"He added that he trusted that I should be able to still further harass the enemy, and cause him to send more reinforcements. He said that, doubtless, I should be very shortly driven back into Portugal again; but that he left the matter entirely to my judgment, but pointed out that, if I could but maintain myself for another fortnight, the winter would be at hand; when the passes would be blocked with snow, and Marmont could no longer think of invading Portugal in force. As it is now more than a month since that letter was written, and certainly further reinforcements have arrived, I think the chief will be well satisfied with what we have done. I have sent off two letters since then, fully reporting on the work we have been at between Burgos and Valladolid; but whether they have reached him, I cannot tell." "Macwitty has one despatch for you. He tells me it came nearly a fortnight ago; but that he had, at that time, been compelled to fall back behind the Esla; and that, as the country beyond swarmed with parties of the French cavalry, he thought that no messenger could get through, and that great harm might result were the despatches to fall into the hands of the enemy." "Well, I daresay it will keep, Dick, and that no harm will have been done by my not receiving it sooner. "Now, tell me all about your escape. Were you lodged in our old convent?" "I had no such luck, Terence. I was in the city prison, in the centre of the town; and my window, instead of looking out into the street, was on the side of the courtyard. The window was strongly barred, no civilians were allowed to enter the prison, and I think that even you, who have a sort of genius for escapes, would have found it, as I did, simply impossible to get away." "No, the lookout was certainly bad; and you had none of the advantages we had, at Bayonne, of being guarded by friendly soldiers. If I had, at Salamanca, not been able to make friends with a Spanish girl-- "Well, tell me all about it." Ryan gave full details of the manner in which Don Gonzales had contrived his escape. "That was well managed, indeed," Terence said. "Splendidly done. Leon is a trump. He ought to have been born an Irishman, and to have been in our regiment. I don't know that I can give him higher praise than that." On their arrival in the valley, they found that another courier had returned, half an hour before. Both despatches expressed the commander-in-chief's extreme satisfaction with the manner in which Terence had carried out his instructions.