The evening had begun to deepen into the darker shadows of night, and the pale evening star, twinkling amidst the blushing blaze of the western sky, had risen above the wood of La Nava, when the sturdy muleteers, collecting their beasts of burden, moved off with much noise, jollity, and cracking of whips in the direction of the place where they meant to pass the night,—an inn on the road to Majorga. Ronald Stuart bade them farewell, and receiving many honest wishes for success, parted from them; and, followed by his two soldiers, left the fountain, making straight for the cork forest, the dark foliage of which lay involved in "a brown horror" before them. It was a clear and beautiful moonlight night when they reached the skirts of the wood, whence, on looking back, they beheld a red light, which spread over the sky, rising in the direction of Merida, telling that the French were at their old work,—pillage and ruthless devastation. Stuart trembled for the safety of the fair friends he had left behind, and earnestly trusted that the Count d’Erlon’s letter would protect them from insult or outrage. "Braw wark at Merida this bonnie nicht, sir," observed Evan, giving a last look to the rear ere they plunged into the recesses of the forest. "My certie! the very lift seems a’ in a low, the clouds are red wi’ streaks o’ fire,—and here’s Pedro, puir gomeril! he is like to gang clean daft at the sicht o’t." "You would not be in a very pleasant humour yourself, Evan, were you to see the clachan of Strathfillan, or the ’fair city’ of Perth, blazing by the hands of invaders; and Jessie Cavers, perhaps—ay, even your Jessie, carried off like a stricken deer across the saddle-bow of a French dragoon." "Sic waefu’ things will never happen at hame in auld Scotland, God be praised for’t! never, sir, while oor men are made o’ the stuff they are; the broad-sword has bent, but it has not yet broken! But it’s unco droll to hear how Pedro, puir chield, havers to himsel."