"I introduced our brave defender to you last night," the count said, "but in the half-darkened room, and in the confusion and alarm that prevailed, you could have had but so slight a view of him that I doubt whether you would know him again."
"I should not, indeed," the countess said. "We have been speaking of him ever since, but could not agree as to his appearance.
"Oh, senor, no word can tell you how grateful we feel to you for your defence of us, last night. What horrors we should have suffered, had it not been for your interposition!"
"I am delighted to have been of service to you, senora. It was my duty, and it was a very pleasurable one, I can assure you; and I pray you to say no more about it."
"How is it that you speak Spanish so well, senor?" the countess asked, after her daughters had shyly expressed their gratitude to Terence.
"I owe it chiefly to a muleteer of Salamanca. I was a prisoner there last year, and he accompanied me for a month, after I had made my escape from the prison. Also, I owe much to the guerilla chief Moras, with whom I acted for six weeks, last autumn. I had learned a little of your language before and, speaking Portuguese fluently, I naturally picked it up without any great difficulty."
"Your name is not unknown to us, colonel," the count said. "Living so close to the frontier as we do, we naturally know much of what passes in Portugal; and heard you spoken of as a famous leader of a strong Portuguese regiment, that seems to have been in the thick of all the fighting. But we heard that you had been taken prisoner by the French, at the battle of Fuentes d'Onoro."
"Yes, I had the misfortune to be captured by them, and was sent to Salamanca; but I escaped by the aid of a girl who sold fruit in the prison. A muleteer took me with him on a journey to Cadiz, and thence I came round to Lisbon by ship."
"You seem very young to have seen so much service, if you will excuse my saying so, colonel."
Terence smiled.