The officer had grunted: “Well, he pays the toll to glory. Whence, then, do you come?”
“From Figueras.”
“Ha! They have news of us there?”
“On the contrary, monsieur; your coming will surprise them greatly.”
“It is well; let it be well. Go in peace.”
A little later the sentry, confiding to one who was relieving him, was overheard to say: “Ventre de biche! I would have made sure first that those two rascals went up the hill!”
He was brought before the Colonel.
“My son, what did you say?”
The sentry, scenting promotion for his perspicacity, repeated his remark, adding that, if he were right in his suspicions of the vagabonds’ descent towards San Lorenzo, there would be trouble on the morrow.
He was soundly welted with a strap for his foresight, and thereafter degraded—to his intense astonishment, for a private was not supposed to volunteer counsel. But his prediction was so far vindicated that, in the course of the following morning, a well-aimed shot, succeeded by a very fusillade, vicious but harmless, from the encompassing rocks, laid low a member of the staff, and sent the rest scattering for shelter. They were, at the time, going leisurely to enable the main body to come up with them; but this stroke of treachery acted upon men and officers like a goad. Re-forming, they deployed under cover, and charged the guerrillas’ position—only to find it abandoned. Pursuit was useless in that welter of ridges; they buckled to, and doubled down the last slopes of the mountain into San Lorenzo.