before, had fought hard in the bitterest rancour of their souls, now interchanging the most affectionate civilities. I have, in the hurry of my narrative, forgotten a circumstance which reflects honour on the soldier whom it concerns. When on the top of the hill where the action raged most, one of the enemy showed himself most conspicuously, fighting like a hero. He had just shot one of our men close by where I stood, when I made towards him, with a man of the name of Quanbury. Finding that he was receding from us, and again loading, the soldier next me fired, and the man fell upon his knees. Quanbury immediately ran up to him--for he still grasped his firelock--and was in the act of running him through, when the man threw down his arms. Seeing this, the brave Irish soldier stayed his finishing blow, exclaiming, "By the powers, my fine fellow, but it was well you were after doing that self-same thing; for had you shot me as you did that other man, bad luck to me if I wouldn't have blown your brains out; so I would." Here the quarter-master-general came up and took charge of his prisoner, and we passed on to clear the hill of others who were keeping up a heavy fire. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIV. We were still obliged to carry on our approaches with all possible vigilance and activity; and our discipline was not relaxed in the slightest particular. We were compelled to watch the enemy with a jealous eye, not allowing our late little victory to feed our vanity, or to seduce us from our wonted caution. Every eye was now fixed on the hill which was in front of our head approach; and various and ludicrous were the reports and opinions, during the day and night, of the movements on the said hill. Fallen trees were magnified into guns and mortars; variegated bushes into soldiers; the light between the trees into flags; and the midnight _ignis fatuus_, on its nocturnal rambles, into torches and lights of the enemy. The rustling leaves, falling down the wintry glen, were construed into the coming foe; and, had one of our captains been the commander-in-chief, the hill would have been treeless and leafless, for he would have blown them all up instead of the enemy. The glass was never from this gentleman's eye. Could his thoughts and speculations by day and night have been committed to paper, his words would have shone forth in all the radiance of a military vocabulary. What shells would he not have expended upon the poor _ignis fatuus_! All we could do or say, he would not believe us. If he had been our general, we should have been in Khatmandoo, the capital of Nepaul, in half the time. His system was new and wonderful; for, when arguing on the best plan to be adopted, he had always the most happy knack of catching the enemy asleep. But in these notions he happened to have mistaken his men. The Nepaulese soldiers never sleep, or rather, such is their watchfulness, that you can never surprise them. This misconception of