times as terrible to
stragglers from the British army of deliverance as to those from the
French army of oppressors. Then, too, there was the Portuguese Militia
Act recently enforced by Wellington--acting through the Portuguese
Government--deeply resented by the peasantry upon whom it bore, and
rendering them disposed to avenge it upon such stray British soldiers as
might fall into their hands.

Knowing all this, Sergeant Flanagan did not at all relish this night
excursion into the hill fastnesses, where at any moment, as it seemed to
him, they might miss their way. After all, they were but twelve men all
told, and he accounted it a stupid thing to attempt to take a short cut
across the hills for the purpose of overtaking an encumbered troop that
must of necessity be moving at a very much slower pace. This was the
way not to overtake but to outdistance. Yet since it was not for him to
remonstrate with the lieutenant, he kept his peace and hoped anxiously
for the best.

At the mean wine-shop of that hamlet Mr. Butler inquired his way by
the simple expedient of shouting "Tavora?" with a strong interrogative
inflection. The vintner made it plain by gestures--accompanied by a
rattling musketry of incomprehensible speech that their way lay straight
ahead. And straight ahead they went, following that mule track for
some five or six miles until it began to slope gently towards the plain
again. Below them they presently beheld a cluster of twinkling lights
to advertise a township. They dropped swiftly down, and in the outskirts
overtook a belated bullock-cart, whose ungreased axle was arousing the
hillside echoes with its plangent wail.

Of the vigorous young woman who marched barefoot beside it, shouldering
her goad as if it were a pikestaff, Mr. Butler inquired--by his usual
method--if this were Tavora, to receive an answer which, though voluble,
was unmistakably affirmative.

"Covento Dominicano?" was his next inquiry, made after they had gone some
little way.

The woman pointed with her goad to a massive, dark building, flanked by
a little church, which stood just across the square they were entering.

A moment later the sergeant, by Mr. Butler's orders, was knocking upon
the iron-studded main door. They waited awhile in vain. None came to
answer the knock; no light showed anywhere upon the dark face of the
convent. The sergeant knocked again, more vigorously than before.
Presently came timid, shuffling steps; a shut