The lieutenant rose, and rolled a thought unsteadily across the room.
He was a tall, loose-limbed fellow, blue-eyed, fair-complexioned,
with a thatch of fiery red hair excellently suited to his temperament.
He halted before the map, and with legs wide apart, to afford him the
steadying support of a broad basis, he traced with his finger the
course of the Douro, fumbled about the district of Regoa, and
finally hit upon the place he sought.
"Why," he said, "seems to me 'sif we should ha' come that way. I's
shorrer road to Pesqueira than by the river."
"As the bird fly," said Souza. "But the roads be bad - just mule
tracks, while by the river the road is tolerable good."
"Yet," said the lieutenant, "I think I shall go back tha' way."
The fumes of the wine were mounting steadily to addle his indifferent
brains. Every moment he was seeing things in proportions more and
more false. His resentment against priests who, sworn to
self-abnegation, hoarded good wine, whilst soldiers sent to keep
harm from priests' fat carcasses were left to suffer cold and even
hunger, was increasing with every moment. He would sample that wine
at Tavora; and he would bear some of it away that his brother
officers at Pinhel might sample it.
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