The cannonade became heavy, and the spectacle surprisingly beautiful. The lighter smoke and mist, mingling and curling in fantastic pillars, formed a huge and glittering dome tinged with many colours by the rising sun, and through the gross vapour below the restless horsemen were seen or lost, as the fume thickened from the rapid play of the artillery; the bluff head of land beyond the Trabancos, now covered with French troops, appeared by an optical deception close at hand, dilated to the size of a mountain, and crowned with gigantic soldiers, who were continually breaking off and sliding down into the fight. Suddenly a dismounted English cavalry officer stalked from the midst of the smoke towards the line of infantry; his gait was peculiarly rigid, and he appeared to hold a bloody handkerchief to his heart; but that which seemed a cloth was a broad and dreadful wound: a bullet had entirely effaced the flesh from his left shoulder and breast and carried away part of his ribs, his heart was bared and its movement plainly discerned. It was a piteous and yet a noble sight, for his countenance though ghastly was firm, his step scarcely indicated weakness, and his voice never faltered. This unyielding man’s name was Williams. He died a short distance from the field of battle, it was said in the arms of his son, a youth of fourteen, who had followed his father to the Peninsula in hopes of obtaining a commission, for they were not in affluent circumstances. Cotton maintained this exposed position until seven o’clock, when Wellington and Beresford came up, and both were like to have been slain together. For a squadron of French cavalry, breaking away from the head of land beyond the Trabancos, had just before come with such speed across the valley that it was for a moment thought they were deserting; but with headlong course they mounted the table-land on which Cotton’s left wing was posted, and drove a whole line of British cavalry skirmishers back in confusion. The reserves then came up from Alaejos, and these furious swordmen, scattered in all directions, were in turn driven away or cut down; yet thirty or forty, led by their gallant officer, suddenly appeared above the ravine separating the British wings, just as Wellington and Beresford arrived on the slope beneath them. Some infantry picquets were in the bottom, higher up were two guns covered by a squadron of light cavalry disposed in perfect order, and when the French officer saw this squadron he reined in his horse with difficulty, his men gathering in a confused body round him; they seemed lost, but their daring leader waving his sword soused down with a shout on the English troopers, who turning, galloped through the guns, and the whole mass, friends and enemies, went like a whirlwind to the bottom, carrying away in the tumult Wellington and Beresford. The French horsemen were now quite exhausted and a reserve of heavy dragoons cut most of them to pieces; yet their invincible leader,