With Wellington in Spain: A Story of the Peninsula

by F. S. Brereton

He went out into the passage boldly and slid along to the door of the supper room. A feeble groan came to his ears. That was the fat man—snores caused the air to vibrate. No doubt the rascals sprawling on the table and beneath it were responsible. But of talking there was none. As for the man on the floor, he was dead. Tom leaned over him and listened; there was not so much as the whisper of a breath. He ran his hands over the man's face, down his clothing, to his belt. The sheath of his drawn stiletto was there, and a pistol also. There was nothing more, nothing. Yes, there was something: Tom gripped it. It was a key thrust into the belt. He tore it out as if his life depended on his haste, and went racing down the passage. It fitted. The lock of Alfonso's room turned. The door swung open widely.

"Come swiftly," whispered Tom, darting in and proceeding at once to cut Alfonso's bonds with the blade of a knife he always carried.

"But—how have you done it? How long have you been free? Who helped you?" gasped his cousin, firing off a string of questions in a deep whisper. "Those brutes, where are they? I heard them fighting or drinking."

"Hush! We'll talk the thing over later. Come to the window and look out. Now, there is the courtyard at the bottom of which this house is situated. When you reach the street, turn sharp left and run to the camp. Bring men back with you. Bring any soldiers you can come upon. It is hardly nine yet, and there will be plenty about. Also there is a bright, harvest moon, and that makes matters easier. Surround this house. Guard every outlet, and then we shall have the lot of these fellows. Alfonso, this is the very gang we are after."

He took the still astonished Alfonso by the shoulders and pushed him out of the room and down the stairs into the yard.

"But you, you, Tom? What happens? You stay? Why?"

"Go quickly; this is a great chance. Go at once."

Tom turned abruptly and entered the house again, while his cousin, knowing him by this time, and having already learned in the course of service under his command that this young English cousin of his had a way, when thwarted, of giving the curtest orders, darted out into the yard and went racing through it. The one remaining, the young man upon whom the great Lord Wellington had already turned his attention, crept up the stairs again to the passage. He stole softly to the door of the supper room and then back to those stairs leading upward. Ascending them, he reached another landing with a couple of doors leading from it. The flickering candle he bore in his hand showed the dirt and squalor of the place, and showed, moreover, something strange about one of the doors. It was heavily barred outside, while a padlock passed though an eyelet in the bar and made all secure. There were voices coming from the inside. Did our hero recognize those voices after listening for a while? Then why such extraordinary excitement, the like of which he had not shown before, even in the midst of strenuous adventure? He went red-hot from head to foot and gazed desperately about him. What could have caused this sudden nervousness? Could it be that one of the speakers must be José, the rascally cousin who had already done him such an injury, or could it be possible——?

Frantic with eagerness he backed against the wall of the passage and then rushed at the door, putting all his strength and weight into the blow. He kicked it desperately. Careless of the commotion he raised, he kicked and kicked and kicked again, till, of a sudden, the door flew open. That moment, too, was the signal for loud shouts from the supper room. A swarm of rascals, roused from their stupor by the noise, came swarming out, and, running down the passage, found two empty prisons to greet them. The sound of breaking timber above reached their ears, and at once they turned to the stairs and raced up them.