The Marquis of Bolibar Read Online Free PDF Page A

shouted their challenge once more and a man came running out of the trees toward the fire. As soon as Saracho caught sight of him, he forgot his quarrel with the Marquis of Bolibar.
    "Ave Maria purissima!" panted the messenger, this being the customary Spanish greeting, and one that can be heard a hundred times a day in street or tavern.
    "Amen, she conceived without sin," Saracho replied impatiently. "You came alone? Where's the priest?"
    "His Reverence got the colic from a hot blood sausage —"
    "A curse on his soul, his body and eyes!" roared Saracho. "That man has less heart than a tripe-cook would sell you for half a quarto. Fear, that's his sickness!"
    "He's dead, I can swear to it," said the messenger. "I saw him laid out in his bedchamber."
    Saracho ran both hands through his hair and proceeded to curse roundly enough to bring the sky down about his ears. His face turned as red as a stone in a brick-kiln.
    "Dead?" he cried, struggling to catch his breath. "Did you hear that, Captain? The priest is dead!"
    The British officer stared silently into space. The guerrillas had jumped up and clustered around the fire, shivering under their cloaks.
    "What now?" asked the captain.
    "I swore on General Cuesta's sword that we would take the town or die. Our plans had been skilfully laid and set in train, and now this priest has to die an untimely death."
    "Your plans were worthless," the Marquis of Bolibar said suddenly. "Your plans would have earned you a bullet in the head, nothing more."
    Saracho glared at the Marquis indignantly. "What do you know of our plans?" he demanded. "I didn't shout them from the rooftops."
    "Father Ambrosius sent for me when he knew he was going to die," said the Marquis. "He asked me to perform the task with which you entrusted him, but your plans are ill-conceived. I tell you this to your face, Colonel Saracho: you know nothing of the art of war."
    "And you do, I suppose, Señor Marques?" Saracho was beside himself with rage. "The enemy will gobble up that town like cold apple sauce."
    "You buried a sack of gunpowder beneath the town wall, wedged between sandbags and provided with a fuse. The vicar was to light the fuse under cover of darkness and blow a breach in the wall."
    "Quite so," Saracho broke in, "that being the only way of taking the town. La Bisbal would withstand the heaviest of cannon, for the chronicles tell us that it was built more than five thousand years ago by King Hercules and St James."
    "Your knowledge of history is admirable, Colonel Saracho, but did it never occur to you that the French would round up all the monks and detain them as soon as they arrived? Tomorrow they'll shut them up, either in their monastery or in a church, post a cannon at the entrance with slow-match burning, and let none of them out. Did you think of that, Colonel Saracho? Even had the priest contrived to escape, you're confronted by the whole of the Nassau Regiment and part of the Hessian. All you have is a handful of ill-trained, indisciplined regulars, each of whom goes his own sweet way."
    "True, true," Saracho cried angrily, "but my men are adroit and courageous enough to trample the German colossus underfoot."
    "Are you so sure?" demanded the Marquis. "As soon as the charge explodes, the general alarm will sound in every street and the Germans will run to their guns. Two salvoes of grapeshot will put paid to your assault. Hadn't you thought of that, Colonel Saracho?"
    The Tanner's Tub, at a loss for a rejoinder, chewed his fingers and said nothing.
    "And even should a few of your men succeed in penetrating the town," the Marquis went on, "they'll come under fire from every nook and cranny, every barred window and cellar light, for La Bisbal's inhabitants are more than ever favourably disposed toward the French. Your guerrillas uprooted their vines and set their olive trees ablaze. Why, only lately you had two young men from La Bisbal shot because they refused to join you.
    "Yes, that's true,"