We came on at a trot. The smoke of the cannonade obscured everything until we had advanced some distance, but suddenly the splendid panorama of the battlefield broke upon us.
"Charge! Forward!" cried the hoarse voice of our colonel; and we were upon them. The French infantry, already broken by the withering musketry of our people, gave way before us, and, unable to form a square, retired fighting, but in confusion and with tremendous loss, to their position. One glorious cheer from left to right of our line proclaimed the victory, while a deafening discharge of artillery from the French replied to this defiance, and the battle was over.
For several months after the battle of Talavera my life presented nothing which I feel worth recording. Our good fortune seemed to have deserted us when our hopes were highest; for from the day of that splendid victory we began our retrograde movement upon Portugal. Pressed hard by overwhelming masses of the enemy, we saw the fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida fall successively into their hands, and retired, mystified and disappointed, to Torres Vedras.
Wounded in a somewhat scatter-brain night expedition to the lines of Ciudad Rodrigo, my campaigning--for some time, at least--was concluded; for my wound began to menace the loss of my arm, and I was ordered back to Lisbon. Fred Power was the first man I saw, and almost the first thing he told me was that Sir George Dashwood was in Lisbon, and that his daughter was with him. And then, with conflicting feelings, I found that all Lisbon mentioned my name in connection with the senhora, and Sir George himself, in appointing me an aide-de-camp, threw increased gloom over my thoughts by referring to the report Power had spoken of. My torment was completed by meeting Miss Dashwood in the Senhora Inez's house under circumstances which led to treat me with stiff, formal courtesy.
The next night a letter from a Dublin friend reached me which told me that "Hammersly had got his congé."
Here, then, was the solution of the whole chaos of mystery; here the full explanation of what had puzzled my aching brain for many a night long. His own were the letters I had delivered into Hammersly's hands. A flood of light poured at once across all the dark passages of my history; and Lucy, too--dare I think of her? What if she had really cared for me! Oh, the bitter agony of that thought! To think that all my hopes were shipwrecked with the very land in sight.
I sprang to my feet with some sudden impulse, but, as I did so, the blood rushed madly to my head, and I fell. My arm was again broken, and ere day I was delirious.
Hours, days, weeks rolled over, and when I returned to consciousness and convalescence I found I had been removed to the senhora's villa, and to her I owed, in a large part, my recovery. I was deeper in my dilemma than ever. Nevertheless, before I returned to the front, I found an opportunity to vindicate to Lucy my unshaken faith, reconciling the conflicting evidences with the proofs I proffered of my attachment. We were interrupted before I could learn how my protestations were received. Power, I found soon after, was the one favoured by the fair Inez's affections.
V.--A Desolate Hearth
It is not my intention, were I even adequate to the task, to trace with anything like accuracy the events of the war at this period. In fact, to those who, like myself, were performing duties of a mere subaltern character, the daily movements of our own troops, not to speak of the continual changes of the enemy, were perfectly unknown, and an English newspaper was more ardently longed for in the Peninsula than by the most eager crowd of a London coffee-room.