saved Cadiz. The rabid democrats of the
city repaid him with ingratitude and insults, which drove him into
exile; and, denied the privilege of falling in defence of his country,
he died broken-hearted in a foreign land."

"Are these people worth fighting for?" exclaimed Lady Mabel,
indignantly, reining back her horse, as if about to abandon her
Spanish allies to their own folly.

"Perhaps not," said L'Isle, "if we were not also fighting for
ourselves. Spain is a convenient field on which to drub the
French. But it is time to follow our party."

They now left the hill and getting back into the road, galloped after
their friends, but did not overtake them until they had reached the
little river Cayo, which here divides Portugal from Spain. The ladies,
on their mules, were grouped together in doubt and hesitation on this
bank, while several of the gentlemen were riding about in the water,
searching for holes in the bed of the stream, which was swollen and
turbid from the late rains.

"You hesitate too long to pass the Rubicon," said Lady Mabel, "just
let me tuck up the skirt of my riding dress, from the muddy waters,
and I will lead you over into Spain."

She was soon on the other bank, and her companions followed her. The
road now led them across a sandy plain, which, treeless and desolate,
contrasted strikingly with the fertility and cultivation around Elvas.

Looking at the fortress they were approaching, L'Isle remarked: "From
the times of Saguntum, Numantia, and Astapa, Spain has been noted for
cities that perished utterly rather than yield in submission to their
foes--Zaragoza, Gerona, and other places have in our day maintained
the old national fame. But Badajoz," he added, shaking his finger at
the towers before him, "is not one of them. It cannot be denied that
in this struggle the Spaniards have proved themselves a nation. 'Every
Spaniard remembers that his country was once great, and is familiar
with the names of its heroes; speaks with enthusiasm of the Cid, of
Ferdinand Cortes, and a host of others.' When the hour of trial come,
'the nation instinctively felt,' to use the language of one of their
own _juntas_, that 'there is a kind of peace more fatal than the field
of battle drenched with blood, and strewed with the bodies of the
slain.' The patriotic fire may have flamed the higher for the holy oil
of superstition poured upon it, but it was kindled by noble pride and
generous shame and indignation, by