The lines of the latter were now established along the heights of Maya. The whole of the mountains were enveloped in a dense fog; a tremendous storm of rain succeeded, but the troops, the unhappy out-picquets excepted, were snug under canvas. But there were exposed the hundreds of killed and wounded, who could neither be sought nor attended to then, and who lay scattered over miles of contested ground, under all the fury of the pitiless elements. For the dead it mattered not; but many of the wounded expired during the raging of the storm, which accelerated their end. Seated in his tent, on the sloping sides of which the rain was rushing down, Stuart wrote letters for Inchavon-house and Lochisla. He found their composition no easy task, as the candle, which was stuck in a bottle, flickered in the wind, and sputtered with the rain-drops which oozed through the canvas sides of his bell-shaped covering. He held out hopes of his speedy return,—but he had often done so before; for every new victory was deemed by the troops a precursor of peace, and of return to their native homes. * * * * Having now gained the important heights of Maya, Lord Wellington retired to join another part of his army. The celebrated pass was left to the care of Fassifern with the first brigade, which encamped on the very summit of the hills, where the high road from the fertile vale of El Bastan descends to France. The second brigade was posted in a valley to the right, and the Portuguese of the Condé d’Amarante occupied a mountain in front of the hamlet of Erraza, where a brigade of the same nation was quartered, under the command of Colonel Ashworth. The 82nd (Prince of Wales’s Volunteers) occupied another part of the hills, about two miles off; and to these troops was left the defence of the pass of Maya, for which they were to fight to the last gasp,—orders which, when the time came, were faithfully and nobly performed. *CHAPTER VIII.* *PASS OF MAYA.—PYRENEES.* "Again the kelpie nichered loud, And gloated o’er his prey; And the victims in the mountain pass, Like tigers, stood at bay; The first fire thinned the Scottish ranks— Childe Sinclair hit the ground, And as his life-blood oozed away, He moaned—" _Massacre of Kringellan_:—Vedder. A month elapsed without the sound of a shot being heard, and the troops at the passes of Maya and Roncesvalles lay quietly encamped and unmolested amidst the fine scenery of the Pyrenees. The weather was now remarkably agreeable, and the officers procured plenty of wine from Elizondo and other Navarese towns in their rear, and they were beginning to be as comfortable as it is possible for troops to be under canvas. But a cloud was gathering in the valleys of Gascony below them.