. I was just starting to do the
ceremonial fencing salute which generally preceded the actual
hostilities, when he came to the engage, lunged, and had it not been for
the button of the enemy's foil and my leather jacket, there would have
been short shrift for J. M. G. He quickly called "One to me." Then I
quickly lunged, got home, and called out, "One to me." Next instant we
both lunged again, with equal results. We would have finished each
other's earthly career if there had been no buttons and no leather
jackets. The referee sharply called "Dead heat. All over." We shook hands
in the usual amicable way and had a good laugh over the bout.

We parted on that occasion on our different roads in life--he shortly
afterwards to meet his untimely end in the wilds of South Africa. Later
on I remember attending his funeral. His death was indeed a sad blow to
his mother, the Empress Eugenie, whose hopes had been centred on him her
only son. I well remember, as a youngster, when visiting Madrid with my
mother, looking forward to be taken to see her mother, the Countess of
Montijo, who, with my grandmother, had been lady-in-waiting to Her
Majesty Queen Christina.

Just lately I was at Jerez again, when the ex-Empress Eugenie motored
from Gibraltar to Seville, accompanied by her nephew the Duke of Alba.
They stopped for luncheon at the Hotel Cisnes. I had the honour of a
conversation with her. Her brightness and her memory were quite
unimpaired though in her ninety-fifth year. She recollected the incident
of the fencing bout at which she had been present. Now she has passed
away to her rest.

Gazetted Lieutenant, Royal Artillery, March, 1876, I was ordered to join
at the Royal Artillery Barracks, Woolwich, in April.

CHAPTER V

MY MEETINGS WITH KING ALFONSO

While the exiled Prince Imperial was at the Royal Military Academy at
Woolwich another exiled Royal Prince, in the person of Alfonso XII,
father of the present King and the successful claimant in the great
Carlist struggle, who came to his own in 1875, was undergoing training in
the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. I came to know him intimately
during his stay in England owing to the fact that the Count of Mirasol,
whose sister married my eldest brother, was his tutor and factotum.

I well remember what pleasure it was to me every time Mirasol asked me to
spend the week-end with Alfonso in town. It was winter time, and one of
our favourite resorts was Maskelyn