With Moore at Corunna by G. A. Henty (ebooks children's books free txt) 📖

assist in the defence of your country. You are brave men, but you see these three cowards are trembling like children. We advise you to appoint fresh officers among yourselves, and to remain faithful to your duty, which is to march when ordered to the defence of the defiles. These three fellows we shall take with us, and will see that they do not further deceive you. Already they have done harm enough by goading you to theft, and to murder a man whose only fault was that he was more patriotic than they are. Be assured that in no case would you be able to carry this house. It is defended by sixteen well-armed men, and hundreds of you would throw away your lives in the attempt. Therefore, I advise you to go back to your quarters, and in the morning assemble and choose your officers."

The crowd stood irresolute.

"Tell them to go, you cur," Herrara said to Cortingos, standing back from the window and giving him a kick that almost sent him on his face. "Tell them to disperse at once, if you don't want to be dangling from the end of this rope."

Cortingos stepped forward, and in a quavering voice told the men to disperse to their quarters.

"We have made a mistake," he said. "I am now convinced that these officers are what they appear to be. I beseech you do not cause trouble, and disperse at once--quietly."

Hoots of derision and scorn rose from the peasants.

"I have a good mind to fire a shot before I go," one of the peasants shouted, "just for the pleasure of seeing three such cowards hung."

Another yell of disgust and anger arose, and then the crowd melted away.

"Keep these three fellows at the window. Remove the ropes from their necks, and take your place behind them; you will be relieved every hour. If they move, bayonet them at once."

"We shall die of cold," one of the men whimpered.

"That would be a more honourable death than you are likely to meet," Terence said, scornfully. "I fancy if I don't hang you, those men in the village will do so if they can lay hands on you."

"How about the sentries, sir?" the corporal of the escort asked Herrara as they went downstairs. "They can all be removed except the one keeping guard over these men--he is to be relieved every hour--and one inside the door, he can be relieved every two hours."

The night passed quietly. Just as they were preparing to start next morning, the soldier on guard over the prisoners shouted, "There is a crowd of men coming!"

"Get your arms ready," Herrara said to the escort; "but I don't think there will be any occasion to use them."

Terence went to the door. "Bull, do you and Macwitty keep close behind; but whatever happens don't use your weapons, unless I order you to do so."

The crowd stopped at the gate, two of them only coming forward.

"We are ready to fight, sir," one said, addressing Terence, "but we have no officers; none of us know anything about drill. We will follow you, if you will command us, and you will find that we won't turn our backs to the enemy. We know that English officers will fight."

"Wait a minute or two," Terence said, after a moment's hesitation, "I will then give you my answer."

Herrara had followed him out and heard the offer.

"I don't know what to do, Herrara," Terence said, as he re-entered the house. "My instructions are to join Romana, and to remain with him for a time, sending word to Lisbon as to the state of things, and aiding him in any way in my power. Here are between two and three thousand stout, healthy fellows, evidently disposed to fight. If they were armed I would not hesitate a moment, but I don't suppose that there are a hundred muskets among them, and certainly Romana has none to give them. Still, in the defiles we might give a good deal of trouble to the French by rolling stones down, breaking up bridges, and that sort of thing."

"It would be good fun," Herrara laughed. "As for myself," he said, "I have orders to return as soon as I have seen the treasure safely in Romana's camp. If it hadn't been for that I should have liked nothing better, though there would not have been much chance for cavalry work in these defiles."

"I will talk to them again," Terence said. "It is not often that one gets the chance of an independent command. It is just the sort of work I should like."

He went out again. "I should like to command a number of brave fellows," he said, "but the question is about arms. There have been any quantity sent out by England for your use; but instead of being served out, the Juntas keep them all hidden up in magazines. Even now, when the French are going to invade your country, they still keep them locked up, and send you out with only pikes and staves to fight against a well-armed army. It is nothing short of murder."

"Down with the Juntas!" cried half a dozen of the men standing near enough to hear what was said.

"I don't say 'Down with the Juntas!'" Terence replied; "but I do say take arms if you can get them. Are there any magazines near here?"

"There is one at Castro, ten miles away," the man said. "I know that there are waggon-loads of arms there."

"Well, my friends, the matter stands thus: I, as a British officer, cannot lead you to break open magazines; but I say this, if you choose to go in a body to Castro and do it yourselves, and arm yourselves with all the muskets that you can find there, and bring with you a good store of ammunition in carts that you could take with you from here, and then come to me at a spot where I will halt to-night five or six miles beyond Castro, I will take command of you. But mind, if I command, I command. I must have absolute obedience. It is only by obeying my orders without question that you can hope to do any good. The first man who disobeys me I shall shoot on the spot, and if others are disposed to support him I shall leave you at once."

"I will consult the others," the man said. "Many of us, I know, will be glad to fight under an English officer, and agree to obey him implicitly."

"Very well, I will give you a quarter of an hour to decide."

Before that time had elapsed a dozen men came to the door with the principal spokesman.

"We have made up our minds, se�or. We will follow you, and we will arm ourselves at Castro. It is a sin that the arms should be lying there idle with so many hands ready to use them."

"That is good," Terence said. "Now, my first order is that you wait until I have been gone an hour; then, that you form up in military order, four abreast; the men with guns in front, the others after them. You must go as soldiers, and not as a mob. You must march into Castro peacefully and quietly, not a man must straggle from the ranks. You must go to the authorities and demand the arms and ammunition; if they refuse to give them to you, march--always in regular order--to the magazine and burst it open; then distribute the muskets and a hundred rounds of ammunition to each man having one, take the rest of the stores in carts, and then march away along the road north until you come to the place where we are halted.

"Observe the most perfect order in Castro. If any man plunders or meddles in any way with the inhabitants and is reported to me, I shall know how to punish him. From the moment that you leave this place remember that you are soldiers of Portugal, and you must behave so as to be an honour to it as well as a defence. Now let us all shout 'Viva Portugal!'"

A great shout followed the words, and then Terence went indoors, and five minutes later started with his convoy, telling the three prisoners they could go where they liked.

CHAPTER XIV AN INDEPENDENT COMMAND

As they left the village the Portuguese lieutenant burst into a sudden fit of laughter.

"What is it, Lieutenant?" Terence asked.

"I am laughing at the way in which you--who, as you tell me, have only been six months in the army--without hesitation organize what is really a rising against the authorities, you having already taken representatives of the Junta prisoners--"

"Yes; but you must remember that they took upon themselves to endeavour to forcibly possess themselves of the treasure in my charge."

"That is true enough; still, you did capture them. You treated them with considerable personal indignity, imprisoned them, and threatened their lives. Then you incite, say 2,500 ordenan�as to break open magazines."

"No, no, Lieutenant, I did not incite them. You will remember they expressed a desire to march under my command to fight against the French. I simply pointed out to them that they had no arms, and asked if they could get any; and hearing that there were plenty lying useless a few miles away, suggested that those arms would do more good in their hands than stowed away in magazines. Upon their agreeing with me on this head, I advised them to proceed in a quiet and orderly way, and to have no rioting or disturbance of any sort. I said that if they, after arming themselves, came to me and still wished to follow me, I would undertake to command them. You see, everything depends upon the manner in which the thing is put."

"But you must remember, se�or, that the Junta will naturally view the matter in the light in which their representatives will place it before them."

"I think it unlikely," Terence replied, "that they will have any opportunity of doing so. I took care that they were removed from the window before I met the deputies of the men. They will consequently be unaware of the arrangements made, and will, perhaps, go out as soon as we have left and try to persuade the men to follow and attack us. As it was possible that they might take this course, I took the precaution of sending out one of the muleteers, with instructions to mention casually to the men that I was leaving the three fellows behind me, and that it might be as well for them to confine them under a guard so as to prevent their going to Oporto at present and making mischief."

"I agree with you, se�or, that they are certainly not likely to make any report as to the proceedings here."

"I fancy not; in fact I should not be at all surprised if at the present moment they are hanging from the windows of the house of the man they caused to be murdered. They will most richly deserve their fate, and it may save us some trouble. No doubt the Junta will hear some day that the ordenan�as here rose, killed the three members of their committee, obtained arms at Castro, and marched into the mountains. The Junta will care nothing whatever for the killing of its three agents; plenty of men of the same kind can be found to do their work. That the mutineers afterwards fell in with a British officer, and placed themselves under his command, will not concern the Junta one way or the other, and they will certainly be a great deal more useful in that way than they would be in remaining unarmed here. They may even, when the French once get in motion, come to regard the affair altogether as satisfactory. If all the new levies were to act in exactly the same way, Portugal would be very materially benefited."

"But how are you going to feed them?"

"That is rather a serious question. I suppose they will have to be fed in the same way as other irregular bands. However, I shall consider myself fully justified in devoting a fifth of the money I am carrying to that purpose. I obtained from Villiers �5,000 to enable Romana to support the levies he is raising. Those levies will be for the most part unarmed, and therefore practically useless; and as these Portuguese will be at any rate fairly armed, and are likely to be of very much greater service than a horde of Galician peasants, a portion at least of the money can be very much more usefully employed in feeding them than were it all given to Romana, I have no doubt whatever that when I explain the circumstances to General Cradock, he will entirely approve of my appropriating a small portion