"That will do very well. Now I will say goodbye, Nita. If we remain here after the French have retreated, I will come and see you again; for there will be so many English officers here that I would not be noticed. But there may be a battle any day; or Marmont may fall back, and we should follow him; so that I may not get an opportunity again." "I hope you will come, I do hope you will come! I will bury all these things, this evening, in the ground in the kitchen, after my uncle has gone to bed." "Well, goodbye, Nita. I must be off now, as I have a friend with me. When you see Garcia, you can tell him that you have given me a kiss. I am sure he won't mind." "I should not care if he did," the girl said saucily, as she held up her face. "Goodbye, senor. I shall always think of you, and pray the Virgin to watch over you." After Marmont fell back across the Douro there was a pause in the operations and, as the British army was quartered in and around Salamanca, the city soon swarmed with British soldiers; and presented a scene exactly similar to that which it had worn when occupied by Moore's army, nearly four years before. "What fun it was, Terence," Ryan said, "when we frightened the place out of its very senses, by the report that the French were entering the town!" "That is all very well, Dick; but I think that you and I were just as much frightened as the Spaniards were, when we saw how the thing had succeeded, and that all our troops were called out. There is no saying what they would have done to us, had they found out who started the report. The very least thing that would have happened would have been to be tried by court martial, and dismissed from the service; and I am by no means sure that worse than that would not have befallen us." "Yes, it would have been an awful business, if we had been found out. Still, it was a game, wasn't it? What an awful funk they were in! It was the funniest thing I ever saw. Things have changed since then, Terence, and I am afraid we have quite done with jokes of that sort." "I should hope so, Dick. I think that I can answer for myself, but I am by no means sure as to you." "I like that," Ryan said indignantly. "You were always the leader in mischief. I believe you would be, now, if you had the chance."