Chapter 19

MILITARY MOVEMENTS

"Now, girls," Leon said, when Arthur had given a full relation of his adventure, "you must understand that this story must not go beyond ourselves. Whether any steps will be taken in the matter must depend largely upon what the queen regent and her advisers decide. It is a grave matter for the state to embroil itself with the church, and Arthur has already told me that he will be guided entirely by their wishes in the matter. I thank him for his consideration. Angry as I am at what has taken place, I feel that we ourselves could not but suffer were such a grave scandal to get abroad, for whatever might be the results to the people who have been concerned in this, we should undoubtedly be held in some respects accountable for them; and it is certainly a serious matter to quarrel with the church.

"The results might be very far-reaching. If this outrage upon a British officer were known in England, it would produce a most unfavourable impression. The cause of the queen has received warm support there, British soldiers and sailors have been fighting for us; but there is still a strong Carlist party in England, and these would certainly take advantage of this affair to stir up public feeling against us. Therefore I feel that we are all under a great obligation to Arthur for volunteering to put himself in the hands of the regent, and to consent to allow this business to be hushed up. At any rate, you must preserve absolute silence until we know what is to be done. I am going to drive to the palace now to lay the matter before the regent, and shall be able to tell you more this afternoon. Now, Mercedes, if you will take my advice you will lie down for a bit; you have been ill, you know, and are not yet strong."

"I shall soon be strong again," she said; "still, I shall take your advice, for I do feel shaken, and I want to be bright this afternoon when you come back."

Leon drove with Arthur to the palace, and the former sent in word to the queen regent that he begged to see her in private audience. A quarter of an hour later they were shown into the room where she was sitting. She rose with an exclamation of surprise on seeing Arthur.

"Why, where have you been, Captain Hallett?" she exclaimed. "I began to give up all hope of ever seeing you again."

"It is a somewhat long story, your majesty, but if you will condescend to listen to it I will tell it to you in full. I have come not to demand justice at your hands, but to leave the matter entirely to you, to take any steps or no steps at all, as you may decide."

He then told the story, his narrative being frequently interrupted by exclamations of anger from Christina.

"It is infamous!" she exclaimed, when he brought the story to an end; "most infamous! I thank you most heartily for having come direct to me instead of sending your complaint home. It is a very serious matter. The church is already by no means well disposed towards me, and the priests throughout the country have largely thrown their influence on to the side of my enemies. I have a council this afternoon, and shall bring the matter before them; you have indeed added greatly to the obligation I am already under to you by offering to leave the matter in my hands. Of course you have a right to large compensation for this illegal imprisonment."

"I can assure you that I desire no compensation at all, your majesty; I have already benefited very largely by your bounty. The only thing I would ask is, that if nothing is done, you will receive Donna Mercedes at your palace and take her under your protection until we are married. Having failed with me, the next attempt will be made upon her, and she would find it a much harder task than I have to free herself from their hands."

"That I will very gladly do, se�or; and I don't think that even the church would venture to interfere with a lady under my protection. If it did, it would find me far less forgiving than you are."

The next morning Arthur received a message requesting him to go to the palace.

"Your case was fully discussed yesterday, Captain Hallett," the queen regent said, "and my council are all grateful for your magnanimity in placing yourself in their hands. They are fully sensible of the great wrong that has been inflicted upon you, and of the very serious consequences that might have ensued if you had chosen to place your case in the hands of the British government. I had sent to the prior of the monastery of St. Isidore, and he was called before the council and ordered to explain his conduct. He did not in any way attempt to deny the facts as stated by you, but declared that he was acting under the orders of the bishop, whereupon an order was sent the latter to leave the country at once and take up his residence at Rome until he shall have received permission to return. The council proposed to pay you ten thousand pounds as an indemnity for the treatment you have received. I told them that I would inform you of their decision, but that you had already expressed to me your determination not to accept one. They were a little incredulous," she said with a slight smile, "which is not to be wondered at, considering that there was not one of them who would, in similar circumstances, have felt the slightest hesitation in accepting such an offer. However, I told them I would see you to-day and lay the offer before you."

"Which I need hardly say, your majesty, I decline. I own that I am well pleased to hear that the author of this affair has received some punishment. After that, madam, I do not think it will be necessary for Donna Mercedes to avail herself of your kind protection. The issue of this order for the bishop to go into exile will be so strong a mark of your majesty's displeasure that there can, I think, be no fear whatever of any further steps being taken by my enemies. Donna Mercedes has been very ill, and I think she will be more likely to recover her health speedily in the society of her brother and sisters than in the atmosphere of the palace, where, however great your majesty's kindness, there must be a certain amount of stiffness and ceremony."

"I should have been glad to have her with me," Christina said, "but there is no doubt a certain amount of truth in what you say. However, I will have her here frequently, so that it may be understood that she is a special friend of mine, in which case I am sure no one will try to interfere with her."

Colonel Wylde returned that evening, and after hearing the whole story from Arthur, expressed his warm approval of the course he had taken.

"It would have been most damaging to the royal cause," he said, "if this affair had been made public in England; and though I think you would have been more than justified in accepting the amount offered as an indemnity, I can but admire your disinterestedness in refusing it."

"And now, colonel, I am ready to start for any point where you may require my services; I have been idle too long already."

"Well, the war is practically over in the north. That scoundrel Maroto has arranged terms for himself, and for a few of his friends, with Espartero, but has made no conditions whatever for the soldiers who have fought so hard for Don Carlos. However, these have been permitted to return to their homes, and at present Espartero is occupied in settling affairs there and in preparing his army to take the field in the spring against Cabrera. A number of small isolated campaigns are going on in Aragon. We have already three or four commissioners there, but it is perhaps as well that you should proceed there at once, as it is now three months since I have had any reports from you to send in with mine. I have, of course, been obliged to report your disappearance, and shall now mention that you had been pounced upon by some enemies of the queen and held in confinement, but that you had effected your escape."

That evening Arthur heard from Leon that Count Silvio had been released from the close observation he had been subjected to for the past two months. "It is believed," he said, "that he was the instigator of the action against you, but there is no proof whatever that this is so, and there is therefore no excuse for keeping him further under arrest. He has, however, been ordered to retire to his estates, as there is at least the strongest ground for suspecting that he was concerned in the attack upon you by those street ruffians, and his whole conduct has been in the highest degree suspicious."

"I shall be glad to know that he is away, Leon. Of course I am not sure that he was really concerned in my imprisonment; the priest who is Mercedes' confessor is likely enough to be at the bottom of it."

"I think so too, and have told Mercedes that she had better choose some other confessor."

"I think the two men were set upon me by him; but I am inclined to own that I was in the wrong in the matter of that duel. It was somewhat reasonable that he should have been jealous, and it would have been fair if I had contented myself with running him through the shoulder instead of making him a perfect laughing-stock. I was irritated by his manner, and by the way in which he had brought two or three dozen of his friends to see him run me through. Still, I own that I was wrong, and if the man would come and offer to shake hands I would not refuse to do so."

"Then you are a good deal more forgiving than I should be," Leon said heartily; "and I should like nothing better than to fight him myself. However, I admit that there is something in what you say; certainly he had some ground of complaint against Mercedes. I felt that it was hard upon him when I wrote begging him to break off the engagement. Of course, I have been glad that I did so since I have come to know him better, and feel that Mercedes had a very fortunate escape."

"Don't let her go out unless she is accompanied by one of her sisters as well as her duenna."

"No, I will take care of that; she shall be well looked after, I promise you, and I don't suppose she herself will care for going out except to the palace. It will be well for her to go there pretty often. She is fond of Christina, and she will feel herself that her intimacy there will be a great protection to her."

In Catalonia the Carlists were still very strong. The royal army numbered at least fifty-five thousand men. About seventeen thousand--half of whom were regular troops--garrisoned the permanent forts, and of the remainder twenty-five thousand belonging to the local militia were scattered among no fewer than two hundred and seventeen fortified villages and small towns. These were of no military importance, but if they had not been defended, Cabrera's forces, which were marching about the country, would have swept them bare of their inhabitants, carrying off all the stores they contained, and burning them to the ground. It was therefore necessary to garrison them, not only because this diminished the supply of stores available for the use of the enemy, but because it enabled contributions to be levied for the queen's cause. Undoubtedly the holding of these places answered those purposes, but, upon the other hand, the employment in this manner of practically the whole army in Catalonia completely unfitted it for all operations in the field, and enabled Cabrera to carry on his operations without meeting with any efficient opposition.

In this way he captured place after place, massacring the greater portion of the inhabitants and striking terror into the others. Arthur had been despatched to join the command of General Van Halen, who was occupied principally in endeavouring to victual Lucena, and in trying in a feeble way to fortify the castle of Onda. The operation progressed slowly, for although the war had been going on for years no tools were available, and it was necessary to send to Cadiz to purchase them. Colonels Lacy and Alderson were with Van Halen when Arthur arrived, and after staying here for a short time he joined the command of General Ayerbe, who was endeavouring to mitigate the Carlist system of atrocities. On this subject Arthur exchanged several letters with Cabrera. General Ayerbe was also endeavouring to prevent the Carlists from carrying out the fortification of Segura, an important place In Aragon, as it lay on the line of march to Teruel and Alcaniz. Parra was lying near, but refused to co-operate with Ayerbe, and Van Halen determined to march on Segura himself and lay siege to it.

Before he arrived, however, Ayerbe, having been reinforced, defeated the Carlists at a place two hours' march from the town, drove them back from their new works, and in his report of the action mentioned that Captain Hallett had rendered material services and had led a small party of cavalry in a brilliant charge which decided the fate of the day. Serrano brought up a battering train from Saragossa. It consisted, however, of only three 16-pounders, a 12-inch mortar, and a 9-inch howitzer, and all the ammunition he could obtain amounted to fifteen hundred shot and one thousand shell. It was a long business to bring up even this feeble train. The weather was inclement in the extreme, and when he arrived in front of Segura--the garrison of which had been very strongly reinforced by Cabrera--he found that his force was wholly insufficient for the attack upon the place, and that the town itself had been burnt by the Carlists to prevent it from affording any shelter to the besiegers.

The surrounding country had been wasted for many miles, and large bodies of Carlists were seen upon some adjoining heights. He therefore consulted with the officers commanding the various armies, and these unanimously declared that it would be madness to attempt a siege in such circumstances. Abandoning the idea, therefore, he embarked upon a series of long and fatiguing marches, by which he caused the Carlists to give up the siege of several places. He did not, however, mitigate the animosity of his rivals, who succeeded in obtaining his recall on the ground of his having abandoned the siege of Segura, which they said might easily have fallen into his hands. Nogueras succeeded him, but was speedily displaced by Ayerbe. He, however, did not long retain the command, which was given to O'Donnell, an active and energetic young officer.

Owing to the absence of any decisive action Arthur remained at head-quarters, receiving orders from Colonel Lacy, who was the principal of the four English commissioners attached to the armies of Catalonia and Aragon. They hailed the appointment of O'Donnell as affording some grounds for hope that at last something like vigour would be shown in the operations of the army, which was at present scattered about the country, employed rather in collecting provisions for their own subsistence than in harassing the enemy.

"If it wasn't that the fighting in the north is finished, and that a few more months will see the end of the whole affair, I should throw up my commission and go home," Arthur said one day to Roper. "This really is sickening; but having gone through so much of it, I should not like to leave until it was all over."

"No, sir; I should like to see the Carlists smashed up altogether before we go. Still, it is dull work. Of course, while we are staying down here in Saragossa we get plenty to eat and drink, but when we are away in the country it is pretty rough work, and a beggar would turn up his nose at the food we have to eat. I should not mind if there was really anything to do, but these Spaniards are so pig-headed that they won't take advice. They have a big army if they would but gather it together and go at the Carlists."

"Yes, it certainly seems like that, Roper; but you must remember that a big army requires a tremendous transport train, for it would have to carry everything with it. At this time of year little food is to be obtained, and in fact the people of these villages and little towns scarcely do any cultivation of the land, for they cannot tell who will reap what they have sown. Then, too, most of the country is mountainous, the roads are everywhere abominable, and even if we had a train sufficient to carry the supplies, it would be so large and cumbrous that its tail would not have left the halting-place when the head arrived at its destination; and you must remember, that if we concentrate, the Carlists would do the same. A portion of them would harass us along the whole line of march, while another would make excursions wherever they pleased, for they march light, and could go three miles to every one that we can cover. There is no doubt that this dispersal of our force over so large an extent of country, and among so many towns and villages, is a grievous mistake; but it is very difficult to see what else can be done, for if we gave them no defence these places would all lie at the mercy of the Carlists, and would be obliged in self-preservation to go over to them, thus enormously increasing their recruiting-ground, and enabling them to get stores wherever they marched. If Cabrera would but gather the whole of his force together and allow us to do the same, and risk everything on a pitched battle, the matter would soon be brought to an end. But, as it is, I am afraid we shall have to wait till Espartero arrives before the business can be wound up."

The first step General O'Donnell had to undertake was the relief of General Asnar, who was shut up by the Carlists in Lucena. Having received large reinforcements he started for that place, marching unencumbered by baggage. The enemy's first position near Lucena was easily carried. Five battalions then attacked the enemy's left, which occupied a position that would enable them to take the Christino advance in flank. When this movement was successful, two battalions attacked the right of the Carlist position, while O'Donnell placed himself at the head of the rest of the troops, who advanced with loud cheers to the charge over very rugged ground and under a very heavy fire. The Carlists would not wait to stand a bayonet charge, and abandoned their ground, leaving the road open to Lucena, where Asnar with his troops had been imprisoned for twenty-two days.

This was a brilliant piece of fighting, and immensely raised the spirits of the royal troops, who found that they were at last commanded by a man, and not by incapable and almost imbecile dummies. On the following day O'Donnell marched to Murviedro, though he had not had more than three hours' continuous rest since he had left Saragossa.

A fortnight later he proceeded to take possession of the heights beyond Arteza, his intention being to besiege Tales, which was important because it commanded the water-supply of the town of Onda. The position of the enemy was a strong one: his right was on a hill called the Pena Negro, and on a round hill on a slope between it and Tales; his centre was upon the Castle of Tales; and his left on precipitous heights. From the last-mentioned the Carlists were driven without loss, after offering but a very slight resistance.

Arthur had been requested by Colonel Alderson--an engineer officer, who was now senior commissioner--to reconnoitre the ground beyond these heights to ascertain whether the place could be better bombarded from the rear. Roper, as usual, rode with him. They had gone some distance when they saw two horsemen approaching at full gallop. As these were apparently unaccompanied, Arthur paid but little attention to them, and rode on until he heard a loud and imperious order to stop. Reining in their horses they awaited the arrival of the two unknown men. They were within fifty yards when Arthur exclaimed, "It is Cabrera himself! Well, I am not sorry to meet him."

Cabrera, as he approached, gave a shout of satisfaction as he recognized Arthur. "Well," he exclaimed, "you have got the better of me twice; this time it will be my turn!"

"That is as it may be," Arthur replied. He saw Cabrera draw a pistol from his holster and he did the same, and the two weapons flashed out together. Arthur felt a stinging pain, as if a red-hot iron had crossed his cheek. Cabrera dropped his pistol, having evidently received a shot in his right arm, but he drew his sword with his left, and rode at Arthur. Both combatants fought with fury--Cabrera animated by a burning desire for vengeance, Arthur by the thought of the importance of killing Cabrera, for he was the spirit of the war, and after his death the Carlist movement would soon come to an end.

The combat was short but desperate. The disadvantage of having to use his left arm greatly hampered Cabrera. In point of skill he would have been in any case inferior to his opponent, but for a time the fury of his assault counterbalanced this. Parrying three or four furious cuts, Arthur delivered a heavy blow on his antagonist's left shoulder, inflicting a severe wound and striking him from his saddle. Cabrera leapt to his feet again. Arthur dismounted and demanded his surrender.

"Never!" the Carlist said. "Cabrera will never be taken alive!"

Roper had by this time disembarrassed himself of his antagonist by running him through the body, and he now rode up. Cabrera was half-mad with rage. Both his arms were useless. Just as Arthur was about to throw himself upon him and overpower him, Roper shouted, "Mount, master! mount and ride! Fifty of his fellows are upon us."

Looking round, Arthur saw that a body of men were riding furiously towards them, and were a little over fifty yards away. He hesitated a moment, and then leapt on to his horse, shouting to Cabrera: "Next time, se�or, we will finish what we have begun!" and then rode off. Several shots were fired, but, leaning low in their saddles, they galloped away at full speed, and, both being well mounted, were speedily beyond pursuit; and, indeed, most of the Carlists had gathered round their chief.

On regaining their camp Arthur reported what had taken place to Colonel Alderson, who at once took him across to O'Donnell.

"You have done well indeed, Captain Hallett," said the general; "and though it is a grievous pity that you did not kill him, which would have been more to our advantage than the winning of a pitched battle, it will lay him up for a time, and that will be more to us than a reinforcement of ten thousand men. I thank you most heartily, sir, in the name of the government."

Cabrera, indeed, after his wounds were attended to, still gave his orders for the defence of the town, and inspired his troops by his presence. Under his eye they made several desperate sorties against the battery which was being prepared for breaching the wall. The battery was placed and but feebly worked, for throughout the war the Christino operations in the way of sieges were always unskilfully managed, owing to the utter incompetence of their engineers. However, a week after their appearance before the town, fire was opened. The siege was delayed for a time owing to the necessity for sending reinforcements to a body of the queen's troops which had suffered a severe defeat at Chulilla. The battering train was small and indifferent, and several of the guns gave way during the bombardment, which lasted seven days. At the end of that time an assault was ordered.

The engineers obstinately refused to accept Colonel Alderson's advice to make ladders, although it was evident that the breach could not be scaled without them. Resisting very strongly, the enemy's left was at last turned, and the round tower on the right captured. The garrison, however, fought desperately, and made continuous efforts to retake it. All day the battle continued. The breach in the castle was found to be impracticable, but was at last enlarged, and the enemy were compelled to surrender. The day's fighting, however, had cost the queen's troops a loss of at least four hundred killed and wounded, almost all of which might have been spared had Colonel Alderson's advice been taken. Cabrera had left the town before the attack began, being too much injured to take the command himself. The defence, however, had been a gallant one, and although the capture of the place gave great encouragement to the Christinos, the stubbornness of the defence and the loss they had inflicted served to show the Carlists that the conquest of the number of strongly-fortified positions they held was beyond their opponents' power.

O'Donnell destroyed the castle and tower, and then retired, as the town could no longer be held by the Carlists for the purpose of harassing the garrison of Onda. He decided now to reduce a number of the Carlists' fortified places and wait for the arrival of Espartero; but the Carlists took the offensive, and their columns moved about with such activity that the army was kept constantly on the march to encounter them and drive them back again into the mountains. It was not till October that Espartero arrived at Saragossa and met O'Donnell there. Then it was decided that, until the arrival of reinforcements which were coming from the north, O'Donnell should continue in command, his force being strengthened by seven battalions of the army of the north. Espartero advanced with the rest of his own force. Their plans, however, were altered by the early setting in of winter. The roads speedily became impassable, provisions were terribly scarce, and the movements of the armies paralysed. All the energies of the commanders were indeed required to maintain the supply of provisions for the troops.

The English commissioners for the most part returned to Madrid. Among these was Arthur, who spent four months there very happily. Nothing had been heard of Don Silvio, who was still living on his estates. It was evident to all that the war would speedily come to a close; bodies of troops from all parts of Spain were moving to the scene of action, and when the season opened Espartero would be at the head of an army against which even Cabrera could not hope to make head. That indefatigable fighter was lying ill at Morella, the result of his wounds, which, although not serious in themselves, had been rendered so by the incessant energy and activity with which he had persisted in moving about. The news of the retirement of Don Carlos had for a long time been kept from the peasantry, but even when it became known it had but little effect upon them. They cared little for Don Carlos; but they almost worshipped Cabrera, and were ready to follow to the death; and when spring came and operations could be resumed, they flocked to his standard again in as large numbers as before.

In February the campaign reopened and Arthur started to rejoin the army. At one of the towns at which they stopped, Roper came in an hour after their arrival and said: "Captain, do you know I feel pretty sure that I have seen Don Silvio. It was only his back, it is true, but I am convinced that it was he. I was walking along when I saw a man who was coming the other way suddenly turn off down a aide street. When I got to the end of it I looked down, for I saw by the sudden turn he had taken that he wished to avoid me. By the distance he had gone it seemed to me that he must have been running. He was too far away from me to speak of his identity with any certainty, but I thought, and still think, that it was Don Silvio."

"But what should he be doing here, Roper?"

"That I cannot say, sir. At any rate it seems to me that his presence here just at the moment when we are coming through looks like mischief."

"Well, of course anyone at Madrid watching me might have found out the day on which we were going to start, and might have sent a message to Don Silvio in time to enable him to ride here before we came along. He may, of course, have brought three or four men with him; he is more likely to have done that than to have trusted to recruiting some fellows here. It is just as well--if it is the man--that you should have recognized him, Roper, for at any rate we shall not be taken by surprise."

"Perhaps, sir, it would be as well to stop a few days here, or to change our route; there are two or three roads by which we might get to Saragossa. They would certainly be farther than the direct one; but it would make little difference whether we arrived there two or three days earlier or later."

"That is true enough, Roper; but if he is watching us here, he could follow us by one road as well as another. We have our pistols and swords, and I should say that we could render a pretty good account of four or five of them."

"I have no doubt we could, captain; still, I would rather not fight against long odds if I could avoid it. You see, sir, since I got that fifteen hundred pounds banked to my credit in England I feel more careful about my life than before. It did not much matter then whether I went down or not; now it seems to me that my life has a distinct value, and I don't want to throw it away."

"Well, I can say the same, Roper. Of course I always knew I was coming into an estate some day, but I don't know that I thought much about it. Now my life is of great value because it is of value to Donna Mercedes. I don't say anything about the money I have acquired, but certainly for her sake I do hold to life pretty strongly; at the same time I cannot turn back from my duty for an unknown danger and merely because you think you have recognized Don Silvio. I have proved that I am a far better swordsman than he. Since my duel with him I have practised a good deal with my pistols, and can, I think, account with them for two or three assailants. You have practised as well, and I fancy that you ought to be able to settle with two of them in your four shots. Let us suppose that Don Silvio has six fellows with him--I should hardly say that he would bring more. Well, if we can each dispose of two, that only leaves us with three, counting Don Silvio himself, to manage."

"Well, captain, that is all right; but if these six men are lying in ambush and fire together, they may upset our calculations altogether."

"That is certainly so, Roper. But unless we are going to turn tail and ride back to Madrid on the strength of your belief that you saw Don Silvio, I do not see how that is to be helped. Mind, it is I and not you whom Don Silvio wants to kill. I have got my shirt of mail, and I do not think that a pistol bullet would go through it; so that if they direct their fire at me, unless I am shot through the head I reckon that I shall still be in fighting order after their first discharge. At any rate, Roper, I do not mean to turn back."

"Well, if you go on, of course I go on, sir," Roper said doggedly; "there is no question at all about that."

"I think, Roper, the best thing for us to do would be, when we have taken our meal, to sally out in different directions with our cloaks on and our caps over our faces. Possibly one or other of us may alight upon him if he is here. If we meet him, we will talk the matter over again. I don't want to do anything headstrong; and if we ascertain that the count is here, we will discuss whether we can make a detour that will throw him off the scent, though I say honestly I don't think such an attempt would be of any use. If he has men with him they will certainly be posted on watch round this hotel, and he will learn all that there is to be learned of our movements; and whatever we do, we shall have to fight for it. If he has more than six men I should say that if we are attacked we had better trust to our horses and not to the strength of our arms, and ride for it. There is nothing cowardly in running away from a greatly superior force, and certainly I shall not hesitate to do so if I see that they are too strong for us."

Accordingly, after dinner they put on their cloaks and sallied out.

"Don't move out of the main street of the town, Roper," Arthur said. "They will not attack us there; but if we were to turn down any side street they might fall upon us suddenly. We had better be back here in an hour's time, and we will then exchange notes."

At the end of that time they met again at the door of the inn.

"I think you are right, Roper. I am sure that one man at least has followed me all the time I have been out."

"I thought so at first, captain; but the fellow I suspected brushed against me roughly before I had been out very long, and then apologized. It struck me that he wanted to look at my face; anyhow, I did not see anything of him afterwards. Don Silvio could not have given them a very accurate description of us; for, as you stand six feet one and I am not more than five feet eight, no one who knew anything about us could very well mistake you."

"I have certainly been followed," said Arthur, "and I feel sure that if I had moved out of the main street I should have been attacked. There were two fellows who kept together, and another who followed close behind. I suspected all three, as they generally kept at about the same distance from me. Well, I have no doubt now that you were right about Don Silvio. I will see if they have got such a thing as a map in the hotel. I don't suppose they have; but at any rate I will ask the landlord to send up some man who knows the roads well to my room, and I will find out as much as I can of the different routes, and then we can decide on what we had best do."