He ordered the guns to be unlimbered and their horses to be led out of sight. Then, regiment by regiment, he sent his division onward--20th, 52nd, 91st, and Rifles--pausing only at his trusted 28th, whom he proceeded to post with careful inconspicuousness; the light company behind a low fence in flank of the guns and commanding the bridge, the grenadiers about a hundred yards behind them, and the battalion companies yet a little further to the rear. While the 28th thus disposed themselves, the rest of the division moved off, leaving the guns to all appearance abandoned. The General spread his greatcoat, and seating himself on the slope behind the light company, cheerfully helped himself to snuff from the pocket of his buff-leather waistcoat. Meanwhile the sky had been clearing steadily, and the sunshine, at first so feeble, fell on the slope with almost summer warmth. The 28th, under the lee of the mountain-cliffs, looked up and saw white clouds chasing each other across deep gulfs of blue, looked down and saw the noon rays glinting on their enemy's accoutrements beyond the bridge-head. The French were gathering fast, but could not yet make up their minds to assault. "Our friends," said the General, pouring himself a drink from his pocket-flask, "don't seem in a hurry to add to their artillery." The men of the light company, standing near him, laughed as they munched their rations. For three days they had plodded through snow and sleet with hot hearts, nursing their Commander-in-Chief's reproof at Calcabellos: "You, 28th, are not the men you used to be. You are no longer the regiment who to a man fought by my side in Egypt!" So Moore had spoken, and ridden off contemptuously, leaving the words to sting. They not only stung, but rankled; for to the war-cry of "Remember Egypt!" the 28th always went into action: and they had been rebuked in the presence of Paget, now their General of Division, but once their Colonel, and the very man under whom they had won their proudest title, "the Backplates." It was Paget who, when once in Egypt the regiment had to meet two simultaneous attacks, in front and rear, had faced his rear rank about and gloriously repulsed both charges. At the moment of Moore's reproof Paget had said nothing, and he made no allusion to it now. But the 28th understood. They knew why he had posted them alone here, and why he remained to watch. He was giving them a splendid chance, if a forlorn one. In the recovered sunshine their hearts warmed to him. Unhappily, the French did not seem disposed to walk into the trap. Their fire slackened--from the first it had not been serious--and they loitered by the bridge-end awaiting reinforcements. Yet from time to time they pushed small parties across the fords above and below the bridge; and at length Paget sent a young subaltern up to the crest of the ridge on his flank, to see how many had collected thus on the near side of the stream. The subaltern reported--"Two or three hundred."