Part 26 (1/2)
”I will consult the others,” the man said. ”Many of us, I know, will be glad to fight under an English officer, and agree to obey him implicitly.”
”Very well, I will give you a quarter of an hour to decide.”
Before that time had elapsed a dozen men came to the door with the princ.i.p.al spokesman.
”We have made up our minds, senor. We will follow you, and we will arm ourselves at Castro. It is a sin that the arms should be lying there idle with so many hands ready to use them.”
”That is good,” Terence said. ”Now, my first order is that you wait until I have been gone an hour; then, that you form up in military order, four abreast; the men with guns in front, the others after them. You must go as soldiers, and not as a mob. You must march into Castro peacefully and quietly, not a man must straggle from the ranks. You must go to the authorities and demand the arms and ammunition; if they refuse to give them to you, march--always in regular order--to the magazine and burst it open; then distribute the muskets and a hundred rounds of ammunition to each man having one, take the rest of the stores in carts, and then march away along the road north until you come to the place where we are halted.
”Observe the most perfect order in Castro. If any man plunders or meddles in any way with the inhabitants and is reported to me, I shall know how to punish him. From the moment that you leave this place remember that you are soldiers of Portugal, and you must behave so as to be an honour to it as well as a defence. Now let us all shout 'Viva Portugal!'”
A great shout followed the words, and then Terence went indoors, and five minutes later started with his convoy, telling the three prisoners they could go where they liked.
CHAPTER XIV
AN INDEPENDENT COMMAND
As they left the village the Portuguese lieutenant burst into a sudden fit of laughter.
”What is it, Lieutenant?” Terence asked.
”I am laughing at the way in which you--who, as you tell me, have only been six months in the army--without hesitation organize what is really a rising against the authorities, you having already taken representatives of the Junta prisoners--”
”Yes; but you must remember that they took upon themselves to endeavour to forcibly possess themselves of the treasure in my charge.”
”That is true enough; still, you did capture them. You treated them with considerable personal indignity, imprisoned them, and threatened their lives. Then you incite, say 2,500 ordenancas to break open magazines.”
”No, no, Lieutenant, I did not incite them. You will remember they expressed a desire to march under my command to fight against the French. I simply pointed out to them that they had no arms, and asked if they could get any; and hearing that there were plenty lying useless a few miles away, suggested that those arms would do more good in their hands than stowed away in magazines. Upon their agreeing with me on this head, I advised them to proceed in a quiet and orderly way, and to have no rioting or disturbance of any sort. I said that if they, after arming themselves, came to me and still wished to follow me, I would undertake to command them. You see, everything depends upon the manner in which the thing is put.”
”But you must remember, senor, that the Junta will naturally view the matter in the light in which their representatives will place it before them.”
”I think it unlikely,” Terence replied, ”that they will have any opportunity of doing so. I took care that they were removed from the window before I met the deputies of the men. They will consequently be unaware of the arrangements made, and will, perhaps, go out as soon as we have left and try to persuade the men to follow and attack us. As it was possible that they might take this course, I took the precaution of sending out one of the muleteers, with instructions to mention casually to the men that I was leaving the three fellows behind me, and that it might be as well for them to confine them under a guard so as to prevent their going to Oporto at present and making mischief.”
”I agree with you, senor, that they are certainly not likely to make any report as to the proceedings here.”
”I fancy not; in fact I should not be at all surprised if at the present moment they are hanging from the windows of the house of the man they caused to be murdered. They will most richly deserve their fate, and it may save us some trouble. No doubt the Junta will hear some day that the ordenancas here rose, killed the three members of their committee, obtained arms at Castro, and marched into the mountains. The Junta will care nothing whatever for the killing of its three agents; plenty of men of the same kind can be found to do their work. That the mutineers afterwards fell in with a British officer, and placed themselves under his command, will not concern the Junta one way or the other, and they will certainly be a great deal more useful in that way than they would be in remaining unarmed here. They may even, when the French once get in motion, come to regard the affair altogether as satisfactory. If all the new levies were to act in exactly the same way, Portugal would be very materially benefited.”
”But how are you going to feed them?”
”That is rather a serious question. I suppose they will have to be fed in the same way as other irregular bands. However, I shall consider myself fully justified in devoting a fifth of the money I am carrying to that purpose. I obtained from Villiers 5,000 to enable Romana to support the levies he is raising. Those levies will be for the most part unarmed, and therefore practically useless; and as these Portuguese will be at any rate fairly armed, and are likely to be of very much greater service than a horde of Galician peasants, a portion at least of the money can be very much more usefully employed in feeding them than were it all given to Romana, I have no doubt whatever that when I explain the circ.u.mstances to General Cradock, he will entirely approve of my appropriating a small portion of the money that Villiers has chosen to throw away on Romana. When you return I shall get you to carry a report from me to the general, stating what I have done. I have no doubt he will warmly approve of it.”
On approaching Castro they made a detour to avoid the town.
”There may be more representatives of the Junta there,” Terence said, ”and we may have even more trouble with them than we had with the last. I don't want any more bother, especially as I have much greater interest in the money now than I had before. I have not a shadow of belief in those bands of Portuguese peasants, but I do think that, with the aid of my two troopers, I shall be able to lick these fellows into some sort of shape, and to annoy Soult, if I cannot stop him. I hope they will find a good supply of powder, besides the muskets and ammunition at Castro; we shall want it for blowing up bridges and work of that sort.”
”I wish I could go with you,” Herrara said.
”I really don't see why you should not. I would take the blame on my own shoulders. One of your troopers could carry my report to the general, and I will say that under the circ.u.mstances I have taken upon myself to retain you with me in order to a.s.sist me in drilling and organizing this band, conceiving that your services with me would be very much more useful than with your regiment. You see, you were placed under my orders, so that no blame can fall upon you for obeying them, and at any rate you certainly will be doing vastly better service to the country than if you were stationed at Lisbon, with no prospect of an advance for a long time to come. Still, of course, I will not retain you against your will.”