Jack himself was more fortunate. Along with Don Cristobal and other officers he fell at first into the more kindly hands of the captain who had brought him the flag of truce. He remained in the French camp for two days after the capitulation, and was able to assure himself that Juanita had got safely away. Meanwhile the main body of the garrison had already been put in motion for France. On the 23rd Jack's own turn came. He took a friendly farewell of the French captain who had been responsible for him, and who was in entire ignorance that he had an Englishman, not a Spaniard, to deal with. His last sight of Saragossa was made terrible by a scene he witnessed as he set out among a large company of officers and men, defenceless prisoners. They passed a spot where two Spaniards in priests' robes stood upright against a wall, opposite a firing-party of French. As the volley rang out, Jack recognized the victims of this act of cold-blooded murder; they were Don Basilio Bogiero and Santiago Sass.
Monsieur le Colonel Hilaire Maxime Lucien de Ferussat, of the 121st regiment of the line, felt pardonably annoyed when he found that his corps, or what remained of it, had been selected, with another of Morlot's regiments, to escort the Spanish prisoners to Bayonne. The duty involved hard marching, and brought no glory, and Glory, as he was never tired of declaiming at his mess-table, was the sole object for which every true Frenchman should live and die. He had not distinguished himself very greatly in the operations of the siege; indeed it was whispered among his fellow-officers, who did not love him, that his selection for the escort duty was by no means a mark of Marshal Lannes' favour. He himself, however, seemed quite unconscious of everything except that he had a grievance in being thus shunted for some weeks off the highroad to fame, and, as was only to be expected, the wretched prisoners in his charge bore the brunt of his displeasure. They were physically incapable of prolonged marches, but that was nothing to monsieur le colonel. He was determined to reach Bayonne as soon as possible. He played the drover with the unfortunate Spaniards, and many of them succumbed to fatigue and illness on the road. The men of his escort, adopting his attitude, and themselves resenting the rapidity of the march after all their hardships, were in no mood to spare the wretches committed to their charge, and many a prod with the butt-end of a musket, or the more lethal bayonet, quickened the steps of laggards until they could endure no longer, but dropped and died.
Mounted on a fine Andalusian charger, Colonel de Ferussat rode up and down the line, roundly abusing the non-commissioned officers of his party whenever he saw any tendency to straggling among the prisoners.
"Peste!" he said to one sergeant, in charge of a herd of some 200 miserable skeletons; "if you value your chevrons you will step out more briskly. No more of this lagging, or, saprelotte! I'll reduce you." A moment or two later he turned to the captain of a company: "How long, monsieur le capitaine," he cried, "how long do you propose to spend in herding these pigs of Spaniards? Your men are dawdling as if they were sweethearting in the Bois."
Such remarks caused a quickening all along the column until the lost ground was made up. With such a commander it was not surprising that the men took short measures to save themselves trouble. Many a prisoner who found the pace too fast, and sank down with a groan, was spared further suffering. One bullet was usually enough.
Late in the afternoon of the second day after leaving Saragossa, Colonel de Ferussat's column wound its way into Tudela, a place held in bitter memory by those of the prisoners who had formed part of Castaños' army on the fatal 23rd of November. The scared inhabitants sullenly submitted to having the prisoners, with their guards, quartered upon them. Every building of any pretensions was occupied; but the smaller houses were left, for monsieur le colonel had a wholesome dread of scattering his men too widely.
Colonel de Ferussat took up his quarters in the Plaza de Toros. His chagrin was somewhat mollified when he found that under the same roof was lodged no less a personage than General Chabot, who was on his way southward to rejoin his division, operating under General Gouvion de Saint-Cyr in Catalonia. The colonel thought a good deal of generals, for did he not expect to be a general himself some day? When, therefore, on entering the house, he found General Chabot himself lolling at ease, his coat thrown open and his jack-boots unlaced, he saluted with an air of unction, and prepared to make himself amiable.
"Bonsoir, monsieur le général!" he said, sweeping his plumed hat at a radius of a yard.
"Bonsoir, colonel!" responded the general. "En route for France, I presume?"
"Yes, monsieur le general, and with the most paltry set of prisoners a French officer ever had. As scarecrows they'd disgrace any farmer's field in La Beauce."