"In the assault and defence, the doors and windows of this beautiful villa had all been blown to pieces; the walls were studded with bullets and spattered with blood, which appeared to have run like a rivulet down the staircase, to mingle with the waters of a shattered jet d'eau in the vestibule. At the head of the stair a barricade had been formed by a sideboard, a piano, and other furniture, wedged with bolsters and pillows, and books; and this point of assault had been fought for, like any breach in the glacis of Badajoz. Everywhere the bills and axes of the pioneers had been at work; but Chataigneur had been repulsed, and Don Julian remained impregnable and triumphant.
"In a noble apartment, the windows of which overlooked the Tagus and the vast plain that spread in its beauty towards the castle and city of Torres Novas, the ramparts of which were tipped with the last gleam of the set sun, Don Julian, with several of his desperadoes, sat over their cups of country wine, muffled in their mantles, and enjoying paper cigars, while their feet rested on a great copper brassero of charcoal that stood in the centre of the marble floor.
"Don Julian, a remarkably handsome young man, but with a bold, reckless, and ferocious cast of features, received me with a low bow, which I could perceive to be partly ironical. His jacket of green velvet was richly brocaded and fastened with silver clasps; his breast was displayed by an open shirt, and had a crucifix engraven on it by gunpowder. He wore yellow breeches girt by a sash, red stockings and abarcas; but had no weapons save his sabre.
"When he addressed me, I expected to hear but my death warrant; judge how agreeably I was surprised by his saying,—
"'Señor, though you are a Frenchman, and I might this moment put you to death as an invader of Spain, and as a revenge in some sort for the recent attempt made by your ruthless marshal on my residence here, I know you to be the officer who spared the mansion of old Don Juan Lerma, when empowered by your orders to destroy it. Don Juan is the only man for whom a lingering feeling of humanity has left in my breast an atom of regard, for he loved the old cavalier, my father, well. Being anxious to requite to you the kindness so lately done to him, and to prove whether his gratitude surpasses that of a robber, I request that you will write to him from this, my Villa of Aviero, and beg the ransom of one hundred dollars to free you from my troop, as I question very much if the state of Massena's commissariat will enable you to have so much loose cash about you.'
"'You are right, señor; a hundred dollars! Diable! I never had so much money at any time. But what if the cavalier Lerma refuses?'
"'You must die.'
"'Morbleu!' said I, shrugging my shoulders.
"'Such is the law of capture to which we have bound ourselves, by such oaths as men seldom hear. You will be accommodated with writing materials; address a letter to the Cavalier Don Juan Lerma, and one of my people will convey it immediately to the city of Santarem.'
"Upon this, I wrote a hurried but anxious note to the old hidalgo, begging him to consider the kindness I had done him, the danger by which I was menaced, and pledging my honour to repay the hundred duros out of my first prize money. This system of kidnapping and extortion had become so common that, being doubtful of the answer, I saw the messenger depart with an anxiety which I laboured in vain to conceal by folding my arms and planting my feet on the brassero, by smoking a cigar, sipping the Lisbon vino, and joining in the half frivolous and wholly ruffian chit-chat of Don Julian and his squalid myrmidons.