. By Lord Wellington's strict
regulations, women of loose character are to be excluded from the
lines for moral reasons, namely, that they are often employed by
the enemy as spies.

MRS. PRESCOTT

Dear good soldier, we are English ladies benighted, having mistaken
our way back to Salamanca, and we want shelter from the storm.

MRS. DALBIAC

If it is necessary I will say who we are.--I am Mrs. Dalbiac, wife
of the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fourth Light Dragoons, and this
lady is the wife of Captain Prescott of the Seventh Fusileers. We
went out to Christoval to look for our husbands, but found the army
had moved.

SENTINEL [incredulously]

"Wives!" Oh, not to-day! I have heard such titles of courtesy
afore; but they never shake me. "W" begins other female words than
"wives!"--You'll have trouble, good dames, to get into Salamanca
to-night. You'll be challenged all the way down, and shot without
clergy if you can't give the countersign.

MRS. PRESCOTT

Then surely you'll tell us what it is, good kind man!

SENTINEL

Well--have ye earned enough to pay for knowing? Government wage is
poor pickings for watching here in the rain. How much can ye stand?

MRS. DALBIAC

Half-a-dozen pesetas.

SENTINEL

Very well, my dear. I was always tender-hearted. Come along.
[They advance and hand the money.] The pass to-night is "Melchester
Steeple." That will take you into the town when the weather clears.
You won't have to cross the ford. You can get temporary shelter in
the shed there.

[As the ladies move towards the shed the tramp of the infantry
draws near the ford, which the downfall has made to purl more
boisterously. The twain enter the shed, and the dragoons look
up inquiringly.]

MRS. DALBIAC [to dragoons]

The French are luckier than you are, men. You'll have a wet advance
across this ford, but they have a dry retreat by the bridge at Alba.

SERGEANT OF PATROL [starting from a doze]

The moustachies a dry retreat? Not they, my dear. A Spanish
garrison is in the castle that commands the bridge at Alba.

MRS. DALBIAC

A peasant told us, if we understood rightly, that he saw the Spanish
withdraw, and the enemy place a garrison there themselves.

[The sergeant hastily calls up two troopers, who mount and ride off
with the intelligence.]

SERGEANT

You've