hall scarce
be able to hold the passes of Arenas and San Pedro Barnardo; and
that I can certainly spare no men for the defence of the more
westerly ones, by which Soult is likely to march from Salamanca.
However, now you are there, I shall feel safe."

"No doubt I could hinder an advance, Sir Robert," Terence said,
"but I certainly could not hope to bar the passes to a French army.
I have no artillery and, though my men are steady enough against
infantry, I doubt whether they would be able to withstand an attack
heralded by a heavy cannonade. With a couple of batteries of
artillery to sweep the passes, one might make a fair stand for a
time against a greatly superior force; but with only infantry, one
could not hope to maintain one's position."

"Quite so, and Sir Arthur could not expect it. My own opinion is
that we shall have fifty thousand men coming down from the north. I
have told the chief as much; but naturally he will believe the
assurances of the Spanish juntas, rather than reports gathered by
our spies; and no doubt hopes to crush Victor altogether, before
Soult makes any movement; and he trusts to Venegas' advance, from
the south towards the upper Tagus, to cause Don Joseph to evacuate
Madrid, as soon as he hears of Victor's defeat.

"But I have, certainly, no faith whatever in either Venegas or
Cuesta. Cuesta is loyal enough, but he is obstinate and pig headed
and, at present, he is furious because the Supreme Junta has been
sending all the best troops to Venegas, instead of to him; and he
knows, well enough, that that perpetual intriguer Frere is working
underhand to get Albuquerque appointed to the supreme command. As
to Venegas, he is a mere tool of the Supreme Junta and, as likely
as not, they will order him to do nothing but keep his army intact.

"Then again, the delay at Plasencia has upset all Sir Arthur's
arrangements. Had he pressed straight forward on the 28th of last
month, when he crossed the frontier, disregarding Cuesta
altogether, he could have been at Madrid long before this; for I
know that at that time Victor's force had been so weakened that he
had but between fourteen and fifteen thousand men, and must have
fallen back without fighting. Now he has again got the troops that
had been taken from him, and will be further reinforced before Sir
Arthur arrives on the Alberche; and of course Soult has had plenty
of time to get everything in readiness to cross the mountains, and
fall upon t