"To please myself and to show my friends."
"Of course, a likely story truly," he sneered, as he deliberately tore my poor production into several pieces, threw them into the brassero of charcoal which glowed in the centre of the apartment, and watched until every fragment was entirely consumed. I gazed at him in silence, but feeling an emotion of considerable disgust; for although well aware that to sketch any fortified place or garrison town, barrack, or citadel, was strictly forbidden, it never occurred to me that the restriction could apply to the miserable conglomeration of Spanish huts and crumbling Moorish hovels which clustered round the churches on the rock of Arcos; but in their ignorance of the arts the Spaniards, like the Turks, cannot see a difference between a little artistic sketch and a regular plan drawn for the most desperate military purposes.
"So we are suspected of being spies," said Slingsby; "I am glad that sketching was omitted in my education, and that I never could draw aught but a cork or a bill in my life."
"But this may prove no matter for laughter, Jack," said I, as the alcalde, with awful gravity, after duly entering our names and designations in a huge tome, turned to another part thereof, wiped his spectacles and addressed us. I must own to feeling some uneasiness, having once had a brother officer who went on sick leave to Cadiz, where he was shot as a Christino priest; he was our senior lieutenant, poor Bob Rasper, and was as much like a priest as the great Mogul. I had an uncle who was very near being strangled by an alcalde, who was persuaded he was Don Carlos; and we all know that Lord Carnarvon was well nigh murdered in mistake for Don Miguel, while Captain Widrington was about to be garotted by another official, who thought he might be an agent of Marshal Baldomero Espartero, now first minister of Donna Isabella II. These instances of Spanish justice, clearness, and legal acumen were floating before me when the little ruffian of an alcalde curled up his mustachios and said,—
"The señores will have passports, no doubt?"
"No passports," I replied.
"Demonio!" ejaculated this Andalusian Solon, while the alguazils (having finished their cheroots) began to clank their sabres and cock their ominous-looking trabujos. "Then you must both be sent to prison in irons, and kept under guard until we communicate with Espartero."
We lost alike our patience and temper at this piece of intelligence.
"Beware, señor alcalde," said I, "for the very person you have named may send you to the galleys for this insolent interference. We are two British officers going on public duty to Seville, and being passed through the Spanish lines by the officer commanding there, require no other passports than our swords and our uniform, which you had better respect, or we may play a mischief with you. Our ambassador at Madrid——"
"Vaya usted a los infernos!" exclaimed the alcalde, in a towering fit of official indignation; "I shall show you how we treat those who enter our city of Arcos without proper credentials, and I verily believe you to be a couple of pitiful raterillos. Search and secure them!"