The latter invited the captive to dinner, and chatted with him in a friendly way about his bold and remarkable adventures, saying that he (Marmont) had been long on the watch for him; that he knew his companions, Manrico the Bearded, Leon and his sister Juanna (here Grant trembled), and that all his haunts and disguises were known too. "Disguises--pardon mi, M. le Maréchal," said Grant, warmly--"disguises are worn by spies; I have never worn other dress than the uniform and tartan of my regiment." "Vrai Dieu! the bolder fellow you!" exclaimed the Duc de Ragose. "You are aware that I might hang you; but I love a brave spirit, and shall only exact from you a special parole, that you will not _consent_ to be released by any partida or guerilla chief on your journey between this and France." "Monseigneur le Duc, the exaction of this parole is the greatest compliment you can pay me," replied Grant, who, on finding matters desperate, gave his word of honour, and was next day sent towards the Pyrenees with a French guard, under M. Armand, his captor. Grant, without suspicion, was bearer of a treacherous letter to the Governor of Bayonne, in which he was designated by Marmont "a treacherous _spy_, who had done infinite mischief to the French army, and who was not executed on the spot out of respect for _something resembling a uniform_ (_i.e._, the Scottish dress) which he wore; but he (Marmont) desired that at Bayonne Grant should be placed IN IRONS, and sent up to Paris." (_Peninsular War_, vol. iv.) On the first night of his march to the rear, M. Armand halted in a grove of cork and beech-trees, within a mile of Medellin, on the Quadiana--the birth-place of Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico; but as a guerilla chief with 5000 desperadoes held possession of the town and bridge, our lieutenant of Voltigeurs, with his prisoner and escort, were forced to content themselves with such shelter as the light foliage of the wood afforded. The night was pitchy dark; the blackness that involved the sky, the mountains, the vale through which the Guadiana wound, and the wood where our travellers bivouacked, was palpable, painful, and oppressive; but at times it was varied by the red sheet lightning which shot across the southern quarter of the sky, revealing the lofty Sierra, whose sharp peaks arose afar off like the waves of a black sea, and the stems and foliage of the cork and beech-trees in the foreground. On this night occurred the most horrible episode of Grant's military adventures. After having drained their canteens of Lisbon wine, and discussed their ration of cold beef and commissariat biscuit, Grant and Armand, the voltigeur, lay down fraternally side by side in their cloaks to repose; their escort lay close by, long since asleep; for Grant had given his parole that he "would not attempt to escape," and such were their ideas of military honour and value for a soldier's word, that these brave Frenchmen never doubted him.