ught the
money, and a handful of diamonds and rubies, and things they had picked
out of their settings in the vases and crucifixes and vestments, and
what not.

"We didn't know if they were real or not; but Thompson told them he
should give them to a jeweler to value, and if he found they had cheated
him by giving him false stones he would come back and hang the lot of
them. So off we rode again.

"When we got back to Lerida we took two or three of the stones to a
jeweler and found that they were all right. Then we divided the swag
into three parts as we had agreed. Thompson took one, I took another,
and the other was divided among the four troopers, who were not running
such a risk as we were. I never heard anything more about the matter,
as far as I was concerned, though there was a row. The prior heard that
Peterborough had never been near Lerida, and came over and saw General
Wyndham.

"Killigrew's dragoons were paraded, but the prior couldn't spot any
of them. We had chosen four fair fellows, and they had all darkened
themselves a bit before they went. Luckily the prior did not say
anything about me. I expect he was afraid that when Wyndham heard how
I had been treated there he might have inflicted a fresh fine on the
convent; however, I was not there at the time, for I had a touch of
fever the day after the affair, and made myself out a bit worse than I
was, and so got sent down to Barcelona, where I buried my share of the
plunder four or five inches deep in a corner of the hospital yard. As
to Thompson, there wasn't any reason why suspicion should fall upon him.
Soon after I got back to my regiment I got ill again and was left in a
hospital at Cuenca, and had a narrow escape of it this morning."

"It was a risky business," Jack said, "and it would have gone very hard
with you and Thompson if you had been found out."

"So it would, sir. I knew that; but you see, it was only right and just
those fellows should pay for their treatment of me. If I had laid the
case before General Wyndham, no doubt he would have punished them
just as severe as I did, only the fine would have gone into the army
treasury, instead of going to the right person."

"I am afraid, Edwards, that you have not got rid of those loose notions
of morality you picked up among the pirates," Jack said, smiling.

"Perhaps not, Captain Stilwell. You see, bad habits stick to a man; but
I have done with them now. When I get back to England I shall