“Rub-a-dub, dubbledy, dulluby-dub”—what vowels and dissonants can set forth the sound of a very drunken drummer, set upon his mettle to drum on a drum, whose head he has been drinking from. Having no glasses, and having no time to study the art of sloping a bottle between the teeth with drainage, they truly had happened on a fine idea. They cracked the bottles on the rim of the drum, and put down their mouths and drank well of it. The drum was not so much the worse for this proceeding as they were, because they allowed no time for the liquor to soak into the greasy parchment: but as many as could stand round were there, and plenty of others came after them. So that the drumhead never once brimmed over, though so many dozens were cracked on it. No wonder, when such work was toward, that many a musket-shot rang along the firelit streets of Badajos, and many a brave man who had baffled the fury of the enemy fell dead in the midst of his frolicking.
Hilary felt that he had been shot enough, and to spare, already; and so, while slowly and painfully plodding his way back to the great square of the town, from corner to corner he worked a traverse, in shelter (wherever the shelter offered) of porch, or pier, or any other shadowy folds of the ancient streets. And thus, without any more damage, he returned to the house of the Count of Zamora.
Here he found the main door closely fastened—by the fellows inside, no doubt, to keep their villainous work to themselves—and as the great bonfire was burning low, he thought that he might have mistaken the house, until with his left hand he felt the holes where the bayonets had pegged up the good major. And while he did this, a great roar from the cellars quickened his eagerness to get in.
“This is a nice thing,” he said to himself; “the major inside, and no getting at him! Such a choleric man in the power of those scamps! And they cannot take him for a Spaniard long, for he is sure to use strong English. And not only Clumps, but the whole of the household at their will and pleasure!”
But even while calling in question his superior officer’s self-control, he did not show himself possessed of very wonderful coolness. For hearing a rush as of many feet upward from the lower quarters, Hilary made the best of his way to the smouldering bonfire, and seized with his left hand—for his right was useless—a chunk of some fine wood too hard to burn (perhaps of the African black-wood, or the bread-fruit tree, or brown cassia), and came back with it in a mighty fury, and tried to beat the door in. But the door was of ancient chestnut-wood, and at his best he could not have hurt it. So now, in his weakness, he knocked and knocked; and nobody even heard him.
“This is enough to wear any one out,” he said to himself, in his poor condition—for the lower the state of a man is, the more he relapses upon his nature, and Hilary’s nature was to talk to himself—“if I cannot get in, like this, I must do something or other, and get in somehow.”
This would have cost him little trouble in his usual strength and activity. For the tipsy rascals had left wide open a window within easy reach from the street to a man sound of limb and vigorous. But Lorraine, in his present condition, had no small pain and difficulty in making his way through the opening. This being done at last, he found himself in a dark passage floored with polished timber, upon which he slipped and fell.
“What an evil omen!” he cried, lightly—little imagining how true his words would prove—“to fall upon entering a strange house, even though it be by the window. However, I am shaken more than hurt. Goodness knows I can’t afford to bleed again.”
Fastening again his loosened bandage—for he had bound his arm now with a handkerchief—he listened and heard a great noise moving somewhere in the distance. Nothing can be less satisfactory than to hear a great noise, and hearken very steadfastly for its meaning, yet not learn what it can be about, or even where it comes from. Hilary listened, and the noise seemed now to come from one way, and then from another. For the old house was peopled with indolent echoes, lazily answering one another, from corner to corner of passages, like the clapping of hands at a banquet. Wherefore Lorraine, being puzzled, went onwards, as behoves a young Englishman. And herein instinct served him well—at least as the luck of the moment seemed—for it led him into the main hall, whence niches and arches seemed leading away anywhere and everywhere. Hilary here stopped short, and wondered. It was so different from an English house; and he could not tell whether he liked it or not. There was some light of wax, and some of oil, and some of spluttering torches stuck into anything that would hold them, throwing a fugitive gleam on the floor, where the polish of the marble answered it. In other places there were breadths of shadow, wavering, jumping, and flickering.
“This is a queer sort of place,” said Hilary; “what is the proper thing for me to do?”