line of dooty. I does whatever a man can do; and my father were a butcher."

"Corporal, it is one of the trials which the Lord has ordered. They do look up at one so, and they puts the middle of their lips up, and then with their bodies they turns away, as if there was nothing to look at. But, Nickles, they gives you no sort of a chance to come to the bottom of them. And this is what young cap'en will found out. The good females always is found out at last; the same as my poor wife was. But here us are. We have relaxed the bonds of discipline with conversation. Corporal, eyes right, and wait orders!"

While these two trusty and veteran fellows had been discussing a subject far too deep for a whole brigade of them, and still were full of tender recollections (dashed with good escape), poor Hilary had been vainly spurring, here and there, and all about, himself not come to his clear mind yet, only hoping to know where the money was gone. Hope, however, upon that point was disappointed, as usual. The track of the heavy carts was clear in the gravel of the river, and up the rocky bank, and on the old Roman road towards Merida. And then, at the distance of about a furlong from the Zujar, the rut of the wooden wheels turned sharply

into an elbow of a mountain-road. Here, on the hump of a difficult rise, were marks, as if many kicks, and pricks, and even stabs, had been ministered to good mules labouring heavily. There was blood on the road, and the blue shine of friction where hard rock encountered hard iron, and the scraping of holes in gravelly spots, and the nicks of big stones laid behind wheels to ease the tugging and afford the short relief of panting. These traces were plain, and becoming plainer as the road grew worse, for nearly a mile

of the mountain-side, and then the track turned suddenly into a thicket of dark ilex, where, out of British sight and ken, the spoil had been divided.

The treasure-carts had been upset, and two of the sturdy mules, at last foundered with hard labour, lay in their blood, contented that their work was over, and that man (a greater brute than themselves) had taken all he wanted out of them. The rest had been driven or ridden on, being useful for further torment. And here on the ground were five stout coffers of good British iron; but, alas! the good British gold was flown.

At this sight, Hilary stared a little; and the five chests in the morning sun glanced back at him with such a ludicrously sad expression of emptiness, that, in spite of all his trouble, the poor young captain broke into a hearty laugh. Then his horse walked up, and sniffed at them, being reminded, perhaps, of his manger; and Hilary, dismounting, found a solitary guinca lying in the dust, the last of fifty thousand. The trail of coarse esparto bags, into which the gold had been poured from the coffers, for the sake of easier transport, was very distinct in the parts untrampled by horses, mules, or brigands. But of all the marks there was none more conspicuous than the impressions of some man's boots, larger and heavier than the rest, and appearing, over and over again, here, there, and everywhere. For a few yards up the rugged mountain, these and other footprints might be traced without much trouble, till suddenly they dispersed, grew fainter, and then wholly disappeared in trackless, hopeless, and (to a stranger) impenetrable forest.

"Thou honest guinea that would not be stolen!" cried poor Lorraine, as here turned and picked up the one remaining coin; "haply I shall

never own another honest guinea. Forty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine prefer the ownership of rogues. Last of guineas, we will not part till gold outlives humanity!"

"Now, sir, is there anything us can do?" cried Bones and Nickles, or one of them. "We has followed all the way up this here long hill, for want of better orders."

"No, my good fellows, there is nothing to be done. We cannot follow any further. I must go with all speed to report myself. Follow me, if you can keep up."

The sergeant nodded to the corporal-for, loyal and steadfast as they were, suspicion was at work with them; that ugly worm which, once set going, wriggles into the stoutest heart. Surely it was a queer thing of the captain not even to let them examine the spot; but order was order, and without a word they followed the young officer back to the highroad, and then, for some hours in the heat of the day, on the way towards Estremadura. At noontide they came to a bright, broad stream, known to them as the Guadalmez, a confluent of the Guadiana; and here they were challenged, to their great surprise, by a strong detachment of British hussars. "What is your duty here?" asked Lorraine, as his uniform and face were acknowledged and saluted by sentries posted across the ford.

"To receive," cried an officer, riding through the river (for all of these people were wide awake), "Captain Lorraine and his Spanish convoy."

"I have no convoy," said Hilary, dropping his voice into very sad music. "All is lost. It is partly your fault. You were ordered to meet me at the Zujar ford."

"This is the Zujar ford," the cavalry major answered, sternly; and Hilary's heart fell from its last hope of recovering anything.

66 we

"We have been here these three days waiting for you," continued the major, with vehemence; have lost all our chance of a glorious brush; we sent you advice that we were waiting for you. And now you appear without your convoy! Captain Lorraine, what does all this mean?"

"Major, my explanation is due at headquarters, rather than to you." "And a deuced hard job you'll have to give it, or my name's not M'Rustie,' "the senior officer muttered, with more terseness and truth than courtesy. "I'm blessed if I'd stand in your shoes before Old Beaky, for a trifle."

Poor Hilary tried in vain to look as if he took it lightly. Even his bright and buoyant nature could not lift head against the sea of troubles all in front of him.

"I have done no harm," he kept saying to himself, when, after the few words that duty demanded, he urged his stout horse forward; and the faithful sergeant and corporal, who had shunned all inquisitive hussars, spurred vigorously after him, feeling themselves (as a Briton loves to feel himself) pregnant with mighty evidence. "What harm have I done?" asked Hilary. "I saw to everything; I worked hard. I never quitted my post, except through duty towards a lady. Any gentleman must have done what I did. To be an officer is an adornment; to be a gentleman is a necessity."

"Have you felt altogether," said conscience to him, "the necessity of that necessity? Have you found it impossible to depart from a gentleman's first duty-good faith, to those who trust in him? When you found yourself bewitched with a foreign lady, did you even let your first love know it? For months you have been playing fast and loose, not caring what misery you caused. And now you are fast

in the trap of your looseness. Whatever happens serves you right."

"Whatever happens serves me right!" cried Hilary Lorraine, aloud, as he lifted his sword just a little way forth, for the last time to admire it, and into the sheath dropped a quick, hot tear. "I have done my duty as an officer badly; and

But,

far worse as a gentleman. Mabel, if you could see me now, I think that you would grieve for me."

He felt his heart grow warm again with the thought of his own Mabel; and in the courage of that thought he stood before Lord Wellington.

The hero of a hundred fights (otherwise called "Old Beaky") had just scraped through a choking trouble on the score of money with the grasping Portuguese regency; and now, in the year 1813, he was busier than even he had ever found himself before. He had to combine, in most delicate manner and with exquisite nicety of time, the movements of columns whose number scarcely even to himself was clear; for the force of rivers unusually strong, and the doubt of bridges successively broken, and the hardship of the Tras os Montes, and the scattering of soldiers, who for want of money had to "subsist themselves"-which means to hunt far afield after cows, sheep, and hens also the shifty and unpronounced tactics of the enemy, and a great many other disturbing elements, enough to make calculation sca-sick, a senior wrangler, or even Herr Steinitz, the Wellington of the chess-board, each in his province, might go astray, and trust at last to luck itself to cut the tangled knot for him.

It was a very grand movement, and triumphantly successful; opening up as fine a march as can be found in history, sweeping onward in victory, and closing with conquest of the Frenchmen in their own France, and nothing left to stop the advance on Paris. "Was all this luck, or was it skill?" the

historian asks in wonder; and the answer, perhaps, may be found in the proverb-" luck has a mother's love for skill."

Be that as it may, it is quite certain that Hilary, though he had shown no skill, had some little luck in the present case. For the Commander-in-Chief was a great deal too busy, and had all his officers too hard at work, to order, without fatal loss of time, a general court-martial now. Moreover, he had his own reasons for keeping the matter as quiet as possible, for at least another fortnight. Every soldier by that time would be in march, and unable to turn his back on Brown Bess; whereas now there were some who might lawfully cast away the knapsack, if they knew that their bounty was again no better than a cloudy hope. And, again, there were some ugly pot-hooks of English questions to be dealt with.

All these things passed through the rapid mind of the General, as he reined his horse, and listened calmly to poor Lorraine's over-true report. And then he fixed his keen grey eyes upon Hilary, and said shortly

"What were you doing upon that bridge?"

"That is a question," replied Lorraine, while marvelling at his own audacity, "which I am pledged by my honour, as a gentleman, not to answer."

By your duty as an officer, in a place of special trust, you are bound to answer it."

"General, 1 cannot.

My lord, as I rather must call you now, I wish I could answer; but I cannot."

"You have no suspicion who it was that stole the money, with such prearrangement ?"

"I have a suspicion, but nothing more; and it makes me feel treacherous, to suspect it."

"Never mind that. We have rogues to deal with. What is your suspicion ?"

66

My lord, I am sorry to say that again I cannot, in honour, answer you."

66

Captain Lorraine, I have no time to spare" Lord Wellington had been more than once interrupted by despatches. "Once and for all, do you mean to give any, or no, explanation of your conduct, in losing £50,000?"

"General, all my life, and the honour of my family, depend upon what I do now."

"Then go and seek advice, Lorraine," the General answered kindly, for his heart was kind; and he had taken a liking for this young fellow, and knew a little of his family.

"I have no one to go to for advice, my lord. What is your advice to me?" With these words, Hilary looked so wretched and yet so proud from his well-bred face, and beautifully-shaped blue eyes, that his General stopped from his hurry to pity him. And then he looked gently at the poor young fellow.

"This is the most irregular state of things I have ever had to deal with. You have lost a month's pay of our army, and enough to last them half a year; and you seem to think that you have done great things, and refuse all explanation.

VOL. CXVII.-NO. DCCXII.

Is there any chance of recovering the money?"

"There might be, my lord, if we were not pushing so rapidly on for the Pyrenees."

"There might be, if we threw away our campaign! You have two courses before you; at least, if I choose to offer them. Will you take my advice, if I offer the choice?"

"I am only too glad to have any choice; and anything chosen for me by you.'

"Then this is just how you stand, Lorraine-if we [allow the alternative. You may demand a court-martial, or you may resign your commission. On the other hand, as you know, a court-martial may at once be called upon you. What answer are you prepared to make, when asked why you left your convoy ?"

"I should be more stubborn to them than even your lordship has let me be to you.'

Then, Captain Lorraine, resign your commission. With my approval, it can be done."

'Resign my commission ?" Lorraine exclaimed, reeling as if he had received a shot, and catching at the mane of the General's horse, without knowing what he was doing. "Oh no, I never could do that."

"Very well. I have given you my advice. You prefer your own decision; and I have other things to attend to. Captain Money will receive your sword. You are under arrest, till we can form a court."

66

My lord, it would break my father's heart, if he were to hear of such a thing. I suppose I had better resign my commission, if I may.

"Put that in writing, and send it to me. I will forward it to the Horse Guards with a memorandum from myself. I am sorry to lose you, Captain Lorraine; you might

D

have done well, if you had only proved as vigilant as you are active and gallant. But one word more what made you stop short at the ford of a little mountain-stream? I chose you as knowing the country well. You must have known that the Zujar ford was twenty miles further on your road."

"I know all that country too well, my lord. We halted at the real Zujar ford. General Hill's detachment stopped at the ford of the Guadalmez. It is wrongly called the Zujar there. The Zujar has taken a great sweep to the east and fallen into the Guadalmez and Guadalemar. Major M'Rustie must have been misled; and no doubt it was done on purpose. I have my information on the very best authority."

"May I ask, upon what authority? Are you pledged in honour

to conceal even that?"

"No, I may tell that, I do believe," said Hilary, after one moment's thought, and with his old bright simple smile. "I had it, my lord, from the two young ladies-the daughters of the Count of Zamora."

"Aha!" cried Lord Wellington (being almost as fond of young ladies as they of him, and touched perhaps for the moment by the magic of a sweet young smile), "I begin to understand the bridge-affair. But I fear that young ladies can hardly be cited as authorities on geography. Otherwise, we might make out a case against the Spanish authorities for sending our escort to the wrong place. And the Spanish escort, as you say, took that for the proper place."

"Certainly, my lord, they did. And so did the Count, and everybody. Is there any hope now that I may be acquitted?"

At a moment's notice from hope that she would like to come back to her lodgings, Hilary opened his eyes

so wide, and his heart so wide, and every other place that hope is generally partial to, that the great commander (who trusted as little as possible of his work to hope) could not help smiling a quick, dry smile. And he felt some pain, as, word by word, he demolished hope in Hilary.

"The point of the thing is the money, Lorraine. And that we never could recover from the Spaniards, even if it was lost through them; for the very good reason that they have not got it. And even supposing the mistake to be theirs, and our escort to have been sent astray, you were a party to that mistake. And more than that; you

were bound to see that the treasure did not cross the river, until our men were there. Did you do so?" "Oh, if I only had done that, I should not be so miserable."

"Exactly so. You neglected your duty. Take more care of

your own money than you have taken of ours, Lorraine. Do as I told you. And now, good-bye."

The General who had long been chafing at so much discourse just now, offered his hand to Lorraine, as one who was now a mere civilian.

"Is there no hope?" asked Hilary, dropping a tear into the mane of the restive horse. "Can I never be restored, my lord ?"

"Never; unless the money is made good before we go into quarters again. A heavy price for a captain's commission!"

"If it is made good, my lord, will you restore me from this deep disgrace?"

"The question will be for his Royal Highness. But I think that in such an extraordinary case, you may rely-at any rate you may rely upon my good word, Lorraine."

"I thank you, my lord. The money shall be paid. Not for the sake of my commission, but for the honour of our family."