infantry was at
least a mile behind me, gave me new hope. I could not understand this
straggling march, but it was at least reasonable to suppose that
Marmont's horse would wait upon his foot before attempting such a
position as Guarda.

"I must push on," said I, and instructed him where to seek for my
unfortunate charger.

He walked down with me to the road. My ankle pained me cruelly.

"See here," said he, "the senor had best let me go with him. It is but
six miles, and I can recover the horse in the morning."

He was in earnest, and I consented. It was fortunate that I did, or
I might have dropped in the road and been found or trodden on by the
French column behind us.

As it was I broke down after the second mile. The shepherd took me in
his arms like a child and found cover for me below a bank to the left
of the road beside the stream in the valley bottom. I gave him my
instructions and he hurried on.

Lying there in the darkness half an hour later I heard the tramp of
the brigade approaching, and lay and listened while they went by.

I have often, in writing these memoirs, wished I could be inventing
instead of setting down facts. With a little invention only, how I
could have rounded off this adventure! But that is the way with real
events. All my surprising luck ended with the casual stumble of a
horse, and it was not I who saved Guarda, nor even my messenger, but
Marmont's own incredible folly.

When my shepherd reached the foot of the ascent to the fortress he
heard a drum beaten suddenly in the darkness above. This single drum
kept rattling (he told me) for at least a minute before a score of
others took up the alarm. There had been no other warning, not so much
as a single shot fired; and even after the drums began there was no
considerable noise of musketry until the day broke and the shepherd
saw the French cavalry retiring slowly down the hill scarcely 500
yards ahead of the Portuguese militia, now pouring forth from the
gateway. These were at once checked and formed up in front of the
town, the French still retiring slowly, with a few English dragoons
hanging on their heels. A few shots only were exchanged, apparently
without damage. The man assured me that the whole 400 or 500 troopers
passed within a hundred yards of him and so down the slope and out of
his sight.

What had happened was this: Marmont, impatient at the delay of his two
brigades of infantry (which by some bungle in the start