ast the flank of the Royals, actually carrying off
one of its officers in the rush, and disappeared.

The sternest and most bewildering fighting took place round a building
known as the "mayor's house," surrounded by a coppice-wood. Coppice
and outbuildings were filled with men of all regiments and all nations,
swearing, shooting, and charging with the bayonet. The 84th was caught
in a hollow road by the French, who lined the banks above, and lost its
colonel and a great proportion of its rank and file. Gronow tells an
amusing incident of the fight at this stage. An isolated British
battalion stationed near the mayor's house was suddenly surrounded by a
flood of French. The French general galloped up to the British officer
in command and demanded his sword. "Upon this," says Gronow, "without
the least hesitation the British officer shouted out, 'This fellow
wants us to surrender! Charge! my boys, and show them what stuff we
are made of.'" The men answered with a shout, sudden, scornful, and
stern, and went with a run at the French. "In a few minutes," adds
Gronow, "they had taken prisoners or killed the whole of the infantry
regiment opposed to them!"

On the 11th desperate fighting took place on the same ground, but the
British were by this time reinforced--the Guards, in particular, coming
up after a rapid and exhausting march--and Soult's attack had failed.
But on the night of the 12th the rain fell fast and steadily, the Nive
was flooded, the bridge of boats which spanned it swept away, and Hill
was left at St. Pierre isolated, with less than 14,000 men. Soult saw
his opportunity. The interior lines he held made concentration easy,
and on the morning of the 13th he was able to pour an attacking force
of 35,000 bayonets on Hill's front, while another infantry division,
together with the whole of the French cavalry under Pierre Soult,
attacked his rear. Then there followed what has been described as the
most desperate battle of the whole Peninsular war.

THE BLOODIEST FIGHT IN THE PENINSULA

"Then out spoke brave Horatius,
The captain of the gate:
'To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods?'"
--MACAULAY.

Hill's front stretched through two miles; his left; a wooded craggy
ridge, was held by Pringle's brigade, but was parted from t