Dick Ryan, who was standing by, winked significantly, and in a short time he and Terence were talking eagerly together in a corner of the room. "Who is to know you are a staff-officer, Terence?" the latter urged. "Isn't it an infantry uniform that you are wearing? and ain't there hundreds of infantry officers here? It was good fun at Athlone, but I don't think that many of them believed there was any real danger. It would be altogether different here; they are scared enough as it is, though they walk about with their cloaks wrapped round them and pretend to be mighty confident." "Let us come and talk it over outside, Dick. It did not much matter before if it had been discovered we had a hand in it. Of course the colonel would have given us a wigging, but at heart he would have been as pleased at the joke as any of us. But it is a different affair here." Going out, they continued their talk and arranged their plans. Late the following night two English officers rushed suddenly into a drinking-shop close to the gate through which the road to Valladolid passed. "The French! the French!" one exclaimed. "Run for your lives and give the alarm!" The men all leapt to their feet, rushed out tumultuously, and scattered through the streets, shouting at the top of their voices: "The French are coming! the French are coming! Get up, or you will all be murdered in your beds!" The alarm spread like wildfire, and Terence and Ryan made their way back, by the shortest line, to the room where most of the officers were still sitting, smoking and chatting. "Any news, O'Connor?" the colonel asked. "Nothing that I have heard of, Colonel. I thought I would drop in for a cigar before turning in." A few minutes later Tim Hoolan entered. "There is a shindy in the town, your honour," he said to the colonel. "Meself does not know what it is about; but they are hallooing and bawling fit to kill themselves." One of the officers went to the window and threw it up. "Hoolan is right, Colonel; there is something the matter. There--" he broke off as a church bell pealed out with loud and rapid strokes. "That is the alarm, sure enough!" the colonel exclaimed. "Be off at once, gentlemen, and get the men up and under arms." "I must be off to the general's quarters!" Terence exclaimed, hastily putting on his greatcoat again. "The divil fly away with them," O'Grady grumbled, as he hastily finished the glass before him; "sorrow a bit of peace can I get at all, at all, in this bastely country." Terence hurried away to his quarters. A score of church bells were now pealing out the alarm. From every house men and women rushed out panic-stricken, and eagerly questioned each other. All sorts of wild reports were circulated. "The British outposts have been driven in; the Valladolid gate has been captured; Napoleon himself, with his whole army, is pouring into the town."