Naturally, Roger derived considerable pleasure from righting the wrongs done to unfortunate Spaniards; and, although he had been in Seville before, he enjoyed visiting again the sights of interest and strolling in the beautiful garden of the Alcazar. One afternoon, when he was walking in it with a brother officer, between the trees proceeding down a cross path he caught sight of a surprising figure.
It was apparently a Captain of Hussars in a beautifully tailored, sky-blue uniform; but the skin-tight smalls covered the plump bottom of a woman, the gold lace of the tunic protruded in a most suggestive curve, and beneath the busby dark ringlets fell to the epaulettes on the shoulders. Halting in his tracks, Roger exclaimed:
'Sacri bleu! Just look at that. Am I seeing things, or are we now giving commissions to young women?'
His companion laughed. 'Have you not seen her about the headquarters before? She is Anita, a lovely young Spaniard. Our Marshal is a great one for the women, and summons a fine variety of them to his bed. But Anita is a special case. She is his permanent mistress, and accompanies him everywhere. By putting her into uniform he has saved her the inconvenience inseparable from wearing female clothes when she rides out with him on reconnaissance.'
After a week in Seville, Roger decided that the time had come when he could disappear without arousing suspicion that he had left deliberately.
For the sake of exercise most of his brother staff officers went for a ride outside the city, either early in the morning or in the evening, and there had been one occasion when one of them had failed to return, presumably through having ridden too far afield and fallen into the hands of the enemy or marauders.
There was only one difficulty in carrying out a deception on these lines. The officers usually rode out in parties and rarely alone; but Roger had thought of a way in which he could rid himself of a single companion.
On the afternoon of the 24th he asked a Major Theophile Simplon, with whom he had ridden out before, if he would care to go for a ride with him. Simplon accepted and it was agreed that they should meet in the stables in half an hour's time. Roger got there well in advance of the Major, taking with him, wrapped up in paper, his civilian clothes. Telling the groom on duty that he would saddle his own horse, he spread the folded coat and breeches on the animal's back and strapped the saddle over them. Then he stuffed his soft brimmed hat into one saddle holster and into the other a packet of cold meat that he had taken from the Mess side table when no one was in the room.
Simplon, little suspecting the trick that was to be played on him, joined him shortly afterwards and, side by side, they rode out of the city. When they were some two miles from the walls, they came to wooded country, which suited Roger's purpose. They had turned down a ride where no one could see them even from a distance, and were walking their horses. Roger dropped half a length behind his companion, then took a stiletto from under his jacket and dug the point sharply into the rump of the Major's mount.
With a spasmodic jerk, the animal reared, gave a loud neigh and bolted with the unfortunate Simplon. Roger had estimated that, the Major having had no warning of what would befall, his horse would cover the best part of half a mile before he could bring it under control. When, with flying hooves, it had sped a hundred yards, Roger turned off into another ride and put his own horse into a gallop.
Having ridden on for an hour, he pulled up at a place where some big boulders had rolled down a mountain to the side of the road. Among them he changed into his civilian clothes and left his uniform and befeathered hat.
Then he pressed forward at the best pace he could expect from his mount, heading for the house in which he had spent his last night before reaching Seville.
Night fell long before he arrived there. The moon gave sufficient light for him to keep to the right road, but he had some difficulty in finding the house and it was close on midnight when he entered the short, overgrown drive that led to it.
The place was in darkness, but he hammered with his riding crop on the door until a nickering light appeared and a servant, opening a grille in the door, asked suspiciously what he wanted. On his giving the name he had used on his previous visit, the man remembered him and went to rouse his master.
When the old gentleman appeared, Roger told him that, on reaching Seville, he had learned that his sister and her husband had been killed by their house collapsing on them, as a result of the bombardment during the siege of the city. As he knew no one there and had very little money, he had decided that his best course was to make his way back to his native Oporto, where he at least had other relatives and numerous friends. The old man then commiserated with him, gave him a bed for the night and saw to it that he had a good breakfast before setting off again in the morning.
He spent his second night at a wayside inn, his third in a mountain cave and his fourth in a deserted farmhouse. On the fifth day he was riding again through the scorched-earth country, with the cheerful prospect that, if his luck held, by the following night he would be back in Lisbon. But, alas for those happy thoughts, his luck did not hold.
Both on his outward journey and during his return, he had taken every possible precaution to avoid other people, however innocent looking. A score of times, on seeing vehicles, horsemen or peasants approaching along the road, he had quickly turned off into a wood or down a bridle path, where he could remain concealed until any likelihood of danger was past. But on this afternoon he was caught unawares.
The road he was on wound through a rocky gully. As he rounded a sharp bend in it, two ragged, bearded men with muskets rose from among the rocks, pointed their weapons at him and called on him to halt.
Had he been in open country, he would have set spurs to his horse and risked being hit as he galloped off. But the two men were no more than fifteen paces from him, so he did not stand a dog's chance of getting away without being seriously wounded. Cursing below his breath, he pulled up and, at a gruff order, dismounted.
As he did so, in Spanish mingled with enough Portuguese for the man to understand him, he declared himself to be a Spanish patriot carrying a message from General the Marquis de la Romana to Lord Wellington.
One of the men was a little runt, but it was he who had spoken for both, and he said, 'Maybe, comrade, maybe not. We'll soon find out. You are coming with us.'
The other man slouched forward and took Roger's horse by the bridle, while the runt cautiously took a few paces sideways until he was behind Roger and could point his musket at his back. giving him a quick prod with the barrel, he said:
'Come on. Get moving.'
To Roger, the three-quarters of an hour that followed seemed never ending. As he trudged along, he recalled all the accounts he had heard, both from British and French acquaintances, of the terrible fate that befell those who were captured by brigands. That they really cooked and ate people he believed to be a slander; but he had no doubt at all that their hatred for their enemies was so intense that they tortured unmercifully the French soldiers who fell into their hands, and often finished them off by skinning them alive, burning or disemboweling them. He could only pray that his knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese, together with his long since perfected ability to lie convincingly would enable him to get away with his life. At the least he could expect to be robbed of his money, and would be lucky if they even left him his clothes.