"Amigo mio, senor! you speak as might become the Cid Rodrigo; but although your hand may be as stout, and your sword as long as his, why be so rash? How you leaped over the parapet, among the horrid bayonets of the French—"
"You saw me, then," said Ronald with delight. "And trembled for you."
"How fortunate I am to have your good wishes! I dare say you are very happy at being freed from this place?"
"O very—very! But surely it was not on my account that all this frightful work has been made. Perhaps you have heard how I was carried off from Merida?"
"Yes; and I cannot express the uneasiness the relation gave me."
"A French officer, a Major D'Estouville, carried me off across his saddle a captive maiden, by force, as any fierce Moor of Grenada would have done long ago. I have been since a prisoner here."
"Well, but this D'Estouville—"
"Such a gay cavalier he is! But I was very tired of him, and longed to be at pleasant Merida with its sunny Prado and orange groves, instead of this dull, guarded fort, with its bulwarks and ditches, cannon and gates. I was much annoyed by Monsieur D'Estouville's speeches and protestations; but 'tis all at an end now, and I trust he has escaped, though I wish not to see his face again. Do you know if he is safe?"
"I saved his life but an hour since," replied Ronald, the pique which he felt at her first observations disappearing. "But I do not see him among the prisoners," he added, examining the sullen and disarmed band as they marched past out of the fort, surrounded by their armed escort commanded by Louis Lisle, from whose cheek the blood was trickling from a sabre wound, which he heeded not.
The officers on parole uncovered their heads on passing the young lady, who now, when her terror was over, began naturally to feel abashed and confused to find herself leaning on an officer's arm on a military parade, exposed to the gaze of several regiments.