“Never mind what you said at Oxford. Only mind what you say in Badajos. Collect every man you can find of ours. Tell him the Fifth are murdering, robbing, cheating us again, as they did by sneaking in at a corner, and insulting our best officers. Drunk, or sober, bring them all. The more our men drink, the more sober they get.” It is likely enough that officers of the Fifth Division would have thought the same paradox of their own men.
“I cannot get along at my usual pace,” said Hilary; “but I will do my best. But will not the mischief be done already?”
“I hope not. I asked Count Zamora, who seems to be the foremost man of the town, which he thought most of—his wine, or his daughters. And he answered of course as a gentleman must. His cellars contain about 300 butts; it will take some time for our men to drink that. And I spread a report of their quality, and a rumour that all the ladies had escaped. The night is hot. All the men will plunge into those vast cellars first. And when they come up, any sober man will be a match for twenty.”
“What a pest that I am so knocked about!” cried Hilary, quite forgetting his pain, in the chivalry of his nature. “Major, if only for half-an-hour you can hold back the devilry, I will answer for the safety of the household. But beware of fire.”
“You need not tell me about that, young man. I have seen this work before you were born. I shall pick up a cloak and berette, and cork my eyebrows, and be a Spaniard; major-domo, or whatever they call it. I can jabber the tongue a bit; enough to go down with English ears. I will be the steward of the cellars, and show them where the best wine is; and they don’t know wine from brandy. And they will not know me, in their cups, till I order them all into custody. Be quick; there is no more time to lose.”
Hilary saw that Major Clumps was going to play a very dangerous part; for many of the men had their muskets loaded, and recked not at whom they fired them. However, there was nothing better for it; and so he set out upon his own errand, when he ought to have been in hospital.
At first he was very unfortunate, meeting no men of his own regiment, and few even of his own division; for most of them doubtless were busy in the houses, laying hold of everything. But after turning many corners, he luckily hit upon Corporal White of his own company, a very steady man, who knew the importance of keeping sober, at a time of noble plundering. This man was a martinet, in a humble way, but popular in the ranks in spite of that; and when he heard of the outrage to a major of his regiment, and his present danger; and knew that a rich Don’s family was threatened by rascals of the Fifth Division—he vowed that he would fetch a whole company to the rescue, ere a man could say “Jack Robinson.”
“And now, sir,” he said, “you are not able to go much further, or do any more. Round the corner there is a fountain of beautiful spring water, worth all the wines and spirits these fellows are disgracing of themselves with. Ah, I wish I had a glass of good English ale—but that is neither here nor there. And for want of that a thirsty man may be glad of a drop of this water, sir. And when you have drunk, let it play on your arm. You have a nasty place, sir.”
With these words he ran off; and Hilary, following his directions, enjoyed the greatest of all the mere bodily joys a man can be blessed with—the slaking of furious thirst with cold delicious crystal water. He drank, and drank, and sighed with rapture, and then began to laugh at himself; and yet must have another drink. And then for the moment he was so refreshed, that his wounds were not worth heeding.
“I will go and see what those villains are about,” he said to himself and the pretty Saint Isidore (to whose pure statue bending over the gracious water he lifted hat, as a gentleman ought to do); “I have drunk of your water, and thank you, Saint; though I have no idea what your name is. Our family was Catholic for five hundred years; and I don’t know why we ever left it off.”