This, however, did not at all suit my purposes, and laying my hand upon the halter, I told him the horse was mine, and that he must stand off. This information brought upon my head a torrent of Castilian abuse, and thrusting himself in between me and the horse, he struggled to make me quit my hold, raising his gauntleted hand as if to strike me in the face. He was a smaller man than myself in every respect, and also embarrassed with the weight of his arms, so that it was with ease I caught his wrist with one hand to prevent his striking me, while with the other I grasped the lower rim of his cuirass, and threw him back clanking upon the pavement. In an instant, half a dozen young villagers sprang out of the houses, surrounded the prostrated trooper before he could make an attempt to rise, and would, I believe, have despatched him with their long knives, had not I interfered to save his life. "_Viva la Francia! Viva la Francia!_" cried half a dozen voices at once. "Let him rise! let him rise! The French caballero commands it. Let him rise! let him rise!" Some of the Catalonians, however, were for opposing this piece of clemency, and, evidently animated by the same spirit of hatred to the soldiery as their countrymen of Lerida, cried aloud to kill the tiger. "How many of ours has he killed!" exclaimed they. "How often has he plundered our houses, assaulted ourselves, insulted our women!--Let him die! let him die!" But the discussion had for a moment diverted their attention from their prisoner, and though one of the strongest villagers had his foot upon the soldier's corslet, he contrived suddenly to throw him off, and, springing up, to catch his wounded horse, which still stood nigh. Half a dozen blows with musket-stocks and knives were now aimed at him in an instant; but leaping into the saddle, he spurred his horse through the crowd, and, saved by his corslet and morion from many a random stroke, galloped down the road like lightning. At the distance of about a hundred yards, however, he turned in the saddle, and while his horse went on, aimed one of his musketoons calmly at the group assembled round me, and fired. The ball whizzed close by me, and grazed the cheek of a villager near, leaving a long black wound along that side of his face. Fortunately for the fugitive, none of the muskets were loaded which graced the hands of those he left behind, otherwise his flight would have been but short. As it was, he departed undisturbed, and the whole of the group around turned to me, inquiring, as of one who had some title to command them, what was to be done next? "Were they," they asked, "to collect and join the patriots at Lerida, or to march forward upon Barcelona, collecting what troops they could on the road, and at once attack the tyrants in their head-quarters?"