"A prisoner of war,—diable! Me voila à votre service. I will go with you wherever you please. But there are more girls congregated here, to see the troops on evening parade, than in any other part of this ruinous old city of Merida. In France they love, like the butterflies, to be in the sun; but here they promenade under the cold shades of the trees, or sail about beneath their gloomy damp piazzas. By the way, it has a most singularly picturesque effect, a tall graceful figure with a fluttering veil and floating mantilla gliding under these old arches; quite mysterious, in fact. Look, for instance, at that lovely creature with the auburn tresses. Tête-dieu! how I long to wheel that girl round in a waltz. Ha! there is a rouge-et-noir table not far from this, and a thought strikes me; I shall make my fortune to-night. Will you lend me a couple of these dazzling duros you showed me a short time ago?"
"Undoubtedly, and with pleasure."
"Vive la joie! Come along, then. There is a gaming-house in the Calle de Ferdinando, kept by some officers of the Portuguese caçadores. Come with me, and I will show you how to break their bank, and carry off their glorious piles of duros and dobloons."
"I never gamble," replied Ronald; "and by the rules of our service 'tis strictly forbidden to do so, either in camp or quarters."
"Bah! mon camarade. If I had you within sound of the bells of Notre Dame, I would soon learn you to forget your northern prejudices."
Stuart's remonstrances and protestations were made in vain. The gay impetuosity of the Frenchman overcame them all; and while arguing about the matter they arrived at the door, where a board, painted red on one side and black on the other, announced that the rouge-et-noir table was kept there. A crowd of English, Portuguese, and German officers were pressing round the table, at the head of which sat the banker, a swarthy Portuguese officer of light infantry, with a long cigar in his mouth, and having heaped up before him several piles of dollars, doubloons, and British guineas,—all of which were rapidly changing hands, at every turn of the red and black cards.
Stuart remarked that there was not a single Scottish bonnet in the room, and his national abhorrence of gambling caused him absolutely to blush at being there. He was disgusted at the wild eagerness, the intense anxiety, the bitter disappointment, fierce anguish, or cruel triumph which he witnessed in the features of the players. The two dollars De Mesmai had borrowed were soon added to the goodly pile which lay before an officer of the 39th; and urged on by the former, Ronald betted on several cards, all of which turned up fatally, and he had the mortification to behold every one of his remaining dollars swept across the table in quick succession, and coolly pocketed by a fierce-looking Spanish officer of De Costa's brigade, who evidently thought it no sin to gamble, although he wore on his left breast the enamelled red cross of Calatrava, a religious order of knighthood.[*] Ronald rushed away from the hell, feeling absolutely furious at his own folly and at De Mesmai, who, however, continued at the table in hopes of borrowing from some one.
[*] Instituted by Don Santio of Toledo, in 1130.
The lesson was not lost on Stuart, who, from that day until this, has never touched a card. But that night's play left him literally penniless, and in a strange city. He was ashamed to apply to any of his brother-officers, or expose his folly to them; and as Gordon, the regimental paymaster, had not received the arrears of pay, there was nothing to be hoped for from him. It was now dusk, and he was wandering among the groves of olive and willow that flourish by the sedgy banks of the Guadiana and overhang its current. Here, while pursuing the narrow pathway by the river-side, he was surprised by seeing the figure of Dugald Mhor Cameron, the colonel's private servant, standing at a short distance from him; a sure sign that Cameron himself was not far off.
Dugald Mhor (or big Dugald) was an aged but hardy Highlander, from the country of the Cameron, or the land of the great Lochiel on the banks of Loch Linnhe, among the wild dark mountains of Lorn and Morven,—the Morven of Ossian. From these he came to follow the son of the laird through the continental wars, and he had been by the side of Cameron in every battle in which the corps had been engaged in Egypt, Denmark, Holland, Portugal, and Spain, and had been twice wounded,—once at Bergen-op-Zoom, and again at the battle of Alexandria in Egypt. Dugald was nearly seventy years of age, yet his well-knit frame was strong and muscular as that of a horse, and his hair was white as snow; while his face was as dark as his tartan, by constant exposure to the weather.