"'I am here, sir,' said I, haughtily lowering the point of my sword.
"'Here—you!' he exclaimed with a glance of astonishment and perplexity, as he fumbled with his confounded detail card; 'what the deuce—I thought—that will do, however; guard, turn in, sir; coachman, drive on!'
"And the carriage, with the general and all his daughters, with their fringed parasols, rolled away. Old Towler never discovered how I circumvented him, though he assured his son, the aide-de-camp, that he could have made his affidavit on seeing me at the races, and in ten minutes after found me at the head of my guard more than two miles distant."
Next day Slingsby and I left the garrison on our mission to Seville. He accompanied me with some reluctance, for he disliked the Spaniards, having been frequently among them, and being one who possessed a strange facility for getting into all kinds of scrapes and broils. Before starting we received from the military secretary all the papers connected with the affair of the guarda costa; and, what was of more importance to us, we received from the paymaster a necessary portion of "the soul of Pedro Garcias," and taking with us only our undress uniform and grey great-coats, our swords and revolvers (for one might as well travel without brains as without arms in Spain; besides, Fabrique de Urquija, a devil of a fellow, haunted the Sierra de Ronda), a valise with six shirts each, a box of cubas, and a John Murray, we crossed the isthmus, passed through the Spanish lines about an hour after the morning gun was fired, and with the gorgeous sunrise of a beautiful Spanish day took the wild and lonely road into Andalusia, with well-filled purses, good nags under us, light hearts and thoughtless heads, and in such a frame of mind, that, in pursuit of adventure, we would have faced anything, from a black beetle to a mad bull.
I thought of Donna Paulina (when did I not think of her?) and as the strong ramparts of Gibraltar lessened in our rear, I hummed "Pues por bisarte Minguillo," her coquettish little song of "The Kiss."
Poor Paulina!
CHAPTER IV.
THE VENTA.
We had left the dull world of matter-of-fact behind us, and were now in the land of romance, where, save the invention of cigars and musket locks, all was unchanged since the days of Charles V.; for while all the world moves around her, Spain alone stands still, torpid and unchanging as her unclouded sun and mighty mountain Sierras.
On reaching Castellar we expected to receive an escort from the officer commanding a troop of cavalry quartered there, a necessary protection against the banditti of Fabrique de Urquija, whose name was now a terror to Andalusia.