rite a book, nobody
will accuse you of being exceptionally intelligent."

"But I cannot make a book of your narrative without your leave," I
observed, with a painful sense of having gained nothing by my motion.

"And that leave may be sooner or later forthcoming, on conditions."

As the reader will find in the sequel, the leave has been given and the
conditions have been fulfilled, and Mr. Fortescue's personal
narrative--partly taken down from his own dictation, but for the most part
extended from his manuscript--begins with the following chapter.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TALE BEGINS.

The morning after the battle of Salamanca (through which I passed
unscathed) the regiment of dragoons to which I belonged (forming part of
Anson's brigade), together with Bock's Germans, was ordered to follow on
the traces of the flying French, who had retired across the River Tormes.
Though we started at daylight, we did not come up with their rear-guard
until noon. It consisted of a strong force of horse and foot, and made a
stand near La Serna; but the cavalry, who had received a severe lesson on
the previous day, bolted before we could cross swords with them. The
infantry, however, remained firm, and forming square, faced us like men.
The order was then given to charge; and when the two brigades broke into a
gallop and thundered down the slope, they raised so thick a cloud of dust
that all we could see of the enemy was the glitter of their bayonets and
the flash of their musket-fire. Saddles were emptied both to the right and
left of me, and one of the riderless horses, maddened by a wound in the
head, dashed wildly forward, and leaping among the bayonets and lashing
out furiously with his hind-legs, opened a way into the square. I was the
first man through the gap, and engaged the French colonel in a
hand-to-hand combat. At the very moment just as I gave him the point in
his throat he cut open my shoulder, my horse, mortally hurt by a bayonet
thrust, fell, half rolling over me and crushing my leg.

As I lay on the ground, faint with the loss of blood and unable to rise,
some of our fellows rode over me, and being hit on the head by one of
their horses, I lost consciousness. When I came to myself the skirmish was
over, nearly the whole of the French rear-guard had been taken prisoners
or cut to pieces, and a surgeon was dressing my wounds. This done, I was
removed in an ambulance to Salamanca.

The historic old city, with its