Under a gothic canopy lay the marble effigy of a warrior of the days that are gone. It was the tomb of one of the Villa Franca family. He was represented in armour, and lying at full length, with his hands crossed on his bosom. The canopied recess had been made a receptacle for the caps and knapsacks of dead men, which were without ceremony piled above the figure of the Spanish cavalier. A tattered pennon, a rusty casque, and a time-worn sword, hung over the niche, where a marble tablet announced it to be the tomb of the noble knight Don Rodrigo de Villa Franca:—"_Muerto en una batalia con los Moros, a diez de Noviembre, del año de mil y viente y siete._"[*] [*] "Slain by the Moors in battle, the 10th November of the year 1027." In front of this ancient tomb lay D’Estouville. Alas! how much ten days of pain and suffering had changed the gallant young Frenchman! He was stretched on a pile of bloody straw, stripped to his shirt and regimental trowsers. A large bandage, clotted and gory, encircled his head, and his once very handsome features were sadly changed; they were sunken and hollow, pale and emaciated to the last degree. He lay motionless, with his eyes closed; but his lips were parted, and he respired through his clenched teeth with difficulty. His head rested on a knapsack, placed under it by an honest Irishman of the 50th, who lay on his left smoking a short black pipe, while he surveyed, with a composed but rueful look, the stump of his right arm. On the other side lay a Gordon Highlander, quivering in the agonies of death: a shot had lodged in his breast, and he too had been given up as incurable by the medical officers. The agony he endured had brought on a delirium; he was chanting, in low and muttering tones, a sad and plaintive Gaelic dirge,—probably the death-song of his race; and as his voice sunk and died away, the bold spirit of the Son of the Mist seemed to pass with it. "_Morbleu!_ poor Victor!" said De Mesmai. "Ah! messieurs,—surely he is not dead?" At the sound of the French exclamation D’Estouville opened his eyes, and attempted in vain to raise his head; but a faint smile of recognition passed over his pale features as he beheld Ronald Stuart, and gazed on the well-known uniform of De Mesmai. "Poor fellow!" continued the latter, while a tear glistened in his eye, as he knelt down and took the hand of Victor; "he is evidently far gone. Many a merry bout we have had together at old Marcel’s, and many a midnight frolic with the girls and gens d’armes in the Rue de la Conference; but these times have all passed now, and can never be again. Speak to me, my friend! How is your wound?" "_Les malheurs de la guerre! Ah, De Mesmai, mon ami, les malheurs de la guerre!_" muttered the wounded man, and sunk backward on his miserable bed; then pointing to his head he added, "_A mon camarade—blessure—où—où—plaie mortelle!_"