CHAPTER II
THE ULTIMATUM
News of the affair at Tavora reached Sir Terence O'Moy, the
Adjutant-General at Lisbon, about a week later in dispatches from
headquarters. These informed him that in the course of the humble
apology and explanation of the regrettable occurrence offered by
the Colonel of the 8th Dragoons in person to the Mother Abbess, it
had transpired that Lieutenant Butler had left the convent alive,
but that nevertheless he continued absent from his regiment.
Those dispatches contained other unpleasant matters of a totally
different nature, with which Sir Terence must proceed to deal at
once; but their gravity was completely outweighed in the adjutant's
mind by this deplorable affair of Lieutenant Butler's. Without
wishing to convey an impression that the blunt and downright O'Moy
was gifted with any undue measure of shrewdness, it must nevertheless
be said that he was quick to perceive what fresh thorns the
occurrence was likely to throw in a path that was already thorny
enough in all conscience, what a semblance of justification it must
give to the hostility of the intriguers on the Council of Regency,
what a formidable weapon it must place in the hands of Principal
Souza and his partisans.
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