"What is the matter?" cried the other, bolting up, and showing that the contents of the borachio skin were operating still on his brain; "what is the matter now? It is very hard that a field-officer, and one too that has seen the fields of Alexandria, Egmont-op-Zee, and the onslaught of Copenhagen, should be so pestered by subalterns. How this hard bed makes my bones ache! I have slept softer on the hot yellow sand in Egypt. They tell me this was the bed-room of Don Alfonso the First, king of Castile. Devil mend him! I suppose he did not sleep on the pavement with a claymore for a pillow, like Colin Campbell of Craigfianteoch, in Lorne, a better man—for what is any Castilian don when compared to a duine-wassal of Argyle?" The major snapped his fingers, and it was evident he was very tipsy. "But what do you want, Ronald, my boy?" he added. "The loan of your pistols, major, for ten minutes only. I have a very disagreeable affair to adjust this morning." "I regret to hear it; but it is with none of ours, I hope, my knight of Santiago?" "This is no time for jesting. ’Tis with a Portuguese of Colonel Campbell’s brigade," said Ronald, colouring at the necessary falsehood. "Pah! only a Portuguese,—a dirty garlic-eating devil. There are the pistols; and remember, always level low, and fire the instant the word is given. I hope your arm is steady. A little hartshorn-water or Eau de Cologne are excellent things to rub it with. I am sorry I never keep any of these things about me: Egypt cured me of them. Take Stewart the assistant-surgeon with you, and come back when the tulzie is over, and give me an account of it." "You forget, major. I may never come back." "And your opponent a Portuguese! Who is your second?" "Macdonald,—Macdonald of Inchkenneth. These pistols are very handsome," observed Ronald, with affected carelessness, as he examined the stones with which they were studded, and surveyed the flints and locks. "Ah! they are indeed handsome. My grandfather took them out of the Duke of Douglas’s belt, after he had unhorsed him at Shirramuir. They did some execution at Culloden, too." "On the right side, of course?" "Yes; in the army of the Prince. Use this one, with the cairn-gorum on the butt. The other throws high, and you would need to level to the boot to hit the belt. It happened so with me at Grand Cairo, when firing at a Turkish thief. I aimed at his sash, and the ball knocked off his turban. I would tell you all the story, but there is no time. I have no fear of you; so be off, my lad. God bless you! and steady your hand. Do not let it be said that a Portuguese gained and kept the ground before a Scotsman, and one of the Gordon Highlanders."