"Ay. Queer mark, is it not?"
"Very. I am to halt there?"
"A dismal thing to have beside one for a whole night,—in a place as dreary, and eerie too, as the pass of Drumouchter."
"Is it the head of a murderer?"
"Yes. His body is buried beneath it,—a common practice in this part of the country, I believe."
"A man's head used to be quite a common mark when I was in Egypt with Sir Ralph Abercrombie," chimed in Campbell, who had stretched himself on the dewy grass near. "I have seen a corps of turbaned Turks, reviewed near Alexandria, using the spiked heads of Frenchmen as we do our red camp-colours, as points to wheel on."
"You had better take up your ground, Mr. Stuart," said the brigade major, to cut short any intended story, "and remember carefully to make yourself master of your situation, by examining, not only the space you actually occupy, but the heights within musquet-shot, the roads and paths leading to or near the post, ascertaining their breadth and practicability for cavalry and cannon, and to ensure a ready and constant communication with the adjoining posts and videttes,—in the day by signals, in the night by patrols," &c.; and the old fellow did not cease his long quotation from the "Regulations," which he had gotten by rote, until compelled to do so by want of breath.
When he made an end, and had ridden off, Ronald marched his picquet in the direction pointed out, keeping as a guide the star already mentioned. He soon found the halting-place, and there, sure enough, was a human head placed upon a pole about ten feet high; and a more grisly, hairy, ferocious, and terrible face than it presented, human eyes never beheld. In ferocity its expression was that of Narvaez Cifuentes, but it was fixed and rigid,—the eyes glassy and bursting from the sockets,—the jaws wide and open, displaying a formidable row of large white teeth. It was much decayed by the heat of the weather, although it had been only three days exposed; and as the breeze blew swiftly past, it caused the long damp tresses of black hair to wave around the livid brow with an effect at once strange and terrible.
Having posted his line of sentries to the best advantage, showing them in what direction they were to keep a "sharp look-out,"—the direction where Marshal Soult lay,—he returned to the spot, where, stretched upon the turf among the rest of the soldiers, he lay listening to the distant thunder of artillery, and watching the lurid light which filled the horizon, continually increasing and waning as the tide of conflict turned on the battlements of Badajoz. More vividly at times the red light flashed across the sky, and louder at times came the boom of the heavy cannon, as the salvoes were discharged against the walls of the doomed city; and while the soldiers looked and listened, they thought of the blood and slaughter in which they might soon bear a part, should the present besiegers fail in the assault. Although at that hour hundreds—ay, thousands, were being swept into eternity, the soldiers cared not for it, apparently; many a tale was told at which they laughed heartily, and many a reminiscence narrated of Bergen-op-Zoom, Egmont-op-Zee, Mandora, Coruna, and other fields and countless frays, in which some of them had borne a part.
It was a fine moonlight night: the most distant part of the plain could be distinctly seen, and the myriads of stars shone joyously, as if to rival the radiance of their queen, while every blade of grass, and every leaf of the scattered shrubbery, so common on Spanish plains, glittered as if edged with liquid silver. From the dark village of Lobon, and the white glimmering tents of the encampment, arose the hum of voices; from the plain through which wound the Guadiana, came the murmur of its current; and save these, no sound broke the stillness of the hour but the roar of Badajoz, which growled and sounded afar like thunder among distant hills.