orship induced me to accept his
portmanteau and valuables, and to allow the poor wretch to go free. I
put the Magazine in my coat-pocket, and left him and the podesta.

The men, to my surprise, had quitted the building, and it was full
time for me to follow; for I found our sallying party, after committing
dreadful ravages in Oraa's lines, were in full retreat upon the fort,
hotly pressed by a superior force of the enemy. I am pretty well known
and respected by the men of both parties in Spain (indeed I served for
some months on the Queen's side before I came over to Don Carlos); and,
as it is my maxim never to give quarter, I never expect to receive it
when taken myself. On issuing from the podesta with Sheeny's portmanteau
and my sword in my hand, I was a little disgusted and annoyed to see our
own men in a pretty good column retreating at double-quick, and about
four hundred yards beyond me, up the hill leading to the fort; while
on my left hand, and at only a hundred yards, a troop of the Queenite
lancers were clattering along the road.

I had got into the very middle of the road before I made this discovery,
so that the fellows had a full sight of me, and whiz! came a bullet by
my left whisker before I could say Jack Robinson. I looked round--there
were seventy of the accursed malvados at the least, and within, as I
said, a hundred yards. Were I to say that I stopped to fight seventy
men, you would write me down a fool or a liar: no, sir, I did not fight,
I ran away.

I am six feet four--my figure is as well known in the Spanish army
as that of the Count de Luchana, or my fierce little friend Cabrera
himself. "GAHAGAN!" shouted out half a dozen scoundrelly voices, and
fifty more shots came rattling after me. I was running--running as the
brave stag before the hounds--running as I have done a great number of
times before in my life, when there was no help for it but a race.

After I had run about five hundred yards, I saw that I had gained nearly
three upon our column in front, and that likewise the Christino horsemen
were left behind some hundred yards more; with the exception of three,
who were fearfully near me. The first was an officer without a lance; he
had fired both his pistols at me, and was twenty yards in advance of his
comrades; there was a similar distance between the two lancers who
rode behind him. I determined then to wait for No. 1, and as he came
up delivered cut 3 at his horse's near leg--off i