"You ought to. Am I a bullock-driver, Sir, or a muleteer? And in this country"--with a sharp wave of his hand--"can I breed full-grown mules or bullocks at a moment's notice to repair your d----d incompetence? Or, knowing me, have you the assurance to tell me coolly that you have lost--yes, lost--the treasure committed to you?--to confess that you, who ought to be a day's march ahead of the main body, are hanging back upon the rearmost company of the rearguard?--and come to me whining when that company is actually engaged with the enemy? Look, Sir"--and it seemed to some of the 28th that their General mischievously prolonged his address to give the Assistant-Paymaster a taste of rearguard work, for Soult's heavy columns were by this time pressing near to the entrance of the defile--"Observe the kind of strife in which we have been engaged since dawn; reflect that our tempers must needs be short; and congratulate yourself that, if this mountain be bare of fresh bullocks, it also fails to supply a handy tree." The little man waited no longer on the road, along which French bullets were beginning to whistle, but clambered on his horse, and galloped off with hunched shoulders to rejoin his carts. The rearguard, galled now by musketry and finding that, for all their floundering, the enemy were creeping past the rocky barrier below, retired in good order but briskly, and so, in about twenty minutes, overtook the two treasure-carts and their lines of exhausted cattle. Plainly this procession had come to the end of its powers and could not budge: and as plainly the officers in charge of it were at loggerheads. Paget surveyed the scene, his brow darkening thunderously: for, of the guns he had sent forward to overtake the reserve, two stood planted to protect the carts, and the artillery-captain in charge of them was being harangued by the fuming Assistant-Paymaster, while the actual guard of the treasure--a subaltern's party of the 4th (King's Own)--stood watching the altercation in surly contempt. Now the 28th and the King's Own were old friends, having been brigaded together through the early days of the campaign. As Paget rode forward they exchanged hilarious grins. "Pray, Sir," he addressed the artilleryman, "why are you loitering here when ordered to overtake the main body with all speed? And what are you discussing with this person?" "The Colonel, Sir, detached me at this officer's request." "Hey?" Paget swung round on the Assistant-Paymaster. "You _dared_ to interfere with an order of mine? And, having done so, you forbore to tell me, just now, the extent of your impudence!" "But--but the bullocks can go no farther!" stammered the poor man. "And if so, who is responsible? Are _you, Sir_?" Paget demanded suddenly of the subaltern.