“I stopped for a while on my way back,” said L’Isle, “at a little venda on this side of Juramenha.  The people of the house were shy and sullen.  I had to ask many questions before I could induce them to speak freely, but at length out came a charge against some of our people.  Three nights ago five of our men had come to the house, and, calling for wine, sat down to drink.  They soon became riotous, and their conduct so insulting to the man’s wife and daughters, that they ran away to hide themselves.  When he required them to pay the reckoning and quit the house, they promised most liberal payment, and seizing, bound him to a post in his own stable, where they gave him fifty lashes with a leathern strap, valuing the stripes at a vintem apiece.”

“The witty rascals,” said Lord Strathern; “I would like to repay them in their own coin.”

“Moreover,” continued L’Isle, “on the man’s son making some resistance to their treatment of his father, they bound the boy, too, and gave him a dozen vintems’ worth of the strap for pocket money.”

“The liberal rascals!” said Lord Strathern; “they deserve a handsome profit on their outlay.  But how do you know, L’Isle, that this story is true?”

“There is no mistake about the flogging,” exclaimed L’Isle.  “They used the buckle end of the strap, and, I myself saw the marks, some not yet scarred over.”

“That silent witness may prove a good deal; I cannot call it tongueless,” said his lordship, “for I suppose the buckle had a tongue.”

“I can vouch for that by the mark it left behind,” said L’Isle.  “Both father and son swore that they would know the fellows among a thousand.  But the man dare not come to Elvas to search them out, as the scamps promised faithfully to make sausage meat of him should he venture near the town.”

“If the cowardly rascal will not come forward and lodge a complaint,” said Lord Strathern, “what the devil can we do?”

“We can bring him here and protect him,” said L’Isle, “while he hunts out the culprits.  If necessary, I will take him before my regiment, and let him look every man in the face, to see if he can identify the offenders in the ranks; and so with other regiments.”

“What! muster the whole brigade for such a poltroon to inspect them!” exclaimed Lord Strathern.  “What are you dreaming of, L’Isle?  It would be offering a bounty for accusations against the men.  Half these rascals would swear away a man’s life for a crusado.”

“Perhaps so, my lord.  But by cross-questions and examining them apart, the truth may be wrung from even lying witnesses.”

“Impossible, with these people; the truth is not in them.  Come, L’Isle, no one knows better than you, who are so much in Sir Rowland’s councils, that we are on the point of moving from this part of the country.  The little disorders that have occurred here, can be followed by no ill consequences.”