oment I was about
to communicate my apprehensions to my comrades; but hope, which never
dies, again caused me to take a more cheering view of our situation.
Nevertheless, in order to be prepared for the worst, and, in case of
need, to be unencumbered in my movements, I watched my opportunity, and
threw away amongst the grass of the prairie a bundle containing the few
things that the thievish Mexicans had allowed me to retain.

A quarter of an hour had elapsed since our departure from the fort, when
suddenly the command was given in Spanish to wheel to the left, leaving
the road; and, as we did not understand the order, the officer himself
went in front to show us the way, and my companions followed without
taking any particular notice of the change of direction. To our left ran
a muskeet hedge, five or six feet in height, at right angles with the
river St Antonio, which flowed at about a thousand paces from us,
between banks thirty or forty feet high, and of which banks the one on
the nearer side of the river rose nearly perpendicularly out of the
water. We were marched along the side of the hedge towards the stream,
and suddenly the thought flashed across us, "Why are they taking us in
this direction?" The appearance of a number of lancers, cantering about
in the fields on our right, also startled us; and just then the
foot-soldiers, who had been marching between us and the hedge, changed
their places, and joined those of their comrades who guarded us on the
other hand. Before we could divine the meaning of this manoeuvre, the
word was given to halt. It came like a sentence of death; for at the
same moment that it was uttered, the sound of a volley of musketry
echoed across the prairie. We thought of our comrades and of our own
probable fate.

"Kneel down!" now burst in harsh accents from the lips of the Mexican
commander.

No one stirred. Few of us understood the order, and those who did would
not obey. The Mexican soldiers, who stood at about three paces from us,
levelled their muskets at our breasts. Even then we could hardly believe
that they meant to shoot us; for if we had, we should assuredly have
rushed forward in our desperation, and, weaponless though we were, some
of our murderers would have met their death at our hands. Only one of
our number was well acquainted with Spanish, and even he seemed as if he
could not comprehend the order that had been given. He stared at the
commanding-officer as if awaiting