The regiments lurched by sullenly, savagely. They were red-eyed with want of sleep and weary from an overnight march of thirty-five miles; and they had feasted their fill of these sights. On this side of Herrerias, for example, they had passed a group of three men, a woman, and a child, lying dead in a circle around a broken cask and a frozen pool of rum. And at Nogales they had drained a wine-vat, to discover its drowned owner at the bottom. They themselves were sick and shaking with abstinence after drunkenness; heavy with shame, too. For though incomparably better behaved than the main body, the reserve had disgraced themselves once or twice, and incurred a stern lesson from Paget, their General. On a low hill before Calcabellos he had halted them, formed them in a hollow square with faces inwards, set up his triangles, and flogged the drunkards collected during the night by the patrols. Then, turning to two culprits taken in the act of robbing a peaceful Spaniard, he had them brought forward with ropes around their necks and hoisted, under a tree, upon the shoulders of the provost-marshal's men. While the ropes were being knotted to the branches overhead, an officer rode up at a gallop to report that the French were driving in our picquets on the other side of the hill. "I am sorry for it, Sir," answered Paget; "but though _that_ angle of the square should be attacked, I shall hang these villains in _this_ one." After a minute's silence he asked his men, "If I spare these two, will you promise me to reform?" There was no answer. "If I spare these men, shall I have your word of honour as soldiers that you will reform?" Still the men kept silence, until a few officers whispered them to say "Yes," and at once a shout of "Yes!" broke from every corner of the square. This had been their lesson, and from Calcabellos onward the division had striven to keep its word. But a sullen flame burned in their sick bodies; and when they fought they fought viciously, as men with a score to wipe off and a memory to drown. A few hours ago they had resembled scarecrows rather than British soldiers; now, having ransacked at Nogales a train of carts full of Spanish boots and clothing--which had been sent thither by mistake and lay abandoned, without mules, muleteers, or guards--they showed a medley of costumes. Some wore grey breeches, others blue; some black boots, others white, others again black and white together; while not a few carried several pairs slung round their necks. Some had wrapped themselves in _ponchos_, others had replaced the regulation greatcoat with a simple blanket. But, wild crew as they seemed, they swung down the road in good order, kept steady by discipline and the fighting spirit and a present sense of the enemy close at hand.