mixture of Spanish and Irish airs which issued
from the thicket beside me, proved that a most intimate alliance had grown
up between the parties.

CHAPTER XXVII.

MIKE'S MISTAKE.

An hour before daybreak the Guerillas were in motion, and having taken a
most ceremonious leave of us, they mounted their horses and set out upon
their journey. I saw their gaunt figures wind down the valley, and watched
them till they disappeared in the distance. "Yes, brigands though they be,"
thought I, "there is something fine, something heroic in the spirit of
their unrelenting vengeance." The sleuth-hound never sought the lair of
his victim with a more ravening appetite for blood than they track the
retreating columns of the enemy. Hovering around the line of march, they
sometimes swoop down in masses, and carry off a part of the baggage, or the
wounded. The wearied soldier, overcome by heat and exhaustion, who drops
behind his ranks, is their certain victim; the sentry on an advanced post
is scarcely less so. Whole pickets are sometimes attacked and carried off
to a man; and when traversing the lonely passes of some mountain gorge, or
defiling through the dense shadows of a wooded glen, the stoutest heart has
felt a fear, lest from behind the rock that frowned above him, or from the
leafy thicket whose branches stirred without a breeze, the sharp ring of a
Guerilla carbine might sound his death-knell.

It was thus in the retreat upon Corunna fell Colonel Lefebvre. Ever
foremost in the attack upon our rear-guard, this gallant youth (he was
scarce six-and-twenty), a colonel of his regiment, and decorated with the
Legion of Honor, he led on every charge of his bold "_sabreurs_," riding
up to the very bayonets of our squares, waving his hat above his head, and
seeming actually to court his death-wound; but so struck were our brave
fellows with his gallant bearing, that they cheered him as he came on.

It was in one of these moments as, rising high in his stirrups, he bore
down upon the unflinching ranks of the British infantry, the shrill whistle
of a ball strewed the leaves upon the roadside, the exulting shout of a
Guerilla followed it, and the same instant Lefebvre fell forward upon his
horse's mane, a deluge of blood bursting from his bosom. A broken cry
escaped his lips,--a last effort to cheer on his men; his noble charger
galloped forward between our squares, bearing to us our prisoner, the
corpse of his rider.

"Capta