CHAPTER I

THE AFFAIR AT TAVORA


It is established beyond doubt that Mr. Butler was drunk at the time.
This rests upon the evidence of Sergeant Flanagan and the troopers
who accompanied him, and it rests upon Mr. Butler's own word, as we
shall see. And let me add here and now that however wild and
irresponsible a rascal he may have been, yet by his own lights he
was a man of honour, incapable of falsehood, even though it were
calculated to save his skin. I do not deny that Sir Thomas Picton
has described him as a "thieving blackguard." But I am sure that
this was merely the downright, rather extravagant manner, of
censure peculiar to that distinguished general, and that those who
have taken the expression at its purely literal value have been
lacking at once in charity and in knowledge of the caustic,
uncompromising terms of speech of General Picton whom Lord
Wellington, you will remember, called a rough, foulmouthed devil.

In further extenuation it may truthfully be urged that the whole
hideous and odious affair was the result of a misapprehension;
although I cannot go so far as one of Lieutenant Butler's apologists
and accept the view that he was the victim of a deliberate plot on
the part of his too-genial host at Regoa. That is a misconception
easily explained. This host's name happened to be Souza, and the
apologist in question has very rashly leapt at the conclusion that