"Let us be afloat before we talk of landing," replied Paget; "it will be a deuced bad affair for us all if we don't find our transports in Vigo Bay; and, _entre nous_, I think Moore has some doubts about them." "I don't care a straw if undistinguishable ruin should fall upon us all!" "Which is certain to be the case, if the said transports are not there," replied the other, with a yawn. "But come, Crawford, fill your glass again; is this champagne some of the stuff we found in Colbert's baggage?" "My fate will soon be decided," said the other, pursuing his own thoughts; "to-morrow, perhaps, for I can see some indication of taking up a position here, in front of Lugo." "Yes; but the infernal miners failed at the bridges of the Minho, and the Sil--the river of gold." "Thus, I say," continued Cosmo, doggedly, "Paget, old fellow, my fate will soon be decided!" "And it is----" "Death on a Spanish battle-field, or to rot in an English prison!" "Don't talk so bitterly; once in London again, we shall see what can be done. Another glass of this sparkling liquid!--wine, wine, I say--drown the blue devils in a red sea of it!" exclaimed the gay Paget. "Something stronger than wine for me now," said Cosmo, as he filled a large glass nearly full with undiluted brandy, and drained it; "life is short, and not very merry here." "Egad! I know no place, however, where it is so difficult to live and so easy to die." "Right--so easy to die!" added Cosmo, with a strange and sickly smile. It was at this inauspicious moment that a servant in uniform--liveries there were none then with the army--brought in Quentin's name. "What the devil can this fellow possibly want with me?" said Cosmo, full of surprise at a circumstance so unusual as a visit from Quentin; "is he below?" "Yes, sir." "What does he wish?" "To see you, sir," replied the soldier, with a second salute. "Who is it?" drawled Paget, watching his cigar-smoke curling upward, and depositing the leg he was destined to leave at Waterloo on a spare chair. "That fellow who was tried by a court-martial at Alva de Tormes." "Tried--ah, I remember, for everything but high treason and housebreaking, eh?--ha! ha!" "Yes; but who gave the charges the go-by at racing speed. Send him up!" Quentin entered with a flush on his cheek and a painful beating in his heart. He bowed low to General Paget, whom he knew by sight, and to Cosmo, who responded by a quiet stare, and who, before he was addressed, said sharply-- "I generally have my eye on you, sir, and I thought that you were with the outlying picquets in front of the town?" "I was, Colonel Crawford; but----" "_Was_--and how does it come to pass that you are relieved, or here at this time?" asked Cosmo, loftily. "Because, sir, I am now Lieutenant Kennedy, of the 7th Fusiliers, serving on the personal staff of Sir John Moore."