But there was no reply: the Highlander had ceased to exist. The blood oozed slowly and heavily from his wound, and his distended and glassy eyes were yet fixed with the glare of death on the scene of the distant battle-field.
An exclamation of deep anguish burst from Ronald Stuart on beholding the breathless body of his humble but gallant friend, which presented a woful spectacle, being drenched in blood from the chin to the shoe-buckle. He tied a handkerchief over the face, and disposing the body in its plaid, he hewed down an olive-tree with his sword and with the branches covered it up, that it might be unmolested by the peasantry and death-hunters, until he could return and commit it to the earth.
This done, he tied up his own wound, which till then he had forgotten, and again sought the field, where flashing steel and eddying smoke bore token of the strife. Toulouse was the last, and one of the most keenly contested battles of the Peninsular war; and it was very generally believed by the allied army, that Soult, when it took place, was aware that peace had been concluded between Great Britain and France.
* * * * *
Here the author must, for the present, take leave of the courteous reader, who has accompanied him thus far through innumerable long marches and dangerous exploits, and halt for a time on the field of Toulouse. Should he be encouraged to publish the further adventures of his kilted heroes, he will not be tardy in obeying the call; for full many a weary march in France and Flanders—many a wet bivouac—many a desperate duty and perilous adventure, have to be described "before the last grand charge took place in that victory," where the crown of France was lost and won, when Europe was freed from the iron grasp of Napoleon, and where (at least in the great war in which they had so signally distinguished themselves) the "occupation of the Gordon Highlanders" concluded.
THE END.
LONDON:
Printed by Maurice and Co., Howford-buildings,
Fenchurch sheet.
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE OF WAR, VOLUME 3 (OF 3) ***