"Ah!" sneered Miguel, "that is your English squeamishness. You English have no nerves. What is the good of your coming out here? We will show you how to deal with these accursed Frenchmen, and if your stomach turns against it, well, go home to your nurses in little England, and play with your tin soldiers and toy guns, for you are no good in Spain." Their arrival at the inn checked the reply that rose to Jack’s lips. Don Miguel, in the same oily, languid tone that was causing Jack more and more irritation, ordered the landlord to make himself scarce, as he had important business to discuss with his friend, and in a few moments the two were left alone in the room. The Spaniard flung off his cloak, revealing the resplendent uniform of Palafox’s Hussars, and as he removed his hat Jack noticed a long, livid scar running from his brow to his left eye, disfiguring what was otherwise a well-looking countenance so far as features were concerned. "And how is your excellent father?" asked Miguel as he lolled in the only easy-chair in the room. "He is lucky, truly, for the stock in London is a good one, and he will do a good business, whereas with us these troubles have brought trade to a stand-still, and we are obliged to suspend all operations. But things will improve. Don Fernan, with his shrewd head for business, foresaw what would happen, and took steps to realize what he could on the stock before the outbreak of war, which was a very lucky thing for my father and myself and Juanita. And he could not have chosen a more convenient moment for dying, for—" "For dying! Is Don Fernan dead?" cried Jack. "Dead as a door-post, poor man! I thought you would be surprised to hear it. He had been ailing ever since his exertions in the siege of Saragossa last summer—there was something wrong with his heart, I think,—and when the news came that General Castaños had met with a mishap at Tudela, he held up his hands and cried: ’Oh my country! my poor country!’ then fell forward and died. He was an old man, of course, and must have died soon, and I have only come a little sooner into the inheritance that was bound to come to me." "Did Don Fernan appoint you his heir, then?" asked Jack with a keen look. "What about Juanita?" "Does it not come to the same thing, my friend? Juanita, of course, is Don Fernan’s heiress, but since in a little while, when the mourning is over, she will marry me—" "Marry you!" There was contempt as well as surprise in Jack’s tone, and Miguel evidently felt this, for he replied with flashing eyes, though with no change in his bland manner: "Yes, marry me—that was what I think I said. Of course if my good friend Jackino has any objection—" "Good heavens! Juanita is a thousand times too good for you!" Jack blurted out. "Quite so; she is a thousand times too good for any man. But since she does me the honour to become my wife, you will surely not have the impudence to question her choice, dear friend."