at he never saw any one stand so fiercely upright as I did behind
mine, while the balls were rapping into it as fast as if a fellow had
been hammering a nail on the opposite side, not to mention the numbers
that were whistling past, within the eighth of an inch of every part
of my body, both before and behind, particularly in the vicinity of my
nose, for which the upper part of the tree could barely afford
protection.

This was a last and a desperate stand made by their rear-guard, for
their own safety, immediately above the town, as their sole chance of
escape depended upon their being able to hold the post until the only
bridge across the river was clear of the other fugitives. But they
could not hold it long enough; for, while we were undergoing a
temporary sort of purgatory in their front, our comrades went working
round their flanks, which quickly sent them flying, with us
intermixed, at full cry, down the streets.

Whether in love or war, I have always considered that the pursuer has
a decided advantage over the pursued. In the first, he may gain and
cannot lose; but, in the latter, when one sees his enemy at full speed
before him, one has such a peculiar conscious sort of feeling that he
is on the right side, that I would not exchange places for any
consideration.

When we reached the bridge, the scene became exceedingly interesting,
for it was choked up by the fugitives who were, as usual, impeding
each other's progress, and we did not find that the application of our
swords to those nearest to us tended at all towards lessening their
disorder, for it induced about a hundred of them to rush into an
adjoining house for shelter, but that was netting regularly out of the
frying-pan into the fire, for the house happened to be really in
flames, and too hot to hold them, so that the same hundred were
quickly seen unkennelling again, half-cooked, into the very jaws of
their consumers.

John Bull, however, is not a blood-thirsty person, so that those who
could not better themselves, had only to submit to a simple transfer
of personal property to ensure his protection. We, consequently, made
many prisoners at the bridge, and followed their army about a league
beyond it, keeping up a flying fight until dark.

Just as Mr. Simmons and myself had crossed the river, and were talking
over the events of the day, not a yard asunder, there was a Portuguese
soldier in the act of passing between us, when a cannon-ball plunged