"No better than your own, mon brave," said Jack, not to be outdone in politeness. "Well now, how many of your regiment may happen to be in Rueda, if I may ask?" The trooper looked at him with twinkling eyes. "Non, non, monsieur le capitaine," he said. "You have captured our patrol: c’est égal! but you want to know too much. I tell you how many? Non, non; but we are enough to capture all Sir Moore’s army before it ends its retreat to Lisbon. Monsieur wants to spoil the joke." "Very well," said Jack with a laugh. "I won’t press you; but there are more ways than one of killing a cat, as we say in English." He kept up an amicable conversation with the Frenchman until they arrived at the cross-roads. There he found his two troopers mounting guard over the four wounded chasseurs, and Jack was sufficiently new to warfare to feel relieved and glad that no life had been lost. The dragoons had made clumsy attempts to bind up their prisoners’ wounds, and had allowed the least injured of them to fetch water in his helmet from the stream. "That’s right," said Jack as he came up. "We’ve had an unexpected piece of luck, my men, and our capture may be important. But we have no time to lose. We made noise enough along the road to bring up the whole French army if it’s hereabouts. Lucky the regiment isn’t far behind us. Now help these fellows on to their horses; we’ll take them back to the hut we left a while ago, and I’ll leave them in your charge while I go on alone and pick up a little information." "May I come, sir?" asked Kelly. "’Tisn’t safe to go alone." "Safer for one than two. But come along; there’s no time to waste, and it’s getting dark." In a few minutes the cavalcade had reached the hut on the hillside. The muleteer glowered viciously at the prisoners as they were led up to his door, and handled his knife as though he would have liked there and then to take vengeance upon them for the loss of his favourite pig. But Jack allowed no mistake about his intentions; he told the man that the prisoners would remain with him, in charge of the dragoons, until the British advance-guard under General Stewart arrived. "I’m going on to Rueda," he added. "How far is it from here?" "A league and a half, Señor," said the man. "That’s about seven miles as your Spanish league goes. Kelly, if General Stewart arrives before I get back, tell him that there are some of General Franceschi’s chasseurs at Rueda on our right flank, and I’ve gone to find out how many. If all goes well I’ll be back within two hours." "Very good, sir!" said Kelly, and then looked as though he would have said more. "Well, what is it?" asked Jack. "Beg pardon, sir, but you’ll be nabbed as sure as a gun. Your uniform—"