"Comrades, should it please high Heaven That we see Castile once more,— Though we now go forth as outcasts, Sad, dishonoured, homeless, poor,— We’ll return with glory laden, And the spoilings of the Moor." _The Cid._ About the middle of October the legions of Marshals Jourdan and Soult, having formed a junction, advanced, under the command of the latter, fifty thousand strong, from Valencia on Madrid, and in a short time arrived within a few leagues of Aranjuez. Combining his forces with those of Generals Elio and Freire, and with the Spaniards of Don Carlos de Espagna, Sir Rowland Hill, at the head of forty thousand well-tried soldiers, moved to meet them, commencing his march from Aranjuez on the 23rd of October. Many a sorrowful farewell was said that morning, and many a bright eye grew dim as the retiring sound of the British drums died away among the windings of the Tagus. Crossing the latter, immediately below the walls of the palace, the division marched to Colmenare de Orijo, a town of Toledo. Here different brigades were posted at the several fords of the Tagus, by which Soult’s infantry might attempt to pass. That at Fuente Duenna fell to the lot of the first brigade. On the second day after their bivouacking there, a party of the enemy’s cavalry were seen approaching the river, either to cross or reconnoitre. The light company of the Gordon Highlanders, and Captain Blacier’s company of the German rifles, were ordered to receive them at the ford. Unluckily for himself, Lisle accompanied "the light bobs" on this occasion as a volunteer, in place of an officer who was sick. Seaton commanded the whole, and he placed the companies in ambush among some laurel-bushes, willows, and long reeds which grew by the water-side, overlooking the place where the dragoons must cross if such was their intention. The Highlanders knelt down on the right knee, but the Germans, who were posted among the reeds, lay flat on the ground, and levelled their short rifles over the glazed tops of their shakoes, which they placed before them. All were ready to let fly a volley among the unsuspecting Frenchmen, who came forward at a gallop with their carbines unslung. The party consisted of nearly eighty heavy dragoons. An officer of cuirassiers and two others in staff uniform accompanied them. They drew their bridles at the brink of the river, and from his place of concealment Stuart recognised his friend De Mesmai in the cuirassier; and in one of the staff officers Monsieur Law, the Baron de Clappourknuis, in the other their late host at Aranjuez, the Duke of Alba de T——. "Stuart," whispered Lisle, "is it possible, that the officer without the epaulets is really the duke?" "Without doubt ’tis he." "How base and treacherous!"