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the pass of Doña Maria, and by forced marches fall back on San Estevan. Accordingly, at midnight, his troops were put in motion to reach this dangerous defile, and thence, by ascending or descending the Bidassao, regain the French frontier. How painful this retrogressive movement must have been, may well be fancied. Now "the leader of a broken host," and smarting the more keenly from defeat, because he had too presumptuously affirmed a certainty of success, and assured his troops of victory.

Nothing could be more critical than Soult's position; and while Wellington supposed that he intended entering the Bastan by the pass of Villate, the French marshal was too close to Buenza to hazard a retreat by the valley of the Lanz. Indeed, his situation was so dangerous, that a less determined commander might have despaired. His only means of egress from these mountains was by a long and perilous defile leading to an Alpine bridge, and both were overlooked by towering precipices; while, from holding a shorter and easier line of march, the chances were considerable that Wellington would anticipate his movements, and reach Elizondo-Graham seize Yanzi before he could arrive there-Hill fall on his flanks and rear, if obliged, as he should be in these events, to take the route of Zagaramundi—and, in the end, even if he fought his way to Urdax, he might find that position preoccupied, and his retreat finally intercepted. Fortune averted the great calamity; but still safety was to be purchased at a heavy sacrifice.

As he had dreaded, Soult's rear-guard was overtaken near Lizasso was attacked-defeated-and saved only by a fog which opportunely covered a hurried retreat. At Elizondo a large convoy with its guard was captured; but the crowning misfortune was impending, when, ignorant of Lord Wellington's proximity, Soult halted in the valley of San Estevan. Behind the ridges which overlook the town four allied divisions were halted-the seventh held the mountain of Doña Mariathe light, with a Spanish division, were in hasty march to seize the passes at Vera and Echallar.-Byng had reached Maya, and Hill was moving on Almandon. Every arrangement to enclose the retreating army was complete, and never, in military calculations, was the destruction of an enemy more certain, than that which awaited Soult. Unconscious of his danger, the French marshal gave no indications of alarm. With him there was no appearances to excite suspicion,-no watch-fire indicated the presence of an enemy-no scouting-party was seen upon the heights. Two hours more, and the fate of the Emperor's lieutenant would have been sealed, when one of those trifling incidents occurred, which in war will render the most studied and scientific efforts unavailing, and extricate from perilous results, those who have dared too much, but to whom despair is happily a stranger. Possibly, in the varied fortunes of a life "crowded with events," never did accident tax the Great Captain's philosophy more severely.

Unseen himself, Wellington with an eagle's glance watched from a height the progress of his combinations. The quarry in the valley rested in false security, even when the falcon on the rock was pluming his feathers and preparing for a fatal stoop. A few French horsemen

carelessly patroled the hollow, and although a hundred eyes were turned upon them, they saw nothing which could betray the presence of an enemy or excite alarm. At that moment three plunderers crossed their path. They were seized, carried off; presently the alarm was beaten, and in a few minutes the French columns were under arms and in full retreat; and "Thus," to quote Napier's words, "the disobedience of these plundering knaves, unworthy of the name of soldiers, deprived our consummate commander of the most splendid success, and saved another from the most terrible disaster."

Although its total déroute was narrowly averted, no army suffered for a time more severely than the retiring columns of the French. Cumbered with baggage, embarrassed with the transport of the wounded, confined to a strait and difficult mountain-road, no wonder that the whole mass of fighting and disabled men were occasionally in terrible confusion. The light troops of the fourth division appeared upon their right flank, and, moving by a parallel line, maintained a teazing fusilade. The bridge leading to that of Yanzi was strongly occupied by a battalion of Spanish sharp-shooters. D'Erlon, profiting by the inaction of Longa and Barcenas, forced the pass; but Reille was not so fortunate. The light division, by an unequalled exertion, crossed forty miles of mountain-country by one incessant march; and they had already crowned the summit of the precipice which overhangs the pass to Yanzi at the perilous moment when Reille's exhausted column was struggling through the “ deep defile." Never was a worn-out enemy placed in a more terrible position. On one side, a deep river with rugged banks; on the other, an inaccessible precipice, topped by an enemy secure from everything but the uncertain effect of vertical fire. The scene which ensued was frightful. Disabled men were thrown down, deserted, and ridden over. The feeble return to the British musquetry produced no reaction. The bridge of Yanzi could not be forced; and night came opportunely, permitting the harassed column to escape by the road of Echallar, leaving, however, the wounded and the baggage to the victors.

The last struggle was at hand. Soult, with an indomitable courage which even in defeat established his military superiority, by powerful and personal exertions, rallied his broken troops, and once more formed in order of battle on the Puerto of Echallar, with Clausel's diminished corps in advance on a contiguous height. But that stand gave but a breathing-time. Two British divisions were already pushed on to re-occupy Roncesvalles and Alduides-Byng was at Urdax, Hill on the Col de Maya—and the light, fourth, and seventh divisions in hand, and ready to fall on.

The affairs which followed were very singular, and mark the moral effect which success and disaster exercise upon the best soldiers in their turn. The light division was pointed on Santa Barbara to turn the right of the enemy, the fourth were desired to make a front attack by Echallar, and the seventh moved from Sumbilla to operate against Soult's left. Outmarching the supporting columns, Barnes's brigade boldly assailed the strong ridges occupied by Clausel's division; and, with a daring courage worthy of the good fortune which crowned it,

actually drove from its mountain-position a corps of four-fold numbers to his own. It is true that Clausel's troops had been beaten, overmarched, and dispirited. Already they had been thrice bloodily defeated; but that six thousand tried and gallant soldiers should be forced from a rugged height by a brigade not exceeding sixteen hundred bayonets, is an anomaly in war which seems difficult to resolve to common causes.

The last affair was that of Ivantelly. On that strong mountain the French rear-guard had taken its stand, and although evening had set in, the soldiers fasted two days, and a mist obscured the heights, the light troops mounted the rugged front and drove the enemy from that, the last ridge, which, in the course of nine davs' operations, had been assailed or defended.

In the course of those sanguinary and continued combats, known by the general designation of the Battles of the Pyrenees, the Allies lost seven thousand hors de combat. The French casualties were infinitely greater; and a moderate estimate, framed from the most impartial statements, raises it to the fatal amount of fifteen thousand men.

It was with feelings of unqualified delight I listened to Cammaran's doleful admission that Soult was over the Bidassao, and the battering guns, which, under an alarm, had been embarked at Passages, had been again re-landed, and the siege was to commence again. Sufficient proof of this intention was quickly manifested, for the trenches were repaired, San Bartolomeo armed anew, and the convent of Antigua furnished with heavy guns to sweep the beach and bay, if necessary.

Whatever might have been the feelings of the governor and his garrison when the tidings of Soult's failure were confirmed, still, like gallant soldiers, they showed no lack of confidence in themselves, but redoubled their exertions to increase all the means within their power of defence, and repel the second assault as effectually as they had repulsed the former one. On the anniversary of the Emperor's birth, the inhabitants of the city and the troops who invested it, were apprised of the event by frequent salvos of artillery; and when night came, the castle exhibited a splendid illumination, surmounted by a brilliant legend, "Vive Napoleon le grand!" visible distinctly at the distance of a league.

On the 19th, the long-expected siege-train arrived from England, and on the 22nd, fifteen heavy guns were placed in battery. On the 23rd another train was landed. On the 25th all the batteries were armed and reported ready to commence their fire; and on the 26th fifty-seven pieces opened with a thundering crash, and in one unabated roar played on the devoted city, until darkness rendered the practice uncertain and ended this deafening cannonade.

The result of the siege was what might have been anticipated, when Wellington, with adequate means, had issued his order that the place should fall. On the morning of the 31st the assault was delivered, and after a long, bloody, and doubtful struggle, the fortress was carried.

Would that with the fall of that well-defended city the sad detail of "siege and slaughter" closed! "At Ciudad Rodrigo intoxication

and plunder had been the principal object; at Badajoz, lust and murder were joined to rapine and drunkenness ; but at San Sebastian the direst, the most revolting cruelty was added to the catalogue of crimes."* Thank God! from witnessing that horrid scene, the fosterer and I were exempted. In accordance with Mark Antony's advice, I had determined to give General Rey "leg-bail ;" and on the night of the 27th, Dame Fortune behaving towards us like a real gentlewoman, we contrived to get clear of San Sebastian before our friends the besiegers could manage to get in.

But that event, in this my hurried but "eventful history," requires another chapter.

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NEARLY a month had passed-a month of dreary captivity. It is true there was not a prisoner within the walls of San Sebastian who had less reason to complain, but still I felt myself a prisoner. Cammaran, as far as means allowed, anticipated every want. I was under no surveillance—the city was open to me-I wandered where I pleased -and every sentry I passed saluted me. The voltigeur was a general favourite, the story of his deliverance had been told in the garrison, and even with more romance than had attended it; and every French soldier we passed pointed out the fosterer and myself as the preservers of a gallant comrade. If we met a group of officers, the moniteur, the cigar-case, or the snuff-box were hospitably presented to me; and could Mark Antony have drank "pottle deep," he had only to turn into a French guard-house, and every flask it contained would have been placed at his disposal.

Such were my relations with the enemy; but the bearing of my host was sometimes hard to understand. It was professedly kind; but the manner was forced, and repulsive. His habits were retiredno overture to intimacy had been made-beyond the detached portion of his mansion where I had been located at the first, the rest of his domicile was to me a terra incognita. Of his establishment I had never seen but two-a particularly dark-visaged youth, with a cutthroat cast of countenance, and a woman of seventy who was deaf, or pretended to be deaf. Still, our wants were carefully attended to, * Napier.

and at times Senhor Francisco asked after my health in a tone of voice that would lead a person to imagine the man was sincere in the inquiry.

"Upon my conscience," observed the fosterer, as he presented himself one morning at my bed-side, "I have a fancy this house isn't over good. If banshees played upon the fiddle, I would swear that I heard one these three last nights in the garden that we see behind the window of my room. Arrah-do you think the place was formerly a madhouse? Except Newgate-and, blessed be God, I can only spake of it from description, the devil a such a place for locks and bolts I was ever in before. Has the ould gentleman, do ye think, much money? Every window barred up like a watchhouse-but they would require, for all that, to be looked over, for I have managed to remove two of mine,— and if I live till to-night, I'll have a walk in the garden.”

"No-no-Mark; that will never do. We must not intrude upon Don Francisco. He may have some secret to conceal." "Troth! and ye'r right," returned the fasterer.

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May be he has a private still at work, or does a little in the coining. But, faith, no matter I'll have a peep to-night. But if he's forging notes, or making bad dollars, what can he want with the music ?"

"Music!" I repeated.

"Yes; I hear a guitar every night, and two nights ago saw something very like a ghost-"

"Or rather very like your grandmother "—and I burst into a loud laugh.

"Oh-I knew you would make fun of me. Well-no matter.

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was the height of Serjeant Antony, and he's six-feet-six without his shoes-and as white as your own shirt-not, in truth, that that's anything remarkable, for worse washerwomen than we meet with here you could hardly find if you were on the look-out for a fortnight. But there's no use in talking. There's a tall white woman parades the garden; and if I live till the old Don is fast asleep, I'll be through the window, if I break my neck."

overcome

I confess, that although I could not listen without a smile, to Mark Antony's description of the lady-like spectre that honoured the garden with her presence, and then and there discoursed "most eloquent music;" I felt, notwithstanding, a more than common curiosity on the subject,— and while I reprobated the fosterer's removal of the bars which obstructed his communication with the spot she haunted, as an act but slightly removed from burglary itself, still my scruples were easily when he proposed that I should keep watch with him that night. The retreat was beaten in the fortress-supper-hour came asual, presented himself, to make inquiry whether aught was wanted that had not been already provided—and then, after wishing us "Good night," we saw him secure his gate, and retire to that portion of his premises, from which, with all the jealous reserve observed in an Eastern harem, we had been, as we were pleased to call it, inhospitably

excluded.

the host, as

"Well," said Mark Antony, "I suppose the man intends to be civil, but he has the quarest way of showing it. Although it's his own wine we're drinking, the divil a drop he would ever take in company.

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