I was not one of the party engaged on that occasion, but with many of my brother officers, watched their proceedings with my spy-glass from the church-yard of Alverca. Our rejoicings on the flight of the enemy were quickly turned into mourning by observing in the procession of our returning victorious party, the gallant adjutant's well-known bay horse with a dead body laid across the saddle. We at first indulged in the hope that he had given it to the use of some more humble comrade; but long ere they reached the village we became satisfied that the horse was the bearer of the inanimate remains of his unfortunate master, who but an hour before had left us in all the vigour of health, hope, and manhood. At dawn of day on the following morning the officers composing the advanced guard, dragoons, artillery, and riflemen, were seen voluntarily assembled in front of Sir Sidney Beckwith's quarters, and the body, placed in a wooden chest, was brought out and buried there amid the deep but silent grief of the spectators. Brief, however, is the space which can be allotted to military lamentations in such times, for within a quarter of an hour we were again on the move in battle array, to seek laurels or death in another field. Our movement that morning was upon Guarda, the highest standing town in Portugal, which is no joke, as they are rather exalted in their architectural notions--particularly in convent-building--and were even a thunder-charged cloud imprudent enough to hover for a week within a league of their highest land, I verily believe that it would get so saddled with monks, nuns, and their accompanying iron bars, that it would be ultimately unable to make its escape. Our movement, as already said, was upon Guarda, and how it happened, the Lord and Wellington only knows, but even in that wild mountainous region the whole British army arriving from all points of the compass were seen to assemble there at the same instant, and the whole French army were to be seen at the same time in rapid retreat within gun-shot through the valley below us. There must have been some screws loose among our minor departments, otherwise such a brilliant movement on the part of our chief would not have gone for nothing. But notwithstanding that the enemy's masses were struggling through a narrow defile for a considerable time, and our cavalry and horse artillery were launched against them, three hundred prisoners were the sole fruits of the day's work. CHAP. VII. The persecution of the guardian of two angels. A Caçadore and his mounted followers. A chief of hussars in his trousers. A chief of rifles in his glory, and a sub of ditto with two screws in the neck.