“Well, we were there standing in the market-place, surrounded by straggling French an' Frenchified Portuguese; that is, fellows who followed their invaders, like our dogs, to be kicked about as they liked; but there wasn't many o' them, an' maybe the poor divils couldn't help it, unless they preferred a male o' could iron. The shops were all shut up, except where they were broke open by the French, and in every balcony you could see, instead of young women, a set of French soldiers smoking and drinking. Says I to Harry Gainer, ‘If poor Maria was here now, she'd have a bad chance among these rapscallions.’ Harry shook his head and said, with a heavy sigh, ‘Ah, Tom, is she any betther off now? God help her, where can she be?’ At this very minet, a muleteer boy appeared amongst them, crying out ‘_Viva os Francesos_,’ along with some others, and he had a tri-color cockade in his hat. It was nobody else but Maria herself! She put up her finger to her lip, when she saw that we were looking at her; an' this is the Portuguese sign for silence. We undtherstood her in a jiffy, an', by the Powers! poor Harry's face grew like a May-day morning. I could see that he didn't know whether he was on his head or his heels. ‘Silence, my boy,’ says I, ‘don't you see how it is? don't take the laste notice of her for your life.’ We were immadiately marched off to a church, close by, where we were to lie for the night. Some brown bread was given to us, an' some of Adam's ale to faste ourselves; an' there we were—twenty of us. Now just as we were going in, Maria, in a bustling sort o' way, got close to Harry and me, and says she, in a whisper, ‘_Non dorme vos merce esta note, Anrique, pour amor de Dios_.’ She then went away in a careless manner, pretending to join in the jokes passed off upon us by those around.” “The English o' that,” said Serjeant M'Fadgen, anxious to show his knowledge of the Portuguese, “is _For the loo o' God, Harry, dinna sleep a wink the naight_.” “Throth you're just right! It is, Sergeant; you ought to know it well, for you were a long time in the Peninsula.” The Sergeant shut his eyes, and smoked again.