"Yes; O'Connor promised that he would ask for me, as soon as I could speak the language, so I stuck at it hard; and now, you see, I have got my reward."
"I can tell you that the troops, here, are a good deal better off than they are elsewhere. There is a fearful want of land carriage, but we get our supplies up by boats. That is why the Portuguese regiments are encamped on the river.
"Well, how did you get away from the French? It is curious that when I saw O'Grady last--which was a fortnight ago, when he came in to get a conveyance to take over sundry cases of whisky that had come up the river, for the use of his mess--he said:
"'I expect that O'Connor and Dick Ryan will turn up here, before the spring. I am sure they will, if they have got together.'"
"It is too long a story to tell, here," Ryan said. "It is full of hairbreadth escapes, dangers by sea and land, and ends up with a naval battle."
The officers laughed.
"Well, will you come to our quarters?" one of them said. "We have got some decent wine, and some really good cigars which came up from Lisbon last week, and there are lots of our fellows who will be glad to see you."
They accordingly adjourned to a large building where the officers of the regiment were quartered and, in the apartment that had been turned into a mess room, they found a dozen officers, all of whom were known both to Terence and Ryan. After many questions were asked and answered on both sides, Ryan was requested to tell the story of their adventures after being taken prisoners. He told it in an exaggerated style that elicited roars of laughter, making the most of what he called The Battle of the Shirt Sleeves with the guerillas; exaggerating the dangers of his escape, and the horrors of their imprisonment, for a week, among the sails and nets.
"O'Connor," he said, "has hardly got back his sense of smell yet. The stink of tar, mixed with fishy odours, will be vivid in my remembrance for the rest of my life."
When he had at last finished, one of them said: