absence, as we have not seen them since.

After forming on our alarm-post, we were moved off, in the dark, we
knew not whither; but every man following the one before him, with the
most implicit confidence, until, after marching all night, we found
ourselves, on the following morning, at daylight, near the village of
Castrejon, where we bivouacked for the day.

I was sent on piquet on the evening of the 17th, to watch a portion of
the plain before us; and, soon after sunrise on the following morning,
a cannonade commenced, behind a hill, to my right; and, though the
combatants were not visible, it was evident that they were not dealing
in blank-cartridge, as mine happened to be the pitching-post of all
the enemy's round shot. While I was attentively watching its progress,
there arose, all at once, behind the rising ground to my left, a yell
of the most terrific import; and, convinced that it would give
instantaneous birth to as hideous a body, it made me look, with an eye
of lightning, at the ground around me; and, seeing a broad deep ditch
within a hundred yards, I lost not a moment in placing it between my
piquet and the extraordinary sound, I had scarcely effected the
movement, when Lord Wellington, with his staff, and a cloud of French
and English dragoons and horse artillery intermixed, came over the
hill at full cry, and all hammering at each others' heads in one
confused mass, over the very ground I had that instant quitted. It
appeared that his Lordship had gone there to reconnoitre, covered by
two guns and two squadrons of cavalry, who, by some accident, were
surprised, and charged by a superior body of the enemy, and sent
tumbling in upon us in the manner described. A piquet of the
forty-third had formed on our right, and we were obliged to remain
passive spectators of such an extraordinary scene going on within a
few yards of us, as we could not fire without an equal chance of
shooting some of our own side. Lord Wellington and his staff, with the
two guns, took shelter, for the moment, behind us, while the cavalry
went sweeping along our front, where, I suppose, they picked up some
reinforcement, for they returned, almost instantly, in the same
confused mass; but the French were now the flyers; and, I must do them
the justice to say, that they got off in a manner highly creditable to
themselves. I saw one, in particular, defending himself against two of
ours; and he would have made his escape from both, but