After dark our sentinels were withdrawn, for the purpose of taking post on our original picquet ground. The company I commanded held a small promontory, or tongue of land, which jutted out considerably beyond all the other line of picquets; and, without doubt, was a most precarious post, as neither flank was secure: and the sentinels were planted on a half-circle, to shield the main body of the picquet. Notwithstanding the ground was so disadvantageous, it was necessary to hold it, as it commanded the debouché of the road from Bayonne by Bassussary. During the night we heard confused sounds, like the rumbling of artillery, intermixed with a good deal of hallooing and barking of dogs; but two hours before daybreak all the sounds died away, and every thing was hushed and tranquil. The suspicion, however, of the field officer of the picquets was awakened, and he ordered me to feel my way towards the house of Oyhenart usually held by the French, to ascertain whether they had taken up the ground from which they had been driven on the previous day. Four soldiers accompanied me, but, as good luck would have it, I could not pass the abattis, composed of trees, which had been cut down to stop up the broad road, and to cover our picquet-house. We then crossed into a field, and, stealing along close to the right of the road, as cautiously as possible, waited the French sentinels' well-known _qui vive_. Suddenly I felt the serjeant pulling at the skirts of my jacket, (for I had thrown off my cloak as an incumbrance,) and he whispered me to cast my eyes to the left, where I saw about a dozen Frenchmen, within six yards of us, gliding along the road towards our _abattis_, I think, without shoes, for they did not make the least noise. A small hedge screened us; the serjeant was about to fire, but I put his fusee down with my hand, and we all squatted in the mud, anxiously awaiting the result. Time hung on leaden wings, and they were almost entangled in the branches of the felled trees before our sentry discovered and challenged them; but not being quite certain of the cause of the slight noise, he did not fire, and presently these grey-coated phantom-looking figures came running past us, with noiseless footsteps: we then made good haste back, having been, according to our calculation, within ten or twelve yards of their sentry, who was usually planted behind a hedge which flanked their picquet-house, distant from ours two hundred yards.