“Well, let it be so,” replied Don Pedro, surprised and pleased at the other’s words.
And the maître-de-camp, with a breast somewhat less burdened, betook himself to his ship again.
A couple of days later the peaked and thickly-wooded shores of Tercera were first visible, and the armada coasting along, to the mortal terror of the Portuguese, who were parceled out in companies to defend the accessible points, and miserably ignorant where the Spaniards would make their descent, came to anchor off St. Catherine, where about fifty French and twice as many Portuguese were drawn up to oppose the landing.
“It would be a pity to cross the humor of the French gentlemen, yonder,” Santa-Cruz said, with a grim smile. “But their allies will only embarrass their manœuvres, and had better be routed before hand. Don’t you think we can frighten them, Pòlvora?”
“Frighten them!” cried that cavalier; “I can see, at this distance, the finery of some glittering in the sunshine, as if the wearers were shaking all over. Let us try if they are not too frightened to run.”
So the signal was given, and a general discharge of cannon followed from the fleet, doing no special harm. I believe the widow Jean’s son was decapitated, and that young fool, Allain, who must needs leave his pretty sweetheart Annette in Floillé to pick up a little glory, that his marriage might come off with more eclat than any in his village, lost a leg or arm; but these were trifles nobody minds in a skirmish.
However, it was before the balls came bumping along the sands—indeed, while they were disporting, like great whales, in the outer surf, and casting up jets of water at each _ricochet_, that the brave rear-guard took to their heels—a piece of prudence for which I beg the indulgence of those military young men who are suffered by their employers to sport moustachios in their shops and counting-houses, and whose chief motive for advocating, in strong language, a dissolution of the Union, is supposed to lie in the admirable opportunity to be afforded of winning undying laurels in civil warfare; for I would intimate, however reprehensible cowardice may be on any occasion, and on this in particular, that watching the lively skipping from wave to wave of such iron globes as a 42-pounder debouches, while chatting with the officer of artillery, who has just sighted the piece at a hogshead anchored in the bay, is quite a different thing from doing the same when serving as the hogshead yourself.