llao, had been chosen as
the headquarters of the besieging army--the houses being, for the most
part, built of huge blocks of stone, and offering sufficient resistance to
the balls. The orderly pointed out to us the various batteries, and
especially one which was just completed, and was situated about three
hundred yards from the fortress. It had not yet been used, and was still
masked from the enemy by some houses which stood just in its front.

While we were looking about us, Ready's horse, irritated by the noise of
the firing, the flashes of the guns, and perhaps more than any thing by
the captain's bad riding, became more and more unmanageable, and at last
taking the bit between his teeth started off at a mad gallop, closely
followed by myself and the orderly, to whose horses the panic seemed to
have communicated itself. The clouds of dust raised by the animals' feet,
prevented us from seeing whither we were going. Suddenly there was an
explosion that seemed to shake the very earth under us, and Ready, the
orderly, and myself, lay sprawling with our horses on the ground. Before
we could collect our senses and get up, we were nearly deafened by a
tremendous roar of artillery close to us, and at the same moment a shower
of stones and fragments of brick and mortar clattered about our ears.

The orderly was stunned by his fall; I was bruised and bewildered. Ready
was the only one who seemed in no ways put out, and with his usual phlegm,
extricating himself from under his horse, he came to our assistance. I was
soon on my legs, and endeavouring to discover the cause of all this
uproar.

Our unruly steeds had brought us close to the new battery, at the very
moment that the train of a mine under the houses in front of it had been
fired. The instant the obstacle was removed, the artillerymen had opened a
tremendous fire on the fort. The Spaniards were not slow to return the
compliment, and fortunate it was that a solid fragment of wall intervened
between us and their fire, or all our troubles about the brig, and every
thing else, would have been at an end. Already upwards of twenty balls had
struck the old broken wall. Shot and shell were flying in every direction,
the smoke was stifling, the uproar indescribable. It was so dark with the
smoke and dust from the fallen houses, that we could not see an arm's
length before us. The captain asked two or three soldiers who were
hurrying by, where the battery was; but they were i