They held their tongues. But the Viscount did not hold his. "Captain," he piped out, "this is mutiny, rank mutiny. Nigger, Liberal Nigger, indeed! Surely you will do your duty. This man is a Miguelista. He is a spy and a traitor. He must be shot."
"Let your Excellency mind his business with the Abbot and I'll mind mine with my men," retorted the officer thoroughly roused and, ignoring the Viscount's sputterings, he strode up to the soldier who had cried "Liberal nigger" and demanded:
"José, you were wounded in Oporto?"
"Three times," said José sullenly. There was a saber wound in his cheek and two fingers were gone from his left hand. As he spoke he laid his thumb and two fingers upon some third wound hidden by his thread-bare coat.
"And cholera? You had cholera?"
"Yes, Senhor Captain. They gave me up for dead. A monk saved my life. And by all the saints of God," he cried, raising his voice to a shout, "I'll be shot before I do such dirty work as this."
The Viscount threw out two stumpy arms wide. But the captain was too cunning for him.
"And sunstroke?" he put in quickly. "I remember. Sunstroke. What do you mean enlisting again when you know you ought to be in a mad-house? Where do you live?"
"At Pedrinha das Areias."
"Near Oliveira?"