"I'll go, sir," said Jack simply. "May I mention two things? I left my horse at the posting inn at Valdestillos, and promised to send for it and buy the Frenchman's gray. Will you look at it, sir, and offer a price? And there was a little gipsy boy with a few Spaniards in the watch-house here. The boy has been rather useful to me; will you order him and the rest to be released and looked after a bit?"
"Done to both. I'll buy the horse myself if he's fit; and as for the boy and those Spanish louts, they were released long ago, and the gipsy has kept the men in fits with his monkey antics. Now wait just a moment while I scribble a note to Sir John, and then be off, and think yourself a lucky young dog."
When Jack, fortified with Captain Seymour's flask, went to the door to mount his horse, he became for the first time thoroughly aware how tired he was. He had been in the saddle almost without intermission for more than twelve hours, and as he lifted his foot to the stirrup, he felt as though his thigh was weighted with lead, and on the point of snapping. But he would never have confessed his fatigue, much less have abnegated his right to carry the important despatch to the commander-in-chief; so, aching but cheerful, he cantered off into the night.
He had a ride of eighteen or twenty miles before him, and it was now past midnight. "Thank heaven!" he said to himself, "in three hours or so I shall be between the sheets." Soon after he started, snow began to fall in scattered flakes, giving cold and gentle dabs to his face. The horse answered to his spur, and trotted rapidly along the solitary road, which grew whiter and whiter as he proceeded, past the cabin where the French outpost had been surprised, past the cross-road where the little tussle of the afternoon had taken place, over the bridge, up the hill, and thus on and on until he was within a couple of miles of the town of Alaejos.
At this point he overtook suddenly another horseman, whom the snow, driving now thick and fast, had hidden from his sight, while the carpeted road had deadened the sound of his own horse's hoofs. Guessing at once that this must be the courier bearing General's Stewart's earlier despatch, the recollection that he had been reported missing made him chuckle. Throwing a word of salutation to the rider as he passed him, he urged his horse to a gallop, soon came to the advanced pickets of the British force, and in a few minutes arrived at the door of the house in which Sir John Moore had fixed his quarters. The general had not long arrived, and was still up, engaged in arranging with a few of his staff the details of the next day's march. Jack was ushered to his room at once. Staggering in, white from head to heel, he drew Stewart's letter and the intercepted despatch from his breast pocket, and, holding them out towards the general, he said:
"A despatch, sir, from General Stewart."
"Ah, indeed!" said Sir John, rising in his chair. "I hardly expected—why, Colborne, the boy's done up! See to him."
Jack's face had turned the colour of his snow-laden cloak, and he would have fallen had not Major Colborne, Moore's secretary, hastily caught him and placed him on a seat, asking one of the aides-de-camp present to give him some cordial. Meanwhile Sir John had hurriedly run his eye over Stewart's covering note, and was now eagerly perusing Berthier's despatch.
"Gad, we have him at last!" he exclaimed, as he came to the end. The assembled officers looked expectant of an explanation, but at this moment the courier whom Jack had passed on the road entered, bearing the despatch announcing the capture of the French garrison at Rueda.
"Another despatch!" exclaimed the general; "Stewart appears to have been busy."