"Lucius, the horsemen are returned from viewing The number, strength, and posture of our foes, Who now encamp within a short hour's march. On the high point of yonder western tower, We ken them from afar, the setting sun Plays on their shining arms and burnished helmets, And covers all the field with gleams of fire." _Cato_, Act v. Ere noon next day, while the division was traversing the grassy plain amid which lies the ancient city of Merida, the sound of distant firing on their right flank announced the repulse, by the guerillas, of some of the cavalry of Laborde's corps, when making a reconnoissance. The light white puffs of the musketry that curled along the green hill-sides, came nearer and nearer, and it soon became known that the band of the formidable De Saldos el Estudiente, above two thousand strong, had joined the division of Sir John Hope; as the newspaper of Lord Rohallion had it, a measure fully arranged "by the skill and courage" of our young volunteer. But though the army continued its march for several days, no recognition of his service, in orders or otherwise, ever reached him from head-quarters, and happily for himself, he saw nothing of the dreaded Baltasar, who fortunately was left in the rear, with an open sabre cut. Ribeaupierre's cavalry brigade abandoned Valencia de Alcantara without firing a shot, on its flank being turned, and fell back, no one knew exactly where or in what direction. Hope's division halted at Merida, a place eminently calculated to excite the deepest interest in the thinking or historical visitor, by its ancient remains; its great bridge of more than eighty arches spanning the broad waters of the Guadiana; the ruins of its Roman castle, which Alfonso the Astrologer gifted to the knights of Santiago, and in the vaults of which Baltasar's guerillas had thrust some unfortunate French prisoners; its triumphal arch of Julius Cæsar, under which the division passed with drums beating and colours flying, and its crumbling amphitheatre:--Merida, of old the Rome of Spain, and the home of the aged and disabled soldiers of the 5th and 10th legions of Augustus Cæsar, whose great pyramid still towers there, amid the ruins of its contemporaries. There was ample accommodation in the town for the officers of the division; but yet not enough to prevent a dispute about rank, or precedence, or something else, between a Captain Winton of the Borderers, and an officer of the German Legion. So they met about daybreak near the Baths of Diana. The former was attended by Askerne of the Grenadiers, and the latter by Major Burgwesel of his own corps, and at the second fire Winton shot his man dead, Cosmo coolly lending his pistols for this occasion, without comment or inquiry, either of which would have been ungentlemanly, according to the temper or spirit of the service then.