Soon after the regiment arrived at Banos, the sentence of Angus Mackie was ordered to be put in execution, having been approved of by the proper authorities. On the retreat from Burgos some symptoms of insubordination had appeared among the other brigades, when the soldiers became maddened by the miseries they underwent; an officer of "the buffs" had been shot by a soldier of that regiment. In other corps discipline seemed almost set at nought, and it was determined that an example should be made. The private of the 3rd regiment was hanged, and Angus Mackie, who, although far less criminal, had been convicted of desertion and insubordination, was sentenced to be shot to death in presence of his comrades, who among themselves deeply pitied and deplored that so gallant a lad should suffer so severe a sentence for his exaggerated crime. No charge of injustice could be laid to the account of the court which tried him, the "finding" of its members having been regulated by the stern but necessary articles of the Mutiny Act. Many months had passed away since his trial; the first excitement of the affair had died away, and during all that time he had been confined in the dreary fort of Coria,—a sufficient punishment alone for the crime he had committed. This unhappy affair cast a gloom over the whole regiment,—a gloom which was apparent in every face, as the unwilling Highlanders paraded in the valley of Banos to witness his execution. It was in the month of May 1813; the evening was a still and beautiful one. The sun was verging towards the west, and his crimson rays streamed through the deep dark dell, upon the vine-clad cottages and sylvan amphitheatre of Banos. Concentrated in that narrow and gloomy glen, where the immense mountains rose on every side to the height of many hundred feet, and where crags and rocks shot up in cones and fantastic spires, almost excluding the light of day from the little huts at the bottom of the dell, were the seventeen infantry regiments of the second division, together with the cavalry, drawn up on the steep faces of the hills, so that the rear ranks might overlook the front. The paisanos of the secluded village, awe-struck at the unusual scene, and the sight of so many thousand steel weapons glittering amid such dense masses of foreign soldiers, forsook their cottages and clustered together on the summit of a steep rock, to behold the fatal event. The troops formed three faces of a hollow square; the rock upon which the peasants were congregated occupied the vacant space. A spot of velvet turf, the village-green, stretched to the foot of it, and there was dug a grave,—a grave for the yet living man; the wet damp earth heaped up on one side of it, the rolls of turf and a rough deal coffin lay on the other. Near these stood the base-drum of the Gordon Highlanders; a bible and a prayer-book lay open upon its head. The Highlanders formed the inner faces of the square.