第 18 页

Muttering thus he turned to proceed on his way, but before he had gone

twenty yards, he again heard a deep shout. "Here, you, Sambo."

The black jumped as if he was shot, "My golly," he exclaimed, and then

walked back to the boys, who were talking together, shook his head

and again looked over the wall. Then he stooped down to the boys, and

shook his fist in their faces, "You little debils, you call Sambo, I

pound you to squash." The boys both leapt to their feet with an air of

intense surprise and alarm, and began to cry out in Spanish.

"No, can't be you," Sam said, "dis chile must be witched, no place for

men to hide, sartin not dem boys. Stone wall can't call Sambo all by

self, Sam's going out of mind. Oh! Lor, dis berry bad affair," and Sam

sat down by the roadside with a face of such perfect bewilderment and

dismay that the boys could stand it no longer, but went off together

into a scream of laughter, which caused Sam to jump to his feet again.

"What you larf for, what you larf for, you little rascals, you play

trick, eh? you call Sambo, who taught you dat name?" and he seized the

two boys and shook them furiously.

"Oh! Sam, Sam, you will kill us with laughing," Tom got out at last.

"Do leave go, man, or we shall choke," and as Sam, astonished, loosed

his hold, the boys sat down and laughed till their sides ached.

"Golly," exclaimed the negro, as he looked at them, "Dose boys again.

What on earth you do, Massa Tom, Massa Peter, in dose ragged close,

what you dress up like two beggars for? Lor! how you take in dis

chile, me tink you little Spanish trash, sure enuff." It was some time

before the boys could compose themselves, and then Tom made Sam sit

close by his side.

"Look here, Sam, this isn't a joke, this is a serious business and

before I tell you anything about it, you must promise to keep the

secret strictly, as it would do us a great deal of harm if it was

known." Sam declared at once that if they tore him to pieces with wild

horses he would say nothing. Tom then explained the whole thing to him

and Sam at once declared that he would go too.

"Quite impossible, Sam. You do not speak a word of Spanish and

although at any of the seaport towns you could pass as a runaway

sailor, there could be no possible reason for your wandering about the

country with two Spanish boys."

Sam thought for some time. "Now dat berry unlucky Massa Tom, dat Sam

play big drum. Big drum fine music, but big drum not go well by self.

If Sam had played fiddle, Sam could go, but Sam couldn't go nohow with

big drum."

"I should think not, Sam, with the name of the regiment painted on it.

No, no, you must stay behind. There won't be any fighting now till the

spring, and by that time we shall be back with the regiment."

"But what you do without Sam? who black Massa's boots? who brush his

clothes?"

Tom laughed. "These clothes would fall all to pieces, if they were

brushed much, Sam, and at present we have no boots to be blacked."

"Where you get dose clothes, Massa Tom," Sam asked, examining with

great disgust the rags the boys had on.

"We bought some peasant's clothes about our size, and the first beggar

boys we saw we offered to exchange. You should have seen their faces

of astonishment. When we got the clothes we made them into a bundle,

and took them to the bakehouse, and got the baker to put them into

the oven for a few hours to kill anything there might be in them.

Now, Sam, it is time for us to be going. It will take us an hour's

scrubbing to get the color off us. Be sure you keep our secret."

CHAPTER IX.

WITH THE GUERILLAS.

It was on a fine morning at the end of March that a cortege of

muleteers and mules left the little town of Alonqua. It was now four

months since the Scudamores left the army, and in the intervening time

they had tramped through a large portion of Spain. They had carried

with them only a dozen or so little despatches done up in tiny rolls

of the length and about the thickness of a bodkin, These were sewn

inside the lining of their coats, in the middle of the cloth where

it was doubled in at the seams, so that, even were the clothes to be

examined carefully and felt all over, the chances of detection were

slight indeed. They had each, on starting, half a dozen pieces of

Spanish gold coin sewn between the thicknesses of leather of the soles

of each of their shoes, for they did not start in the beggar clothes

in which they had first disguised themselves. Their clothes were,

indeed, worn and somewhat patched, but were of stout material, and

they wore shoes, but no stockings. They had, indeed, the appearance of

Spanish boys of the peasant class. The weather in the north of Spain

is often very cold in winter, and the boys felt that, with rags and

bare feet, they should suffer severely. All that they had to say and

do had been learned by heart. The names and addresses of the agents

of the British Government at every town had been laboriously learned

before starting, and, as Peter said ruefully, it was worse than a

dozen Greek impositions.

At each place of any importance they would find the person to whom

they were instructed to apply, would accost him with some password,

and would be put up by him while they remained there. When they had

gained the intelligence they required--of the number of French troops

in the place and its neighborhood, a knowledge always obtained by

going round, counting the men on parade, or, in the case of small

villages, finding out easily enough from a peasant the number,

quartered there, they would write a report on the number the

intentions as far as they could learn them, the amount of food

in store, and the sentiments of the population, would enclose

the despatch in a goose-quill and give it to their host, who was

responsible for forwarding it.

In a great number of cases, indeed, the man to whom they were

accredited was a muleteer. These men hated the French with a hatred

even more deep and deadly than that of other Spaniards, for, in

addition to the national causes of hatred, their mules were constantly

being requisitioned or seized by the troops and they themselves forced

to accompany the army for long distances at a nominal rate of pay for

themselves and their animals. Then, too, they were in close connection

with the guerillas, for whom they carried goods up into the mountains

from the towns, and when the chance came would leave their animals in

the mountains and join in cutting off an enemy's convoy. They acted as

messengers and spies too, and took their friends in the hills early

news of intended movements of the enemy. Many a day had the boys

traveled in the company of these muleteers, merry, careless fellows,

singing and talking to their mules, apparently the best-natured of

men, until something would be said which would recall the hated foe,

and then their black eyes would flash, their fingers clutch their

knife-handles, and they would pour out long strings of deep Spanish

oaths. Great was the surprise of these men on receiving the password

from two boys, but they never hesitated an instant in taking them in,

in giving them hospitality as long as they remained, and in either

accompanying them to the next town, or handing them over to the charge

of some comrade going in that direction. Not even to them did the

Scudamores ever betray that they were not what they were taken to be,

two Spanish boys employed by the English commander as messengers.

Often they were questioned how the English had come to entrust

important communications to two boys, and their reply always was that

their father and mother had fled to Portugal from the French, and were

living there near the English lines, and that they had offered their

lives in case of their sons' treachery.

This system of hostages seemed probable enough to their questioners,

and if the boys' fare was rather harder, and their treatment more

unceremonious than it would have been had they said that they were

British officers in disguise, they ran far less risk of detection

from an accidental word or sign. Indeed it would have been next to

impossible for them, had they desired it, to convince any one of their

identity. There was no fear now of their accent betraying them. Since

they had left the army they had never, even when alone together,

spoken in English. They made the rule and kept to it for two reasons,

the one being that they found that if they did not get into this habit

of always speaking Spanish, they might inadvertently address each

other in English, and thus betray themselves; the second, that they

wanted to learn to speak absolutely like natives. This they had in the

four months thoroughly learned to do. At first their pronunciation

and occasional mistakes excited curiosity when asked questions as

to the part of Spain from which they had come, but their constant

communication with their muleteer friends had quite removed this, and

for the last two months not one person had doubted that they were not

only Spanish, but that they came from the northern provinces.

Hitherto they had journeyed principally between large towns and over

country held by the French, but that part of their work was finished;

they had accurately computed the number of the army with which Massena

was to advance shortly to besiege Ciudad Rodrigo, and they had now to

carry the despatches to the guerilla leaders. Hitherto they had not in

a single instance excited suspicion. Not a Frenchman had asked them

a question, and no adventure of anything like an exciting nature had

taken place. They were now, however, entering into a country entirely

different from that which they had hitherto traversed. The northeast

of Spain is wild and mountainous, and offers immense natural

facilities for irregular warfare. Through the various passes of the

Pyrenees lead all the roads from France, whether to Vittoria on the

great road to Madrid, or through Navarre to Catalonia. Here and there

fortified towns still held out against the French, and the town of

Gerona, in Catalonia, had only fallen after a six months' regular

siege, and a desperate defense which fully rivals that of Saragossa.

Is it not a little singular that the Spaniards, who in the open field

were, with a few remarkable exceptions, absolutely contemptible, yet

frequently defended towns with wonderful fortitude, courage, and

desperation. It may, indeed, be said that in every siege where the

Spaniards were commanded by brave and resolute chiefs they behaved

admirably. This great range of hill country was the stronghold of the

guerillas, and every convoy from France had to be protected by a large

force, and even then often suffered greatly from the harassing attacks

of their active enemies.

The bands of the guerilla chiefs differed greatly in strength, varying

from merely ten or a dozen men to three or four thousand, and indeed

each band varied continually. The men, when not required, would

scatter to their homes, cultivate their little patches of ground, and

throw down the spade and take up the rifle again when they heard of a

convoy to cut off, or an invading column to beat back. The bands, too,

would vary in proportion to the renown of their chiefs. An energetic

man, who, at the head of a handful, had performed some daring feats,

would find himself a week afterwards the leader of many hundreds,

while a chief who was slow and dilatory would find his band melt away

like snow in summer.

The character of the warfare depended much upon the character of the

French generals. A few of these kept the troops under their command

sternly in hand, would permit no plundering, and insisted upon their

fair treatment of the Spaniards. These in turn wanted nothing better

than to remain quietly in their homes, and the guerilla bands would

melt away to nothing. Other generals, furious at the savage nature

of the warfare, and the incessant toil and loss entailed upon their

troops, allowed the latter to do as they pleased, and burning houses

and dead bodies marked their course. Then the peasantry, now turned

guerillas, retaliated as savagely, giving no quarter, sacrificing all

prisoners, and putting the wounded to death, sometimes with torture.

On both sides horrible atrocities were committed.

The guerillas were armed partly with rifles and carbines, partly with

muskets landed on the coast by the British Government, who also, from

time to time, sent powder and money to assist them to continue their

resistance to the French. Although nowhere really formidable, yet,

being scattered over a great extent of country, these bands occupied

very large bodies of French troops, who would otherwise have

been disposable for general operations in the field. The English

commander-in-chief had, of course, no shadow of authority over the

guerillas, or, indeed, over any of the Spanish troops, and his

communication to them simply asked what arms and ammunition they

required, and begged them to send him a list of the number of men they

could each throw on the French communications and lines of retreat in

case he should find himself in a position to make a general advance

against them. He also recommended most strongly the bearers of the

despatch to their care. It was to the chief known as Nunez that they

were now bound. The mule train was nominally destined for Vittoria, to

which town the leader had got a pass, specifying the number of mules

and the nature of the goods they carried, from the French commandant

at Alonqua, for no one was allowed to take the goods about the country

without a pass, in order to prevent supplies being forwarded to the

mountains. This pass, however, only mentioned twelve mules with four

drivers, and this was the number which started from Alonqua. Another

score of mules, however, joined them at a short distance from the town

where a by-road turned off. Some of these had gone out from the town

unloaded, as if taken out to graze, others had not entered the town,