"Talk of the—" cried Smith suddenly. "Look at that!"
The subalterns, looking in the direction pointed out by Smith's stretched forefinger, saw, at the other end of the street, a strange cavalcade approaching. Between two stalwart troopers of the 18th Light Dragoons rode a picturesque little figure on a gaily-caparisoned mule, the rider cocking his head aloft with a consequential air that was irresistibly comic. Behind tramped a crowd of foot-soldiers, and the rear was brought up by a troop of dragoons.
"By George!" cried Pomeroy, "it's Pepito himself, riding in like a conqueror.
"And the French prisoners of Rueda behind him," added Jack. "I'm glad to see the boy. Giles, go and see where they halt, and bring the little beggar to me."
In a few minutes Giles returned, bringing not only Pepito but a group of four rather dilapidated-looking Spaniards.
"My friends of the Olmedo inn," thought Jack, recognizing them with a chuckle. "Well, Pepito, so you've turned up again, eh?"
"Sí, Señor," answered the gipsy with his captivating smile. "And with me the four noble Spaniards, Señor."
"So I see. You seem in high feather. You'd better tell me what has happened since I saw you last on the way to Medina."
Pepito stood in the centre of the group of officers, while the four stablemen hung on the outskirts, Giles keeping a watchful eye on them. The boy, speaking in rapid Spanish, with an occasional Romany word when he found his emotions too much for him, told how, after being provided with clothes by Giles Ogbourne, he had started to track the Señor, in spite of orders to the contrary. Being hungry, and having no money, he had, on arriving at the farmhouse where Jack had met him, offered to clip the farmer's mules, such clipping being the traditional occupation of the gipsies in Spain. There he had seen Jack's plight, caught sight of the pursuers, and instantly determined the course of action he adopted. When overtaken by the panting stablemen, he had sent them off on the wrong track; but they carried him along with them and threatened him with a lingering death if he proved to have played them false. He was cudgelling his wits for a plan of escape when, as luck would have it, they fell suddenly in with a troop of French chasseurs, who captured the whole party, chose to assume that they were spies, and bundled them into the watch-house at Rueda to await punishment.
"Ay, ay, that cell!" said Pepito. "It was dark and damp and foul, and Señor knows how the Romany love the fresh air and the open sky. But still, there were the Busne, the four noble Busne, Señor, and when I felt sad I would laugh at them, and tell them what fools they were, who the Señor really was, and how it was all their own fault if they were shot. Oh, it was good, Señor!" The gipsy's black eyes twinkled at the recollection.