dalgo's position, the Spanish
skirmishers spread themselves out along the cactus hedges and over the
aloe fields, and puffed and popped away. The firing soon became warm, as
more miquelets and cacadores joined in it; and from out of every ditch and
hollow, from behind each bush and tree, the bullets came whistling.
Suddenly, in the background, there glared a dozen streams of fire, looking
white in the broad daylight, and accompanied by a light grey smoke, and
down went few score of Indians, never to stand up again in this life. The
infernal music became each moment louder. The smoke was thickest and the
fire hottest around the rising ground on which Hidalgo had stationed
himself, with our regiments of Zelaya and Valladolid in his front, the
Reyna and Principe cavalry covering the flanks. As I approached the
hillock, a body of ten thousand Indians, furious at the murderous fire
kept up by the enemy's artillery, rushed forward like a herd of wild
buffaloes, bearing down all opposition by their mere mass and weight. The
foremost had already reached the guns, and as they had never before in
their lives seen such things, what did the poor devils do but take off
their straw hats and try to stop up the mouths of the cannon! Just then up
came a regiment of the enemy's cavalry, dashed amongst them, and scattered
them like chaff. All was confusion on this part of the line; but our
troops in front of the hillock still stood firm and unbroken.

"'Where is he?' enquired a Spanish major, who at that moment rode up
beside me, leaning forward in his saddle, his feet firm in the stirrups,
his hand clutching his charger's mane. I knew not whom he meant; but he
had scarcely uttered the words when he slid gently off his horse into the
dust. A bullet had struck him--his race was run. My horse was nearly dead
with fatigue. I jumped off and got upon that of the Spaniard. Scarcely was
the exchange effected, when I heard a harsh high-toned voice, like that of
a gallinazo, issuing from the centre of a cloud of smoke.

"'_Adelante!_ Forward!' it cried.

"I knew the tones; they were those of Mexico's destroying angel. I gave my
horse the spur; but I was already in the middle of the enemy's lancers,
who swept me along with them as a whirlwind does a feather. On a sudden
there appeared through the smoke the horses' heads and glittering sabres
of the patriot cavalry. There was a crash--a few dozen pistol-shots--a
hundred thousand curses; the Spaniar