The Snare
by Rafael Sabatini
(first published in 1917)
Chapter II
The Ultimatum
News of the affair at Tavora reached Sir Terence O'Moy, the Adjutant-General at Lisbon, about a week later in dispatches from headquarters. These informed him that in the course of the humble
apology and explanation of the regrettable occurrence offered by
the Colonel of the 8th Dragoons in person to the Mother Abbess, it
had transpired that Lieutenant Butler had left the convent alive,
but that nevertheless he continued absent from his regiment.
Those dispatches contained other unpleasant matters of a totally
different nature, with which Sir Terence must proceed to deal at
once; but their gravity was completely outweighed in the adjutant's
mind by this deplorable affair of Lieutenant Butler's. Without
wishing to convey an impression that the blunt and downright O'Moy
was gifted with any undue measure of shrewdness, it must nevertheless
be said that he was quick to perceive what fresh thorns the
occurrence was likely to throw in a path that was already thorny
enough in all conscience, what a semblance of justification it must
give to the hostility of the intriguers on the Council of Regency,
what a formidable weapon it must place in the hands of Principal
Souza and his partisans. In itself this was enough to trouble a man
in O'Moy's position. But there was more. Lieutenant Butler happened
to be his brother-in-law, own brother to O'Moy's lovely, frivolous
wife. Irresponsibility ran strongly in that branch of the Butler
family.
For the sake of the young wife whom he loved with a passionate and
fearful jealousy such as is not uncommon in a man of O'Moy's
temperament when at his age—he was approaching his forty-sixth
birthday—he marries a girl of half his years, the adjutant had
pulled his brother-in-law out of many a difficulty; shielded him on
many an occasion from the proper consequences of his incurable
rashness.
This affair of the convent, however, transcended anything that had
gone before and proved altogether too much for O'Moy. It angered
him as much as it afflicted him. Yet when he took his head in his
hands and groaned, it was only his sorrow that he was expressing,
and it was a sorrow entirely concerned with his wife.
The groan attracted the attention of his military secretary, Captain
Tremayne, of Fletcher's Engineers, who sat at work at a littered
writing-table placed in the window recess. He looked up sharply,
sudden concern in the strong young face and the steady grey eyes he
bent upon his chief. The sight of O'Moy's hunched attitude brought
him instantly to his feet.
"Whatever is the matter, sir?"
"It's that damned fool Richard," growled O'Moy. "He's broken out
again."
The captain looked relieved. "And is that all?"
O'Moy looked at him, white-faced, and in his blue eyes a blaze of
that swift passion that had made his name a byword in the army.
"All?" he roared. "You'll say it's enough, by God, when you hear
what the fool's been at this time. Violation of a nunnery, no less."
And he brought his massive fist down with a crash upon the document
that had conveyed the information. "With a detachment of dragoons
he broke into the convent of the Dominican nuns at Tavora one night
a week ago. The alarm bell was sounded, and the village turned out
to avenge the outrage. Consequences: three troopers killed, five
peasants sabred to death and seven other casualties, Dick himself
missing and reported to have escaped from the convent, but understood
to remain in hiding—so that he adds desertion to the other crime,
as if that in itself were not enough to hang him. That's all, as
you say, and I hope you consider it enough even for Dick Butler—bad luck to him."
"My God!" said Captain Tremayne.
"I'm glad that you agree with me."
Captain Tremayne stared at his chief, the utmost dismay upon his
fine young face. "But surely, sir, surely—I mean, sir, if this
report is correct some explanation——" He broke down, utterly at
fault.
"To be sure, there's an explanation. You may always depend upon a
most elegant explanation for anything that Dick Butler does. His
life is made up of mistakes and explanations." He spoke bitterly,
"He broke into the nunnery under a misapprehension, according to the
account of the sergeant who accompanied him," and Sir Terence read
out that part of the report. "But how is that to help him, and at
such a time as this, with public feeling as it is, and Wellington
in his present temper about it? The provost's men are beating the
country for the blackguard. When they find him it's a firing party
he'll have to face."
Tremayne turned slowly to the window and looked down the fair
prospect of the hillside over a forest of cork oaks alive with fresh
green shoots to the silver sheen of the river a mile away. The
storms of the preceding week had spent their fury—the travail that
had attended the birth of Spring—and the day was as fair as a day
of June in England. Weaned forth by the generous sunshine, the
burgeoning of vine and fig, of olive and cork went on apace, and the
skeletons of trees which a fortnight since had stood gaunt and bare
were already fleshed in tender green.
From the window of this fine conventual house on the heights of
Monsanto, above the suburb of Alcantara, where the Adjutant-General
had taken up his quarters, Captain Tremayne stood a moment considering
the panorama spread to his gaze, from the red-brown roofs of Lisbon
on his left—that city which boasted with Rome that it was built
upon a cluster of seven hills—to the lines of embarkation that
were building about the fort of St. Julian on his left. Then he
turned, facing again the spacious, handsome room with its heavy,
semi-ecclesiastical furniture, and Sir Terence, who, hunched in his
chair at the ponderously carved black writing-table, scowled fiercely
at nothing.
"What are you going to do, sir?" he inquired.
Sir Terence shrugged impatiently and heaved himself up in his chair.
"Nothing," he growled.
"Nothing?"
The interrogation, which seemed almost to cover a reproach, irritated
the adjutant.
"And what the devil can I do?" he rapped.
"You've pulled Dick out of scrapes before now."
"I have. That seems to have been my principal occupation ever
since I married his sister. But this time he's gone too far. What
can I do?"
"Lord Wellington is fond of you," suggested Captain Tremayne. He
was your imperturbable young man, and he remained as calm now as
O'Moy was excited. Although by some twenty years the adjutant's
junior, there was between O'Moy and himself, as well as between
Tremayne and the Butler family, with which he was remotely connected,
a strong friendship, which was largely responsible for the captain's
present appointment as Sir Terence's military secretary.
O'Moy looked at him, and looked away. "Yes," he agreed. "But he's
still fonder of law and order and military discipline, and I should
only be imperilling our friendship by pleading with him for this
young blackguard."
"The young blackguard is your brother-in-law," Tremayne reminded
him.
"Bad luck to you, Tremayne, don't I know it? Besides, what is there
I can do?" he asked again, and ended testily: "Faith, man, I don't
know what you're thinking of."
"I'm thinking of Una," said Captain Tremayne in that composed way
of his, and the words fell like cold water upon the hot iron of
O'Moy's anger.
The man who can receive with patience a reproach, implicit or
explicit, of being wanting in consideration towards his wife is
comparatively rare, and never a man of O'Moy's temperament and
circumstances. Tremayne's reminder stung him sharply, and the more
sharply because of the strong friendship that existed between
Tremayne and Lady O'Moy. That friendship had in the past been a
thorn in O'Moy's flesh. In the days of his courtship he had known
a fierce jealousy of Tremayne, beholding in him for a time a rival
who, with the strong advantage of youth, must in the end prevail.
But when O'Moy, putting his fortunes to the test, had declared
himself and been accepted by Una Butler, there had been an end to
the jealousy, and the old relations of cordial friendship between
the men had been resumed.
O'Moy had conceived that jealousy of his to have been slain. But
there had been times when from its faint, uneasy stirrings he should
have taken warning that it did no more than slumber. Like most warm
hearted, generous, big-natured men, O'Moy was of a singular humility
where women were concerned, and this humility of his would often
breathe a doubt lest in choosing between himself and Tremayne, Una
might have been guided by her head rather than her heart, by ambition
rather than affection, and that in taking himself she had taken the
man who could give her by far the more assured and affluent position.
He had crushed down such thoughts as disloyal to his young wife, as
ungrateful and unworthy; and at such times he would fall into
self-contempt for having entertained them. Then Una herself had
revived those doubts three months ago, when she had suggested that
Ned Tremayne, who was then at Torres Vedras with Colonel Fletcher,
was the very man to fill the vacant place of military secretary to
the adjutant, if he would accept it. In the reaction of
self-contempt, and in a curious surge of pride almost as perverse
as his humility, O'Moy had adopted her suggestion, and thereafter
—in the past-three months, that is to say—the unreasonable devil
of O'Moy's jealousy had slept, almost forgotten. Now, by a chance
remark whose indiscretion Tremayne could not realise, since he did
not so much as suspect the existence of that devil, he had suddenly
prodded him into wakefulness. That Tremayne should show himself
tender of Lady O'Moy's feelings in a matter in which O'Moy himself
must seem neglectful of them was gall and wormwood to the adjutant.
He dissembled it, however, out of a natural disinclination to appear
in the ridiculous role of the jealous husband.
"That," he said, "is a matter that you may safely leave to me," and
his lips closed tightly upon the words when they were uttered.
"Oh, quite so," said Tremayne, no whit abashed. He persisted
nevertheless. "You know Una's feelings for Dick."
"When I married Una," the adjutant cut in sharply, "I did not marry
the entire Butler family." It hardened him unreasonably against
Dick to have the family cause pleaded in this way. "It's sick to
death I am of Master Richard and his escapades. He can get himself
out of this mess, or he can stay in it."
"You mean that you'll not lift a hand to help him."
"Devil a finger," said O'Moy.
And Tremayne, looking straight into the adjutant's faintly
smouldering blue eyes, beheld there a fierce and rancorous
determination which he was at a loss to understand, but which he
attributed to something outside his own knowledge that must lie
between O'Moy and his brother-in-law.
"I am sorry," he said gravely. "Since that is how you feel, it is
to be hoped that Dick Butler may not survive to be taken. The
alternative would weigh so cruelly upon Una that I do not care to
contemplate it."
"And who the devil asks you to contemplate it?" snapped O'Moy. "I
am not aware that it is any concern of yours at all."
"My dear O'Moy!" It was an exclamation of protest, something between
pain and indignation, under the stress of which Tremayne stepped
entirely outside of the official relations that prevailed between
himself and the adjutant. And the exclamation was accompanied by
such a look of dismay and wounded sensibilities that O'Moy,
meeting this, and noting the honest manliness of Tremayne's bearing
and countenance; was there and then the victim of reaction. His
warm-hearted and impulsive nature made him at once profoundly
ashamed of himself. He stood up, a tall, martial figure, and his
ruggedly handsome, shaven countenance reddened under its tan. He
held out a hand to Tremayne.
"My dear boy, I beg your pardon. It's so utterly annoyed I am that
the savage in me will be breaking out. Sure, it isn't as if it were
only this affair of Dick's. That is almost the least part of the
unpleasantness contained in this dispatch. Here! In God's name,
read it for yourself, and judge for yourself whether it's in human
nature to be patient under so much."
With a shrug and a smile to show that he was entirely mollified,
Captain Tremayne took the papers to his desk and sat down to con them. As he did so his face grew more and more grave. Before he had reached the end there was a tap at the door. An orderly
entered with the announcement that Dom Miguel Forjas had just driven up to Monsanto to wait upon the adjutant-general.
"Ha!" said O'Moy shortly, and exchanged a glance with his secretary.
"Show the gentleman up."
As the orderly withdrew, Tremayne came over and placed the dispatch
on the adjutant's desk. "He arrives very opportunely," he said.
"So opportunely as to be suspicious, bedad!" said O'Moy. He had
brightened suddenly, his Irish blood quickening at the immediate
prospect of strife which this visit boded. "May the devil admire me,
but there's a warm morning in store for Mr. Forjas, Ned."
"Shall I leave you?"
"By no means."
The door opened, and the orderly admitted Miguel Forjas, the
Portuguese Secretary of State. He was a slight, dapper gentleman,
all in black, from his silk stockings and steel-buckled shoes to his
satin stock. His keen aquiline face was swarthy, and the razor had
left his chin and cheeks blue-black. His sleek hair was iron-grey.
A portentous gravity invested him this morning as he bowed with
profound deference first to the adjutant and then to the secretary.
"Your Excellencies," he said—he spoke an English that was smooth
and fluent for all its foreign accent—"Your Excellencies, this is a
terrible affair."
"To what affair will your Excellency be alluding?" wondered O'Moy.
"Have you not received news of what has happened at Tavora? Of the
violation of a convent by a party of British soldiers? Of the fight
that took place between these soldiers and the peasants who went to
succour the nuns?"
"Oh, and is that all?" said O'Moy. "For a moment I imagined your
Excellency referred to other matters. I have news of more terrible
affairs than the convent business with which to entertain you this
morning."
"That, if you will pardon me, Sir Terence, is quite impossible."
"You may think so. But you shall judge, bedad. A chair, Dom
Miguel."
The Secretary of State sat down, crossed his knees and placed his
hat in his lap. The other two resumed their seats, O'Moy leaning
forward, his elbows on the writing-table, immediately facing Senhor Forjas.
"First, however," he said, "to deal with this affair of Tavora. The
Council of Regency will, no doubt, have been informed of all the
circumstances. You will be aware, therefore, that this very
deplorable business was the result of a misapprehension, and that
the nuns of Tavora might very well have avoided all this trouble had
they behaved in a sensible, reasonable manner. If instead of
shutting themselves up in the chapel and ringing the alarm bell the
Mother-Abbess or one of the sisters had gone to the wicket and
answered the demand of admittance from the officer commanding the
detachment, he would instantly have realised his mistake and
withdrawn."
"What does your Excellency suggest was this mistake?" inquired the
Secretary.
"You have had your report, sir, and surely it was complete. You
must know that he conceived himself to be knocking at the gates
of the monastery of the Dominican fathers."
"Can your Excellency tell me what was this officer's business at the
monastery of the Dominican fathers?" quoth the Secretary, his manner
frostily hostile.
"I am without information on that point," O'Moy admitted; "no doubt
because the officer in question is missing, as you will also have
been informed. But I have no reason to doubt that, whatever his
business may have been, it was concerned with the interests which
are common alike to the British and the Portuguese nation."
"That is a charitable assumption, Sir Terence."
"Perhaps you will inform me, Dom Miguel, of the uncharitable
assumption which the Principal Souza prefers," snapped O'Moy,
whose temper began to simmer.
A faint colour kindled in the cheeks of the Portuguese minister, but
is manner remained unruffled.
"I speak, sir, not with the voice of Principal Souza, but with that
of the entire Council of Regency; and the Council has formed the
opinion, which your own words confirm, that his Excellency Lord
Wellington is skilled in finding excuses for the misdemeanours of
the troops under his command."
"That," said O'Moy, who would never have kept his temper in control
but for the pleasant consciousness that he held a hand of trumps
with which he would presently overwhelm this representative of the
Portuguese Government, "that is an opinion for which the Council
may presently like to apologise, admitting its entire falsehood."
Senhor Forjas started as if he had been stung. He uncrossed his
black silk legs and made as if to rise.
"Falsehood, sir?" he cried in a scandalised voice.
"It is as well that we should be plain, so as to be avoiding all
misconceptions," said O'Moy. "You must know, sir, and your Council
must know, that wherever armies move there must be reason for
complaint. The British army does not claim in this respect to be
superior to others—although I don't say, mark me, that it might
not claim it with perfect justice. But we do claim for ourselves
that our laws against plunder and outrage are as strict as they well
can be, and that where these things take place punishment inevitably
follows. Out of your own knowledge, sir, you must admit that what
I say is true."
"True, certainly, where the offenders are men from the ranks. But
in this case, where the offender is an officer, it does not transpire
that justice has been administered with the same impartial hand."
"That, sir," answered O'Moy sharply, testily, "is because he is
missing."
The Secretary's thin lips permitted themselves to curve into the
faintest ghost of a smile. "Precisely," he said.
For answer O'Moy, red in the face, thrust forward the dispatch he
had received relating to the affair.
"Read, sir—read for yourself, that you may report exactly to the
Council of Regency the terms of the report that has just reached me
from headquarters. You will be able to announce that diligent
search is being made for the offender."
Forjas perused the document carefully, and returned it.
"That is very good," he said, "and the Council will be glad to hear
of it. It will enable us to appease the popular resentment in some
degree. But it does not say here that when taken this officer will
not be excused upon the grounds which yourself you have urged to me."
"It does not. But considering that he has since been guilty of
desertion, there can be no doubt—all else apart—that the finding
of a court martial will result in his being shot."
"Very well," said Forjas. "I will accept your assurance, and the
Council will be relieved to hear of it." He rose to take his leave.
"I am desired by the Council to express to Lord Wellington the hope
that he will take measures to preserve better order among his troops
and to avoid the recurrence of such extremely painful incidents."
"A moment," said O'Moy, and rising waved his guest back into his
chair, then resumed his own seat. Under a more or less calm exterior
he was a seething cauldron of passion. "The matter is not quite at
an end, as your Excellency supposes. From your last observation, and
from a variety of other evidence, I infer that the Council is far
from satisfied with Lord Wellington's conduct of the campaign."
"That is an inference which I cannot venture to contradict. You
will understand, General, that I do not speak for myself, but for
the Council, when I say that many of his measures seem to us not
merely unnecessary, but detrimental. The power having been placed
in the hands of Lord Wellington, the Council hardly feels itself
able to interfere with his dispositions. But it nevertheless
deplores the destruction of the mills and the devastation of the
country recommended and insisted upon by his lordship. It feels
that this is not warfare as the Council understands warfare, and
the people share the feelings of the Council. It is felt that it
would be worthier and more commendable if Lord Wellington were to
measure himself in battle with the French, making a definite attempt
to stem the tide of invasion on the frontiers."
"Quite so," said O'Moy, his hand clenching and unclenching, and
Tremayne, who watched him, wondered how long it would be before
the storm burst. "Quite so. And because the Council disapproves of
the very measures which at Lord Wellington's instigation it has
publicly recommended, it does not trouble to see that those measures
are carried out. As you say, it does not feel itself able to
interfere with his dispositions. But it does not scruple to mark
its disapproval by passively hindering him at every turn.
Magistrates are left to neglect these enactments, and because," he
added with bitter sarcasm, "Portuguese valour is so red-hot and so
devilish set on battle the Militia Acts calling all men to the
colours are forgotten as soon as published. There is no one either
to compel the recalcitrant to take up arms, or to punish the
desertions of those who have been driven into taking them up. Yet
you want battles, you want your frontiers defended. A moment, sir!
there is no need for heat, no need for any words. The matter may be
said to be at an end." He smiled—a thought viciously, be it
confessed—and then played his trump card, hurled his bombshell.
"Since the views of your Council are in such utter opposition to the
views of the Commander-in-Chief, you will no doubt welcome Lord
Wellington's proposal to withdraw from this country and to advise
his Majesty's Government to withdraw the assistance which it is
affording you."
There followed a long spell of silence, O'Moy sitting back in his
chair, his chin in his hand, to observe the result of his words.
Nor was he in the least disappointed. Dom Miguel's mouth fell open;
the colour slowly ebbed from his cheeks, leaving them an
ivory-yellow; his eyes dilated and protruded. He was consternation
incarnate.
"My God!" he contrived to gasp at last, and his shaking hands
clutched at the carved arms of his chair.
"Ye don't seem as pleased as I expected," ventured O'Moy.
"But, General, surely . . . surely his Excellency cannot mean to
take so . . . so terrible a step?"
"Terrible to whom, sir?" wondered O'Moy.
"Terrible to us all." Forjas rose in his agitation. He came to
lean upon O'Moy's writing-table, facing the adjutant. "Surely, sir,
our interests—England's interests and Portugal's—are one in
this."
"To be sure. But England's interests can be defended elsewhere than
in Portugal, and it is Lord Wellington's view that they shall be.
He has already warned the Council of Regency that, since his Majesty
and the Prince Regent have entrusted him with the command of the
British and Portuguese armies, he will not suffer the Council or any
of its members to interfere with his conduct of the military
operations, or suffer any criticism or suggestion of theirs to alter
system formed upon mature consideration. But when, finding their
criticisms fail, the members of the Council, in their wrongheadedness,
in their anxiety to allow private interest to triumph over public
duty, go the length of thwarting the measures of which they do
not approve, the end of Lord Wellington's patience has been reached.
I am giving your Excellency his own words. He feels that it is
futile to remain in a country whose Government is determined to
undermine his every endeavour to bring this campaign to a successful
issue.
"Yourself, sir, you appear to be distressed. But the Council of
Regency will no doubt take a different view. It will rejoice in
the departure of a man whose military operations it finds so
detestable. You will no doubt discover this when you come to lay
Lord Wellington's decision before the Council, as I now invite you
to do."
Bewildered and undecided, Forjas stood there for a moment, vainly
seeking words. Finally:
"Is this really Lord Wellington's last word?" he asked in tones of
profoundest consternation.
"There is one alternative—one only," said O'Moy slowly.
"And that?" Instantly Forjas was all eagerness.
O'Moy considered him. "Faith, I hesitate to state it."
"No, no. Please, please."
"I feel that it is idle."
"Let the Council judge. I implore you, General, let the Council
judge."
"Very well." O'Moy shrugged, and took up a sheet of the dispatch
which lay before him. "You will admit, sir, I think, that the
beginning of these troubles coincided with the advent of the
Principal Souza upon the Council of Regency." He waited in vain
for a reply. Forjas, the diplomat, preserved an uncompromising
silence, in which presently O'Moy proceeded: "From this, and from
other evidence, of which indeed there is no lack, Lord Wellington
has come to the conclusion that all the resistance, passive and
active, which he has encountered, results from the Principal Souza's
influence upon the Council. You will not, I think, trouble to deny
it, sir."
Forjas spread his hands. "You will remember, General," he answered,
in tones of conciliatory regret, "that the Principal Souza represents
a class upon whom Lord Wellington's measures bear in a manner
peculiarly hard."
"You mean that he represents the Portuguese nobility and landed
gentry, who, putting their own interests above those of the State,
have determined to oppose and resist the devastation of the country
which Lord Wellington recommends."
"You put it very bluntly," Forjas admitted.
"You will find Lord Wellington's own words even more blunt," said
O'Moy, with a grim smile, and turned to the dispatch he held. "Let
me read you exactly what he writes:
"As for Principal Souza, I beg you to tell him from me that as I
have had no satisfaction in transacting the business of this country
since he has become a member of the Government, no power on earth
shall induce me to remain in the Peninsula if he is either to remain
a member of the Government or to continue in Lisbon. Either he must
quit the country, or I will do so, and this immediately after I have
obtained his Majesty's permission to resign my charge.'"
The adjutant put down the letter and looked expectantly at the
Secretary of State, who returned the look with one of utter dismay.
Never in all his career had the diplomat been so completely
dumbfounded as he was now by the simple directness of the man of
action. In himself Dom Miguel Forjas was both shrewd and honest.
He was shrewd enough to apprehend to the full the military genius
of the British Commander-in-Chief, fruits of which he had already
witnessed. He knew that the withdrawal of Junot's army from Lisbon
two years ago resulted mainly from the operations of Sir Arthur
Wellesley—as he was then—before his supersession in the supreme
command of that first expedition, and he more than suspected that but
for that supersession the defeat of the first French army of invasion
might have been even more signal. He had witnessed the masterly
campaign of 1809, the battle of the Douro and the relentless
operations which had culminated in hurling the shattered fragments
of Soult's magnificent army over the Portuguese frontier, thus
liberating that country for the second time from the thrall of the
mighty French invader. And he knew that unless this man and the
troops under his command remained in Portugal and enjoyed complete
liberty of action there could be no hope of stemming the third
invasion for which Massena—the ablest of all the Emperor's marshals
was now gathering his divisions in the north. If Wellington were to
execute his threat and withdraw with his army, Forjas beheld nothing
but ruin for his country. The irresistible French would sweep
forward in devastating conquest, and Portuguese independence would
be ground to dust under the heel of the terrible Emperor.
All this the clear-sighted Dom Miguel Forjas now perceived. To do
him full justice, he had feared for some time that the unreasonable
conduct of his Government might ultimately bring about some
such desperate situation. But it was not for him to voice those
fears. He was the servant of that Government, the mere instrument
and mouthpiece of the Council of Regency.
"This," he said at length in a voice that was awed, "is an ultimatum."
"It is that," O'Moy admitted readily.
Forjas sighed, shook his dark head and drew himself up like a man who
has chosen his part. Being shrewd, he saw the immediate necessity of
choosing, and, being honest, he chose honestly.
"Perhaps it is as well," he said.
"That Lord Wellington should go?" cried O'Moy.
"That Lord Wellington should announce intentions of going," Forjas
explained. And having admitted so much, he now stripped off the
official mask completely. He spoke with his own voice and not with
that of the Council whose mouthpiece he was. "Of course it will
never be permitted. Lord Wellington has been entrusted with the
defence of the country by the Prince Regent; consequently it is the
duty of every Portuguese to ensure that at all costs he shall
continue in that office."
O'Moy was mystified. Only a knowledge of the minister's inmost
thoughts could have explained this oddly sudden change of manner.
"But your Excellency understands the terms—the only terms upon
which his lordship will so continue?"
"Perfectly. I shall hasten to convey those terms to the Council.
It is also quite clear—is it not?—that I may convey to my
Government and indeed publish your complete assurance that the
officer responsible for the raid on the convent at Tavora will be
shot when taken?"
Looking intently into O'Moy's face, Dom Miguel saw the clear blue
eyes flicker under his gaze, he beheld a grey shadow slowly
overspreading the adjutant's ruddy cheek. Knowing nothing of the
relationship between O'Moy and the offender, unable to guess the
sources of the hesitation of which he now beheld such unmistakable
signs, the minister naturally misunderstood it.
"There must be no flinching in this, General," he cried. "Let me
speak to you for a moment quite frankly and in confidence, not as
the Secretary of State of the Council of Regency, but as a
Portuguese patriot who places his country and his country's welfare
above every other consideration. You have issued your ultimatum.
It may be harsh, it may be arbitrary; with that I have no concern.
The interests, the feelings of Principal Souza or of any other
individual, however high-placed, are without weight when the
interests of the nation hang against them in the balance. Better
that an injustice be done to one man than that the whole country
should suffer. Therefore I do not argue with you upon the rights
and wrongs of Lord Wellington's ultimatum. That is a matter apart.
Lord Wellington demands the removal of Principal Souza from the
Government, or, in the alternative, proposes himself to withdraw
from Portugal. In the national interest the Government can come
to only one decision. I am frank with you, General. Myself I shall
stand ranged on the side of the national interest, and what my
influence in the Council can do it shall do. But if you know
Principal Souza at all, you must know that he will not relinquish
his position without a fight. He has friends and influence—the
Patriarch of Lisbon and many of the nobility will be on his side.
I warn you solemnly against leaving any weapon in his hands."
He paused impressively. But O'Moy, grey-faced now and haggard,
waited in silence for him to continue.
"From the message I brought you," Forjas resumed, "you will have
perceived how Principal Souza has fastened upon this business at
Tavora to support his general censure of Lord Wellington's conduct
of the campaign. That is the weapon to which my warning refers.
You must—if we who place the national interest supreme are to
prevail—you must disarm him by the assurance that I ask for. You
will perceive that I am disloyal to a member of my Council so that
I may be loyal to my country. But I repeat, I speak to you in
confidence. This officer has committed a gross outrage, which must
bring the British army into odium with the people, unless we have
your assurance that the British army is the first to censure and to
punish the offender with the utmost rigour. Give me now, that I
may publish everywhere, your official assurance that this man will
be shot, and on my side I assure you that Principal Souza, thus
deprived of his stoutest weapon, must succumb in the struggle that
awaits us."
"I hope," said O'Moy slowly, his head bowed, his voice dull and
even unsteady, "I hope that I am not behind you in placing public
duty above private consideration. You may publish my official
assurance that the officer in question will be . . . shot when
taken."
"General, I thank you. My country thanks you. You may be confident
of this issue." He bowed gravely to O'Moy and then to Tremayne.
"Your Excellencies, I have the honour to wish you good-day." He was
shown out by the orderly who had admitted him, and he departed well
satisfied in his patriotic heart that the crisis which he had always
known to be inevitable should have been reached at last. Yet, as
he went, he wondered why the Adjutant-General had looked so downcast,
why his voice had broken when he pledged his word that justice should
be done upon the offending British officer. That, however, was no
concern of Dom Miguel's, and there was more than enough to engage
his thoughts when he came to consider the ultimatum to his Government
with which he was charged.
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