“Don’t be looking at me that way, you black thief! or I’ll—”
“Hold there!” said I; “no more of this. Come, gentlemen, we must be friends. If I mistake not, we’ve got something like refreshment at our bivouac. In any case you’ll partake of our watch-fire till morning.”
They gladly accepted our invitation, and ere half an hour elapsed Mike’s performance in the part of host had completely erased every unpleasant impression his first appearance gave rise to; and as for myself, when I did sleep at last, the confused mixture of Spanish and Irish airs which issued from the thicket beside me, proved that a most intimate alliance had grown up between the parties.
CHAPTER XXVII.
MIKE’S MISTAKE.
An hour before daybreak the Guerillas were in motion, and having taken a most ceremonious leave of us, they mounted their horses and set out upon their journey. I saw their gaunt figures wind down the valley, and watched them till they disappeared in the distance. “Yes, brigands though they be,” thought I, “there is something fine, something heroic in the spirit of their unrelenting vengeance.” The sleuth-hound never sought the lair of his victim with a more ravening appetite for blood than they track the retreating columns of the enemy. Hovering around the line of march, they sometimes swoop down in masses, and carry off a part of the baggage, or the wounded. The wearied soldier, overcome by heat and exhaustion, who drops behind his ranks, is their certain victim; the sentry on an advanced post is scarcely less so. Whole pickets are sometimes attacked and carried off to a man; and when traversing the lonely passes of some mountain gorge, or defiling through the dense shadows of a wooded glen, the stoutest heart has felt a fear, lest from behind the rock that frowned above him, or from the leafy thicket whose branches stirred without a breeze, the sharp ring of a Guerilla carbine might sound his death-knell.
It was thus in the retreat upon Corunna fell Colonel Lefebvre. Ever foremost in the attack upon our rear-guard, this gallant youth (he was scarce six-and-twenty), a colonel of his regiment, and decorated with the Legion of Honor, he led on every charge of his bold “sabreurs,” riding up to the very bayonets of our squares, waving his hat above his head, and seeming actually to court his death-wound; but so struck were our brave fellows with his gallant bearing, that they cheered him as he came on.
It was in one of these moments as, rising high in his stirrups, he bore down upon the unflinching ranks of the British infantry, the shrill whistle of a ball strewed the leaves upon the roadside, the exulting shout of a Guerilla followed it, and the same instant Lefebvre fell forward upon his horse’s mane, a deluge of blood bursting from his bosom. A broken cry escaped his lips,—a last effort to cheer on his men; his noble charger galloped forward between our squares, bearing to us our prisoner, the corpse of his rider.
“Captain O’Malley,” said a mounted dragoon to the advanced sentry at the bottom of the little hill upon which I was standing. “Despatches from headquarters, sir,” delivering into my hands a large sealed packet from the adjutant-general’s office. While he proceeded to search for another letter of which he was the bearer, I broke the seal and read as follows:—