by a hundred conjectures to explain it. Wearied at length with watching,
we were about to continue our journey, when suddenly from the quarter
from where the star had shone a rocket shot up into the dark sky and
broke into ten thousand brilliant fragments, which seemed to hang
suspended on high in the weight of the dense atmosphere. Another
followed, and another; then, after a pause of some minutes, a blue
rocket was seen to mount into the air, and explode with a report
which even at the distance we stood was audible. Scarcely had its last
fragments disappeared in the darkness when a low rumbling noise, like
the booming of distant thunder, seemed to creep along the ground. Then
came a rattling volley, as if of small-arms; and at last the whole
horizon burst into a red glare, which forked up from earth to sky with
a crash that seemed to shake the very ground beneath us. Masses of dark,
misshapen rock sprang into the blazing sky; millions upon millions of
sparks glittered through the air; and a cry, like the last expiring wail
of a drowning crew, rose above all other sounds--and all was still. The
flame was gone; the gloomy darkness had returned; not a sound was heard;
but in that brief moment four hundred of the French army met their
graves beneath the castle of Burgos, which in their hurried retreat they
had blown up, without apprising the troops who were actually marching
beneath its very walls.

Our route was now resumed in silence; even the levity of the French
soldiers had received a check; and scarcely a word passed as we rode on
through the gloomy darkness, anxiously looking for daybreak, to learn
something of the country about us.

Towards sunrise we found ourselves at the entrance of a mountain pass
traversed by the Ebro, which in some places almost filled the valley,
and left merely a narrow path between its waters and the dark cliffs
that frowned above. Here we proceeded--sometimes in single file; now
tracing the signs of the retreating force which had just preceded us,
now lost in astonishment at the prodigious strength of the position thus
abandoned. But even these feelings gave way before a stronger one--our
admiration of the exquisite beauty of the scenery. Glen after glen was
seen opening as we advanced into this wide valley, each bearing its
tributary stream to the mighty Ebro--the clear waters reflecting the
broken crags, the waving foliage, and the bright verdure that beamed
around, as orange-trees,