start."

"Yes, it's all true, your Excellency: they pillaged a little; and if they
did change their facings, there was a great temptation. All the red velvet
they found in the churches--"

"Good-by, old fellow, good-by!"

"Stand at ease!"

"Can't, unfortunately, yet awhile; so farewell. I'll make a capital report
of the Legion to Sir Arthur; shall I add anything particularly from
yourself?"

This, and the shake that accompanied it, aroused him. He started up, and
looked about him for a few seconds.

"Eh, Charley! You didn't say Sir Arthur was here, did you?"

"No, Major; don't be frightened; he's many a league off. I asked if you had
anything to say when I met him?"

"Oh, yes, Charley! Tell him we're capital troops in our own little way in
the mountains; would never do in pitched battles,--skirmishing's our forte;
and for cutting off stragglers, or sacking a town, back them at any odds."

"Yes, yes, I know all that; you've nothing more?"

"Nothing," said he, once more closing his eyes and crossing his hands
before him, while his lips continued to mutter on,--"nothing more, except
you may say from me,--he knows me, Sir Arthur does. Tell him to guard
himself from intemperance; a fine fellow if he wouldn't drink."

"You horrid old humbug, what nonsense are you muttering there?"

"Yes, yes; Solomon says, 'Who hath red eyes and carbuncles?' they that mix
their lush. Pure _Sneyd_ never injured any one. Tell him so from me,--it's
an old man's advice, and I have drunk some hogsheads of it."

With these words he ceased to speak, while his head, falling gently forward
upon his chest, proclaimed him sound asleep.

"Adieu, then, for the last time," said I, slapping him gently on the
shoulder. "And now for the road."

CHAPTER LVII.

CUESTA.

The second day of our journey was drawing to a close as we came in view of
the Spanish army.

The position they occupied was an undulating plain beside the Teitar River;
the country presented no striking feature of picturesque beauty, but the
scene before us needed no such aid to make it one of the most interesting
kind. From the little mountain path we travelled we beheld beneath a force
of thirty thousand men drawn up in battle array, dense columns of infantry
alternating with squadrons of horse or dark masses of artillery dotted
the wide plain, the bright steel glittering in the rich sunset of a July
evening when not a breath of air was stirring; the very banners