On, and on yet! and at last it was found necessary, at Nogales, to abandon the military chest. Why its contents were not distributed among the troops it is difficult to say, unless that time would have been lost by the process of division. Two bullock-carts, laden with twenty-five thousand pounds in dollars, were backed over a lofty precipice, and fell crashing from the summit among the rocks and snow beneath; and then as the waggons broke and the casks burst, the broad silver dollars flew far and wide. It was hoped that this money would escape the observation of the French, and so fall into the hands of the Spaniards. Part was found by the former, part by the Gallician peasantry, and a Highland tradition tells us of a thrifty Scots paymaster who contrived to conceal a cask or two under a certain cork-tree, where he found the specie all safe when he went back to Spain for it, after Toulouse; and that he bought therewith a snug little estate on the shore of the Moray Firth. At the very time that the bullock-carts with the treasure were cast over the precipice, by some absurd mistake, Quentin's battalion, with two pieces of cannon, were engaged with the enemy in order _to protect it_! Evening was coming on, and shimmering through the slanting sheet, a cloud of French cavalry passed along the snowy and miry way, while the two field guns were ploughing lanes of death through their ranks; but still with brandished sabres and cries of "Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur!" they came on thundering to the attack. "Square against cavalry!" was now the cry; "square on the grenadiers!" It was formed double-quick, and a smile of grim joy spread over every sallow and weather-beaten face as the toil-worn and tattered regiment made the movement, enclosing many of the wounded foes as well as friends. The light company formed the rear face of the square. Cosmo was undoubtedly brave, for a lofty expression of pride and defiance spread over his features on beholding the rapidity with which the square was formed. Jolly old Middleton drew off his gloves and stuck them in his belt; he then flourished an enormous sabre, so rusty and notched in the edge that it was known as "Jock Middleton's hand-saw," saying-- "I like to use my tools, lads, without mittens; the cat that wore gloves never caught mice." The officers dressed the four faces as well as the shattered and unequal state of the companies could form them now. Sending a last discharge of grape plunging into the masses of the foe, the gunners rushed for shelter behind the wall of bayonets, and now through the gloom of evening, the wrack, mist, and smoke, on came the French dragoons like rolling thunder! As the ground was tolerably open the square was approached on three faces.