The dead, 436 in number, were thrown into the ditch; the ramparts, with eighteen cannon, were hurled over them; the stone towers were blown up; the barracks and storehouses burned down; and the whole place laid bare. In the general pillage which ensued, a Highlander became mutinous to Cameron, who raised his claymore to cut him down; but the descending blow was turned aside by a sergeant, named Taylor, who kindly interposed his pike between them. Even when the gust of passion passed away, Cameron could not forgive the affront of Taylor's interference before his men, and was headstrong enough to resent it in the following manner: When the sergeants drew lots for the command of a firing party to shoot a deserter at Coria, Taylor escaped this hateful ballot, but nevertheless Cameron ordered him to take charge of the execution. Taylor gave him a glance full of reproach, and burst into tears, yet he obeyed, and shot the culprit dead. Then Cameron repented the casual malevolence which is sometimes to be found even yet among the Celts, when an affront has been given them. At Merida, he was pall-bearer during the grand military funeral generously bestowed on the commandant of Almarez, who had been slain there by an officer of the 71st Highlanders, and who was buried with the honours due to a British officer of the same rank. Cameron's native dislike to receive orders from seniors, his jealousy of the 71st, and _Old Half-hundred_, involved him in many quarrels with Colonels Cadogan and Stuart, and even in an angry correspondence with Wellington. It was then currently rumoured in the Highland regiments, that the great Duke had some dislike to their nation. The Gordon Highlanders added, that he viewed coldly old Sir William Stuart, Fassifern, and Major Mitchell, from whom they averred that he withheld many honours to which they were entitled. What amount of truth these rumours contained, it is _now_ impossible to learn. High words ensued on one occasion between the colonel and his great leader, to whom he said:-- "My Lord Marquis, thank God! I am beholden to no man for my bread--not even to the service, for I have a comfortable home to retire to whenever I please." The real source of this bitterness of feeling is unknown; but it continued during the whole war. On one occasion his pride revolted at General Howard for keeping the regiment too long under arms before inspection! and he sent Lieutenant Grant to the Brigadier's billet with a brief message, "that the regiment awaited him."