As the column emerged from the hollow upon the level plain they heard a confused murmur of voices which came to them from a distance through the clear morning air, the patriot levies were already astir. As they drew near the quinta, under whose fence Lieutenant Gordon had left his men, they heard a shout and saw some of the Highlanders rush out from their concealment. The approach of the column had been perceived by a small party which had passed the night at this quinta, the horses of which were picketed inside the fence. Several men had mounted hurriedly and were now trying to make their escape. The Highlanders ran to the tranquera on the south side the quinta, and stopped their exit by that passage, making prisoners of two who tried to burst through; but there was another exit in the western fence where the hedge had been broken down by stray cattle, by which others made good their escape, and galloped off to the main camp. The column immediately deployed and advanced in line, with one company and the two guns in reserve. The Highland light company on the right had orders to advance upon and occupy the further quinta itself, the main body keeping more to the left, where the blue smoke curling up in long spirals from the watch-fires gave token of an encampment. The Quinta de Perdriel was a large enclosure, one half of which was planted with trees. The buildings consisted of a large, flat-roofed house, stretching round two sides of a patio. Another side of this patio was shut in by a low wall with an iron gateway in the centre, which ran in a line with the fence, and the remaining side was occupied by a confused group of ranchos which stretched back some fifty yards into the quinta. The shape of the enclosure was an oblong, the fence was the usual shallow ditch backed by an aloe hedge, along which arose here and there the tall stems on which it is said that the aloe carries a flower once only in every hundred years. The hedge was in many places eight feet high and quite impenetrable, but there were numerous gaps through which a man might easily force his way if he could scramble up the bank and did not mind a few scratches. The quinta house and out-buildings stood on the southern face of the enclosure; the attacking column approached it from the south-east, and the encampment lay beyond, outside the western fence. A horseman rode at full gallop into the patio of the quinta, other horsemen rushed madly about the encampment; all shouted the same warning cry: "Los Ingleses! Los Ingleses!!"