“Why, in the hills, on our way back, we came plump upon a French picket, and——”
He leapt, to the sudden start and curse the other gave.
“What have I said, señor?”
“Dolt, traitor!” thundered the sub-prefect. “French! and so near! and this is the first you speak of it! I understand—they come from Perpignan—they are Reille’s advance guard, and they march to relieve Figueras. O! to hold me here with thy cursed ape’s chatter, while——”
He sprang away, shouting as he went, “To arms! to arms! Who’ll follow me to strike a blow for Spain! The French are in our vineyards!” The whole village turned and followed him as he ran.
Caron, in great depression, led Pepino into a place of shade and privacy.
“I am an ass, little one,” he said. “You shall ride me for the future. And this is home!”
She threw her arms about his neck, with a tired spring of tears.
“But I am a woman again, dear praise to Mary!” she cried, “and can love you once more in my own way.”
This befell in 1808, when the ferment which Napoleon had started in Spain was already in fine working. The French garrison in Figueras—one of those strongholds which he had occupied at first from the friendliest motives, and afterwards refused to evacuate—being small and hard beset by a numerous body of somatenes from the mountains, had burned the town, and afterwards retired into the neighbouring fort of San Fernando, where they lay awaiting succour with anxious trepidation. And they had reason for their concern, since a little might decide their fate—short shrift, and the knife or gallows, not to speak of the more probable eventuality of torture. For those were the days of savage reprisals; and of the two forces the Spaniards were the less nice in matters of humanity. They killed by the Mass, and had the Juntas and Inquisition to exonerate them.