I looked round--the room was filled with soldiers--and the only faces I could recall to memory, were the dark and sullen countenances of the two companions of the Empecinado, who were seated on a bench immediately in my front, closely hand-cuffed to each other. Both had received divers sword-cuts on the head; and their coal-black hair, matted with blood, added to a ferocious expression of the features, afforded a perfect picture of a captive brigand. Upon the wounded partidas, looks of deadly vengeance were directed by all who surrounded them. Many of the chasseurs had been wounded; and in the recent affair, five of their companions had fallen; and one, whom they all regarded, the second in command, and a young officer of great promise, had been stabbed to the heart by the Empecinado. “Where am I? Where are my companions?” I muttered. “Escaped!” returned one of the wounded guerillas, with swage exultation. “Escaped, my friend; to take ample vengeance for thee and me upon these murderers.” “Silence!” dog exclaimed a chasseur, striking the captive a sharp blow upon the shoulder with the flat of his sabre-blade. I never witnessed such a look as the insulted, but impotent guerilla directed at the Frenchman. Could rage, and hatred, and revenge, be concentrated in a glance, that look expressed them all. “Oh, that this hand were free,” he murmured; “and that it clutched the knife that never failed it yet; and then, robber--.” He left the sentence incomplete; but none required further words to convey its purport. A noise without, was heard. It was the measured step of marching men and in a few minutes the _elite_ companies of the 16th Voltigeurs, entered and piled arms in the court-yard. Whatever was the cause of this military movement, its scale seemed far too extensive for the mere purpose of arresting two or three individuals who had made themselves obnoxious to the invaders; and this suspicion was confirmed, when it was announced that Colonel La Coste, the chief of General Laval’s staff, had arrived in person, to direct the _promenade militaire_, as the Frenchman termed this midnight expedition. CHAPTER XXIX. THE EXECUTION. “_Charles_. Be not afraid of danger or of death; for over us presides a destiny, which cannot be controlled. We all hasten to the fatal day: die we must, whether upon a bed of down, the field of battle, or the scaffold; one of these must be our lot.”--The Robbers.