The hero of a hundred fights (otherwise called “Old Beaky”) had just scraped through a choking trouble on the score of money with the grasping Portuguese regency; and now, in the year 1813, he was busier than even he had ever found himself before. He had to combine, in most delicate manner, and with exquisite nicety of time, the movements of columns whose number scarcely even to himself was clear; for the force of rivers unusually strong, and the doubt of bridges successively broken, and the hardship of the Tras os Montes, and the scattering of soldiers, who for want of money had to “subsist themselves”--which means to hunt far afield after cows, sheep, and hens--also the shifty and unpronounced tactics of the enemy, and a great many other disturbing elements, enough to make calculation sea-sick,--a senior wrangler, or even Herr Steinitz (the Wellington of the chess-board), each in his province, might go astray, and trust at last to luck itself to cut the tangled knot for him. It was a very grand movement, and triumphantly successful; opening up as fine a march as can be found in history, sweeping onward in victory, and closing with conquest of the Frenchmen in their own France, and nothing left to stop the advance on Paris. “Was all this luck, or was it skill?” the historian asks in wonder; and the answer, perhaps, may be found in the proverb--“Luck has a mother’s love for skill.” Be that as it may, it is quite certain that Hilary, though he had shown no skill, had some little luck in the present case. For the Commander-in-Chief was a great deal too busy, and had all his officers too hard at work, to order, without fatal loss of time, a general court-martial now. Moreover, he had his own reasons for keeping the matter as quiet as possible, for at least another fortnight. Every soldier by that time would be in march, and unable to turn his back on Brown Bess: whereas now there were some who might lawfully cast away the knapsack, if they knew that their bounty was again no better than a cloudy hope. And, again, there were some ugly pot-hooks of English questions to be dealt with. All these things passed through the rapid mind of the General, as he reined his horse, and listened calmly to poor Lorraine’s over-true report. And then he fixed his keen grey eyes upon Hilary, and said shortly-- “What were you doing upon that bridge?” “That is a question,” replied Lorraine, while marvelling at his own audacity, “which I am pledged by my honour, as a gentleman, not to answer.” “By your duty as an officer, in a place of special trust, you are bound to answer it.” “General, I cannot. My lord, as I rather must call you now, I wish I could answer; but I cannot.” “You have no suspicion who it was that stole the money, with so much care?” “I have a suspicion, but nothing more; and it makes me feel treacherous, to suspect it.” “Never mind that. We have rogues to deal with. What is your suspicion?”