+"But is it not clear?" cried Dom Miguel.
+
+"If it were I should perceive it," said his lordship dryly.
+
+"Ah, but let me explain, then. A further investigation of the manner in
+which Count Samoval met his death can hardly fail to bring to light
+the deplorable practices in which he was engaged; for no doubt Colonel
+Grant, here, would consider it his duty in the interests of justice to
+place before the court the documents found upon the Count's dead body.
+If I may permit myself an observation," he continued, looking round at
+Colonel Grant, "it is that I do not quite understand how this has not
+already happened."
+
+There was a pause in which Grant looked at Wellington as if for
+direction. But his lordship himself assumed the burden of the answer.
+
+"It was not considered expedient in the public interest to do so at
+present," he said. "And the circumstances did not place us under the
+necessity of divulging the matter."
+
+"There, my lord, if you will allow me to say so, you acted with a
+delicacy and wisdom which the circumstances may not again permit. Indeed
+any further investigation must almost inevitably bring these matters to
+light, and the effect of such revelation would be deplorable."
+
+"Deplorable to whom?" asked his lordship.
+
+"To the Count's family and to the Council of Regency."
+
+"I can sympathise with the Count's family, but not with the Council."
+
+"Surely, my lord, the Council as a body deserves your sympathy in that
+it is in danger of being utterly discredited by the treason of one or
+two of its members."
+
+Wellington manifested impatience. "The Council has been warned time and
+again. I am weary of warning, and even of threatening, the Council with
+the consequences of resisting my policy. I think that exposure is not
+only what it deserves, but the surest means of providing a healthier
+government in the future. I am weary of picking my way through the
+web of intrigue with which the Council entangles my movements and
+my dispositions. Public sympathy has enabled it to hamper me in this
+fashion. That sympathy will be lost to it by the disclosures which you
+fear."
+
+"My lord, I must confess that there is much reason in what you say." He
+was smoothly conciliatory. "I understand your exasperation. But may I
+be permitted to assure you that it is not the Council as a body that has
+withstood you, but certain self-seeking members, one or two friends of
+Principal Souza, in whose interests the unfortunate and misguided Count
+Samoval was acting. Your lordship will perceive that the moment is
+not one in which to stir up public indignation against the Portuguese
+Government. Once the passions of the mob are inflamed, who can say to
+what lengths they may not go, who can say what disastrous consequences
+may not follow? It is desirable to apply the cautery, but not to burn up
+the whole body."
+
+Lord Wellington considered a moment, fingering an ivory paper-knife. He
+was partly convinced.
+
+"When I last suggested the cautery, to use your own very apt figure, the
+Council did not keep faith with me."
+
+"My lord!"
+
+"It did not, sir. It removed Antonio de Souza, but it did not take the
+trouble to go further and remove his friends at the same time. They
+remained to carry on his subversive treacherous intrigues. What
+guarantees have I that the Council will behave better on this occasion?"
+
+"You have our solemn assurances, my lord, that all those members
+suspected of complicity in this business or of attachment to the Souza
+faction, shall be compelled to resign, and you may depend upon the
+reconstituted Council loyally to support your measures."
+
+"You give me assurances, sir, and I ask for guarantees."
+
+"Your lordship is in possession of the documents found upon Count
+Samoval. The Council knows this, and this knowledge will compel it to
+guard against further intrigues on the part of any of its members which
+might naturally exasperate you into publishing those documents. Is not
+that some guarantee?"
+
+His lordship considered, and nodded slowly. "I admit that it is. Yet
+I do not see how this publicity is to be avoided in the course of the
+further investigations into the manner in which Count Samoval came by
+his death."
+
+"My lord, that is the pivot of the whole matter. All further
+investigation must be suspended."
+
+Sir Terence trembled, and his eyes turned in eager anxiety upon the
+inscrutable, stern face of Lord Wellington.
+
+"Must!" cried his lordship sharply.
+
+"What else, my lord, in all our interests?" exclaimed the Secretary, and
+he rose in his agitation.
+
+"And what of British justice, sir?" demanded his lordship in a
+forbidding tone.
+
+"British justice has reason to consider itself satisfied. British
+justice may assume that Count Samoval met his death in the pursuit
+of his treachery. He was a spy caught in the act, and there and then
+destroyed--a very proper fate. Had he been taken, British justice would
+have demanded no less. It has been anticipated. Cannot British justice,
+for the sake of British interests as well as Portuguese interests, be
+content to leave the matter there?"
+
+"An argument of expediency, eh?" said Wellington. "Why not, my lord!
+Does not expediency govern politicians?"
+
+"I am not a politician."
+
+"But a wise soldier, my lord, does not lose sight of the political
+consequences of his acts." And he sat down again.
+
+"Your Excellency may be right," said his lordship. "Let us be quite
+clear, then. You suggest, speaking in the name of the Council of
+Regency, that I should suppress all further investigations into the
+manner in which Count Samoval met his death, so as to save his family
+the shame and the Council of Regency the discredit which must overtake
+one and the other if the facts are disclosed--as disclosed they would be
+that Samoval was a traitor and a spy in the pay of the French. That
+is what you ask me to do. In return your Council undertakes that there
+shall be no further opposition to my plans for the military defence of
+Portugal, and that all my measures however harsh and however heavily
+they may weigh upon the landowners, shall be punctually and faithfully
+carried out. That is your Excellency's proposal, is it not?"
+
+"Not so much my proposal, my lord, as my most earnest intercession. We
+desire to spare the innocent the consequences of the sins of a man who
+is dead, and well dead." He turned to O'Moy, standing there tense and
+anxious. It was not for Dom Miguel to know that it was the adjutant's
+fate that was being decided. "Sir Terence," he cried, "you have been
+here for a year, and all matters connected with the Council have
+been treated through you. You cannot fail to see the wisdom of my
+recommendation."
+
+His lordship's eyes flashed round upon O'Moy. "Ah yes!" he said. "What
+is your feeling in this matter, 'O'Moy?" he inquired, his tone and
+manner void of all expression.
+
+Sir Terence faltered; then stiffened. "I--The matter is one that only
+your lordship can decide. I have no wish to influence your decision."
+
+"I see. Ha! And you, Grant? No doubt you agree with Dom Miguel?"
+
+"Most emphatically--upon every count, sir," replied the intelligence
+officer without hesitation. "I think Dom Miguel offers an excellent
+bargain. And, as he says, we hold a guarantee of its fulfilment."
+
+"The bargain might be improved," said Wellington slowly.
+
+"If your lordship will tell me how, the Council, I am sure, will be
+ready to do all that lies in its power to satisfy you."
+
+Wellington shifted his chair round a little, and crossed his legs. He
+brought his finger-tips together, and over the top of them his eyes
+considered the Secretary of State.
+
+"Your Excellency has spoken of expediency--political expediency.
+Sometimes political expediency can overreach itself and perpetrate the
+most grave injustices. Individuals at times are unnecessarily called
+upon to suffer in the interests of a cause. Your Excellency will
+remember a certain affair at Tavora some two months ago--the invasion of
+a convent by a British officer with rather disastrous consequences and
+the loss of some lives."
+
+"I remember it perfectly, my lord. I had the honour of entertaining Sir
+Terence upon that subject on the occasion of my last visit here."
+
+"Quite so," said his lordship. "And on the grounds of political
+expediency you made a bargain then with Sir Terence, I understand, a
+bargain which entailed the perpetration of an injustice."
+
+"I am not aware of it, my lord."
+
+"Then let me refresh your Excellency's memory upon the facts. To appease
+the Council of Regency, or rather to enable me to have my way with
+the Council and remove the Principal Souza, you stipulated for the
+assurance--so that you might lay it before your Council--that the
+offending officer should be shot when taken."
+
+"I could not help myself in the matter, and--"
+
+"A moment, sir. That is not the way of British justice, and Sir Terence
+was wrong to have permitted himself to consent; though I profoundly
+appreciate the loyalty to me, the earnest desire to assist me, which led
+him into an act the cost of which to himself your Excellency can hardly
+appreciate. But the wrong lay in that by virtue of this bargain a
+British officer was prejudged. He was to be made a scapegoat. He was
+to be sent to his death when taken, as a peace-offering to the people,
+demanded by the Council of Regency.
+
+"Since all this happened I have had the facts of the case placed before
+me. I will go so far as to tell you, sir, that the officer in question
+has been in my hands for the past hour, that I have closely questioned
+him, and that I am satisfied that whilst he has been guilty of conduct
+which might compel me to deprive him of his Majesty's commission and
+dismiss him from the army, yet that conduct is not such as to merit
+death. He has chiefly sinned in folly and want of judgment. I reprove
+it in the sternest terms, and I deplore the consequences it had. But for
+those consequences the nuns of Tavora are almost as much to blame as he
+is himself. His invasion of their convent was a pure error, committed
+in the belief that it was a monastery and as a result of the porter's
+foolish conduct.
+
+"Now, Sir Terence's word, given in response to your absolute demands,
+has committed us to an unjust course, which I have no intention of
+following. I will stipulate, sir, that your Council, in addition to the
+matters undertaken, shall relieve us of all obligation in this matter,
+leaving it to our discretion to punish Mr. Butler in such manner as we
+may consider condign. In return, your Excellency, I will undertake that
+there shall be no further investigation into the manner in which Count
+Samoval came by his death, and consequently, no disclosures of the
+shameful trade in which he was engaged. If your Excellency will give
+yourself the trouble of taking the sense of your Council upon this, we
+may then reach a settlement."
+
+The grave anxiety of Dom Miguel's countenance was instantly dispelled.
+In his relief he permitted himself a smile.
+
+"My lord, there is not the need to take the sense of the Council.
+The Council has given me carte blanche to obtain your consent to a
+suppression of the Samoval affair. And without hesitation I accept
+the further condition that you make. Sir Terence may consider himself
+relieved of his parole in the matter of Lieutenant Butler."
+
+"Then we may look upon the matter as concluded."
+
+"As happily concluded, my lord." Dom Miguel rose to make his valedictory
+oration. "It remains for me only to thank your lordship in the name
+of the Council for the courtesy and consideration with which you have
+received my proposal and granted our petition. Acquainted as I am with
+the crystalline course of British justice, knowing as I do how it seeks
+ever to act in the full light of day, I am profoundly sensible of the
+cost to your lordship of the concession you make to the feelings of the
+Samoval family and the Portuguese Government, and I can assure you that
+they will be accordingly grateful."
+
+"That is very gracefully said, Dom Miguel," replied his lordship, rising
+also.
+
+The Secretary placed a hand upon his heart, bowing. "It is but the poor
+expression of what I think and feel." And so he took his leave of them,
+escorted by Colonel Grant, who discreetly volunteered for the office.
+
+Left alone with Wellington, Sir Terence heaved a great sigh of supreme
+relief.
+
+"In my wife's name, sir, I should like to thank you. But she shall thank
+you herself for what you have done for me."
+
+"What I have done for you, O'Moy?" Wellington's slight figure stiffened
+perceptibly, his face and glance were cold and haughty. "You mistake,
+I think, or else you did not hear. What I have done, I have done solely
+upon grounds of political expediency. I had no choice in the matter, and
+it was not to favour you, or out of disregard for my duty, as you seem
+to imagine, that I acted as I did."
+
+O'Moy bowed his head, crushed under that rebuff. He clasped and
+unclasped his hands a moment in his desperate anguish.
+
+"I understand," he muttered in a broken voice, "I--I beg your pardon,
+sir."
+
+And then Wellington's slender, firm fingers took him by the arm.
+
+"But I am glad, O'Moy, that I had no choice," he added more gently. "As
+a man, I suppose I may be glad that my duty as Commander-in-Chief placed
+me under the necessity of acting as I have done."
+
+Sir Terence clutched the hand in both his own and wrung it fiercely,
+obeying an overmastering impulse.
+
+"Thank you," he cried. "Thank you for that!"
+
+"Tush!" said Wellington, and then abruptly: "What are you going to do,
+O'Moy?" he asked.
+
+"Do?" said O'Moy, and his blue eyes looked pleadingly down into the
+sternly handsome face of his chief, "I am in your hands, sir."
+
+"Your resignation is, and there it must remain, O'Moy. You understand?"
+
+"Of course, sir. Naturally you could not after this--" He shrugged and
+broke off. "But must I go home?" he pleaded.
+
+"What else? And, by God, sir, you should be thankful, I think."
+
+"Very well," was the dull answer, and then he flared out. "Faith, it's
+your own fault for giving me a job of this kind. You knew me. You know
+that I am just a blunt, simple soldier--that my place is at the head of
+a regiment, not at the head of an administration. You should have known
+that by putting me out of my proper element I was bound to get into
+trouble sooner or later."
+
+"Perhaps I do," said Wellington. "But what am I to do with you now?" He
+shrugged, and strode towards the window. "You had better go home, O'Moy.
+Your health has suffered out here, and you are not equal to the heat of
+summer that is now increasing. That is the reason of this resignation.
+You understand?"
+
+"I shall be shamed for ever," said O'Moy. "To go home when the army is
+about to take the field!"
+
+But Wellington did not hear him, or did not seem to hear him. He had
+reached the window and his eye was caught by something that he saw in
+the courtyard.
+
+"What the devil's this now?" he rapped out. "That is one of Sir Robert
+Craufurd's aides."
+
+He turned and went quickly to the door. He opened it as rapid steps
+approached along the passage, accompanied by the jingle of spurs and
+the clatter of sabretache and trailing sabre. Colonel Grant appeared,
+followed by a young officer of Light Dragoons who was powdered from
+head to foot with dust. The youth--he was little more--lurched forward
+wearily, yet at sight of Wellington he braced himself to attention and
+saluted.
+
+"You appear to have ridden hard, sir," the Commander greeted him.
+
+"From Almeida in forty-seven hours, my lord," was the answer. "With
+these from Sir Robert." And he proffered a sealed letter.
+
+"What is your name?" Wellington inquired, as he took the package.
+
+"Hamilton, my lord," was the answer; "Hamilton of the Sixteenth,
+aide-de-camp to Sir Robert Craufurd."
+
+Wellington nodded. "That was great horsemanship, Mr. Hamilton," he
+commended him; and a faint tinge in the lad's haggard cheeks responded
+to that rare praise.
+
+"The urgency was great, my lord," replied Mr. Hamilton.
+
+"The French columns are in movement. Ney and Junot advanced to the
+investment of Ciudad Rodrigo on the first of the month."
+
+"Already!" exclaimed Wellington, and his countenance set.
+
+"The commander, General Herrasti, has sent an urgent appeal to Sir
+Robert for assistance."
+
+"And Sir Robert?" The question came on a sharp note of apprehension,
+for his lordship was fully aware that valour was the better part of Sir
+Robert Craufurd's discretion.
+
+"Sir Robert asks for orders in this dispatch, and refuses to stir from
+Almeida without instructions from your lordship."
+
+"Ah!!" It was a sigh of relief. He broke the seal and spread the
+dispatch. He read swiftly. "Very well," was all he said, when he had
+reached the end of Sir Robert's letter. "I shall reply to this in person
+and at, once. You will be in need of rest, Mr. Hamilton. You had best
+take a day to recuperate, then follow me to Almeida. Sir Terence no
+doubt will see to your immediate needs."
+
+"With pleasure, Mr. Hamilton," replied Sir Terence mechanically--for
+his own concerns weighed upon him at this moment more heavily than the
+French advance. He pulled the bell-rope, and into the fatherly hands
+of Mullins, who came in response to the summons, the young officer was
+delivered.
+
+Lord Wellington took up his hat and riding-crop from Sir Terence's desk.
+"I shall leave for the frontier at once," he announced. "Sir Robert will
+need the encouragement of my presence to keep him within the prudent
+bounds I have imposed. And I do not know how long Ciudad Rodrigo may be
+able to hold out. At any moment we may have the French upon the
+Agueda, and the invasion may begin. As for you, O'Moy, this has changed
+everything. The French and the needs of the case have decided. For the
+present no change is possible in the administration here in Lisbon. You
+hold the threads of your office and the moment is not one in which to
+appoint another adjutant to take them over. Such a thing might be fatal
+to the success of the British arms. You must withdraw this resignation."
+And he proffered the document.
+
+Sir Terence recoiled. He went deathly white.
+
+"I cannot," he stammered. "After what has happened, I--"
+
+Lord Wellington's face became set and stern. His eyes blazed upon the
+adjutant.
+
+"O'Moy," he said, and the concentrated anger of his voice was
+terrifying, "if you suggest that any considerations but those of this
+campaign have the least weight with me in what I now do, you insult
+me. I yield to no man in my sense of duty, and I allow no private
+considerations to override it. You are saved from going home in disgrace
+by the urgency of the circumstances, as I have told you. By that and by
+nothing else. Be thankful, then; and in loyally remaining at your post
+efface what is past. You know what is doing at Torres Vedras. The works
+have been under your direction from the commencement. See that they are
+vigorously pushed forward and that the lines are ready to receive the
+army in a month's time from now if necessary. I depend upon you--the
+army and England's honour depend upon you. I bow to the inevitable and
+so shall you." Then his sternness relaxed. "So much as your commanding
+officer. Now as your friend," and he held out his hand, "I congratulate
+you upon your luck. After this morning's manifestations of it, it should
+pass into a proverb. Goodbye, O'Moy. I trust you, remember."
+
+"And I shall not fail you," gulped O'Moy, who, strong man that he was,
+found himself almost on the verge of tears. He clutched the extended
+hand.
+
+"I shall fix my headquarters for the present at Celorico. Communicate
+with me there. And now one other matter: the Council of Regency will
+no doubt pester you with representations that I should--if time still
+remains--advance to the relief of Ciudad Rodrigo. Understand, that is
+no part of my plan of campaign. I do not stir across the frontier of
+Portugal. Here let the French come and find me, and I shall be ready to
+receive them. Let the Portuguese Government have no illusions on that
+point, and stimulate the Council into doing all possible to carry out
+the destruction of mills and the laying waste of the country in the
+valley of the Mondego and wherever else I have required.
+
+"Oh, and by the way, you will find your brother-in-law, Mr. Butler, in
+the guard-room yonder, awaiting my orders. Provide him with a uniform
+and bid him rejoin his regiment at once. Recommend him to be more
+prudent in future if he wishes me to forget his escapade at Tavora. And
+in future, O'Moy, trust your wife. Again, good-bye. Come, Grant!--I have
+instructions for you too. But you must take them as we ride."
+
+And thus Sir Terence O'Moy found sanctuary at the altar of his country's
+need. They left him incredulously to marvel at the luck which had so
+enlisted circumstances to save him where all had seemed so surely lost
+an hour ago.
+
+He sent a servant to fetch Mr. Butler, the prime cause of all this
+pother--for all of it can be traced to Mr. Butler's invasion of the
+Tavora nunnery--and with him went to bear the incredible tidings of
+their joint absolution to the three who waited so anxiously in the
+dining-room.
+
+
+
+
+POSTSCRIPTUM
+
+
+The particular story which I have set myself to relate, of how Sir
+Terence O'Moy was taken in the snare of his own jealousy, may very
+properly be concluded here. But the greater story in which it is
+enshrined and with which it is interwoven, the story of that other snare
+in which my Lord Viscount Wellington took the French, goes on. This
+story is the history of the war in the Peninsula. There you may pursue
+it to its very end and realise the iron will and inflexibility of
+purpose which caused men ultimately to bestow upon him who guided that
+campaign the singularly felicitous and fitting sobriquet of the Iron
+Duke.
+
+Ciudad Rodrigo's Spanish garrison capitulated on the 10th of July of
+that year 1810, and a wave of indignation such as must have overwhelmed
+any but a man of almost superhuman mettle swept up against Lord
+Wellington for having stood inactive within the frontiers of Portugal
+and never stirred a hand to aid the Spaniards. It was not only from
+Spain that bitter invective was hurled upon him; British journalism
+poured scorn and rage upon his incompetence, French journalism held his
+pusillanimity up to the ridicule of the world. His own officers took
+shame in their general, and expressed it. Parliament demanded to know
+how long British honour was to be imperilled by such a man. And finally
+the Emperor's great marshal, Massena, gathering his hosts to overwhelm
+the kingdom of Portugal, availed himself of all this to appeal to the
+Portuguese nation in terms which the facts would seem to corroborate.
+
+He issued his proclamation denouncing the British for the disturbers
+and mischief-makers of Europe, warning the Portuguese that they were
+the cat's-paw of a perfidious nation that was concerned solely with
+the serving of its own interests and the gratification of its predatory
+ambitions, and finally summoning them to receive the French as their
+true friends and saviours.
+
+The nation stirred uneasily. So far no good had come to them of their
+alliance with the British. Indeed Wellington's policy of devastation had
+seemed to those upon whom it fell more horrible than any French invasion
+could have been.
+
+But Wellington held the reins, and his grip never relaxed or slackened.
+And here let it be recorded that he was nobly and stoutly served in
+Lisbon by Sir Terence O'Moy. Pressure upon the Council resulted in the
+measures demanded being carried out. But much time had been lost through
+the intrigues of the Souza faction, with the result that those measures,
+although prosecuted now more vigorously, never reached the full extent
+which Wellington had desired. Treachery, too, stepped in to shorten the
+time still further. Almeida, garrisoned by Portuguese and commanded by
+Colonel Cox and a British staff, should have held a month. But no sooner
+had the French appeared before it, on the 26th August, than a powder
+magazine traitorously fired exploded and breached the wall, rendering
+the place untenable.
+
+To Wellington this was perhaps the most vexatious of all things in that
+vexatious time. He had hoped to detain Massena before Almeida until the
+rains should have set in, when the French would have found themselves
+struggling through a sodden, water-logged country, through bridgeless
+floods and a land bereft of all that could sustain the troops. Still,
+what could be done Wellington did, and did it nobly. Fighting a
+rearguard action, he fell back upon the grim and naked ridges of Busaco,
+where at the end of September he delivered battle and a murderous
+detaining wound upon the advancing hosts of France. That done, he
+continued the retreat through Coimbra. And now as he went he saw to it
+that the devastation was completed along the line of march. What corn
+and provisions could not be carried off were burnt or buried, and
+the people forced to quit their dwellings and march with the army--a
+pathetic, southward exodus of men and women, old and young, flocks of
+sheep, and herds of cattle, creaking bullock-carts laden with provender
+and household goods, leaving behind them a country bare as the Sahara,
+where hunger before long should grip the French army too far committed
+now to pause. In advancing and overtaking must lie Massena's hope.
+Eventually in Lisbon he must bring the British to bay, and, breaking
+them, open out at last his way into a land of plenty.
+
+Thus thought Massena, knowing nothing of the lines of Torres Vedras; and
+thus, too, thought the British Government at home, itself declaring that
+Wellington was ruining the country to no purpose, since in the end the
+British must be driven out with terrible loss and infamy that must make
+their name an opprobrium in the world.
+
+But Wellington went his relentless way, and at the end of the first
+week of October brought his army and the multitude of refugees safely
+within the amazing lines. The French, pressing hard upon their heels and
+confident that the end was near, were brought up sharply before those
+stupendous, unsuspected, impregnable fortifications.
+
+After spending best part of a month in vain reconnoitering, Massena took
+up his quarters at Santarem, and thence the country was scoured for
+what scraps of victuals had been left to relieve the dire straits of the
+famished host of France. How the great marshal contrived to hold out so
+long in Santarem against the onslaught of famine and concomitant disease
+remains something of a mystery. An appeal to the Emperor for succour
+eventually brought Drouet with provisions, but these were no more than
+would keep his men alive on a retreat into Spain, and that retreat
+he commenced early in the following March, by when no less than ten
+thousand of his army had fallen sick.
+
+Instantly Wellington was up and after him. The French retreat became a
+flight. They threw away baggage and ammunition that they might travel
+the lighter. Thus they fled towards Spain, harassed by the British
+cavalry and scarcely less by the resentful peasantry of Portugal, their
+line of march defined by an unbroken trail of carcasses, until the
+tattered remnants of that once splendid army found shelter across the
+Coira. Beyond this Wellington could not continue the pursuit for lack
+of means to cross the swollen river and also because provisions were
+running short.
+
+But there for the moment he might rest content, his immediate object
+achieved and his stern strategy supremely vindicated.
+
+On the heights above the yellow, turgid flood rode Wellington
+with a glittering staff that included O'Moy and Murray, the
+quartermaster-general. Through his telescope he surveyed with silent
+satisfaction the straggling columns of the French that were being
+absorbed by the evening mists from the sodden ground.
+
+O'Moy, at his side, looked on without satisfaction. To him the close of
+this phase of the campaign which had justified his remaining in office
+meant the reopening of that painful matter that had been left in
+suspense by circumstances since that June day of last year at Monsanto.
+The resignation then refused from motives of expediency must again be
+tendered and must now be accepted.
+
+Abruptly upon the general stillness came a sharply humming sound. Within
+a yard of the spot where Wellington sat his horse a handful of soil
+heaved itself up and fell in a tiny scattered shower. Immediately
+elsewhere in a dozen places was the phenomenon repeated. There was
+too much glitter about the staff uniforms and vindictive French
+sharpshooters were finding them an attractive mark.
+
+"They are firing on us, sir!" cried O'Moy on a note of sharp alarm.
+
+"So I perceive," Lord Wellington answered calmly, and leisurely he
+closed his glass, so leisurely that O'Moy, in impatient fear of his
+chief, spurred forward and placed himself as a screen between him and
+the line of fire.
+
+Lord Wellington looked at him with a faint smile. He was about to speak
+when O'Moy pitched forward and rolled headlong from the saddle.
+
+They picked him up unconscious but alive, and for once Lord Wellington
+was seen to blench as he flung down from his horse to inquire the nature
+of O'Moy's hurt. It was not fatal, but, as it afterwards proved, it was
+grave enough. He had been shot through the body, the right lung had been
+grazed and one of his ribs broken.
+
+Two days later, after the bullet had been extracted, Lord Wellington
+went to visit him in the house where he was quartered. Bending over him
+and speaking quietly, his lordship said that which brought a moisture to
+the eyes of Sir Terence and a smile to his pale lips. What actually were
+his lordship's words may be gathered from the answer he received.
+
+"Ye're entirely wrong, then, and it's mighty glad I am. For now I need
+no longer hand you my resignation. I can be invalided home."
+
+So he was; and thus it happens that not until now--when this chronicle
+makes the matter public--does the knowledge of Sir Terence's single but
+grievous departure from the path of honour go beyond the few who were
+immediately concerned with it. They kept faith with him because they
+loved him; and because they had understood all that went to the making
+of his sin, they condoned it.
+
+If I have done my duty as a faithful chronicler, you who read,
+understanding too, will take satisfaction in that it was so.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Snare, by Rafael Sabatini
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