yards behind them.
During the first part of the attack, our company remained in Rivas,
listening anxiously to the uproar at San Jorge,--every volley fired by
the combatants being borne distinctly to us by the east wind. For some
time there was a continuous rattle of musketry, with rapid detonations
of deeper-mouthed cannon,--at each roar shaking our suspended
hearts,--for we knew that our own men were using small arms only. After
a while this abated, grew irregular, and almost ceased. An order then
came for our company to mount and join the combatants. We galloped down
the broad and almost level highway which passes between Rivas and
San Jorge, bordered a great part of its length, on either side, by
cactus-hedges, broken at various intervals by the grassy by-lanes that
run out to the neighboring _haciendas_ or parallel roads. At places
where there is a slight elevation, the bottom of the road is worn
several feet below the level by the carts which ply between Rivas and
the lake. Opposite one of these, where the banks sloped at a sharp
angle, we came upon General Henningsen and a detachment of musketeers
resting on the right bank of the road, and halted beside them. The men
were sitting under the shade of an _adobe_, refreshing themselves with
oranges; and those in the nearest rank were close enough to hand us
fruit and keep their seats on the grass. Five or six hundred yards up
the road, the large church which stood on the _plaza_ of San Jorge, with
the door facing us, and a low wall of white stone running squarely from
its side across to the right, ended the vista between banks of green
foliage. Our view stretched across the _plaza_, which seemed to be empty
and unbarricaded; and I remember the painted door of the church beyond,
the red-tiled roof, the low, flanking wall of white stone, all dazily
trembling in the unsteady atmosphere radiating from the heated
road,--whilst a cloud of white smoke was sailing slowly away to the
west. It was a hot and tranquil scene. But I always think of it with the
same secret disgust with which the shipwrecked traveller looks upon the
placid ocean the day after the angry storm has passed over it; for it
was here I first saw the cruelty of a round shot.

When we came to a halt, there seemed to be a lull in the struggle, and
no enemy was anywhere visible, nor was firing heard from any direction.
The infantry, though within range of small arms from the town, were
concealed by the bushes,