nt display upon our left. Here,
emerging from the wood which flanked the Aguada, were now to be seen the
gorgeous staff of Marmont himself. Advancing at a walk, they came forward
amidst the _vivas_ of the assembled thousands, burning with ardor and
thirsting for victory. For a moment, as I looked, I could detect the
marshal himself, as, holding his plumed hat above his head, he returned the
salute of a lancer regiment, who proudly waved their banners as he passed;
but, hark, what are those clanging sounds which, rising high above the
rest, seem like the war-cry of a warrior?

"I can't mistake those tones," said a bronzed old veteran beside me; "those
are the brass bands of the Imperial Guard. Can Napoleon be there? See,
there they come!" As he spoke, the head of a column emerged from the wood,
and deploying as they came, poured into the plain. For above an hour that
mighty tide flowed on, and before noon a force of sixty thousand men was
collected in the space beneath us.

I was not long to remain an unoccupied spectator of this brilliant display,
for I soon received orders to move down with my squadron to the support of
the Eleventh Light Dragoons, who were posted at the base of the hill. The
order at the moment was anything but agreeable, for I was mounted upon a
hack pony, on which I had ridden over from Crawfurd's Division early in the
morning, and suspecting that there might be some hot work during the day,
had ordered Mike to follow with my horse. There was no time, however, for
hesitation, and I moved my men down the slope in the direction of the
skirmishers.

The position we occupied was singularly favorable,--our flanks defended on
either side by brushwood, we could only be assailed in front; and here,
notwithstanding our vast inferiority of force, we steadily awaited the
attack. As I rode from out the thick wood, I could not help feeling
surprised at the sounds which greeted me. Instead of the usual low and
murmuring tones, the muttered sentences which precede a cavalry advance,--a
roar of laughter shook the entire division, while exclamations burst from
every side around me: "Look at him now!" "They have him, by heavens, they
have him!" "Well done, well done!" "How the fellow rides!" "He's hit, he's
hit!" "No, no!" "Is he down?" "He's down!"

A loud cheer rent the air at this moment, and I reached the front in time
to learn, the reason of all this excitement. In the wide plain before me a
horseman was seen