Its open galleries and horse-shoe Saracenic arches, that spring from fluted and twisted columns of porphyry and granite; its long aerial-like cloisters, with jasper pillars, jagged arches, and tessellated floors; its recessed seats, deep niches, and canopied alcoves, covered with quaint arabesques in scarlet, blue, and gold, were now crowded by wet, weary, and almost shoeless (certainly shirtless) infantry, who piled their muskets or heaped up their knapsacks and camp kettles, without heed, in those noble apartments, where they smoked and made fires of whatever they could lay hands on; many a gilded chair became fuel, and pictures by Velasquez, Murillo, and other eminent painters of the Spanish school, were torn from the walls, and, with a curse on the Spaniards, rolled up and thrust under a pot of rice soup.
In fact, the troops were now fast becoming reckless, and everything that was combustible was destroyed on this occasion, the family archives of the Dukes of Ossuna alone escaping.
Maddened by cold and hunger, they cared not how they made themselves comfortable for the night; but with the first peep of dawn, the report of cannon was heard at the bridge, the bugles sounded the turn-out, and hundreds of hoarse voices were heard shouting,
"Stand to your arms! turn out! The enemy are coming on—the out-picquets are engaged!"
The division got under arms to continue its retreat, which the flank companies were ordered to cover by forming in front of the town; and so came in this dreary 25th of December.
"A merry Christmas and a happy new year!" cried Monkton to Quentin, as the grenadiers of Askerne left the battalion double-quick, and just in time to witness a very brilliant cavalry encounter.
It was about the hour of nine in the morning, and from the slope on which Benevente stands, they could see in a little plain below the bridge of the Orviegro, three squadrons of the Imperial Guard led by a dashing officer in a furred pelisse, skirmishing with the out-picquets of the light cavalry, and endeavouring to cross the river by a ford there. The red flashing of the carbines on both sides was incessant; in the clear frosty air the reports rang sharply, and the figures of the Imperial Light Cavalry, in their brilliant uniforms, were distinctly visible upon the spotless background of snow. No one was hit on either side, however, as the dragoon is seldom much of a shot.
But suddenly two squadrons of the splendid 10th Hussars, by order of Lord Paget, and led by Brigadier-General Stewart, defiled out of Benevente to support the picquets, their loose scarlet pelisses and plumes waving as they galloped along, and rapidly forming line, they advanced with a loud hurrah, and keeping their horses well in hand, lest they should be blown, against the Chasseurs à Cheval of the Guard, who drew up on the crest of an eminence to receive them.
Many who looked on held their breath, and excitement repressed the rising cheer as the adverse lines of cavalry met! There was a mingled yell and hurrah; the long straight swords of the French on one side, and the crooked sabres of the 10th on the other, all uplifted, flashed keenly in the morning sun; then there was a terrible shock; hussars and chasseurs were all mingled in a wild tumultuous mass, and on both sides horses and men went down among bloody and trodden snow; but the French fled at full speed, leaving the ground strewed with killed and wounded men, and encumbered by scared horses that rushed about with empty saddles.
Eighty-five French Chasseurs and fifty of our smart Hussars were lying there dead or writhing in all the agony of sword wounds among the snow; but with loud cheers the survivors came trotting into Benevente, bringing with them seventy dismounted prisoners, among whom was the leader of the French, superbly dressed in a green uniform that had a profusion of gold and fur trimming upon it. He was led forward between two Hussars, who had each his carbine resting on his thigh.