"The devil, man! what has happened?"
"Have you not heard?"
"No: he yielded himself to me, with permission to retain his sword."
"Better had he tossed it into the Tagus! Scarcely had you left him, when up came that fiery borderer Armstrong, of the 71st, (at least I have heard that it was Armstrong,) demanding his sword, not being aware of the terms on which he had rendered himself prisoner. The Frenchman, D'Estouville I think you call him, either could not or would not comprehend him; and Armstrong, by a single stroke of his sword, cleft his skull through the thick grenadier cap."
An exclamation of rage and impatience broke from Ronald, and of pity from Catalina, who clasped her hands and raised her dark melancholy eyes to heaven, while he cast an angry and searching glance along the ranks of the Highland Light Infantry.
"Sir Rowland Hill," continued Alister, "regrets this unfortunate circumstance very much, and has sent him off in a bullock-car to Merida, in charge of a French medical officer liberated on his parole. But I must bid you adieu, as our company is ordered to assist Thiele, the German engineer, to destroy the tower and bastions of Ragusa. Heaven knows how we shall accomplish it:—it looks as massive as the old pile of Maoial in the western isles."
"What is that villanous priest about?" said Ronald when Macdonald had withdrawn, and he saw their guide, with the grey cassock bedaubed with blood, busying himself about the prostrate dead and wounded. "Surely he is not plundering. Prick him with your bayonet, Macpherson, and drive him off."
"O no, senor, Heaven forbid!" said the young lady hurriedly. "He must be confessing, or endeavouring to convert some, before they die and are lost for ever."
"Scarcely, Catalina," replied Ronald, seeing they were men of the 71st. "These are true Presbyterians, from a place called Glasgow in my country, and would as soon hearken to the devil as a Roman Catholic priest."
"How good must be the priest who endeavours to gain the dying soldier from the hot grasp of Satanas!" said the lady, not comprehending him. "Call him, Don Ronald; I have not confessed since I left Merida."