A glass - but one - of
that Port you tasted yesterday. I say but a glass, yet I hope you
will do honour to the bottle. But a glass at least, at least!" He
implored it almost with tears. Mr. Butler had reached that state of
delicious torpor in which to take the road is the last agony; but
duty was duty, and Sir Robert Craufurd had the fiend's own temper.
Torn thus between consciousness of duty and the weakness of the
flesh, he looked at O'Rourke. O'Rourke, a cherubic fellow, who had
for his years a very pretty taste in wine, returned the glance with
a moist eye, and licked his lips.
"In your place I should let myself be tempted," says he. "It's an
elegant wine, and ten minutes more or less is no great matter."
The lieutenant discovered a middle way which permitted him to take a
prompt decision creditable to his military instincts, but revealing a
disgraceful though quite characteristic selfishness.
"Very well," he said. "Leave Sergeant Flanagan and ten men to wait
for me, O'Rourke, and do you set out at once with the rest of the
troop. And take the cattle with you. I shall overtake you before
you have gone very far."
O'Rourke's crestfallen air stirred the sympathetic Souza's pity.
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