“‘The little fellow is done for.’ For the port was working strong now, and destroyed all my fine sensibility. ‘Yes, Donna,’ said I, ‘you are free,’—here I threw myself upon my knees,—‘free to make me the happiest of commissaries and the jolliest grandee of Portugal that ever—’
“‘But Don Emanuel?’
“‘Run out, dry, empty,’ inverting a finished decanter to typify my words as I spoke.
“‘He is not dead?’ said she, with a scream.
“‘Even so,’ said I, with a hiccough! ‘ordered for service in a better world, where there are neither inspections nor arrears.’
“Before the words were well out, she sprang from the bench and rushed over to the spot where the little don lay. What she said or did I know not, but the next moment he sat bolt upright on the grass, and as he held his jaw with one hand and supported himself on the other, vented such a torrent of abuse and insult at me, that, for want of Portuguese enough to reply, I rejoined in English, in which I swore pretty roundly for five minutes. Meanwhile the donna had summoned the servants, who removed Don Emanuel to the house, where on my return I found my luggage displayed before the door, with a civil hint to deploy in orderly time and take ground elsewhere.
“In a few days, however, his anger cooled down, and I received a polite note from Donna Maria, that the don at length began to understand the joke, and begged that I would return to the château, and that he would expect me at dinner the same day.”
“With which, of course, you complied?”
“Which of course I did. Forgive your enemies, my dear boy,—it is only Christian-like; and really, we lived very happily ever after. The donna was a mighty clever woman, and a dear good soul besides.”
It was late when the major concluded his story; so after wishing Ferguson a good-night, we took our leave, and retired for the night to our quarters.