the gray coat with the red cuffs, the cords, the tops, and the Caroline hat
a little cocked, with a phiz in the side of it." Here he made a sign with
his expanded fingers to represent a cockade, which he designated by this
word. "I think I see myself dining with the corporation, and the Lord Major
of Dublin getting up to propose the health of the hero of El Bodon, Mr.
Free; and three times three, hurra! hurra! hurra! Musha, but it's dry I am
gettin' with the thoughts of the punch and the poteen negus."

"If you go on at this rate, we're not likely to be soon at our journey's
end. So be alive now; pack up my kit; I shall start by twelve o'clock."

With one spring Mike cleared the stairs, and overthrowing everything and
everybody in his way, hurried towards the stable, chanting at the top of
his voice the very poetical strain he had indulged me with a few minutes
before.

My preparations were rapidly made; a few hurried lines of leave-taking to
the good fellows I had lived so much with and felt so strongly attached to,
with a firm assurance that I should join them again ere long, was all
that my time permitted. To Power I wrote more at length, detailing the
circumstances which my own letters informed me of, and also those which
invited me to return home. This done, I lost not another moment, but set
out upon my journey.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE LEAVE.

After an hour's sharp riding we reached the Aguada, where the river was yet
fordable; crossing this, we mounted the Sierra by a narrow and winding pass
which leads through the mountains towards Almeida. Here I turned once more
to cast a last and farewell look at the scene of our late encounter. It
was but a few hours that I had stood almost on the same spot, and yet how
altered was all around. The wide plain, then bustling with all the life and
animation of a large army, was now nearly deserted,--some dismounted guns,
some broken-up, dismantled batteries, around which a few sentinels seemed
to loiter rather than to keep guard; a strong detachment of infantry could
be seen wending their way towards the fortress, and a confused mass of
camp-followers, sutlers, and peasants following their steps for protection
against the pillagers and the still ruder assaults of their own Guerillas.
The fortress, too, was changed indeed. Those mighty walls before whose
steep sides the bravest fell back baffled and beaten, were now a mass of
ruin and decay; the muleteer could be see