us. This was
the moment that the remainder of our brigade should have come to our aid,
but not a man appeared. However, there was not an instant to be lost;
already the plunging fire of the four-pounder had swept through our files,
and every moment increased our danger.

"Once more, my lads, forward!" cried out our gallant leader, Sir Charles
Stewart, as waving his sabre, he dashed into the thickest of the fray.

So sudden was our charge that we were upon them before they were prepared.
And here ensued a terrific struggle; for as the cavalry of the enemy gave
way before us, we came upon the close ranks of the infantry at half-pistol
distance, who poured a withering volley into us as we approached. But what
could arrest the sweeping torrent of our brave fellows, though every moment
falling in numbers?

Harvey, our major, lost his arm near the shoulder. Scarcely an officer
was not wounded. Power received a deep sabre-cut in the cheek from an
aide-de-camp of General Foy, in return for a wound he gave the general;
while I, in my endeavor to save General Laborde when unhorsed, was cut down
through the helmet, and so stunned that I remembered no more around me. I
kept my saddle, it is true, but I lost every sense of consciousness, my
first glimmering of reason coming to my aid as I lay upon the river bank
and felt my faithful follower Mike bathing my temples with water, as he
kept up a running fire of lamentations for my being _murthered_ so young.

[Illustration: THE SKIRMISH.]

"Are you better, Mister Charles? Spake to me, alanah! Say that you're not
kilt, darling; do now. Oh, wirra! what'll I ever say to the master? and you
doing so beautiful! Wouldn't he give the best baste in his stable to be
looking at you to-day? There, take a sup; it's only water. Bad luck to
them, but it's hard work beatin' them. They 're only gone now. That's
right; now you're coming to."

"Where am I, Mike?"

"It's here you are, darling, resting yourself."

"Well, Charley, my poor fellow, you've got sore bones, too," cried Power,
as, his face swathed in bandages and covered with blood, he lay down on the
grass beside me. "It was a gallant thing while it lasted, but has cost us
dearly. Poor Hixley--"

"What of him?" said I, anxiously.

"Poor fellow, he has seen his last battle-field! He fell across me as we
came out upon the road. I lifted him up in my arms and bore him along above
fifty yards; but he was stone dead. Not a sigh, not a wo