gled artillery and thunder. Vaughan felt himself buoyed up with a lofty and maddening animation; he plunged into the blaze of the musquetry without a consciousness of hazard; all was a bold, feverish, almost joyous, tumult of sensations; a new life seemed to have been poured into his frame, and first of the first, and loudest of the loud, he flung himself into the midst of desperate encoun ter. His captain had been wounded on ascending the hill; he was now in command of the company; and the thought of distinction, and of those whom he had left at home, doubly inflamed him. A French battalion had rallied, and was gradually repelling some Bri tish platoons that had ventured too far, and were now keeping up a scattered fire. As Vaughan turned into the street, he saw the platoons broken and forced to take shelter under the portico of a convent. Their offi cer had fallen in the centre of the way, and a French grenadier rushed from the ranks to bayonet him.-Vaughan uttered a cry, sprang forwards, and grasped the Frenchman; the soldiery on both sides ceased firing, through fear of killing either. But the conflict was brief. The musquet was broken between the strugglers, but the Frenchman drew his sabre and aimed a blow which might have extinguished Vaughan's joys and sorrows for ever. The wounded officer gave a sudden scream, as he saw it lifted up; Vaughan sprang aside, it grazed his arm, and it was returned in the Frenchman's heart. The British gave a roar of triumph, and drove the battalion before them down the street, firing and charging till its remnant threw down their arms at the last barricade. Fatigued and bleeding, yet with a salient and elevated feeling, such as he had never till that hour experienced, Vaughan led back his prisoners through the place of battle; the dead and dying still lay thickly around, and his first search was for the officer whom he had saved. He found him under the portico to which the wounded had been drawn. The officer was Mordaunt! The action was now over: a few scattered parties of the enemy continued firing from the Sierra de Montanches, along which they were making their escape, pursued by the light infantry. But even this was soon at an end; the British success was complete. Nearly three battalions, with their staff, the Prince d'Aremberg, and a demi-brigade of artillery, were the results of this night's enterprise, one of the most brilliant of a war abounding in genius and valour. VOL. I. 19* CHAPTER XXIII. With cautious steps the thicket threading, Lord Byron. ALL was tranquil during the day that fol lowed. The carnage had ceased on every side. The survivors had returned to their new quarters, and flung upon their knapsacks, had sunk into a deep and peaceful slumber, after the toil and perils of the night. The wounded had been borne away-the dead lay, a fearful and undistinguished mass, upon the place of battle. Vaughan, too perturbed to sleep, wandered forth to try if the refreshing night-breeze might not cool his feverish and throbbing brain. It is not in the battle, amid the confusion of sights and sounds, when the roar of the cannon, the trumpet, and the shouts of the opposing lines, drown the cries of the wounded around, that the soldier feels the horrors of war. It is, when the din has subsided; when the excitement of the conflict is over; when the groans and lamentations rise upon his ear in the stillness of the night; when in the corse beside him he stops to recognise some familiar face, or starts from the feeble wail of a dying friend, imploring him.. to put a speedy termination to his sufferings. The beams of the rising moon shed a bright but fearful light on the tarnished arms and distorted features of the slain. Vaughan's thoughts strayed with added heaviness of heart, to those now sleeping in ignorance, whose hearts might yet be broken by the tidings of that day's slaughter; and, hiding his face in his hands to shut out the dismal spectacle before him, he shed some bitter but not unmanly tears. His thoughts reverted to Catherine and home, and so painful were his reflections at the moment that, forgetful of the pride and pomp of military fame, he almost wished he had never quitted that home. His reveries were disturbed by the sound of footsteps, cautiously approaching the spot where he stood; and reluctant to be intruded upon, he hastily withdrew behind the thick branches of the tree against which he had hitherto been leaning. Two figures in Spanish cloaks appeared. They might be wanderers, like himself, to whom the night had failed to bring repose; but the almost noiseless steps, now retreating, now advan cing, and yet more the masks by which the features of both were disguised, banished so favourable an impression, and he prepared himself to watch their movements, as a matter of military duty. A little distant from the place where he stood, lay the body of a young Spaniard, who had volunteered with the brigade the night before. A moment's observation convinced Vaughan that their object was plunder, and that the body of the young officer was marked for their first spoil. "This," said one of them, "was a man of rank; I have had some tokens of his generosity before now. His pockets were always well lined, and I'll engage, even on such a day as this, they are not empty." Bending over the body, he began his search. A faint groan from the lips of the Spaniard betrayed symptoms of returning life. "What, not yet dead?" said the plunderer, drawing his knife, “then I must despatch you at once, to make sure work of it." "Villain," cried Vaughan, bursting from the place of his concealment, "would you add murder to plunder? if so, be assured, your crime shall not be unrevenged. Your dress shows you to be Spaniards. You have disgraced the name. Soldiers by day, robbers by night! To-morrow shall call you to account for this deed." The fellow started, the knife fell from his hand, but speedily |