"Anxious and impatient, accompanied by my orderly, I rode forward a few miles, but failed to discover the said village; the whole district was desolate, and being without a guide, I feared that we had lost the way. On returning I found matters still worse; for, taking advantage of my absence, the villanous Spaniards, by a preconcerted arrangement, had simultaneously cut the traces of their mules and bullocks, and (though my guard shot a few of them in the attempt) had fled, leaving the sick and wounded to die in the wilderness.
"I cannot say whether anger or despair was my prevailing emotion; but to be left thus, with three or four-and-twenty waggons (for their number was now reduced), full of sick and dying men, among the mountains of Toledo, without provisions, and without a medical officer, was not very pleasant. Though the rain was still falling, as it falls only in Spain (like one ceaseless and tremendous shower-bath), Crogan and I departed at a gallop after the runaways, but could only overtake one; and, as he would neither halt nor obey us, we fired at him with our pistols, and, breaking his leg, left him in the same condition he had left so many of our comrades.
"Aware that not a moment should be lost in procuring a fresh team, we turned in the direction of Toledo, and ascended the sierra, half blinded by the rain which lashed in our faces, and, by swelling the streams from the hills, was fast making the valley between them a sheet of water
"'A fine thing it will be, your honour,' said Crogan—'for I'm just in the mood to be savage—if we fall in with the Rapparees that rummaged over the ould lady, last night, and sacked Mora and La Guardia.'
"'Never mind, Darby, my boy, you will die in the bed "of honour" then.'
"'Divil a one of me cares—though, by my sowl,' he added, as our horses plashed fetlock-deep in water, 'I would like that same bed of yer honour's to be a dhry one.'
"'So would I, Darby, but remember—
"'Why should we be melancholy, boys,
Whose business 'tis to——die?'
"'By the hokey! that ditty sounds very like as if the man that made it, sir, had been up to his neck in a bog at the time. But there are lights!'
"'And the rain is abating, too.'