"Guerre et pitié ne s'accordent pas ensemble."
French Military Proverb.
The next morning by day-break Ronald and his prisoner quitted Villa Macia.
The young Scot was disgusted with the levity and carelessness with which, at their departure, De Mesmai treated the tears and sorrow of his daughter, and the pious admonitions of the reverend cura.
"Body o' the Pope!" said he, as they cantered under the shade of the cork trees which lined the road, "what a rare blockhead has become monsieur my old gardener, now curate of Villa Macia. How D'Erlon and his aiguletted staff would laugh, if they knew I had become quite a family man! I am always apprehensive that some of my wild pranks will come unluckily to light, as this affair of poor Justine Rosat's has done; but I am too old a soldier to be put to the blush. Blush! I have no blood to spare,—the bleeding of twenty years' campaigning has cured me of that. How the poor girl wept! What the deuce! surely she did not expect me to take her with me? Captain Maurice de Mesmai, of Monsieur le Compte d'Erlon's staff, with a family! Corboeuf! the idea is most excellent! 'Tis well Victor d'Estouville and our first major, Louis Chateaufleur, know nothing of this; otherwise they would quiz me out of the service. However, I commend my daughter to the long visaged and noble cavalier Don—Don,—what the devil is his name?—Gonzago de Conquesta; and vow, if he makes not a good husband, affectionate father, and displays not all the good qualities you will find graven on every great man's tomb-stone, I will crop his ears,—I will, by the name of the bomb! Ho, ho! now when I remember it, what a long roll-call Monsieur le Curé made of my early scrapes, last night. I listened to him through a chink in the partition. Tête-dieu! how impertinent the old dog was. I own to you I was on the point of cutting short his exceedingly rude harangue a dozen times."
De Mesmai kept talking thus for an hour at a time, without heeding the interruptions of Ronald, who did not hesitate to acquaint him freely with the opinion he entertained of his feelings and sentiments, at which the other only laughed in his usual loud and boisterous manner.
At San Pedro they were received into the house of the alcalde, who showed them every attention and civility. But there an unlucky brawl ensued. De Mesmai, probably to spend the time, paid such close attention to the patrona, a plump, rosy, and good-natured-like matron, that the worthy alcalde, her lord and master, started up from the supper-table in a sudden fit of jealousy and rage, and would have stabbed the cuirassier with a poniard, which he suddenly unsheathed from his boot,—a place of concealment often used for such a weapon in Spain. Ronald's timely interference quelled this dangerous brawl, and mollified the fierce merchant,—for the alcalde was a retailer of Cordovan leather; and Stuart was very glad when he had his troublesome companion once more out on the highway, where his pride and petulance had less opportunities of rousing the ire of the fiery Spaniards.
Near Medellin, a town twenty miles east of Merida, their horses suddenly became dead lame; and Ronald, who was chafed to fury at the delay caused by this accident, lost much more time, as he could not abandon the major's horse, and it could proceed but slowly. Next day, the ninth of his absence, he beheld before him the massive amphitheatre, the gothic spires and well-known bridge of the old Roman city, which was associated with so many sad and tender reminiscences of Catalina, a thousand recollections of whom came crowding into his mind, plunging him into melancholy, from which De Mesmai vainly endeavoured to rouse him by an animated description of the follies and the gaiety of Paris, and biographical sketches of the reigning beauties, with all of whom he was, by his own account, a decided favourite.
It was dark when they reached the bridge, on the centre of which, where the blown-up arch was crossed by wooden planks, they saw two Highland sentinels pacing at their post, the flutter of their plaids and waving folds of their kilts giving to them the appearance of a couple of those ancient Romans who had often kept watch and ward upon the same spot. On hearing the sound of the approaching hoofs they came to their front, and one challenged, in the familiar voice of Evan Iverach, "Stand! Who goes there?'
"Ronald an deigh nam fiann," (the last of his race,) answered Stuart in Gaelic, almost laughing.
The two astonished Highlanders set up a loud skraigh, which startled the very leaves of the olives on the other side of the Guadiana, and ringing under the arches of the bridge, died away in the winding rocks of the river.