I overtook my companions as they were entering the woods. Clayley, who had been looking back from time to time, brushed alongside, as if wishing to enter into conversation.

“Hard work, Captain, to leave such quarters. By Jove! I could have stayed for ever.”

“Come, Clayley—you are in love.”

“Yes; they who live in glass houses—. Oh! if I could only speak the lingo as you do!”

I could not help smiling, for I had overheard him through the trees making the most he could of his partner’s broken English. I was curious to know how he had sped, and whether he had been as ‘quick upon the trigger’ as myself. My curiosity was soon relieved.

“I tell you, Captain,” he continued, “if I could only have talked it, I would have put the question on the spot. I did try to get a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ out of her; but she either couldn’t or wouldn’t understand me. It was all bad luck.”

“Could you not make her understand you? Surely she knows English enough for that?”

“I thought so too; but when I spoke about love she only laughed and slapped me on the face with her fan. Oh, no; the thing must be done in Spanish, that’s plain; and you see I am going to set about it in earnest. She loaned me these.”

Saying this, he pulled out of the crown of his foraging-cap a couple of small volumes, which I recognised as a Spanish grammar and dictionary. I could not resist laughing aloud.

“Comrade, you will find the best dictionary to be the lady herself.”

“That’s true; but how the deuce are we to get back again? A mule-hunt don’t happen every day.”

“I fancy there will be some difficulty in it.”

I had already thought of this. It was no easy matter to steal away from camp—one’s brother-officers are so solicitous about your appearance at drills and parades. Don Cosmé’s rancho was at least ten miles from the lines, and the road would not be the safest for the solitary lover. The prospect of frequent returns was not at all flattering.

“Can’t we steal out at night?” suggested Clayley. “I think we might mount half a dozen of our fellows, and do it snugly. What do you say, Captain?”

“Clayley, I cannot return without this brother. I have almost given my word to that effect.”

“You have? That is bad! I fear there is no prospect of getting him out as you propose.”

My companion’s prophetic foreboding proved but too correct, for on nearing the camp we were met by an aide-de-camp of the commander-in-chief, who informed me that, on that very morning, all communication between the foreign ships of war and the besieged city had been prohibited.

Don Cosmé’s journey, then, would be in vain. I explained this, advising him to return to his family.

“Do not make it known—say that some time is required, and you have left the matter in my hands. Be assured I shall be among the first to enter the city, and I shall find the boy, and bring him to his mother in safety.”

This was the only consolation I could offer.

“You are kind, Capitan—very kind; but I know that nothing can now be done. We can only hope and pray.”

The old man had dropped into a bent attitude, his countenance marked by the deepest melancholy.

Taking the Frenchman, Raoul, along wit............