"This rencontre occurred near a great olive wood, which was known to be the haunt of Aviero; and I rode as fast as possible to leave it behind before nightfall; but I had not gone half-a-mile from the fountain, when a sharp rifle shot whistled from a grove of olives on my right. My horse gave a snort of agony, and fell heavily forward, stone dead. A bullet had pierced his brain. I disengaged myself from the stirrups, and drew my sabre, but ere I could strike one blow in my defence, a hundred hands were upon me, and I was a prisoner, in the power of a band of savage frontier guerillas—half soldiers, half robbers, and wholly demons. Diable! my life hung by a hair.
"Some wore broad hats, embroidered jackets, and yellow scarfs, with plush breeches; others had little other garment than their olive skins, and wore their flowing hair of the deepest black, gathered in netted cauls; but all were armed with rifles, daggers, and pistols, or with all manner of military weapons gathered from the fields of those battles which were every day fought in their vicinity.
"Oh, Monsieur! what a moment of misery was that when I found myself so completely at the mercy of those ruffian Spaniards, whom I equally despised and abhorred.
"Many a knife was drawn and many a blow struck at me; but in their very fury and anxiety to destroy me these wretches retarded, impeded, and wounded each other.
"'Down with him! down with the Frenchman! Death to the Buonapartist! Maladetto!' was the cry on every side.
"'Caramba!' cried one in a voice of thunder, 'I will blow out the brains of the first that injures him. Frenchman and dog as he is, our laws must be respected. Away with him to the mountains, for Don Julian d'Aviero must decide his fate.'
"Aviero! my heart sunk; I was then quite in the power of the devil.
"Amid a storm of growling and swearing, and even fisticuffs, I was conducted through the wood, which was almost pathless and covered the face of the Sierra by which we ascended, to an old and ruined villa, belonging to the Duke of Aviero. It stood on the edge of a precipice that overhung the Tagus, and there Don Julian had for the present established his head-quarters. A recent attempt had been made, by a detachment of ours, under Jacques Chataigneur, to dislodge him; these had been repulsed with great slaughter; and on approaching the villa, I could discern vivid traces of the conflict—traces which its amiable and philosophical inmates cared not to trouble themselves as yet in removing.
"This noble residence of Don Julian's ancestors, with its marble vestibule and stately portico, its frescoed chambers and arcades of columns, round which the vine and the rose were clambering, had been no way improved by his occupation thereof. A balustraded terrace encircled it, and within and around it the dead French and guerillas were lying across each other in scores—many of them yet grasping their adversaries, just as they had fallen, without their hold relaxing, or the fierce expression which distorted their features at the hour of death passing away.
"Many of these men were my comrades, grenadiers of the 23rd, whom I could recognise, notwithstanding the alteration of their features.