Evaña descended at once to his own house, and going to an inner patio where his horse was tied under a shed, he saddled him himself, led him out into the street, mounted, and rode off. As he passed along he saw many men looking out from the doors of their houses, stopping the market-people or the milkmen as they trotted in on their mules and raw-boned horses, and questioning them. He drew rein once or twice and listened to what was said, but the information he thus gleaned amounted to nothing at all, so pressing his horse to a sharp canter he went on more rapidly, had passed the suburbs and was among the quintas, when again he heard the sound of musketry. This time it was no longer the irregular dropping fire of skirmishers, it was the regular file firing of trained infantry hotly engaged, and presently mingled with it came the thunder of artillery. Evaña drove his spurs into his horse's flanks and galloped on at full speed, but ere he reached the scene of action the firing had ceased, and light clouds of grey smoke drifting away were all that he could see of the recent conflict. Passing a hollow without slacking speed, he was soon on the open ground, and Perdriel lay before him. Pickets of grey-coated infantry were marching away from him, while beyond the plain was dotted with flying horsemen. Now and then one of these pickets would halt, there was a shimmer of glistening steel as their muskets fell to the "present," there was a flash of fire and a light cloud of smoke, then on marched the infantry as before. Further and further away galloped the horsemen, and Evaña saw that the rout of his own countrymen was complete. He knew that it would be so, he had said that their victory would be a misfortune, but the sight was not pleasant to him. He felt that he would rather himself have been one of those panic-stricken horsemen, flying for their lives after hazarding them for their country, than be as he now was, a passive spectator of the scene.