They reached Torres Vedras that night. Terence spoke to the officer in command there, and was furnished with the sacks he required, and enough forage to fill them. The boxes were put into a room in the barracks, and here Terence, with his two orderlies, opened the cases and transferred the bags of money to the centre of the sacks. Two or three dozen packets of ammunition were obtained, and a few put into the mouths of the sacks. These were left open, and the room locked up, two of the Portuguese soldiers being placed on guard before it. Terence and Lieutenant Herrara were invited to dine at mess and had quarters assigned to them, and Terence, after dinner, again, but much more briefly than before, gave the officers at the station a sketch of the retreat and battle. The next morning the muleteers were called in to fasten up the sacks. At the suggestion of the officer in command, a tent was also taken. "You may want it badly before you are done," he said. "If I were you I should always have it pitched, except when you are at a village, for you can have the sacks in as beds, and so keep them under your eye; and if, as you tell me, you are giving out that they contain ammunition, it would seem but a natural step, as you are so able to keep it dry." The mules looked more heavily laden than upon the preceding day, but they were carrying no heavier burden, for the weight of the tent, its poles, the basket of fowls, Terence's valise, and other articles, were considerably less than those of the eight heavy cases that had been left behind. The two officers now rode at the head of the detachment, and two only of the Portuguese soldiers kept in rear of the mules, which now followed at a distance of thirty or forty yards behind them. They stopped that night at Rolica and the next at Leirya. This was a long march, and a short one the next day brought them to Pombal, and the following afternoon they arrived at Coimbra. Here they spent another pleasant evening with the regiment stationed in the town. "By the way, O'Connor," one of the officers said, after the dinner was over and cigars lighted, "I suppose you don't happen to have any relations at Oporto?" "Well, I do happen to have some," Terence answered, in some surprise. "Why do you ask?"