"You will undertake it then?" said the alcaide, and, reading an indignant affirmative in the doctor's looks, he led the way to a camp, at a short distance from the village, where the paralytic general was sitting in a kind of throne, placed without his tent, and surrounded by the principal officers of his staff; the electrical machine, a large, clumsy, heavy-looking thing, standing before him. The doctor looked with dismay at this unwieldy apparatus, so different from his own neat, powerful compendium of science, as he was wont to call it; and saw with infinite horror that even its construction was totally different from those he had been accustomed to. His natural vanity and presumption, however, revolted from making this mortifying acknowledgment, particularly after the boasts he had been indulging in to the alcaide; and, relying upon his general knowledge of the principles of science, he walked boldly up to the machine, with as much composure and self-confidence as though he had been accustomed to the management of it all his life. A considerable trepidation, however, crept over him as he examined it and found its movements intricate and complicated in the extreme; and his hands trembled, and a thick film came over his eyes, as he attempted to charge and adjust the cylinder. No time, however, was allowed for deliberation; he was ordered to apply it instantly; and, terrified by the recollection of the prompt manner in which the Spaniards were accustomed to make themselves obeyed, and the already long and severe imprisonment he had undergone, he set it in motion: an unlucky wire, however, which he did not quite understand, pointed upwards, and he tried in vain to arrange it; he tried again, but was instantly felled to the ground by a tremendous shock, whilst a loud crash of thunder burst with violence over his head, and a vivid flash of lightning proclaimed that the ill-managed machine had drawn down the electric fluid from a heavy cloud, that happened unfortunately to be just above them, upon the head of the unfortunate general, whom it scorched to a cinder, levelling some of his officers to the earth, and scattering the rest in all directions. For the moment, the doctor himself was blinded by the sudden light, and, when he recovered his sight, the first thing that met his eyes was his friend the alcaide sticking fast by the skirts of his coat in a hedge.