"Look out!" said the general; "that was a snake."
The solemn palms were drooping and motionless. Against the sky, about seventeen miles distant, the red summit of a volcano was glowing and emitting gleams of sulphurous light, such as one may see at times from the cone of a furnace. In these gleams, when looking back, I could see the bayonets of our columns glittering as they poured along the mountain-side.
Ere long, night began to give place to morning. A single star shone long and brilliantly amid the azure vault above us. Then rays of golden light began to play upon the sky, which, like the sea, became gradually purple and saffron, as the dawn of morn drew near.
Now some wild hogs started from a thicket of mangroves and passed us grunting and squeaking.
"Halt—look out—step short!" said several officers, while Harry Smith the aide-de-camp daringly made a dash forward to reconnoitre, as this indicated men being in our vicinity; but these proved to be only a few runaway negroes, who fled at our approach.
As day began to break, the tops of the stupendous Pitons became grey, then green, for they were shrouded in broad-leaved foliage; then red and fiery, as the sun arose, and darkness, like a crape screen, receded down their sides into the valleys below, where the rivers Lezarde and du Petit Bresil flowed through the fertile savannahs to the sea. We saw the sea itself, rolling like a sheet of rippling light towards the shore as we gained the heights, and then a cheer burst from the men of the advanced guard.
The enemy were in sight!
About a mile distant, at a place named La Chapelle, we saw several regiments of the French line drawn up in order of battle, with fieldpieces on their flanks. The morning sun was shining full upon them. Being clad in dark uniforms, they had a sombre aspect, but we saw their bayonets and steel ramrods flashing in the light as they loaded to receive us. We now halted till the regiment came up. It was the leading column of Gordon's brigade, and an emotion of pride glowed within me at the splendid and service-like aspect of these thousand Scotsmen in their red coats and high black bearskin caps, all unwearied by their night-march up the mountains, with the old white cross of St. Andrew waving in the early breeze of morn above them, when the young and gallant earl, their leader, gave the order to form open column of companies, and from thence to deploy into line double-quick as the French were unlimbering and wheeling round their artillery. There was a flash in front, and then a humming sound in the air overhead as a twelve-pound shot passed us and tore up the turf in our rear.
Another came! The direction was better, but not for us, as it struck on the head a poor fellow in our company named Graham, and killed him on the spot. He fell, and the line passed on, leaving him in the rear. There was a suffocating tightness in my throat and breast as I looked back.
Poor Graham was lying as still as death could make him, "with his back to the field and his feet to the foe." His bearskin cap had fallen off, and his yet nervous fingers grasped his undischarged musket. Where were now his pride of youth, or esprit de corps?—his obedience to discipline and to orders? He, who a moment before had been a living man, an ardent soldier, full of health and high spirit—he whose thoughts in that dread time had been, perchance, where mine were, at his mother's lonely hearth and home, in Scotland, far away, was now a shattered corpse, and left unburied on a foreign shore. A soldier fell out of the ranks and lingered for a moment beside him.