nd saw the carabineers busy round their
wounded corporal, and apparently much embarrassed with him and with
their horses in the steep and narrow passage.

[Illustration: Marbot's fight with the Carabineers in the alley]

This fight took less time than I have taken to relate it. Finding myself
rid, at least for the moment, of my enemies, I went through the vines
and reached the edge of the hill. Then I considered that it would be
impossible for me to accomplish my errand and reach the Emperor at
Aranda. I resolved, therefore, to return to Marshal Lannes, regaining
first the place where I had left M. Tassin and his picket of infantry. I
did not hope to find them still there; but at any rate the army which I
had left the day before was in that direction. I looked for my soldier
in vain, but I saw something that was of more use to me--a spring of
clear water. I halted there a moment, and, tearing off a corner of my
shirt, I made a compress which I fastened over my wound with my
handkerchief. The blood spurting from my forehead had stained the
despatches which I held in my hand, but I was too much occupied with my
awkward position to mind that.

The agitations of the past night, my long walk over the stony paths in
boots and spurs, the fight in which I had just been engaged, the pain in
my head, and the loss of blood had exhausted my strength. I had taken no
food since leaving Tudela, and here I had nothing but water to refresh
myself with. I drank long draughts of it, and should have rested longer
by the spring had I not perceived three of the Spanish carabineers
riding out of Agreda and coming towards me through the vines. If they
had been sharp enough to dismount and take off their long boots, they
would probably have succeeded in reaching me; but their horses, unable
to pass between the vine stocks, ascended the steep and rocky paths with
difficulty. Indeed, when they reached the upper end of the vineyards
they found themselves brought up by the great rocks, on the top of which
I had taken refuge, and unable to climb any farther. Then the troopers,
passing along the bottom of the rocks, marched parallel with me a long
musket-shot off. They called to me to surrender, saying that as soldiers
they would treat me as a prisoner of war, while if the peasants caught
me I should infallibly be murdered. This reasoning was sound, and I
admit that if I had not been charged with despatches for the Emperor, I
was so exhausted that