d in the direction the escort was
taking; the way, which was shown them by a peasant, led through
country lanes, over hills, and across fields, as nearly in a straight
line as the rugged and mountainous nature of the country would allow.
Towards noon, the heat, endurable enough during the first hours of the
morning, became excessive. The musket barrels and sabre scabbards
almost burned the fingers that touched them; the coats of the horses
were caked with sweat and dust; and the men went panting along,
looking out eagerly, but in vain, for some roadside fountain or
streamlet, at which to quench the thirst that parched their mouths.
They had reached a beaten road, which, although rough and neglected,
yet afforded a better footing than they had hitherto had, when such
means of refreshment at last presented themselves. It was near the
entrance of a sort of defile formed by two irregular lines of low
hills, closing in the road, which was fringed with patches of trees
and brushwood, and with huge masses of rock that seemed to have been
placed there by the hands of the Titans, or to have rolled thither
during some mighty convulsion of nature from the distant ranges of
mountains. At a short distance from this pass, there bubbled forth
from under a moss-grown block of granite a clear and sparkling
rivulet, which, overflowing the margin of the basin it had formed for
itself, rippled across the road, and entered the opposite fields. Here
a five minutes' halt was called, the men were allowed to quit their
ranks, and in an instant they were kneeling by scores along the side
of the little stream, collecting the water in canteens and
foraging-caps, and washing their hands and faces in the pure element.
The much-needed refreshment taken, the march was resumed.

Notwithstanding that the pass through which the prisoners and their
escort were now advancing was nearly a mile in length, and in many
places admirably adapted for a surprise, the officer in command,
either through ignorance or over-confidence, neglected the usual
precaution of sending scouts along the hills that on either side
commanded the road. This negligence struck Herrera, who knew by
experience, that, with such active and wily foes as the Carlists, no
precaution could be dispensed with, however superfluous it might seem.
Scarcely had the troops entered the defile when he suggested to the
major the propriety of sending out skirmishers to beat the thickets
and guard again