Читать книгу Random Shots from a Rifleman - J. Kincaid - Страница 7

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At Astorga, a ludicrous alarm was occasioned by the frolic of an officer; though it might have led to more serious results.

The regiment was quartered in a convent, and the officers and the friars were promiscuously bundled for the night on mattresses laid in one of the galleries; when, about midnight, Captain—— awaking, and seeing the back of one of the Padres looking him full in the face, from under the bed-clothes, as if inviting the slap of a fist, he, acting on the impulse of the moment, jumped up, and with a hand as broad as a coal-shovel, and quite as hard, made it descend on the bottom of the astounded sleeper with the force of a paviour, and then stole back to his couch. The Padre roared a hundred murders, and murder was roared by a hundred Padres, while the other officers, starting up in astonishment, drew their swords and began grappling with whoever happened to be near them. The uproar, fortunately, brought some of the attendants with lights before any mischief happened, when the cause of the disturbance was traced, to the no small amusement of every one. The offender tried hard to convince the afflicted father that he had been under the influence of a dream; but the four fingers and the thumb remained too legibly written on the offended spot to permit him to swallow it.