, harassed by the British
cavalry and scarcely less by the resentful peasantry of Portugal, their
line of march defined by an unbroken trail of carcasses, until the
tattered remnants of that once splendid army found shelter across the
Coira. Beyond this Wellington could not continue the pursuit for lack
of means to cross the swollen river and also because provisions were
running short.

But there for the moment he might rest content, his immediate object
achieved and his stern strategy supremely vindicated.

On the heights above the yellow, turgid flood rode Wellington
with a glittering staff that included O'Moy and Murray, the
quartermaster-general. Through his telescope he surveyed with silent
satisfaction the straggling columns of the French that were being
absorbed by the evening mists from the sodden ground.

O'Moy, at his side, looked on without satisfaction. To him the close of
this phase of the campaign which had justified his remaining in office
meant the reopening of that painful matter that had been left in
suspense by circumstances since that June day of last year at Monsanto.
The resignation then refused from motives of expediency must again be
tendered and must now be accepted.

Abruptly upon the general stillness came a sharply humming sound. Within
a yard of the spot where Wellington sat his horse a handful of soil
heaved itself up and fell in a tiny scattered shower. Immediately
elsewhere in a dozen places was the phenomenon repeated. There was
too much glitter about the staff uniforms and vindictive French
sharpshooters were finding them an attractive mark.

"They are firing on us, sir!" cried O'Moy on a note of sharp alarm.

"So I perceive," Lord Wellington answered calmly, and leisurely he
closed his glass, so leisurely that O'Moy, in impatient fear of his
chief, spurred forward and placed himself as a screen between him and
the line of fire.

Lord Wellington looked at him with a faint smile. He was about to speak
when O'Moy pitched forward and rolled headlong from the saddle.

They picked him up unconscious but alive, and for once Lord Wellington
was seen to blench as he flung down from his horse to inquire the nature
of O'Moy's hurt. It was not fatal, but, as it afterwards proved, it was
grave enough. He had been shot through the body, the right lung had been
grazed and one of his ribs broken.

Two days later, after the bullet had been extracted, Lord Wellington
went to visit him in the