CONTENTS
THE SNARE
CHAPTER I. THE AFFAIR AT TAVORA
CHAPTER II. THE ULTIMATUM
CHAPTER III. LADY O’MOY
CHAPTER IV. COUNT SAMOVAL
CHAPTER V. THE FUGITIVE
CHAPTER VI. MISS ARMYTAGE’S PEARLS
CHAPTER VII. THE ALLY
CHAPTER VIII. THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
CHAPTER IX. THE GENERAL ORDER
CHAPTER X. THE STIFLED QUARREL
CHAPTER XI. THE CHALLENGE
CHAPTER XII. THE DUEL
CHAPTER XIII. POLICHINELLE
CHAPTER XIV. THE CHAMPION
CHAPTER XV. THE WALLET
CHAPTER XVI. THE EVIDENCE
CHAPTER XVII. BITTER WATER
CHAPTER XVIII. FOOL’S MATE
CHAPTER XIX. THE TRUTH
CHAPTER XX. THE RESIGNATION
CHAPTER XXI. SANCTUARY
POSTSCRIPTUM.
It is established beyond doubt that Mr. Butler was drunk at the time. This rests upon the evidence of Sergeant Flanagan and the troopers who accompanied him, and it rests upon Mr. Butler’s own word, as we shall see. And let me add here and now that however wild and irresponsible a rascal he may have been, yet by his own lights he was a man of honour, incapable of falsehood, even though it were calculated to save his skin. I do not deny that Sir Thomas Picton has described him as a “thieving blackguard.” But I am sure that this was merely the downright, rather extravagant manner, of censure peculiar to that distinguished general, and that those who have taken the expression at its purely literal value have been lacking at once in charity and in knowledge of the caustic, uncompromising terms of speech of General Picton whom Lord Wellington, you will remember, called a rough, foulmouthed devil.
In further extenuation it may truthfully be urged that the whole hideous and odious affair was the result of a misapprehension; although I cannot go so far as one of Lieutenant