“What was I talking about? You said they’d slipped some ’bacco into the bag.”
“Nonsense!” cried Pen.
“I swear you did. You said quid something.”
“I said a few Latin words that sounded like it.”
“Well, look ye here, comrade; don’t do it again. Latin was all very well for that old padre—good old chap! Bless his bald head! Regular trump he was! And parlyvooing was all very well for Mr Contrabando; but plain English for Bob Punchard, sivvy play, as we say in French.”
Chapter Forty Two.
Friend and Enemy.
The two lads started off light-hearted and hopeful, for if they could trust the goat-herds, whose information seemed to be perfectly correct, a day’s journey downward to the river in the valley, though seeming far distant, must bring them pretty near the goal they sought—in other words, the headquarters of the army that had crossed over from Portugal into Spain to drive back the French usurper, the task having been given to England’s most trusted General, Wellesley, who was in time to come always to be better known as Wellington.