At the base of the heights, where a stream called the Albuera runs, he was posted as an advanced sentinel in a most wild and dreary spot. A wide and desolate plain, stretching away towards Santa Martha, lay before him; black ridges like waves of ink rose behind; and all around were scattered the ghastly remnants of the battle fought on the ground twelve months previously. The night was gloomy and dark, the sky was starless, and not a sound broke the solemn stillness of the hour save the Albuera, brawling and gurgling along that deep and savage-looking ravine, by means of which the French had out-flanked the Spaniards. Excepting the murmur of the mountain-torrent, all was silent as the tomb; not a blade of grass was stirring, and those gloomy fantasies, so apt to fill the strong imagination of a Highlander, arose appallingly before Evan. Anxiously and intently he had fixed his eyes on some shrubbery or tall weeds, which appeared in the twilight afar off. These his heated imagination transformed into battalions of foot and squadrons of horse, advancing stealthily over the plain. He fired his musquet, and retired on the main body of his picquet, which lay within an _abbatis_ composed of cork trees, felled and intertwined for a breast-work around them. The whole camp rose in arms, expecting instantly to be attacked, but the dawn revealed the cause of Evan’s mistake. A few days after Soult had taken possession of Santa Martha, Ronald had the command of one of the picquets thrown out in that direction. All were on the alert, as the enemy were continually expected to advance from their cantonments. The picquet, which consisted of thirty Highlanders, occupied the summit of a rocky eminence; where, piling their arms, they lay down on the green sward to watch the sun, as it verged towards the western horizon, glittering on the polished arms of solitary sentinels and videttes posted at equal distances along the banks of the rocky river, and in front of that dark forest from the bosom of which its waters came. A Spanish sunset is a glorious scene in June, but which of the Highlanders there would have exchanged the Scottish pine or purple heath, for the olive grove or clustering grapes of Spain? Ronald was seated in a grassy nook, employed in conning over the pages of the Madrid _Gaceta_, when he was roused by the trampling of hoofs and clang of harness. He sprang up in time to see the shining helmets of a hundred French cuirassiers flashing in the sun-beams, as they issued successively from a deep and narrow gorge on his left, into which they had contrived to penetrate and advance unseen,—evading thus the sentinels of the other picquets.