Having posted his line of sentries to the best advantage, showing them in what direction they were to keep a "sharp look-out,"—the direction where Marshal Soult lay,—he returned to the spot, where, stretched upon the turf among the rest of the soldiers, he lay listening to the distant thunder of artillery, and watching the lurid light which filled the horizon, continually increasing and waning as the tide of conflict turned on the battlements of Badajoz. More vividly at times the red light flashed across the sky, and louder at times came the boom of the heavy cannon, as the salvoes were discharged against the walls of the doomed city; and while the soldiers looked and listened, they thought of the blood and slaughter in which they might soon bear a part, should the present besiegers fail in the assault. Although at that hour hundreds—ay, thousands, were being swept into eternity, the soldiers cared not for it, apparently; many a tale was told at which they laughed heartily, and many a reminiscence narrated of Bergen-op-Zoom, Egmont-op-Zee, Mandora, Coruna, and other fields and countless frays, in which some of them had borne a part. It was a fine moonlight night: the most distant part of the plain could be distinctly seen, and the myriads of stars shone joyously, as if to rival the radiance of their queen, while every blade of grass, and every leaf of the scattered shrubbery, so common on Spanish plains, glittered as if edged with liquid silver. From the dark village of Lobon, and the white glimmering tents of the encampment, arose the hum of voices; from the plain through which wound the Guadiana, came the murmur of its current; and save these, no sound broke the stillness of the hour but the roar of Badajoz, which growled and sounded afar like thunder among distant hills. While Ronald was regaling himself upon a mess, consisting of a few ounces of ration-beef fried in a camp-kettle lid, with a handful of garbanzos or beans, which Evan had brought him from the adjacent village, his attention was aroused by the glitter of steel on the plain, advancing, as he imagined, from the direction where Soult was known to be, and from which he was expected to make some demonstration to relieve General Phillipon’s garrison. Ronald was instantly on the alert. He sprang to his feet,—ordered the picquet to "stand to their arms," himself advancing a little to the front, to reconnoitre. Perhaps there is no situation more exciting to any officer, especially a young one, than out-picquet duty: he is left to act entirely for himself,—to rely on his own judgment, and so much depends upon him in many ways, that he is apt to grow bewildered. The responsibility is indeed great, when the very fate of a kingdom may depend on the alertness of his sentinels, and the posts he has assigned to them.