To have lost four dragoons and to have set a match to a train that might end in a conflagration was reason and to spare.
"How came such a mistake to be made ?" he inquired, a scowl upon his full red countenance.
Mr.O'Rourke had been investigating and was primed with knowledge.
"It appears, sir, that at Tavora there is a convent of Dominican nuns as well as a monastery of Dominican friars.

Mr.Butler will have used the word 'convento,' which more particularly applies to the nunnery, and so he was directed to the wrong house." "And you say the sergeant has reason to believe that Mr.Butler did not survive his folly ?" "I am afraid there can be no hope, sir." "It's perhaps just as well," said Sir Robert.

"For Lord Wellington would certainly have had him shot." And there you have the true account of the stupid affair of Tavora, which was to produce, as we shall see, such far-reaching effects upon persons nowise concerned in it..