pay to see them regularly scared."

"If I were not on the staff I might try it, O'Grady, but it would never do
for me to try such a thing now."

Dick Ryan, who was standing by, winked significantly, and in a short time
he and Terence were talking eagerly together in a corner of the room.

"Who is to know you are a staff-officer, Terence?" the latter urged.
"Isn't it an infantry uniform that you are wearing? and ain't there
hundreds of infantry officers here? It was good fun at Athlone, but I
don't think that many of them believed there was any real danger. It would
be altogether different here; they are scared enough as it is, though they
walk about with their cloaks wrapped round them and pretend to be mighty
confident."

"Let us come and talk it over outside, Dick. It did not much matter before
if it had been discovered we had a hand in it. Of course the colonel would
have given us a wigging, but at heart he would have been as pleased at the
joke as any of us. But it is a different affair here."

Going out, they continued their talk and arranged their plans. Late the
following night two English officers rushed suddenly into a drinking-shop
close to the gate through which the road to Valladolid passed.

"The French! the French!" one exclaimed. "Run for your lives and give the
alarm!"

The men all leapt to their feet, rushed out tumultuously, and scattered
through the streets, shouting at the top of their voices: "The French are