[CHAPTER XIII]
Ciudad Rodrigo
"Halt! Stand fast and give the countersign!"
A huge French grenadier barred the road where it passed in beneath the frowning doorway of the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo, and with his long bayonet dropped to the level of the chest of the intruder called upon him brusquely and in no uncertain tones to halt.
"The countersign," he demanded once more, peremptorily, the point of his weapon actually entangled in the stranger's clothing, while the look on the soldier's face seemed to say that he would willingly make a little error and transfix him. As for the latter, he was a well-grown, active, young fellow, with tousled hair dangling over his eyes, a general appearance of untidiness, and a something about him which denoted neither the genuine Spaniard nor the genuine Portuguese.
"Son of a dog no doubt," growled the sentry. "Neither fish nor flesh, nor yet good herring. A peste on these loafers about this place. Poof! If I were here I should be fighting, instead of swilling wine and idling as do these men. Well?" he called loudly. "The word?"
Tom looked up at the man from beneath the drawn-down brim of the tattered hat he had borrowed from the news bearer his men had captured. "Orleans," he murmured, putting into the word the queer accent to be expected of a stranger.
"Ha! Then enter; but whither? The dog may be a spy of the British," the man growled, and at the recollection, and the sudden suspicion, once more elevated the point of his weapon, and cleverly contrived to catch it in the lapel of Tom's coat.