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“What the dickens is wrong?” asked the general, snatching a map out of the way of the liquor. “Good Lord, man! You don’t suppose I was asking you to assassinate Marmont!”

“I beg your pardon,” said I, recovering myself. “Of course not; but it sounded–“

“Oh, did it?” He mopped the map with his pocket handkerchief and looked at me as who should say “Guess again.”

I cast about wildly. “This man cannot be wanting to kidnap him!” thought I to myself.

“You tell me his divisions are scattered after supplies. I hear that the bulk of his troops are in camp above Penamacor; that at the outside he has in Sabugal under his hand but 5,000. Now Silveira should be here in a couple of days; that will make us roughly 12,000.”

“Ah!” said I, “a surprise?” He nodded. “Night?” He nodded again. “And your cavalry?” I pursued.

“I could, perhaps, force General Bacellar to spare his squadron of dragoons from Celorico. Come, what do you think of it?”

“I do as you order,” said I, “and that I suppose is to return to Sabugal and report the lie of the land. But since, general, you ask my opinion, and speaking without local knowledge, I should say–“

“Yes?”

“Excuse me, but I will send you my opinion in four days’ time.” And I rose to depart.

“Very good, but keep your seat. Drink another glass of wine.”

“Sabugal is twenty miles off, and when I arrive I have yet to discover how to get into it,” I protested.

“That is just what am going to tell you.”

“Ah,” said I, “so you have already been making arrangements?”

He nodded while he poured out the wine. “You come opportunely, for I was about to rely on a far less ruse hand. The plan, which is my own, I submit to your judgment, but I think you will allow some merit in it.”

Well, I was not well-disposed to approve of any plan of his. In truth he had managed to offend me seriously. Had an English gentleman committed my recent error of supposing him to hint at assassination, General Trant (who can doubt it?) would have flamed out in wrath; but me he had set right with a curt carelessness which said as plain as words that the dishonouring suspicion no doubt came natural enough to a Spaniard. He had entertained me with a familiarity which I had not asked for, and which became insulting the moment he allowed me to see that it came from cold condescension. I have known a dozen combinations spoilt by English commanders who in this way have combined extreme offensiveness with conscious affability; and I have watched their allies–Spaniards and Portuguese of the first nobility–raging inwardly, while ludicrously impotent to discover a peg on which to hang their resentment.

I listened coldly, therefore, leaving the general’s wine untasted and ignoring his complimentary deference to my judgment. Yet the neatness and originality of his scheme surprised me. He certainly had talent.

He had found (it seemed) an old vine-dresser at Bellomonte, whose brother kept a small shop in Sabugal, where he shaved chins, sold drugs, drew teeth, and on occasion practised a little bone-setting. This barber-surgeon or apothecary had shut up his shop on the approach of the French and escaped out of the town to his brother’s roof. As a matter of fact he would have been safer in Sabugal, for the excesses of the French army were all committed by the marauding parties scattered up and down the country-side and out of the reach of discipline, whereas Marmont (to his credit) sternly discouraged looting, paid the inhabitants fairly for what he took, and altogether treated them with uncommon humanity.

It was likely enough, therefore, that the barber-surgeon’s shop stood as he had left it. And General Trant proposed no less than that I should boldly enter the town, take down the shutters, and open business, either personating the old man or (if I could persuade him to return) going with him as his assistant. In either case the danger of detection was more apparent than real, for so violently did the Portuguese hate their invaders that scarcely an instance of treachery occurred during the whole of this campaign. The chance of the neighbours betraying me was small enough, at any rate, to justify the risk, and I told the General promptly that I would take it.