On the first night of his march to the rear, M. Armand halted in a grove of cork and beech-trees, within a mile of Medellin, on the Quadiana—the birth-place of Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico; but as a guerilla chief with 5000 desperadoes held possession of the town and bridge, our lieutenant of Voltigeurs, with his prisoner and escort, were forced to content themselves with such shelter as the light foliage of the wood afforded.
The night was pitchy dark; the blackness that involved the sky, the mountains, the vale through which the Guadiana wound, and the wood where our travellers bivouacked, was palpable, painful, and oppressive; but at times it was varied by the red sheet lightning which shot across the southern quarter of the sky, revealing the lofty Sierra, whose sharp peaks arose afar off like the waves of a black sea, and the stems and foliage of the cork and beech-trees in the foreground.
On this night occurred the most horrible episode of Grant's military adventures.
After having drained their canteens of Lisbon wine, and discussed their ration of cold beef and commissariat biscuit, Grant and Armand, the voltigeur, lay down fraternally side by side in their cloaks to repose; their escort lay close by, long since asleep; for Grant had given his parole that he "would not attempt to escape," and such were their ideas of military honour and value for a soldier's word, that these brave Frenchmen never doubted him.
Just as the two officers were about to sleep, they became aware of various cold and dewy drops, or clammy creeping things, that continued to fall upon them from the beech trees overhead.
"Sangbleu!" exclaimed the lieutenant of Voltigeurs; "we are all over creepers or cockroaches, and they drop like rain from this old beech upon us."
"Let us seek another tree, my friend," said Grant, drowsily; "one place is the same as another to me now."
"Diable! let us shift our camp then—but do you smell the lightning? It must have scorched the grass."
"Why?"
"There is a stench so overpowering here on every breath of wind."