“But I was too late.  The young officer fired, and though the ball entered my poor servant’s skull and killed him on the instant, a hulking fellow beside him had the savagery to complete what was finished with a savage bayonet-thrust through the back.

“I stood still, fully expecting to be used no more humanely, but the officer lowered his pistol and curtly told me I was his prisoner.  By this time the fellows had come up from beating the thicket behind and surrounded me.  I therefore surrendered, and was marched up the hill to the camp with poor Jose’s body at my heels borne by a couple of soldiers.

“In all the hurry and heat of this chase I had found time to wonder how our pursuers happened to be so well posted.  For a good fortnight and more—­in fact, since my escape across the ford at Huerta—­I could remember nothing that we had done to give the French the slightest inkling that we were watching them or, indeed, were anywhere near.  And yet the affair suggested no casual piece of scouting, but a deliberate plan to entrap somebody of whose neighbourhood they were aware.

“Nor was this perplexity at all unravelled by the general officer to whose tent they at once conveyed me—­a little round white-headed man, Ducrot by name.  He addressed me at once as Captain McNeill, and seemed vastly elated at my capture.

“‘So we have you at last!’ he said, regarding me with a jocular smile and a head cocked on one side, pretty much after the fashion of a thrush eyeing a worm.  ’But, excuse me, after so much finesse it was a blunder—­hein?’

“Now finesse is not a word which I should have claimed at any time for my methods,[A] and I cast about in my memory for the exploit to which he could be alluding.

[Footnote A:  NOTE BY MANUEL MCNEILL.—­Here the captain, in his hurry to pay me a compliment, does himself some injustice. Finesse, to be sure, was not generally characteristic of his methods, but he used it at times with amazing dexterity, as, for instance, the latter part of this very adventure will prove, if I can ever prevail on him to narrate it.  On the whole I should say that he disapproved of finesse much as he disapproved of swearing, but had a natural aptitude for both.]

“‘It is the mistake of clever men,’ continued General Ducrot sagely, ’to undervalue their opponents; but surely after yesterday the commonest prudence might have warned you to put the greatest possible distance between yourself and Sabugal.’

“‘Sabugal?’ I echoed.

“’Oh, my dear sir, we know.  It was amusing—­eh!—­the barber’s shop?  I assure you I laughed.  It was time for you to be taken; for really, you know, you could never have bettered it, and it is not for an artist to wind up by repeating inferior successes.’