Chapter 4

THE FIRST FIGHT

For some days previous to the 5th of May, plans had been formed for an attack on the enemy's lines. The Carlists had a double line of fortifications. The first of these was half a mile from San Sebastian, and on the heights behind were numerous others, formed principally of steep banks or deep lanes, and breastworks of earth. Behind these, and separated by deep hollows, were other heights similarly fortified but more strongly entrenched, and armed with several batteries. The main road from San Sebastian to Aranez ran through the ground, and was strongly barricaded at various points.

The general's force consisted of five thousand British and fifteen hundred Spanish. All his own troops had not yet come up, and more Spanish troops from Santander were expected; but the general, having seen the manner in which Cordova mismanaged matters, and not being able to depend upon him as a tactician, determined to attack by himself. The evening before the attack was to be made, the various commanding officers addressed the men. All was bustle that night. By three o'clock the whole of the troops moved out of the town. The Light Brigade, under General Reid, consisting of the Rifles, the 3rd, and an irregular Spanish corps called the Chapelgorris, advanced against the enemy's lines near the river. The Irish Brigade, consisting of the 9th, 10th, and 11th under General Shaw, moved against the centre. General Chichester's brigade, comprising that morning the 1st, two companies of the 8th, and eight hundred Spaniards--the 4th, with the remainder of the 8th belonging to this brigade, not being yet landed--attacked the left of the enemy's lines.

The three forces had marched together as far as the convent of St. Bartholemy, and there separated in the directions they were to take. The officers were all on foot, for over such ground it was impossible to advance on horseback. Two hundred yards in front of the convent lay the Carlist pickets, but so noiselessly were the operations carried out that the various divisions reached the posts assigned to them undiscovered.

As Arthur marched along in the darkness he gave a hand in passing to Roper. "Good-bye, old fellow!" he said, "if we are not to meet again; but we may hope to do so in the morning." A squeeze of the hand was exchanged, and he passed on.

It was an anxious time. The red glare of the enemy's picket-fires could be seen in the distance. The morning was dark and wet, and there was perfect stillness as they took up the places assigned to them. Suddenly a Carlist gave a shout of "Qui vive!", which was answered by a shot from one of the Chapelgorris; then there was a shout of "Forward!"

Instantly volleys broke out from the various Carlist pickets. General Evans was in front of the advancing line. His orders were that the men were not to fire, but to advance well up and then charge. The first houses were cleared, and the out-pickets driven in. Then, for daylight was now breaking, the troops began to see the formidable nature of the work before them. The 7th Irish advanced almost without firing a shot. Volley after volley was poured into them, and though they dropped fast, they went steadily on with their colonel at their head. Sweeping forward, they gained the long building called the Windmill Battery, though five hundred Carlists garrisoned the loopholes. A great number of the enemy fell in and about these houses, refusing to surrender as prisoners, but fighting to the last till they were finally driven out. As General Evans came up to them he exclaimed to the 7th, "You are doing nobly, Irishmen!"

On the enemy's right equally severe fighting was carried on; and while the 7th carried the Windmill Battery, the Light Brigade succeeded in establishing themselves near, and driving the enemy from other posts of similar description.

Colonel Tupper was shot through the arm while gallantly leading his regiment, but, lest his officers and men should be discouraged, he threw his cloak around him to hide it, and held on with his regiment two hours longer. When he was again facing a heavy fire, he was shot through the head. On the left, the 1st and two companies of the 8th, under General Chichester, assisted in the assault, but without much help from the Spanish regiments. Colonel Fortescue, of the Rifles, was very conspicuous, being frequently engaged hand-to-hand with the Carlists; cutting his way through bushes, over walls and other obstacles, and dragging his men through when they were sinking in the dirt and mud. The 7th and 9th were repulsed three separate times, but a party of the 10th came up and joined them, led by Colonel Fitzgerald. A stone wall was in front of them, and over this Colonel Fitzgerald sprang with a riding-whip in his hand. Volley after volley was poured upon them, and the men fell as fast as they got over. All the officers who crossed the wall with him fell, but he stood still and ordered his men to come on. His last words were heard by an Irishman, who sprang over the wall saying, "Ye'll not die by yerself, old Charlie!"

There was a rush by the others, and the position was won. The second line of defences had now given way, the only position of importance remaining being the fort of Lugariz. Here the enemy were massed. Men tried to climb up the slippery slope to its foot, but fell or slipped back again. Until nine o'clock the troops were baffled. At this moment the two vessels with the 4th and 8th entered the bay. The boats were instantly launched and the men brought ashore. As they landed they threw their knapsacks down on the sand. The two ships of war opened a storm of ball and shell at the fort. Colonel Godfrey, as soon as he arrived with the two regiments, at once rushed into the thick of the combat. The batteries continued to fire until they were at the foot of the wall. A breach was made and the troops rushed in, but the Carlists for a time still kept up a heavy musketry fire from the rear.

The 3rd made at the same time a determined charge on a fort that had been resolutely defended for a long time. The fight here was very stiff. Fortescue and Swan were both wounded, and Brigadier Reid was shot through the breast. Fourteen field-officers and captains, and double that number of subalterns, were either killed or wounded.

At last all opposition ceased. The Carlists drew off sullenly. The bugles rang out the recall, and the scattered and exhausted troops gathered together in regiments. They had good reason to be proud of themselves. Older soldiers could not have fought more bravely than these men, none of whom had been under fire before. The 6th and 7th Regiments suffered the greatest loss, the number of killed and wounded amounting to more than a quarter of their entire strength. The total loss was seventy-five officers and eight hundred and forty-eight privates. Many of the wounded died after the engagement. Four pieces of artillery were taken.

When the fight was over, Arthur Hallett leant against a wall panting and exhausted. It seemed to him almost like a dream, and he could hardly believe that he had come through the desperate struggle without a scratch. Excepting only when for a time it was brought to a stand-still by Fort Lugariz, the regiment had been incessantly fighting. Now pushing forward, now falling back, now broken up into parties, now gathering together again; sometimes loading and firing as quickly as possible at the walls and houses, from which flashed shot as quickly in return; then dashing over walls and across gardens, storming houses, and driving all before them. There had been an anxious time when they could not struggle up to the foot of the fort, but were forced to lie quiet, to shield themselves as they best could from the fire from its summit until the vessels of war beat down an angle of the wall to make an entrance.

It seemed to him well-nigh impossible that he could have come out of the turmoil alive. He was soon, however, aroused. The bugles were ringing out, and the unwounded men formed up in order that their names could be taken, after which the work of collecting the wounded began in earnest.

"I am glad to see you have come out all right, Hallett," Captain Buller said. "Poor Prince is killed, and I should think pretty nearly half the company. It is the sharpest fight I ever went through. If it had been much sharper there would not have been anyone left to tell the story."

"I am sorry to see that you are hurt, sir."

"My wound is not serious; it was a thrust with a bayonet through the arm. However, I have got my majority. You had got five or six steps before, owing to men being sent home. I should think there must be at least seven or eight vacancies now among the lieutenants. One's only consolation is that it is an ill wind that blows no one good."

As soon as the roll was called, the work of carrying down the wounded began, and Arthur had time to go and look for Roper. To his great satisfaction he found that he also was uninjured. They exchanged a hearty hand-shake.

"We are very fortunate to have both got through it, Roper."

"I am glad indeed," the other said. "I wondered several times how you were faring, but there was very little time for thinking."

"No; we must talk it over with each other when we have leisure. We must help to get all these poor fellows down before we can think of anything else. Well, it is satisfactory that we have had a good fight at last. I had begun to have great doubts whether we were ever going to fight at all."

"Yes; they cannot say any more that the Legion is of no use for fighting. It has been our first chance, and I think we have made the most of it."

Then they separated; and it was late in the afternoon before the work of collecting all the wounded was finished. In the meantime a number of townspeople had been hired to dig graves, and by nightfall all the dead were buried. Some of the troops slept on the ground they had won, the rest marched down into the town; rations were served out, and as soon as these were cooked and eaten all went to sleep. Arthur's regiment was one of those that remained on the hill, and the officers all gathered in one of the houses that had been carried by storm. The bodies of the dead Carlists had been carried out, and fires had been lighted. After they had eaten a meal, Arthur and two other officers started on the rounds to see that the watch were vigilant, for the Carlists had not fallen back far, and might at any moment make an attempt to recover the lost ground. Each of them had two orderlies, and these carried lanterns. The night was dark, and it was next to impossible to make their way about over the broken ground, which was still thickly strewn with dead Carlists. They were heartily glad when, an hour later, they were gathered by the fire.

As they would have to turn out again in another hour they agreed that it was of no use to sleep, and they chatted in low tones of the events of the day. All agreed that it had been worse than they had expected, and that the enemy had fought with great bravery.

"They are sturdy fellows and not to be despised," a captain said. "I certainly did not think they would fight so well. If they had fought like that against the French there would have been no occasion for us to send an army to help them. However, we have a right to be proud of the Legion; they have done gallantly. It is a pity that we have lost something like three thousand men by sickness. It would have made a vast difference if we had had our full force here."

"Anyhow, it was lucky," Arthur said, "that the other two regiments came up in the middle of it, for they had fairly brought us to a stand-still. Well, I suppose it is time for us to turn out again. At any rate it is a consolation that we shall get some sleep to-morrow."

Next day the general sent for Arthur. "I must thank you again," he said, "for the information you gained for us, Mr. Hallett. But for it I don't think we should have managed to win our way so far, for we learnt from it the weak and the strong points, and were able to take several of their most formidable redoubts, which would otherwise, I think, have been more than we could manage. I shall have pleasure in mentioning your name in my report of the action, and shall remember you if anyone is wanted for special service."

"Thank you, sir! I can assure you that I have never thought of such a thing, and only carried out my plan in the hope that I might gain some information which would be useful to you when the time came to attack. I have already been extremely fortunate in obtaining a commission although altogether without interest, and can only hope that in future I may again be able in some way to be of use to you."

Arthur afterwards went to have a chat with Roper. "Well, Roper, we have had our first battle; what did you think of it?"

"I had no time to think about it at all. It was just load and fire, and 'Go at them, lads!', then falling back, and then trying again. It was certainly a good deal worse than I had expected. I don't think that I was frightened. My one idea was that I wanted to get at them."

"That is a good deal like what I felt, Roper. I know I wondered occasionally that I lived through such a storm of musket balls. Sometimes it seemed as if nothing could exist in it."

"All the time I was astonished at the courage the Carlists showed. We had so made up our minds that they would not stand against us for a moment that I was quite taken aback when I found that they were fighting just as hard as ourselves."

"Not quite so hard, Roper," Arthur said. "They fought hard, I admit, but when we got among them with the bayonet we always had the best of it. The beggars could stand bullets, but they did not like steel."

"We lost heavily, sir."

"I am sorry to say that we did. We lost particularly heavily among the officers."

"Yes, sir. Everyone was saying how gallantly they showed the way. I hardly expected some of them to do so well. Of course one has no means of knowing; but there is a sort of general idea that an officer who doesn't look after his men, or seem to take any interest in them, is not the sort of fellow who would lead them well in a fight."

"I don't see why that should be so, Roper. A man may be very kind-hearted, and yet not extraordinarily plucky; while, on the other hand, a pretty hard sort of man may have any amount of courage."

"I suppose that is so, sir; but somehow one seems to think that a man who is a good fellow one way will be a good fellow another."

When off duty some of the officers would often go out for a sail, and one day four of his friends asked Arthur to accompany them.

"I don't think the weather looks very settled," he said; "still, there mayn't be any change till we are back. Anyhow, I am ready to go."

"That is right. You know you understand managing a boat, and that is more than can be said for the rest of us. We don't propose to be out more than two or three hours.

"Well, it makes a change, anyhow. After drill is over, there is little enough to do in the town till the evening; it is all right then. The better class seem to sleep during the day; at any rate, they don't show outside their houses. And though they are friendly enough when you meet them on the promenade, they are very chary of asking you to call, or anything of that sort, except when they have regular receptions."

Accordingly they went down and hired a boat, and put out. A sail was hoisted, and as the wind was dead behind them they ran out merrily. They passed within a quarter of a mile of the men-of-war.

"There is a man on that ship waving his arms and shouting," Arthur said. "I rather think he is shouting to us."

"No; I expect he is shouting to someone on the other ship," one of the others replied.

They thought no more of it, and kept their course. When they had gone five miles Arthur said: "I think we had better be making for home again. We shall have to beat all the way, and the wind is freshening; besides, I don't like the look of the clouds coming up over the hills."

The others, who were enjoying themselves, said: "Oh, we will go a bit farther; it would be a pity to cut our trip short."

They held on for another couple of miles, and then Arthur said: "I am sure we had better turn. You hardly recognize how hard the wind is blowing; we are running before it, and she keeps on an even keel. You will find matters altogether different when we have once put about."

"Well, turn if you like, Hallett. It really seems a pity."

"Well, before I bring her into the wind we had better let the sail run down and put two reefs into it. I fancy we shall have to reef it close down before we have done."

The others saw by the serious expression on Arthur's face that he was thoroughly in earnest, and they lowered the sail and reefed it. As soon as this was done, Arthur put the helm down and the boat came up into the wind. As she did so, she heeled over so far that one or two of the others grasped the gunwale, fearing that she was going over.

"She is all right at present," Arthur said, as she started off on her new course; "but I wish we were five miles nearer the land. I can see she won't look up very near the wind, and we shall have a long beat before we get in."

Half an hour later the sail was close-reefed, but even under this small spread of canvas she heeled over till her lee-rail was close to the water.

"You were right, Hallett, and we were fools not to follow your advice," one of the others said. "I don't know much about sailing, but I understand enough to see that we have a very tough job before us; and the wind is getting stronger every moment."

Five minutes later Arthur said: "There is a black squall coming across the water. We had better lower the sail altogether till it has passed. I have no very strong hopes, however, that it will be over for some time. There is no break in the clouds, and I have quite lost sight of the shore."

His advice was taken. The mast was lowered and the sail rolled up, and two officers got out oars.

"You had better get them all out," Arthur said; "it is as much as we shall be able to do to keep her head to the storm. Now, all row quietly. The squall will be on us in a couple of minutes; when it comes, you will have to put your whole strength into it. It is fortunate that I am steering with this short oar. If she had had a rudder we should never have kept her straight, for she will be hardly moving through the water."

There was a sudden splash of rain, then a pause, and then it came down in bucketfuls, while the wind literally howled. For a time the exertions of the four rowers, and of Arthur at the steering oar, kept her head straight; but after a quarter of an hour the rowers, unaccustomed to prolonged exertions, began to flag. Arthur changed places with the stroke-oar, and the boat again made a little way; but the advantage gained by his strength was more than counterbalanced by the want of skill of the helmsman, and at the end of five minutes' rowing the boat's head fell off, and the wind caught it and whirled it round.

"Oars in!" Arthur shouted. "I will take the helm again. You four had better sit down in the bottom of the boat. A big sea will be getting up very soon."

"How long is it going to last?" Sinclair said, when they had all crouched at the bottom of the boat.

"It may last two or three days, and the wind could not be in a worse quarter. If it shifts, we might make either the coast of Spain or France; but it is a south-easter, and will blow us right out into the bay. It is lucky you brought those two bottles of wine and that loaf of bread with you; we shall want them badly before we see land again. I wish to goodness we had run in to that man-of-war. I have no doubt at all now that the man was hailing us, and that they were going to caution us against going out farther. However, wishing is useless; we have got to grin and bear it."

"We were fools not to take your advice earlier, Hallett."

"I don't think it would have made much difference," Arthur said. "If we had turned then, we could not have got back before the squall struck us, and we should have been blown out just as we have been now."

He was now sitting in the bottom of the boat also, still holding the steering oar. There was, however, but little to do with it, the boat was running straight before the wind.

"What pace do you think we are going through the water?" Sharman shouted, for they could scarcely hear each other speak.

"About six or seven knots, I should say."

"Then if it goes on for three days we shall be something like five hundred miles out?"

Arthur nodded. "I hope it won't keep on blowing as long as that. Besides, there may be some shift in the wind that would enable us to make either France or Spain. If not, we have only one chance, and that is, we may be picked up by some passing ship."

There was little more talk. They were all sitting close together in the stern, as Arthur said that by so doing the greater draught aft would enable the boat to keep her course dead before the wind without steering. Each felt that it was more cheerful being thus close together, even if there was nothing to talk about.

Sinclair proposed that they should have a little wine to warm themselves, but Arthur at once said: "We must not think of such a thing. We have all had breakfast, and it must last us till to-morrow morning. We may have to eke out the wine for a fortnight; those two bottles are of vital importance to us. As long as it keeps on raining we shall not suffer from thirst. By the way, it would be a good plan to shake out the sail and spread it on the seats with the oars over it, lashed into their places by the sheet. In that way we shall be able to catch the water that runs off it in the baler."

"There is a lot in the bottom."

"Yes, but it is principally sea-water. You had better shift a bit forward. The waves are beginning to break over her stern, and we must keep her more on an even keel."

Night came on. The gale was blowing with unabated force, and the sea was high, but the boat rode easily over it, for she was a large craft, and would have required double the number on board to take her down to her bearings. Fortunately the water was warm, so that while there was not a dry thread on them, they did not suffer from cold. As night came on, they rearranged their sail. They put one of the stretchers across the boat with its ends resting on the gunwale some five feet from the bow. The oars were lashed to this, sloping downward into the bottom of the boat, and over them the sail was fastened, thus making a sort of tent sufficiently large for them all to lie under. All were worn out by the buffeting of the wind, and in spite of the tossing of the boat, the hardness of the boards, and their drenched clothes, they fell asleep before long.

Morning was breaking when they awoke, and there was no change, except that the sea was running much higher. The first thing they did was to bale out the boat. Then a bottle was opened, and a little wine measured out carefully into the wine-glass that had been brought on board. The loaf of bread had been placed in a locker. This had fortunately kept dry. A slice of it was cut off and divided into five portions. It was but a meagre breakfast, but all felt better after it. Pipes and cigars were then lighted, and they began to talk.

"What chance do you think there is of a vessel picking us up, Hallett?"

"I really can't say; but there ought to be a fair chance if the wind is blowing in the same direction as when we started. It would take us out, I should think, pretty well into the course of ships going south. There are, besides, vessels making for Bordeaux and other French ports. It will be hard if we don't run across some of them; and as we have four oars and a sail we should be able to cut them off as they come in. Yes, I think our chances are good. But even now one of us ought always to keep on watch."

The rain had ceased falling, but the air was still thick, and heavy clouds were passing overhead. At one o'clock, however, these began to break, and two hours later the sun shone out brightly.

"That is a comfort," Arthur said. "In the first place it will dry us, in the second place it will cheer us, and in the third it will enable us to see a long way."

He stood up and looked round. "I can see nothing at present," he said. "It is only when we get on the top of a wave that we can see any distance."

About five o'clock in the evening they made out a sail, but it was a long way off, and was already to the west of them; and it was seen at once that it would be absolutely useless to try and row after the ship, as she was running rapidly along, although under a very small amount of canvas. Still, the sight of the vessel cheered them. They had seen one, and there was no reason why they should not see more. They now knew that the wind was blowing more from the south than it had done, and that they were therefore running to the north. This was an advantage, for they would be making rather towards than away from the French coast, and, when the wind fell, might hope to reach it.

The next morning the wind had dropped a good deal. The day was bright and clear, and they allowed themselves a double portion of wine and bread. Then they got the mast up, undid the lashings of the sail, and hoisted it half-way up, making holes in the canvas by which they could put an extra reef in. Under this very reduced canvas they were able to sail comfortably, though all of them had to sit up to windward. The wind had come still more round to the west of south, so they were able to lay their course due east.

"How far are we off land, do you think, Hallett?"

"Well, we have been about sixty-six hours out. By the course we ran the first twenty-four, we made, at six knots an hour, about a hundred and forty-four miles, which would put us, I should say, something like seventy to the nearest point of France. The next twenty-four hours we were running nearly north, so during that time we must have kept about the same distance from the coast. Last night we must have been approaching rather than running away from it. Well, we are now going about four knots through the water. If the wind falls more, and we can put up more sail, we shall walk along a little faster; but until the sea goes down, I don't think we can calculate upon making above five knots. But if we are now, as I suppose, nearly in a line with the mouth of the Loire, we may not be more than thirty or forty miles from the shore; for, although I don't pretend to be particularly well up in geography, I know that the French coast runs out a good deal west till it gets to Brest."

At twelve o'clock Sinclair stood up and looked round. "I can make out a dark line," he said, "over there to the left; it looks to me like land. We should have seen it before but for the sail."

Arthur was as usual steering, but the others all went forward to have a look, and Sinclair took the helm for a minute to allow him to do so.

"That is land certainly," he said. "I should say that it is stretching out towards Brest; but I think we had better keep straight on. It may take us a few more hours to get to shore, but it would save us a lot of travelling if we were to strike the mouth of the Loire instead of Brest. At any rate we are safe now, and can venture upon a slice of bread each and a full glass of wine--a glass and a half in fact; that will still leave us with half a bottle for breakfast to-morrow morning. We may fairly calculate upon being close to land by that time."

The others were rather in favour of running to the land they saw.

"Well, look here," Arthur said: "don't you think that it would be a great deal easier to travel a hundred miles in this boat than to tramp the same distance? Besides, the coast, I believe, is very rocky all the way along there, and we might find a difficulty in landing. My own idea is, that when we do make land, we must go ashore and find out where we are, lay in a good stock of provisions, and start south again. With the wind as it is now, we could very nearly lie our course, and we could certainly do so if the wind goes round a point or two farther. I don't know what money you fellows have, but I have only a dollar or two in my pocket."

All examined their store, and the total only amounted to thirteen dollars.

"Thirteen dollars would go no distance towards taking us down through France. It would not pay for a conveyance a quarter of the distance, to say nothing about food. Even if we walked it, it would hardly pay for our bread and cheese, and we should have to sleep in the open. Then, too, we might have a deal of difficulty in getting into Spain without passports; and if we did get in we should find it almost impossible to make our way to San Sebastian, as several places on the frontier are in the hands of the Carlista. Therefore I shall certainly stick to the boat. If you prefer to tramp you can do so; but I know that before you have gone more than a day's march, you will begin to feel very sorry that you did not take my advice."

"There is a lot in what you say, Hallett," Sharman said, "and I for one shall certainly stick to it."

The others at once agreed to the idea. Arthur, being the only one who knew anything of sailing, had throughout the voyage acted as captain, and the fact that he had carried them through the storm safely had given the others great confidence in him.

"I should say," Arthur went on, "that when we make land we may as well stop for twenty-four hours. The people will probably treat us hospitably as shipwrecked mariners, and put us up and feed us. We shall all be glad of twenty-four hours' rest; and by the time we are ready to start again, the sea will have gone down, and we shall set out like lions refreshed. With a wind anywhere north of east or west, we shall be able to lie our course comfortably; and even if the wind is light we ought to make eighty or a hundred miles a day, and three days will take us easily to San Sebastian."

The sun was just setting when they saw land ahead of them, and by ten o'clock they were close to it, and could make out that it was either an island, or a cape running out into the sea. They sailed to the north side of it. The sea was smooth, so, running the boat ashore, they got out on to a low beach. Walking inland for some distance they threw themselves down in a field, and as the ground was soft in comparison with the boards at the bottom of the boat, they were very soon sound asleep. In the morning they finished the loaf and the wine, and then returned to the beach. Ascending some rising ground, they saw that half a mile along the shore there was a village standing at some little distance from the sea. Towards this place, therefore, they made their way.

As they entered the village they were regarded with looks of astonishment by the natives. They were not in uniform, but their clothes had shrunk considerably in their long drenching. Sharman had lost his cap. All looked faded and bedraggled, and three days' short rations had left its mark on their faces. Sinclair fortunately spoke a little French, and was able to make the villagers understand that they had been blown off the coast of Spain in a storm, and had landed late the previous evening half a mile away. The cur�s of the village at once took them in, and in a short time they sat down to a hearty meal, to which they did full justice. They told the cur� that they intended to start next morning to sail down the coast, and learned from him that the place where they had landed was the island of St. Nazaire, and that they were some twenty miles from the mainland.

"I think you could not do better than sail along the coast," he said. "Once you make the mainland you will find villages and little ports at short distances. At these you can buy anything you want. Of course you will always keep within sight of land, except when you cross the mouth of the Gironde. I don't know how you are off for money, gentlemen, but I shall be happy to supply you with some, which you can send to me when you have an opportunity."

"We are very much obliged to you, sir," Sinclair said, "but we have thirteen dollars between us, which will buy us an ample supply of things for our voyage. We do not intend to land, but shall sail on night and day. Two of us are quite sufficient to manage the boat, and we can sleep by turns."

"Thirteen dollars will be quite enough if you have fine weather and fair winds, but it would not go far if you have to stop."

"I don't think there is any fear of bad winds. There would hardly be two storms one after another at the end of the month of May; but indeed I do not think we should run short of money were we to be eight or nine days on the voyage. The wine is only, I suppose, about sixpence a litre, and if we reckon a litre a day each of wine, and allow half a franc each for bread and as much for meat, our victuals will only cost us a dollar and a half a day, and we could treat ourselves to a franc's worth of fruit and still have enough money to last us a week."

The priest smiled. "Well, sir, at that rate you can no doubt do it comfortably, and I admit that your thirteen dollars will be ample if you make the run in five days, which you certainly will do, unless you get the wind right in your teeth."

They dined at the priest's house, and he provided beds for two of them, and found accommodation for the others in some of the cottages. They did their shopping that afternoon, and arranged to start at daybreak the next morning. This they succeeded in doing, after thanking the good priest very heartily for his hospitality. Many of the villagers had been down on the previous day to look at the boat that had lived through such a gale, and some of the others had now come to see them off. They headed east so as to make the shore as soon as possible, for they agreed that as they would have nothing to guide them in case of thick weather coming on, it was best to make the mainland, and then follow it down at a distance of a mile or so. The wind was blowing now from the north west, and, spreading their full canvas, they ran down rapidly past the island, and three hours after saw the French coast ahead.

They were now in high spirits. They had made a wonderful voyage, and were able to chat gaily over the talk there would be at San Sebastian concerning their disappearance.

"I only hope there won't be another fight before we are back," Arthur said; "that would be horribly annoying. If I were certain of that, I should feel quite happy over our adventure."

The weather continued fine throughout their voyage. The wind was somewhat light, but sufficient to take them along at between four and five miles an hour, and on the evening of the third day after starting they saw the highlands of Spain rising in front of them. On the following morning they ran into the harbour of San Sebastian, where they were hailed as if returning from the grave by their companions, who had given them up for lost.

"We certainly should have been, if it hadn't been for Hallett," Sinclair said. "He kept his wits about him the whole time, got us to rig a shelter, and stuck to the helm as long as steering could do us any good."

The general himself sent for them and heard their account of the voyage.

"Well," he said, "all is well that ends well, and I congratulate you on your marvellous escape. Moreover, you have lost nothing, for there has been no more fighting since you left."