Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon Volume Ii Part 34

"Faith, I remember little more. After dinner I grew somewhat mellow, and a kind of moral bewilderment, which usually steals over me about eleven o'clock, induced me to invite the alcalde and all the aldermen to come and sup. Apparently, we had a merry night of it, and when morning broke, we were not quite clear in our intellects. Hence came that infernal procession; for when the alcalde rode round the town with a paper cap, and all the aldermen after him, the inhabitants felt offended, it seems, and sent for a large Guerilla force, who captured me and my staff, after a very vigorous resistance. The alcalde fought like a trump for us, for I promised to make him Prefect of the Seine; but we were overpowered, disarmed, and carried off. The remainder you can read in the court-martial, for you may think that after sacking the town, drinking all night, and fighting in the morning, my memory was none of the clearest."

"Did you not explain that you were not the marshal-general?"

"No, faith, I know better than that; they'd have murdered me had they known their mistake. They brought me to headquarters in the hope of a great reward, and it was only when they reached this that they found out I was not the Duke de Raguse; so you see, boys, it's a very complicated business."

"'Gad, and so it is," said Power, "and an awkward one, too."

"He'll be hanged, as sure as my name's Dennis!" vociferated O'Shaughnessy, with an energy that made the major jump from his chair. "Picton will hang him!"

"I'm not afraid," said Monsoon; "they know me so well. Lord bless you, Beresford couldn't get on without me!"

"Well, Major," said I, "in any case, you certainly take no gloomy nor desponding view of your case."

"Not I, boy. You know what Jeremiah says: 'a merry heart is a continual feast;' and so it is. I may die of repletion, but they'll never find me starved with sorrow."

"And, faith, it's a strange thing!" muttered O'Shaughnessy, thinking aloud; "a most extraordinary thing! An honest fellow would be sure to be hanged; and there's that old rogue, that's been melting down more saints and blessed Virgins than the whole army together, he'll escape. Ye'll see he will!"

"There goes the patrol," said Fred; "we must start."

"Leave the sherry, boys; you'll be back again. I'll have it put up carefully."

We could scarcely resist a roar of laughter as we said, "Good-night."

"Adieu, Major," said I; "we shall meet soon."

So saying, I followed Power and O'Shaughnessy towards their quarters.

"Maurice has done it beautifully!" said Power. "Pleasant revelations the old fellow will make on the court-martial, if he only remembers what we've heard to-night! But here we are, Charley; so good-night, and remember, you breakfast with me to-morrow."

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE CONFIDENCE.

"I have changed the venue, Charley," said Power, as he came into my room the following morning,--"I've changed the venue, and come to breakfast with you."

I could not help smiling as a certain suspicion crossed my mind; perceiving which, he quickly added,--

"No, no, boy! I guess what you're thinking of. I'm not a bit jealous in that quarter. The fact is, you know, one cannot be too guarded."

"Nor too suspicious of one's friends, apparently."

"A truce with quizzing. I say, have you reported yourself?"

"Yes; and received this moment a most kind note from the general. But it appears I'm not destined to have a long sojourn among you, for I'm desired to hold myself in readiness for a journey this very day."

"Where the deuce are they going to send you now?"

"I'm not certain of my destination. I rather suspect there are despatches for Badajos. Just tell Mike to get breakfast, and I'll join you immediately."

When I walked into the little room which served as my _salon_, I found Power pacing up and down, apparently wrapped in meditation.

"I've been thinking, Charley," said he, after a pause of about ten minutes,--"I've been thinking over our adventures in Lisbon. Devilish strange girl that senhora! When you resigned in my favor, I took it for granted that all difficulty was removed. Confound it! I no sooner began to profit by your absence, in pressing my suit, than she turned short round, treated me with marked coldness, exhibited a hundred wilful and capricious fancies, and concluded one day by quietly confessing to me you were the only man she cared for."

"You are not serious in all this, Fred?" said I.

"Ain't I though, by Jove! I wish to Heaven I were not! My dear Charley, the girl is an inveterate flirt,--a decided coquette. Whether she has a particle of heart or not, I can't say; but certainly her greatest pleasure is to trifle with that of another. Some absurd suspicion that you were in love with Lucy Dashwood piqued her vanity, and the anxiety to recover a lapsing allegiance led her to suppose herself attached to you, and made her treat all my advances with the most frigid indifference or wayward caprice; the more provoking," continued he, with a kind of bitterness in his tone, "as her father was disposed to take the thing favorably; and, if I must say it, I felt devilish spooney about her myself.

"It was only two days before I left, that in a conversation with Don Emanuel, he consented to receive my addresses to his daughter on my becoming lieutenant-colonel. I hastened back with delight to bring her the intelligence, and found her with a lock of hair on the book before her, over which she was weeping. Confound me, if it was not yours! I don't know what I said, nor what she replied; but when we parted, it was with a perfect understanding we were never to meet again. Strange girl! She came that evening, put her arm within mine as I was walking alone in the garden, and half in jest, half in earnest, talked me out of all my suspicions, and left me fifty times more in love with her than ever. Egad! I thought I used to know something about women, but here is a chapter I've yet to read.

Come, now, Charley, be frank with me; tell me all you know."

"My poor Fred, if you were not head and ears in love, you would see as plainly as I do that your affairs prosper. And after all, how invariable is it that the man who has been the veriest flirt with women,--sighing, serenading, sonneteering, flinging himself at the feet of every pretty girl he meets with,--should become the most thorough dupe to his own feelings when his heart is really touched. Your man of eight-and-thirty is always the greatest fool about women."

"Confound your impertinence! How the devil can a fellow with a mustache not stronger that a Circa.s.sian's eyebrow read such a lecture to _me?_"

"Just for the very reason you've mentioned. You _glide_ into an attachment at _my_ time of life; you _fall_ in love at _yours_."

"Yes," said Power, musingly, "there is some truth in that. This flirting is sad work. It is just like sparring with a friend; you put on the gloves in perfect good humor, with the most friendly intentions of exchanging a few amicable blows; you find yourself insensibly warm with the enthusiasm of the conflict, and some unlucky hard knock decides the matter, and it ends in a downright fight.

"Few men, believe me, are regular seducers; and among those who behave 'vilely' (as they call it), three-fourths of the number have been more sinned against than sinning. You adventure upon love as upon a voyage to India. Leaving the cold northern lat.i.tudes of first acquaintance behind you, you gradually glide into the warmer and more genial climate of intimacy. Each day you travel southward shortens the miles and the hours of your existence; so tranquil is the pa.s.sage, and so easy the transition, you suffer no shock by the change of temperature about you. Happy were it for us that in our courtship, as in our voyage, there were some certain Rubicon to remind us of the miles we have journeyed! Well were it if there were some meridian in love!"

"I'm not sure, Fred, that there is not that same shaving process they practise on the line, occasionally performed for us by parents and guardians at home; and I'm not certain that the iron hoop of old Neptune is not a pleasanter acquaintance than the hair-trigger of some indignant and fire-eating brother. But come, Fred, you have not told me the most important point,--how fare your fortunes now; or in other words, what are your present prospects as regards the senhora?"

"What a question to ask me! Why not request me to tell you where Soult will fight us next, and when Marmont will cross the frontier? My dear boy, I have not seen her for a week, an entire week,--seven full days and nights, each with their twenty-four hours of change and vacillation."

"Well, then, give me the last bulletin from the seat of war; that at least you can do. Tell me how you parted."

"Strangely enough. You must know we had a grand dinner at the villa the day before I left; and when we adjourned for our coffee to the garden, my spirits were at the top of their bent. Inez never looked so beautiful, never was one half so gracious; and as she leaned upon my arm, instead of following the others towards the little summer-house, I turned, as if inadvertently, into a narrow, dark alley that skirts the lake."

"I know it well; continue."

Power reddened slightly, and went on:--

"'Why are we taking this path?' said Donna Inez; 'this is, surely, not a short way?'

"'Oh, I wished to make my adieux to my old friends the swans. You know I go to-morrow.'

"'Ah, that's true,' added she. 'I'd quite forgotten it.'

"This speech was not very encouraging; but as I felt myself in for the battle, I was not going to retreat at the skirmish. 'Now or never,' thought I. I'll not tell you what I said. I couldn't, if I would. It is only with a pretty woman upon one's arm; it is only when stealing a glance at her bright eyes, as you bend beyond the border of her bonnet,--that you know what it is to be eloquent. Watching the changeful color of her cheek with a more anxious heart than ever did mariner gaze upon the fitful sky above him, you pour out your whole soul in love; you leave no time for doubt, you leave no s.p.a.ce for reply. The difficulties that shoot across her mind you reply to ere she is well conscious of them; and when you feel her hand tremble, or see her eyelids fall, like the leader of a storming party when the guns slacken in their fire, you spring boldly forward in the breach, and blind to every danger around you, rush madly on, and plant your standard upon the walls."

"I hope you allow the vanquished the honors of war," said I, interrupting.

Without noticing my observation, he continued:--

"I was on my knee before her, her hand pa.s.sively resting in mine, her eyes bent _upon_ me softly and tearfully--"