With Moore at Corunna

by G. A. Henty

"You must be feeling terribly anxious about your cousin," the officer who had first told him about her remarked; "there is no saying what may have happened in Oporto after it was stormed."

"I should indeed be, if she were there," Terence replied; "but I am happy to say that she is at present in Coimbra, having travelled with us under the charge of some Portuguese ladies, friends of Herrara."

"You don't mean to say that you persuaded the bishop to let her out of the convent?"

"Scarcely," Terence laughed, "though the bishop did unwittingly aid me."

"I congratulate you on getting her out," the colonel said.

"Travers was telling us the day after you left what a curious coincidence it was that the nun who threw him out a letter should turn out to be a cousin of yours. Will you tell us how you managed it?"

"I don't mind telling it, sir, if all here will promise not to repeat it. The Bishop of Oporto is a somewhat formidable person, and were he to lodge a complaint against me he might get me into serious trouble, and is perfectly capable of having me stabbed some dark night in the streets of Lisbon; therefore, I think it would be as well to omit any details of the share he played in the matter. Without that the story is simple enough. Having got a boat with two men in it at the end of the street in which stood the convent, I went there in the dress of an ecclesiastic, just as the French burst into the town. The bishop had fled on the night before to the Serra Convent on the other side of the river, and I was able to produce an authority from him which satisfied the lady superior that I was the bearer of his order for her and the nuns to make for the bridge, and to cross the river at once.

"Of course, I accompanied them. The crowd was great and they naturally got separated. In the confusion my orderlies managed to get my cousin out of the crowd, and took her straight to the boat. As soon as I saw that they had gone, I persuaded the lady superior to take the rest of the nuns back to the convent at once, as the bridge was by this time broken, and the French had made their appearance. She got the nuns together and made off with them as fast as they could run, and after seeing that they were all nearly back to their convent without any signs of the French being near, I joined the others in the boat, and we rowed across the river. It was a simple business altogether, though at first it seemed very hopeless."

"Especially to get the authority of the bishop," the colonel said, with a smile.

"That certainly seemed the most hopeless part of the business," Terence replied; "but happily I was able to manage it somehow."