It snowed in his house of meat and drink,
Of all dainties that men could of think;
After the sundry seasons of the year,
So changed he his meat and soupere.
Full many a fat patriarch had he in mew,
And many a breme and many a luce in stew;
Wo was his cook, but if his sauce were
Poignant and sharp, and ready all his gere,
His table dormant in his hall alway,
Stood ready covered all the long day.
_Prologue to Canterbury Tales_.
Three days had gone by since the return of the party from Evora. The
ladies had gotten over their fatigue, talked over their travels, and
wondered at seeing nothing of L'Isle. He had merely sent to inquire
after their health, instead of coming himself, as in duty bound. Lady
Mabel had confidently looked for him the first day, asked about him
the next, and on the third, feeling hurt at this continued neglect,
concluded that she had had enough of his company of late, and it did
not matter should she not see him for a month.
Meanwhile, what was L'Isle doing? He was busy reforming himself and
his regiment. On his return to Elvas he had met with several little
indications of relaxed discipline, and somewhat suddenly remembered
that he had not come out to Portugal to ride about the country,
escorting young ladies in search of botanical specimens, picturesque
scenes, and fragments of antiquity. He, the most punctilious of
martinets, had been sadly neglecting his duties, and had used the
invalid's plea until it was worn threadbare long ago. He was
dissatisfied with himself, and, of course, more dissatisfied with
other people.
From the day he came back he was constantly in the midst of his
regiment. He showed himself, too, at the head of the mess table at
every meal, taking that, as well as other opportunities, to inculcate
rigid precept and sound doctrine on military matters, and lecture his
officers on the subject of discipline. Nor did he confine himself to
generalities. He was exacting with his major, hard on his adjutant; he
gave Captain A---- to understand that the days and nights spent in the
mountains in pursuit of his game tended little to promote the King's
service, and that leave would be refused in future, and he suggested
to Captain B---- that the best way to ascertain the state of his
company was not to send for his orderly sergeant, but to inspect it
himself. He spoiled more than one party of pleasure for some of these
gentlemen by finding very inopportunely something else for them to do
than following the ladies of Elvas and other game of the vicinage.
Many of the officers grumbled, and voted the colonel a bore. They even
talked of sending him to Coventry. But Adjutant Meynell excused him by
whispering it about that the colonel had just met with a rude rebuff
from a certain person at headquarters, and as the rank and sex of the
offender hindered his showing his resentment in that direction, on
whom could he vent his ill-humor but on those under his command?
Meynell advised that they should all unite in sending a round robbin
to Lady Mabel, begging her to smile upon their colonel, and put him in
an amiable mood.
With the little festive skirmishes, of almost daily occurrences at
headquarters, Lord Strathern loved to mingle occasionally more serious
affairs, in the shape of grander feasts; and on the fourth day after
Lady Mabel's return, the guests assembled in force. Among them were
three ladies of Elvas, who had established a social intercourse with
Lady Mabel, and a greater, though less ostensible intimacy with some
gentlemen of the brigade. Dinner company is a phase of social life
almost unknown in Portugal, and Lady Mabel, aware of this, was
needlessly anxious to put her female guests at their ease. Her
smattering of their tongue proved inadequate, and even her Spanish but
poorly served the purposes of conversation. Dona Carlotta Sequiera,
indeed, despising the peninsular tongues, would speak only French--but
such French! She had picked up most of it along Kellerman's officers,
when he held Elvas with a French garrison in 1808. This lady, like
some other renegade Portuguese, at that time assiduously courted the
Gaul; and she was anxious now to wipe out this blot, in the eyes of
her countrymen, by making much of their British allies. Lady Mabel,
tired of her efforts to converse with the other ladies, and sick of
Dona Carlotta's French,
"After the school of Stratford at bow,
For French of Paris was to her unknow"--
longed to see her self-appointed dragoman enter the room.
L'Isle had ridden out in the morning to a place on the borders,
equi-distant between Elvas and Badajoz, the scene of a serious outrage
by a party of marauders two nights before. A peasant, guilty of being
richer than his neighbors, had been punished by having his house
forced, his head broken, his premises sacked, and his family
ill-treated. Though there had been but little blood shed, there had
been much wine spilt, besides several plump goat-skins carried off
with the rest of the plunder. The English in Elvas laid this
achievement at the door of the irregular Spanish force at Badajoz. Tie
Spanish officers were quite as sure that it was the exploit of
volunteer foragers from the English cantonments. L'Isle, seeing nobody
disposed to inquire into the matter, went and made an examination on
the spot, which inclined him to believe that the Spanish version was
the true history of this little military operation. After a hot ride
he returned in time to make his bow to Lady Mabel among the latest of
her guests.
Mrs. Shortridge was very glad to see him, but reproached him with his
late neglect of his friends; and turned toward Lady Mabel, expecting
her concurrence in this censure. But my lady said, with sublime
indifference: "What matters Colonel L'Isle's absence hitherto, since
he has now come in time to interpret between us and our Portuguese
friends? I have exhausted my stock of Portuguese," she continued,
addressing L'Isle; "and find that they do not always comprehend my
Spanish. Major Warren, indeed, has been lending me his aid; but I
think the interpreter the harder to be understood of the two. Is it
not strange these ladies do not understand me better; for their
language is but bad Spanish, and mine is surely bad enough."
"Do not say that to the Portuguese," said L'Isle. "They will be justly
offended; for their tongue is rather the elder sister of the Spanish
than a corruption of it."
"Pray, lend me your tongue, Colonel L'Isle," said Mrs.
Shortridge. "Here Dona Carlotta Sequiera has been jabbering at me in
what I now find out to be French, but I am ashamed to say, I do not
know thirty words of the language."
"Better to be ignorant of it," said L'Isle with a sneer, "than learn
it as Dona Carlotta did."
"I know not how she acquired it," said Mrs. Shortridge, "but I am told
that here on the continent every educated person speaks French. We
English are far behind them in that."
"Be proud rather than ashamed of that," said L'Isle. "Monsieur has
taught all Europe his language except ourselves. Flagellation is a
necessary part of schooling. As he has never been able to thrash us,
we are the worst French scholars in Europe, and those he has thrashed
oftenest, are the best. They should blush at their knowledge; we plume
ourselves on our ignorance. Thank God you have an English tongue in
your head, and never mar a better language with a Gallic phrase. There
is in every country a class who are prone to denationalize themselves;
at this day, they generally ape the Frenchman. Now, I can tolerate a
genuine Frenchman, without having any great liking for him; but if
there is any one whom I feel at liberty to despise and distrust, it is
a German, Spaniard or Englishman, who is trying to Frenchify
himself. Such people are much akin to the self-styled citizen of the
world, who professes to have rid himself of all local and national
prejudice. I have usually met _no-prejudice_ and _no-principle_
walking hand in hand together. The French," he continued, "have the
impudence to call theirs the universal language; and in diplomacy and
war, they have been long too much encouraged in this. My Lord
Wellington here is much to blame in giving way to their pretensions on
this point. Whenever I have an independent command," said L'Isle
laughing, "I will not let a Frenchman capitulate but in good English,
or for want of it, in some other language than his own. I have
already put that in practice in a small way," said he, as he handed
Mrs. Shortridge down to dinner. "I once waylaid a foraging, _anglice_,
a plundering party, returning laden to Merida. They showed fight, but
we soon tumbled them into a _barranca_, where we had them quite in our
power. But I would not listen to a word of their French, or let them
surrender, until they found a renegade Spaniard to act as
interpreter. When I want anything of them, I may speak French; but
when they want anything of me, they must ask it in another tongue."
The dinner went off as large dinners usually do. The wrong parties got
seated together, and suitable companions were separated by half the
length of the board. Lady Mabel had Colonel Bradshawe, whom she did
not want, close at hand; and her dragoman was out of hearing, which
she felt to be not only inconvenient, but a grievance; for without
entertaining any definite designs upon him, habit had already given
her a sort of property in him, and a right to his services. But the
Elvas ladies had no such ground of complaint. Each had her favorite by
her side, and Dona Carlotta one on either hand.
It was a relief to Lady Mabel when the time came to lead the ladies
back to her drawing-room. There she labored to entertain them until
some of the gentlemen found leisure to come to her aid. She expected
to see L'Isle among the first; but one after another came in without
him; the Portuguese ladies were taken off her hands by their more
intimate male friends, and she had leisure to wonder what could keep
L'Isle down stairs so long, and to get out of humor at his sticking to
the bottle, and neglecting better company for it.
Meanwhile, a great controversy was waging below. The more the
disputants drank, the more strenuously they discussed the point at
issue; and the more they exhausted themselves in argument, the oftener
they refreshed themselves by drinking; swallowing many a glass
unconsciously in the heat of the debate.
The farmer talks of seasons and his crops; the merchant of traffic and
his gains; and the soldier, though less narrow in his range of topics,
often dwells on the incidents and characteristics of military life. In
answer to some very loose notions on the subject of discipline, L'Isle
mounted his hobby, and said that he had pretty much come into the
mechanical theory on military matters. "An army is a machine; the men
composing it, parts of that machine; and the more their personal and
individual characters are obliterated, by assimilating them to the
nature of precise and definite parts of one complicated organization,
the better will they serve their purpose. Now, a machine should be
kept always in perfect order and readiness for instant application to
the purpose of its construction. An army is a machine contrived for
fighting battles; and if at any time it is not in a condition to fight
to the best advantage, it is in a state of deterioration and partial
disorganization. Troops, therefore, should be kept, at all times and
under all circumstances, under the same rigid discipline, and in the
full exercise of their functions, equally ready at all seasons for
action."
Lord Strathern took up the cudgels and maintained that though an army
might be called a machine, its component parts were men, who
necessarily had some perception of the contingencies and emergencies
incident to military life, and that great as were sacrifices they
might make, and the restrictions they might bear with when there was
obvious necessity for them, should the same exacting course be pursued
as a system, it would only break their spirits, freeze their zeal, and
disgust them with the service. "We have seen enough of your mechanical
armies, drilled and regulated to perfection, as soulless mechanism. We
have seen how, on the dislocation of this machine, the parts became
useless and helpless, without resource in themselves. In short, it is
the Prussian and Austrian system which has given half Europe to the
French. No; if the bow need unbending, still more does the soldier
need relaxation, to give vigor and elasticity to body and mind. A
little ease and pleasure chequering his career only beget desire and
the motives for new adventure and fresh exertions. How is it with our
horses," exclaimed his lordship, who was a jockey of the old school.
"Do we not give them a run at grass, to refresh their constitutions
and renew their youth?"
But L'Isle unshaken maintained his opinion, "With such materials as
make up a large part of our army, for his majesty gets the services of
many a fellow who can be put to no good use at home, your lordship's
relaxation system would only tend to sap its moral and physical
strength, and make it a curse to the country in which it is quartered,
whether at home or abroad."
It would have been well had the discussion stopped here. In the heat
of debate each pushed his argument beyond his own convictions.
Colonel Bradshawe sat sipping his wine, listening with mock gravity
and seeming to oscillate between the opinions of the disputants, but
most of the company agreed with Lord Strathern; still L'Isle found
several staunch backers for his mechanical theory. But when quoting
facts in support of his views, he referred to the conduct of their own
men on sundry late occasions, and stated the result of the inquiries
he that morning had made into the last outrage, he brought the whole
company down upon him. They were all sure that the English soldiers
had nothing to do with it. His lordship professed to detect, not only
in the act itself, but in the _modus operandi_, infallible marks that
fathered it on the Spaniard. The quiet, stealthy manner, the place,
just on the border, yet out of Spain. "Besides," he urged, "you
yourself say, that the few words the marauders were heard to utter
were all Spanish."
"But the same testimony proves them to have been bad Spanish, even to
the ears of a Portuguese borderer, and evidently used by foreigners
for the purpose of disguise, like the dresses they wore. Who ever
heard of a Spaniard breaking a man's head, when he could give him the
blade of his knife? The farmer's bloody crown was a plain piece of
English handicraft. Spaniards would have rummaged the house for _la
plata_, and have snatched the earrings from the women's ears; the
robbers, a more thirsty race, thought chiefly of carrying off the
liquor."
The number and loud voices of those opposed to him only made L'Isle
more stubborn in maintaining his views. He seemed rather to like being
in a minority of one. On the other hand, Lord Strathern construed his
remarks into an undisguised censure of his lax discipline. Luckily he
was a truly hospitable man: nowhere, but at his own board, could he
have kept his temper under control. Between the fumes of wine and
smoke of cigars, the matter only became more and more cloudy. It was
late when L'Isle left the table and entered the drawing-room, with a
brow still ruffled by the controversy.
Striving to resume his equanimity, he took a seat by Lady Mabel. But
she, by no means pleased at the long absence of her interpreter, and
his late neglect in attending on her, pushed her chair back, and said
something about "falling into bad habits."
"Do you think so?" said L'Isle, looking surprised, then reflecting a
moment. "Why, Lady Mabel, I am not aware of having committed any
excess, at least of the kind you suspect."
"Why, then, do you come from below so much heated and excited?"
"I have been engaged in a hot argument with my Lord, and others."
"Coolness would be more appropriate to argument than heat. But this
was plainly an after-dinner discussion. The subject should be handled
a second time, in imitation of those wise barbarians, who resolved on
nothing until they had twice taken counsel, once of their cups, and
then of cool sobriety the morning after."
"I feel no need of appealing to the cool reflecting morning hours."
"Of course you do not feel it now; that, too, will come with the sober
morning."
L'Isle, a good deal nettled, was about to reply, when she exclaimed,
"Why, you have been smoking!"
"No, I have only been smoked."
"That is just as unpleasant," she said, pushing her chair farther
off. "The Portuguese snuff-taking is offensive enough, but this
Spanish habit of smoking perpetually is intolerable. Wherever our
officers go they pick up the small vices of the country, without
abandoning any of their own. Here they add smoking to their native
wine-bibbing propensities. They spoil a man utterly."
"Not utterly," said L'Isle; "there is Warren now, a capital fellow, a
delightful companion, and an inveterate smoker."
"For that I cannot abide him," said Lady Mabel, out of humor with
everybody.
"There is your friend, Colonel Bradshawe, who sets no little store by
his wine and cigar."
"He is intolerable with them, and would be a bore without them."
"But my Lord himself smokes. Will you not tolerate him?"
"He is an old man, a general officer, and my father," said Lady
Mabel. "After a life of hard service in the worst climates in the
world, he may need indulgences not necessary to younger men. Besides,
he is obliged to see so much of his officers. If he could choose his
companions, he would lead a very different life. When we happen to be
alone here," continued Lady Mabel, "he never sits long after dinner,
seldom touches a cigar, and it is evidently only his position, and the
habits forced upon him in a long military career, which interfere with
his quiet tastes and love of domestic life."
L'Isle looked at Lady Mabel to see if she was in earnest. She had only
said what she willingly believed on rather slight foundations. In
truth, the novelty of having his daughter with him on the few
occasions on which they were here left alone together, had proved of
quite sufficient interest to enable Lord Strathern to dispense with
other society and excitements, and led him to look back and to speak
much of his short married life, and far beyond that, the days of his
boyhood. L'Isle found himself convicted of contributing, with others,
to mar the comfort and spoil the habits of the most abstemious and
domestic old gentleman in the king's service. This was plainly a point
on which it was not safe to contradict Lady Mabel, if he would keep in
her good graces--so he gladly waved the discussion.
Mrs. Shortridge, under the reviving influence of her love of
sight-seeing, now asked L'Isle to suggest some excursion for them, on
which they might see something new. But she begged that it might be
within a reasonable distance, for she had been so thoroughly shaken on
the rough paths to and from Evora, that she was not yet up to another
long ride.
"Cranfield has just been talking of Fort la Lippe," said L'Isle,
"which overlooks us from the North. Let us make up a party to visit it
to-morrow. Cranfield can entertain and instruct us by discoursing on
this masterpiece of the Count de Lippe, and unveil the mysteries of
the engineer's art. In the intervals, we can, from that high point,
survey the country around us."
Cranfield eagerly seconded the proposal. Anything that looked like
diversion was welcome to the ladies and the idlers about them, and
Lady Mabel, somewhat mollified, condescended to approve of it.
Accordingly, the next morning she met, by appointment, Mrs.
Shortridge and the three Portuguese ladies at the foot of the long
flight of steps that lead up to the cathedral of Elvas. They were
accompanied by L'Isle, Cranfield, and half a dozen gentlemen more,
including the young surgeon of the ---- regiment, who was always
imagining that Lady Mabel had a cold, headache, or some other little
ailment, that he might have the pleasure of prescribing for it.
Irreverently turning their backs on the old church, without one prayer
to the saints within, or those depicted on its windows of stained
glass, they walked out of town down into the narrow valley lying north
of the city, and crossing the brook which runs at the bottom (the
Portuguese, making a river of it, have christened it the Seto), on the
few stepping-stones which well supply the place of a foot-bridge, they
toiled up the opposite hill, the lower part of which is covered with a
grove of prickly oaks.
On reaching the gate Captain Cranfield stepped forward to the head of
the party, and entered zealously on his duties as _cicerone_. He led
them through the spacious barracks, in which the scanty garrison
seemed buried in monastic seclusion; through the huge store-houses and
bomb-proof kitchens and bakeries; showed them the vast tank containing
water for a full garrison for a year; and what was better, a natural
spring, welling out mysteriously within the circuit of the works. From
the ramparts of this huge coronet that crowned the head of this
eminence, he pointed out the strength of the position, the efficiency
of the works, and their importance to the safety of Elvas. From this
stronghold, with the works of the city and Fort St. Lucia on the other
side of it, lying before them, Cranfield discoursed at length on his
art, dealing largely in its technical terms: bastions, and curtains,
covered ways, scarps and counter scarps, with ravelins thrown out in
front of them, until Mrs. Shortridge, who listened with open-mouthed
admiration, got so confused that she imagined that a ravelin was some
kind of missile to be hurled at the French. Dona Carlotta and the
other Portuguese ladies were not so attentive, not understanding the
language of the lecturer, and feeling less interest in the defence of
their country than in the attentions of the foreign officers, who were
devoting themselves to their special service. But Lady Mabel, who
prided herself on being a soldier's daughter, lent a willing ear to
Cranfield, asked many questions, and even contrived to understand much
that he had to say.
L'Isle now thought that the engineer had held the first place in Lady
Mabel's attention long enough; so he broke in upon his eulogy on this
inland Gibraltar, the master-piece of "_o gran Conde de Lippe_."
"The whole thing is certainly grand and complete in itself," said he,
looking around; "and is a monument to the engineering talents of the
Count de Lippe. But, after all, constructing a great fortress in
Portugal is like building a ducal palace on a dairy farm; the thing
may be very fine in itself, but is altogether out of place. Half a
dozen such strongholds as Elvas, with its forts, would swallow up the
Portuguese army, yet be but half garrisoned, and leave not a man to
take the field. See the extent of the works between this and St.
Lucia, that other sentinel standing guard over Elvas on the south. It
would need twelve thousand men to garrison the city and the forts. I
never heard that this fortress was of use to any but the French, who
got it without fighting; and the possession of it helped them to
obtain the convention of Cintra; but for which we would have tumbled
Junot and his fellows into the Tagus. The Count de Lippe was
wonderfully successful in regenerating the army, and restoring the
military character of Portugal in the last century; but his
countryman, Schomberg, in the century before, showed how Portugal
could be better defended, and we have now in the country one who
understands it better than the Duke de Schomberg himself."
There was so much truth in what L'Isle said, that Cranfield was
obliged to yield up his impregnable fortress as a very fine thing in
itself, but quite out of place.
"I gather from your remarks," said Lady Mabel, "that Portugal has
often had a foreigner at the head of its army."
"Very often, indeed," answered L'Isle. "This same kingdom, which, in
spite of its narrow territory and small population, had, through the
enterprise of its rulers and the energy of the people, extended its
conquests in the East and the West; which, in the sixteenth century
had thirty-two foreign kingdoms and four hundred and thirty garrisoned
towns tributary to it--has now so much degenerated in its
institutions, that for two centuries it has never been able to defend
itself, or even make a decent showing in the field, but by foreign aid
and under a foreign leader. The Duke of Schomberg, Archduke Charles,
the Count de Lippe the Prince of Waldeck, and other Germans, have in
turn led the army, and each had to reorganize it, and revive its
discipline. Now, they rely on Beresford to train them for battle, and
Wellington to lead them to victory. The Count de Lippe found the
military character so sunk, that officers were often seen waiting at
the tables of their colonels; and the sense of individual honor was so
lost, that one of his first reforms was to insist on his officers
fighting when insulted, if they would not be cashiered."
"The former greatness of Portugal," said Lady Mabel, "is even more
wonderful than its present decay. Yet that is lamentable, indeed, when
the government, without striking a blow, could run away from the
country on the approach of the invader."
"That might have been called an act of deliberate wisdom," said
L'Isle, "had it not been stamped with feebleness and cowardice in the
execution. Resistance was hopeless against France united with Spain,
its tool, and soon to be its victim. Yielding to the storm left the
invaders without apology for the plunder and atrocities the French
have since perpetrated on the people. Nor was it a sudden thought. As
long ago as the beginning of the last century, a Portuguese Secretary
of State, seeing the defenceless condition of his country, urged that
the King should remove to Brazil, and fix his court at Rio Janeiro. He
points out the dependent state of his country in Europe, and asks:
'What is Portugal?' A corner of land divided into three parts; one
barren, one belonging to the church, and the other part not even
producing grain enough for the inhabitants. Look now at Brazil, and
see what is wanting! The soil is rich, the climate delightful, the
territory boundless, and the city would soon become more flourishing
than Lisbon. Here he might extend his commerce, make discoveries in
the interior, and take the title of Emperor of the West.' In truth,
the behavior of the house of Braganza in this migration, contrasts
well with the infamous conduct of the Spanish Bourbons."
They had strolled on to the foot of a tower within the fort, and
Cranfield led the party to the top to survey the panorama around them.
The horizon was pretty equally divided between Portugal and Spain. On
the North, close at hand, rose the rugged Serra de Portalegre, famous
for its chesnut forests; to the west was the fertile plain of Eastern
Alemtejo, crossed by the enormous pile of the aqueduct, and backed by
the heights of Serra D'Ossa; to the south and east, the valley of the
Guadiana lay before them, with few marks of culture on the Spanish
side; and the eye could range over the sheep pastured plains of
Estremadura to the misty sides and blue tops of the sierras that shut
them in on either hand.
In the East, nine miles off, by the straight path the vulture makes,
rose Badajoz, capped by its castle, and over-looked by fort San
Christoval on a high hill across the river. The fame of its sieges
during this war, its stubborn defence and bloody fall within the year,
drew the eyes of the ladies on it. L'Isle pulled out a field glass to
aid them in inspecting it. When the Portuguese ladies got hold of it,
they were as much delighted as children with a new toy, snatching it
out of each other's hands, without allowing time for its deliberate
use, and protesting against their Spanish neighbors being brought so
near to them.
"If they are so delighted at the powers of this little thing," said
L'Isle, "what would they think of the glass Lord Wellington had put up
in this tower during the siege of Badajoz?"
"Were its powers so great?" Mrs. Shortridge asked.
"Wonderful, according to rumor," answered L'Isle, "But I never had
time to come from the trenches to prove them. It is said to have
brought Badajoz so near, that you saw how the French soldiers made
their soup, and even smell the garlic they put into it. Once, when my
Lord saw Philipon leaning against the parapet of the castle, sneering
at the besieger's clumsy approaches, he so far forgot himself, as to
call for his holsters, that he might pistol the contemptuous Frenchmen
on the spot."
"Did he, indeed?" exclaimed Mrs. Shortridge; then laughing at herself
for being quizzed for the moment, begged L'Isle to tell this to the
Portuguese ladies, and see if they would not believe it.
Meanwhile, Lady Mabel was gazing thoughtfully over the winding valley,
which running toward them from the East, turned abruptly to the South,
indicating the course of the Guadiana, and on the wide plains of
Estremadura _baja_, or the lower, to the blue sierras that walled it
round. "This, then, is Spain," said she; "the land I have read of,
dreamed of, and for the last four years, thought of more even than of
my own."
"And yet," said L'Isle, "you calling yourself a traveler, have been
for months within sight of it, and have never set your foot on Spanish
ground."
"I blush to own it. But you, my self-appointed guide, should blush,
too, at never having led me thither. Come, Mrs. Shortridge: these
soldiers are too slow for us; let us take horse to-morrow, and make an
inroad into Spain."
"Willingly," said Mrs. Shortridge. "But let us take a strong party
with us. We do not know how we might be received, should the Spaniards
mistake us for Portuguese!"
"If a visit to Badajoz is your object," said Cranfield, "I offer
myself as a guide. As I have been lately engaged in repairing its
shattered walls, I may be useful in showing you how to get in.
Knowing, too, some of the Spanish officers there, I may in a parley
induce them to come to terms."
They now descended from the tower, and on leaving the fort, Lady Mabel
led the party to head-quarters, to take their luncheon there, while
they planned their measure for to-morrow's expedition to Badajoz.