(Thus ended this wonderful certificate, the contents of which, together with the pompous gravity of the reader, made Jack and I almost choke with suppressed laughter. The major then continued)—
Hereupon Her Most Faithful Majesty, who reigned at that time—now seventy-eight years ago—was pleased to promote the saint to the rank prayed for, and he is now our lieutenant-colonel by brevet. Once in each year it is the custom to send an officer to Lisbon to receive the pay and perquisites of St. Anthony from the royal treasury, and in the course of last year this most honourable duty devolved upon me.
We were then quartered at Barbacena in the jurisdiction of Elvas; and to this place I travelled alone from Lisbon, with the pay of the saint, which was to be given to the care of our chaplain. Being in moidores, it was not very bulky, but its value was great—its sanctity greater; and after traversing in safety the whole province of Alentijo, it was with some anxiety I saw the mountain Sierra, which lay between me and my destination, rising in my front, about sunset. The hope of being able to get across those rocky hills before the approaching night set fairly in never occurred to me. I found myself in a solitary spot, without shelter near, or any place where information of the right way could be gathered, and my horse was growing weary.
The sunlight died away behind me, and shed its last rays on the white walls, the square campanile and tall cypresses of a convent which crowned a height on my left; and on the red round towers of an old castle that topped a rock on my right; but both were in ruins and desolate, as the wars of the infidel Moors, ages ago, had left the first, and the desolating retreat of Marshal Massena had left the second. The older fragments of a Roman aqueduct lay between, and half hidden among wild shrubs. The pathway was rugged; untamed goats scrambled about; snakes hissed in the long grass, and eagles screamed in mid air. Ave Maria! it was impossible to conceive a place more dreary and desolate; but the way became still wilder, and as I progressed into the gorge of the Sierra, even the ruined works of man and the traces of his feet disappeared. I was in a desert, and, save the faint crescent moon, without a light or guide.
As I rode slowly on, thinking of the bright golden moidores of our Lord St. Anthony, with which my pouch was blessed, and reflecting on the prize they would be for any sacrilegious picaros who might be hovering in this dark wilderness, ever and anon humming a song, muttering an ave, and feeling the percussion caps on my pistols, I suddenly met a strange figure in the dim moonlight—a goat-herd, as he seemed to me.
He was clad in a zamarra of sheepskin, which he wore with the wool outwards; his white hair hung in tangled masses upon his shoulders; a bota was slung at his girdle, and he carried a stout Portuguese cajado, with a little cross stick nailed thereon, to give it more the aspect of a pastoral staff, than a weapon of defence.
"Vaya usted con Dios, Señor Major," said he.
"God be with you," I reiterated, a little scared on finding that this stranger knew my name; "you have the advantage of me, Señor Pastor."
"Hombre, do you think so? but do not be alarmed, for I am an old Christian, without stain of Moor or Jew in my veins. I am no enchanter——"
"Ave Maria, I should hope not!"