"There are a great many valuables there besides madame," said Jeannette, in reply to the captain's look, "and silver coin is, you know, very heavy."
"Ah!" exclaimed the perplexed lover. "It is deucedly unfortunate—still—Don't you think," he added earnestly, after again essaying the weight of the precious burden, "that if madame were to wrap herself well up in this sail-cloth, we might reach your friend the priest's house without detection?"
"Oh, no—no—no!" rejoined the girl. "Mon Dieu! how can you think of exposing madame to such hazard?"
"How far do you say it is?" asked Captain Smith, after a rather sullen pause.
"Only just over the fields yonder—half-a-mile perhaps."
Mr. Smith still hesitated, but finally the tears and entreaties of the attendant, his regard for the lady and her fortune, the necessity of the position, in short, determined him to undertake the task. A belt was passed tightly round the chest, by means of which he could keep it on his back; and after several unsuccessful efforts, the charming load was fairly hoisted, and on the captain manfully staggered, Jeannette bringing up the rear.
Valiantly did Mr. Smith, though perspiring in every pore of his body, and dry as a cartouch-box—for madame had emptied the only flask he had—toil on under a burden which seemed to grind his shoulder-blades to powder. He declares he must have lost a stone of flesh at least before, after numerous restings, he arrived, at the end of about an hour, at the door of a small house, which Jeannette announced to be the private residence of the priest. The door was quickly opened by a smart lad, who seemed to have been expecting them; the chest was deposited on the floor, and Jeannette instantly vanished. The lad, with considerate intelligence, handed Mr. Smith a draught of wine. It was scarcely swallowed when the key turned in the lock, the eager lover, greatly revived by the wine, sprang forward with extended arms, and received in his enthusiastic embrace—whom do you think?
"Coralie, half-stifled for want of air, and nearly dead with fright," suggested Mr. Tape.
"That rascally Sous-lieutenant Victor! half-drunk with brandy-and-water," roared Captain Smith, who had by this time worked himself into a state of great excitement. "At the same moment in ran Jeannette, and, I could hardly believe my eyes, that Jezebel Coralie, followed by half-a-dozen French voltigeurs, screaming with laughter! I saw I was done," continued Mr. Smith, "but not for the moment precisely how, and but for his comrades, I should have settled old and new scores with Master Victor very quickly. As it was, they had some difficulty in getting him out of my clutches, for I was, as you may suppose, awfully savage. An hour or so afterward, when philosophy, a pipe, and some very capital wine—they were not bad fellows those voltigeurs—had exercised their soothing influence, I was informed of the exact motives and particulars of the trick which had been played me. Coralie was Victor Dufour's wife. He had been wounded at the assault of Badajoz, and successfully concealed in that Andalusian woman's house; and as the best, perhaps only mode of saving him from a Spanish prison, or worse, the scheme of which I had been the victim, was concocted. Had not Dufour wounded me, they would, I was assured, have thrown themselves upon my honor and generosity—which honor and generosity, by-the-by, would never have got Coralie's husband upon my back, I'll be sworn!"
"You will forgive us, mon cher capitaine?" said that lady, with one of her sweetest smiles, as she handed me a cup of wine. "In love and war, you know, every thing is fair."