Lieut.-Col. Beckwith alone remained, and, before he rode off, walked round the sentinels with me, as I was ordered to defend the post, should the enemy come on, to oblige them fully to develope their intentions. Shortly after this, one of the sentinels stationed on the most rising ground, turned his back to the French and beckoned me. On my reaching his post, he informed me that he had seen a mountain-gun brought on a mule's back, and placed behind a bush. In a few minutes the Duke of Dalmatia, with about forty staff officers, came within point-blank range of my picquet to reconnoitre the ground. During this interval, I fancied that I could hear the buzz of voices behind a small hillock, and, on clambering a fruit-tree near my picquet-house, I could just descry a column of the enemy lying down, in readiness to pounce on us. There being no longer any doubt that they were about to attack, I instantly mounted my horse, (leaving the company in charge of the next senior officer,) and rode at full speed in search of the general, whom I met within a quarter of a mile, and told him there would be a general action fought that day, and there was no time to be lost. Sir James Kempt ordered me to send a mounted officer from the picquet to Gen. Baron C. Alten, and to be sure not to begin the firing until the very last moment. He sent also the greater part of another company to my assistance. In two or three minutes after I had returned to the picquet, some French soldiers, headed by an officer, issued from behind the hedges, and moved round our left flank, within one hundred yards. The officer naturally thought we should fire at him; therefore, to feign indifference, he placed his telescope to his eye, looked carelessly about in all directions, and made a bow to us. Further to the left, we could also see a body of French cavalry debouching from the small thicket of la Bourdique, three miles distant, near the great Bayonne road.