“I turned, to find there had just come up a general officer and his staff, with a picket of ten men. The General himself stepped forward at my salute and put his hand on my drum, that shone brightly in the light of the conflagrations. “‘What the deuce do you mean, sir,’ said he with heat, ‘by coming into action with my brother’s drum? You know very well it is not for these occasions.’ “‘The ordinary drums of the regiment were lost on Monday last, sir,’ I said, ‘when we were fording the Agueda through the broken ice.’ And then, with a happy thought, I added, ‘Kildalton’s drums are none the worse for taking part in the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. This was the first drum through the walls.’ “He looked shrewdly at me and gave a little smile. ‘H’m,’ he muttered, ‘perhaps not, perhaps not, after all. My brother would have been pleased, if he had been alive, to know his drums were here this night. Where is the other one?’ “‘The last I saw of it, sir,’ I answered, ‘was in the ditch, and Colin Archibald, corporal, lying on his stomach over it.’ “‘Dead?’ “‘Dead, I think, sir.’ “‘H’m!’ said the General. ‘I hope my brother’s drum’s all right, at any rate.’ He turned and cried up the picket. ‘I want you, drummer,’ he said, ‘to go up that lane with this picket, playing the assembly. You understand? These devils fighting and firing there have already shot at three of my officers, and are seemingly out of their wits. We will give them a last chance. I don’t deny there is danger in what I ask you to do, but it has to be done. The men in there are mostly of Pack’s Portuguese and the dregs of our own corps. If they do not come out with you I shall send in a whole regiment to them and batter their brains out against the other end, if the place is, as I fancy, a _cul-de-sac_. March!’ “I went before the picket with my drum rattling and my heart in my mouth. The pillagers came round us jeering, others assailed us more seriously by throwing from upper windows anything they could conveniently lay hand on (assuming it was too large or too valueless to pocket), but we were little the worse till in a lamentable moment of passion one of the picket fired his musket at a window. A score of pieces flashed back in response, and five of our company fell, while we went at a double for the end of the lane. “‘By Heaven!’ cried the sergeant when we reached it, ‘here’s a fine thing!’ The General had been right—it was a _cul-de-sac_! There was nothing for us then but to return.