suddenly interjected the ensign, staring hard at Tom. "Clifford, of London Bridge. Well, I'm bothered! Why, Tom, don't you know me?"
It must be confessed that our hero was somewhat taken aback. In this young officer so much above himself, clad in the handsome uniform of the 60th Rifles, he had not recognized an old friend. Indeed his attention had been centred on his own officer. But now, when Jack Barwood lifted his cap, Tom recognized him at once, and gave vent to a shout of delight.
"Why, it's you!" he cried, gripping the hand extended. "Haven't seen you since – now when did we meet last?"
"Time you licked that cub of a grocer's boy," laughed Jack, who seemed to be just such another as our hero, and who was evidently a jovial fellow. "He passed when we were with your cousin, and grinned and sauced you. You were at him in a jiffy."
Mr. Riley laughed loudly when he heard what was passing. "Why, he's been at one of our men aboard the frigate," he cried. "Hammered him badly just before we fell in with the Frenchman. He's a tiger."
"He's a demon to fight, is Tom, sir," laughed Jack. "Ask him how we became acquainted."
"Eh? How?" asked the officer curiously, and then pressed the question when he saw that Tom had gone a crimson colour and was looking sheepish. "Eh?" he repeated.
"He's pretending to have forgotten," shouted Jack, enjoying the situation. "I'll tell the tale. It was at school one day. Tom was chewing toffee, mine had disappeared from a pocket. I tackled him with the theft, and we went hammer and tongs for one another. It was a busy time for us for some ten minutes."
"Ah!" smiled Mr. Riley. "Who won?"
"Drawn battle," exclaimed Tom, somewhat sulkily.
"I had a licking," laughed Jack. "It was a certainty for him from the beginning."
"Not surprised," came from the officer. "And the toffee?"
"Eh?" asked Jack.
"The toffee you accused him of stealing?" asked Mr. Riley. "You found it later?"
"In another pocket – yes," admitted Jack, with a delightful grin. "I deserved that hiding; it made us fast friends. So Tom's been impressed."
"By the machinations of his cousin."
That caused Tom to lift his head and come nearer. He had wondered time and again how that impressment had been brought about, whether by accident or design, and had never been able to bring himself to believe that José was responsible. Mr. Riley's words made him open his ears.
"You are sure, sir?" he asked.
"The commander has letters from your father with positive proof. However, things seemed to have happened fortunately. You are to be taken to Oporto after all, and here you meet with an old friend. Things couldn't have been better. Now I shall leave you both aboard while I go to get together a crew. We'll set a course for Oporto when I return, and ought to reach the place inside the week. Tom, you'll no longer be a sailor before the mast. I have the commander's orders to take you as a passenger, or, if you wish it, to appoint you an officer for the time being. How's that?"
It was all delightful hearing; and when at length the sloop turned her bows for Oporto, leaving the frigate to sail away with her prize, and incidentally to carry Tom's letter to his father in England, the party aboard the little vessel could not have been merrier.
"You'll have to turn soldier yet," declared Jack to our hero, standing so that the latter could inspect his uniform, and indeed the young fellow cut such a neat figure that Tom was even more tempted than formerly. For Jack was slimmer and shorter than he, while the few months of training he had experienced had taught him to hold himself erect. A jollier and more careless ensign never existed. It can be said with truth that, had the fortunes of the troops in the Peninsula depended on Jack's wisdom and military knowledge, disaster would promptly have overtaken our arms. He was just one of those jolly, inconsequential sort of fellows, always skylarking, always gay and laughing, who go through the world as if serious subjects were not in existence.
"Hooray for the life of a soldier!" he shouted, knowing Tom's ardent wishes that way, and anxious to fill him with envy. "Who'd ever sit on a stool and sweat over books in an office?"
"I'll lick you if you don't stop short," growled Tom sourly, and yet laughing for all that; for who could take Jack seriously? "Who knows, I may be a leader of troops before you have cut your wisdom teeth? Who knows?"
Who could guess the future indeed? Not Tom. Not the jovial, thoughtless Jack. Not even the wise Mr. Riley, with all his experience of the sea and of the men who go upon it. It seemed that Oporto would receive them in the course of a few days, and that Jack and Tom would there part. But within twenty-four hours of that conversation the scene was changed. Two vessels raised their peaks from the offing, and, sailing nearer, declared themselves as French. They overhauled the little sloop, in spite of a spread of canvas that threatened to press her beneath the water. And that evening Tom and his companions were prisoners.
"My uncle! What awful luck!" groaned Jack, in the depths of despair, as is often the case with high-mettled people when reverses come along. "No soldiering, Tom; no office for you. I'd prefer that to a prison."
"It's the fortune of war," exclaimed Mr. Riley with resignation. "For me it makes no great difference. The wound I received aboard the frigate has not improved, and, even if I become a prisoner, I shall receive proper treatment, which is impossible aboard this sloop. I'm sorry for you two young fellows."
"Pooh, sir," smiled Tom, "we'll give 'em the slip! Seems to me I'm not meant for Oporto yet awhile. We'll give 'em the slip, and then I'll take on as a soldier."
"Slip? How?" asked Jack, somewhat staggered, for the idea had not occurred to him.
"Depends; couldn't say now how we'll bring it about. But we'll manage it some way. I speak Spanish and Portuguese and a little French. If with those advantages we can't manage the business, well, we're only fit for a prison."
"Hooray!" shouted the excited Jack; whereat one of the French officers accosted them angrily. But Tom quickly appeased him.
"Where do we get landed, Monsieur le Lieutenant?" he asked politely.
"Ah, you speak our tongue! That is good," came the more pleasant answer. "But where you land I cannot say; you will be sent with troops to the north of Spain, and so to a prison."
It was not very cheering news, but Tom made the best of it.
"I don't put my nose into a French prison if I can help it!" he declared, in that particular tone of voice to which Jack had grown accustomed when they were chums at school.
"And he won't!" declared the latter. "I know Tom well – a pig-headed, stubborn beggar from his cradle. Tom'll give 'em the slip, and we with him. One thing seems all right in the meanwhile – there's grub and drink in plenty. I never could stand starvation; I'd rather go to prison."
But whatever thoughts they may have had as regards escaping were set aside when they landed. Putting in at an obscure port, Tom and his friends found a squadron of horsemen waiting to receive them, for the ship had flown signals. The three friends, together with the two men belonging to Jack's regiment, were given horses, while a trooper took their reins, two other men riding close to each one of them. And then they set off across a barren country, which, however fair it may have been in other days, was burned black, stripped of all eatables, while those villages which had not been swallowed by the flames were wrecked and useless.
"You
