ting that he should take one of the men from the quinta, Butler, with
wit enough to see that this was not desirable under the circumstances,
had preferred to find his way alone.

His confused mind strove now to revisualise the map which he had
consulted in Souza's parlour. He discovered, naturally enough, that the
task was altogether beyond his powers. Meanwhile night was descending.
They were, however, upon the mule track, which went up and round the
shoulder of a hill, and by this they came at dark upon a hamlet.

Sergeant Flanagan was a shrewd fellow and perhaps the most sober man in
the troop--for the wine had run very freely in Souza's kitchen, too,
and the men, whilst awaiting their commander's pleasure, had taken the
fullest advantage of an opportunity that was all too rare upon that
campaign. Now Sergeant Flanagan began to grow anxious. He knew the
Peninsula from the days of Sir John Moore, and he knew as much of the
ways of the peasantry of Portugal as any man. He knew of the brutal
ferocity of which that peasantry was capable. He had seen evidence
more than once of the unspeakable fate of French stragglers from the
retreating army of Marshal Soult. He knew of crucifixions, mutilations
and hideous abominations practised upon them in these remote hill
districts by the merciless men into whose hands they happened to fall,
and he knew that it was not upon French soldiers alone--that these
abominations had been practised. Some of those fierce peasants had
been unable to discriminate between invader and deliverer; to them
a foreigner was a foreigner and no more. Others, who were capable of
discriminating, were in the position of having come to look upon French
and English with almost equal execration.

It is true that whilst the Emperor's troops made war on the maxim that
an army must support itself upon the country it traverses, thereby
achieving a greater mobility, since it was thus permitted to travel
comparatively light, the British law was that all things requisitioned
must be paid for. Wellington maintained this law in spite of all
difficulties at all times with an unrelaxing rigidity, and punished with
the utmost vigour those who offended against it. Nevertheless breaches
were continual; men broke out here and there, often, be it said,
under stress of circumstances for which the Portuguese were
themselves responsible; plunder and outrage took place and provoked
indiscriminating rancour with consequences at