"Forward! double quick!" was the word; and, with their rustling colours bending forward on the breeze, the first brigade pressed onward at their utmost speed down the descent towards the city, and through its deserted streets, making their echoes ring to the clank of accoutrements, and the rapid and rushing tread of many feet. The ultimate escape of the enemy was favoured by the delay caused in providing planks to cross the blown-up arch of the Roman bridge. Rafters and flooring were, without ceremony, torn from some neighbouring houses, thrown hurriedly across the gap, and onward again swept the impatient infantry, eager to come up with, to encounter, and capture this little band, which had so adroitly eluded them. But for that evening they saw them no more; and after a fruitless pursuit for some miles, returned to Merida wearied and fatigued, when the shadows of night had begun to darken the sky and scenery. Followed by ours, the enemy’s cavalry had retired at a gallop along the level road to Almendralejo; often they turned on the way to shout "_Vive l’Empereur!_" to brandish their swords, or fire a shot, which now and then stretched a British dragoon rolling in the dust. As the first brigade were returning towards Merida, a mournful episode in my narrative came under their observation,—one which calls forth all the best feelings of the soldier, when the wild excitement of the hour of conflict has passed away. Near one of those rude wooden crosses so common by the way-side in Spain, placed to mark a spot where murder has been committed, lay an English troop-horse in the agonies of death; the froth and blood, oozing from its quivering nostrils, rolled around in a puddle, while kicking faintly with its hoofs, it made deep indentations in the smooth grassy turf. Beside it lay the rider, with his glittering accoutrements scattered all about. His foot was entangled in the stirrup, by which he appeared to have been dragged a long way, as his uniform was torn to pieces, and his body was soiled with clay and dust. A carbine-shot had passed through his brain, and he was lying stark and stiff; his smart chako had rolled away, and the features of a dashing English dragoon,—the once gay Evelyn, were exposed to view. Beside the corse, weeping in speechless sorrow and agony, sat his wife,—the same interesting young lady who had that morning drank from Ronald’s canteen at the fountain. Her face was ashy pale,—pale even as that of her dead soldier,—and she seemed quite unconscious of the approach of the Highlanders, who could not be restrained from making an involuntary halt. Her hat and veil had fallen off, permitting her fair curls to stream over her neck and shoulders: she uttered no sound of woe or lamentation, but sat with her husband’s head resting on her lap, gazing on his face with a wild and terrible expression, while her little white hands were bedabbled with the blood which clotted his curly hair. From