The Snare. Rafael Sabatini

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СКАЧАТЬ who were idle at this time of year, and whom his good nature would engage on behalf of his English guests. Let the lieutenant do no more than provide the necessary money for the cattle, and the rest should happen as by enchantment—and Souza himself would see to it that the price was fair and proper.

      The lieutenant asked no better. He had no great opinion of himself either as cattle dealer or cattle drover, nor did his ambitions beget in him any desire to excel as one or the other. So he was well content that his host should have the bullocks fetched to Regoa for him. The herd was driven in on the following afternoon, by when the rain had ceased, and our lieutenant had every reason to be pleased when he beheld the solid beasts procured. Having disbursed the amount demanded—an amount more reasonable far than he had been prepared to pay—Mr. Butler would have set out forthwith to return to Pinhel, knowing how urgent was the need of the division and with what impatience the choleric General Craufurd would be awaiting him.

      “Why, so you shall, so you shall,” said the priestly, soothing Souza. “But first you’ll dine. There is good dinner—ah, but what good dinner!—that I have order. And there is a wine—ah, but you shall give me news of that wine.”

      Lieutenant Butler hesitated. Cornet O’Rourke watched him anxiously, praying that he might succumb to the temptation, and attempted suasion in the form of a murmured blessing upon Souza’s hospitality.

      “Sir Robert will be impatient,” demurred the lieutenant.

      “But half-hour,” protested Souza. “What is half-hour? And in half-hour you will have dine.”

      “True,” ventured the cornet; “and it’s the devil himself knows when we may dine again.”

      “And the dinner is ready. It can be serve this instant. It shall,” said Souza with finality, and pulled the bell-rope.

      Mr. Butler, never dreaming—as indeed how could he?—that Fate was taking a hand in this business, gave way, and they sat down to dinner. Henceforth you see him the sport of pitiless circumstance.

      They dined within the half-hour, as Souza had promised, and they dined exceedingly well. If yesterday the steward had been able without warning of their coming to spread at short notice so excellent a feast, conceive what had been accomplished now by preparation. Emptying his fourth and final bumper of rich red Douro, Mr. Butler paid his host the compliment of a sigh and pushed back his chair.

      But Souza detained him, waving a hand that trembled with anxiety, and with anxiety stamped upon his benignly rotund and shaven countenance.

      “An instant yet,” he implored. “Mr. Bearsley would never pardon me did I let you go without what he call a stirrup-cup to keep you from the ills that lurk in the wind of the Serra. A glass—but one—of that Port you tasted yesterday. I say but a glass, yet I hope you will do honour to the bottle. But a glass at least, at least!” He implored it almost with tears. Mr. Butler had reached that state of delicious torpor in which to take the road is the last agony; but duty was duty, and Sir Robert Craufurd had the fiend’s own temper. Torn thus between consciousness of duty and the weakness of the flesh, he looked at O’Rourke. O’Rourke, a cherubic fellow, who had for his years a very pretty taste in wine, returned the glance with a moist eye, and licked his lips.

      “In your place I should let myself be tempted,” says he. “It’s an elegant wine, and ten minutes more or less is no great matter.”

      The lieutenant discovered a middle way which permitted him to take a prompt decision creditable to his military instincts, but revealing a disgraceful though quite characteristic selfishness.

      “Very well,” he said. “Leave Sergeant Flanagan and ten men to wait for me, O’Rourke, and do you set out at once with the rest of the troop. And take the cattle with you. I shall overtake you before you have gone very far.”

      O’Rourke’s crestfallen air stirred the sympathetic Souza’s pity.

      “But, Captain,” he besought, “will you not allow the lieutenant—”

      Mr. Butler cut him short. “Duty,” said he sententiously, “is duty. Be off, O’Rourke.”

      And O’Rourke, clicking his heels viciously, saluted and departed.

      Came presently the bottles in a basket—not one, as Souza had said, but three; and when the first was done Butler reflected that since O’Rourke and the cattle were already well upon the road there need no longer be any hurry about his own departure. A herd of bullocks does not travel very quickly, and even with a few hours’ start in a forty-mile journey is easily over-taken by a troop of horse travelling without encumbrance.

      You understand, then, how easily our lieutenant yielded himself to the luxurious circumstances, and disposed himself to savour the second bottle of that nectar distilled from the very sunshine of the Douro—the phrase is his own. The steward produced a box of very choice cigars, and although the lieutenant was not an habitual smoker, he permitted himself on this exceptional occasion to be further tempted. Stretched in a deep chair beside the roaring fire of pine logs, he sipped and smoked and drowsed away the greater par of that wintry afternoon. Soon the third bottle had gone the way of the second, and Mr. Bearsley’s steward being a man of extremely temperate habit, it follows that most of the wine had found its way down the lieutenant’s thirsty gullet.

      It was perhaps a more potent vintage than he had at first suspected, and as the torpor produced by the dinner and the earlier, fuller wine was wearing off, it was succeeded by an exhilaration that played havoc with the few wits that Mr. Butler could call his own.

      The steward was deeply learned in wines and wine growing and in very little besides; consequently the talk was almost confined to that subject in its many branches, and he could be interesting enough, like all enthusiasts. To a fresh burst of praise from Butler of the ruby vintage to which he had been introduced, the steward presently responded with a sigh:

      “Indeed, as you say, Captain, a great wine. But we had a greater.”

      “Impossible, by God,” swore Butler, with a hiccup.

      “You may say so; but it is the truth. We had a greater; a wonderful, clear vintage it was, of the year 1798—a famous year on the Douro, the quite most famous year that we have ever known. Mr. Bearsley sell some pipes to the monks at Tavora, who have bottle it and keep it. I beg him at the time not to sell, knowing the value it must come to have one day. But he sell all the same. Ah, meu Deus!” The steward clasped his hands and raised rather prominent eyes to the ceiling, protesting to his Maker against his master’s folly. “He say we have plenty, and now”—he spread fat hands in a gesture of despair—“and now we have none. Some sons of dogs of French who came with Marshal Soult happen this way on a forage they discover the wine and they guzzle it like pigs.” He swore, and his benignity was eclipsed by wrathful memory. He heaved himself up in a passion.

      “Think of that so priceless vintage drink like hogwash, as Mr. Bearsley say, by those god-dammed French swine, not a drop—not a spoonful remain. But the monks at Tavora still have much of what they buy, I am told. They treasure it for they know good wine. All priests know good wine. Ah yes! Goddam!” He fell into deep reflection.

      Lieutenant Butler stirred, and became sympathetic.

      “ ‘San infern’l shame,” said he indignantly. “I’ll no forgerrit when I … meet the French.” Then he too fell into reflection.

      He was a good Catholic, and, moreover, a Catholic who did not take things СКАЧАТЬ