第11章 CHAPTER II(3)

"My dear boy, I beg your pardon. It's so utterly annoyed I am that the savage in me will be breaking out. Sure, it isn't as if it were only this affair of Dick's. That is almost the least part of the unpleasantness contained in this dispatch. Here! In God's name, read it for yourself, and judge for yourself whether it's in human nature to be patient under so much."

With a shrug and a smile to show that he was entirely mollified, Captain Tremayne took the papers to his desk and sat down to con them. As he did so his face grew more and more grave. Before he had reached the end there was a tap at the door. An orderly entered with the announcement that Dom Miguel Forjas had just driven up to Monsanto to wait upon the adjutant-general.

"Ha!" said O'Moy shortly, and exchanged a glance with his secretary.

"Show the gentleman up."

As the orderly withdrew, Tremayne came over and placed the dispatch on the adjutant's desk. "He arrives very opportunely," he said.

"So opportunely as to be suspicious, bedad!" said O'Moy. He had brightened suddenly, his Irish blood quickening at the immediate prospect of strife which this visit boded. "May the devil admire me, but there's a warm morning in store for Mr. Forjas, Ned."

"Shall I leave you?"

"By no means."

The door opened, and the orderly admitted Miguel Forjas, the Portuguese Secretary of State. He was a slight, dapper gentleman, all in black, from his silk stockings and steel-buckled shoes to his satin stock. His keen aquiline face was swarthy, and the razor had left his chin and cheeks blue-black. His sleek hair was iron-grey.

A portentous gravity invested him this morning as he bowed with profound deference first to the adjutant and then to the secretary.

"Your Excellencies," he said - he spoke an English that was smooth and fluent for all its foreign accent "Your Excellencies, this is a terrible affair."

"To what affair will your Excellency be alluding?" wondered O'Moy.

"Have you not received news of what has happened at Tavora? Of the violation of a convent by a party of British soldiers? Of the fight that took place between these soldiers and the peasants who went to succour the nuns?"

"Oh, and is that all?" said O'Moy. "For a moment I imagined your Excellency referred to other matters. I have news of more terrible affairs than the convent business with which to entertain you this morning."

"That, if you will pardon me, Sir Terence, is quite impossible."

"You may think so. But you shall judge, bedad. A chair, Dom Miguel."

The Secretary of State sat down, crossed his knees and placed his hat in his lap. The other two resumed their seats, O'Moy leaning forward, his elbows on the writing-table, immediately facing Senhor Forjas.

"First, however," he said, "to deal with this affair of Tavora. The Council of Regency will, no doubt, have been informed of all the circumstances. You will be aware, therefore, that this very deplorable business was the result of a misapprehension, and that the nuns of Tavora might very well have avoided all this trouble had they behaved in a sensible, reasonable manner. If instead of shutting themselves up in the chapel and ringing the alarm bell the Mother-Abbess or one of the sisters had gone to the wicket and answered the demand of admittance from the officer commanding the detachment, he would instantly have realised his mistake and withdrawn."

"What does your Excellency suggest was this mistake?" inquired the Secretary.

"You have had your report, sir, and surely it was complete. You must know that he conceived himself to be knocking at the gates of the monastery of the Dominican fathers."

"Can your Excellency tell me what was this officer's business at the monastery of the Dominican fathers?" quoth the Secretary, his manner frostily hostile.

"I am without information on that point," O'Moy admitted; "no doubt because the officer in question is missing, as you will also have been informed. But I have no reason to doubt that, whatever his business may have been, it was concerned with the interests which are common alike to the British and the Portuguese nation."

"That is a charitable assumption, Sir Terence."

"Perhaps you will inform me, Dom Miguel, of the uncharitable assumption which the Principal Souza prefers," snapped O'Moy, whose temper began to simmer.

A faint colour kindled in the cheeks of the Portuguese minister, but is manner remained unruffled.

"I speak, sir, not with the voice of Principal Souza, but with that of the entire Council of Regency; and the Council has formed the opinion, which your own words confirm, that his Excellency Lord Wellington is skilled in finding excuses for the misdemeanours of the troops under his command."

"That," said O'Moy, who would never have kept his temper in control but for the pleasant consciousness that he held a hand of trumps with which he would' presently overwhelm this representative of the Portuguese Government, "that is an opinion for which the Council may presently like to apologise, admitting its entire falsehood."

Senhor Forjas started as if he had been stung. He uncrossed his black silk legs and made as if to rise.

"Falsehood, sir?" he cried in a scandalised voice.

"It is as well that we should be plain, so as to be avoiding all misconceptions," said O'Moy. "You must know, sir, and your Council must know, that wherever armies move there must be reason for complaint. The British army does not claim in this respect to be superior to others - although I don't say, mark me, that it might not claim it with perfect justice. But we do claim for ourselves that our laws against plunder and outrage are as strict as they well can be, and that where these things take place punishment inevitably follows. Out of your own knowledge, sir, you must admit that what I say is true."

"True, certainly, where the offenders are men from the ranks. But in this case, where the offender is an officer, it does not transpire that justice has been administered with the same impartial hand."