Terence could not help smiling, as he was marched through the street, and thought of the wild panic that he and Dicky Ryan had caused, when he was last in that town.

The convent which the Mayo Fusiliers had occupied was now turned into a prison, and here the prisoners taken at Fuentes d'Onoro were marched, and joined those who had fallen into the hands of the French during Massena's retreat.

Among these were several officers of his acquaintance and, as discipline was not very strict, they were able to make themselves fairly comfortable together.
The French, indeed, along the whole of the Portuguese frontier, had their hands full; and the force at Salamanca was so small that but few men could be spared for prison duties and, so long as their captives showed no signs of giving trouble, their guards were satisfied to leave them a good deal to their own devices; watching the gate carefully, but leaving much of the interior work of the prison to be done by Spanish warders for, violent as the natives were in their expressions of hatred for the French, they were always ready to serve under them, in any capacity in which money could be earned.
"There can be no difficulty, whatever, in making one's escape from here," Terence said, to a party of four or five officers who were lodged with him in a room, from whose window a view over the city was obtainable.

"It is not the getting out of this convent that is difficult, but the making one's way across this country to rejoin.
I have no doubt that one could bribe one of those Spaniards to bring in a rope and, even if that could not be obtained, we might manage to make one from our blankets; but the question is, what to do when we have got out?
Massena lies between us and Ciudad and, from what I hear the French soldiers say, the whole line is guarded down to Badajoz, where Soult's army is lying.

Victor is somewhere farther to the south, and their convoys and cavalry will be traversing the whole country.