ions,
on our distance from the next town, to the officer. He at once
pronounced my name, and my astonishment was not less than his own. In
the commandant of the escort I found my gallant, though most wayward,
young friend, Mariamne's lover, Lafontaine! His story was brief. In
despair of removing her father's reluctance to their marriage, and
wholly unable to bring over Mariamne to his own opinion, that she
would act the wiser part in taking the chances of the world along with
himself, he had resolved to enter the Russian or the Turkish service,
or any other in which he had the speediest probability of ending his
career by a bullet or a sabre-blow. The accidental rencontre of one of
his relations, an officer high in the Spanish service, had led him
into the Peninsula; where, as a Royalist, he was warmly received by a
people devoted to their kings; and had just received a commission in
the cavalry of the guard, when the French war broke out. He felt no
scruples in acting as a soldier of Spain; for, with the death of
Louis, he had regarded all ties as broken, and he was now a citizen of
the world. I ventured to mention the name of Mariamne; and I found
that, there at least, the inconstancy charged on his nation had no
place. He spoke of her with eloquent tenderness, and it was evident
that, with all his despair of ever seeing her again, she still held
the first place in his heart. In this wandering, yet by no means
painful, interchange of thoughts, we moved on for some hours; when one
of the advanced troopers rode back, to tell us that he had heard shots
in the distance, and other sounds of struggle. We galloped forward,
and from the brow of the next hill saw flames rising from a village in
the valley beneath, and a skirmish going on between some marauding
troops and the peasantry. Lafontaine instantly ordered an advance; and
our whole troop were soon in the centre of the village, busily
employed with the pistol and sabre. The French, taken by surprise,
made but a slight resistance, and, after a few random shots, ran to a
neighbouring wood. But as I was looking round, to congratulate my
friend on his success, I saw him, to my infinite alarm, reel in his
saddle, and had only time to save him from falling to the ground.

The accommodation of the Ventas and Posadas is habitually wretched,
and I demanded whether there was not a house of some hidalgo in the
neighbourhood, to which the wounded officer might be carried. One of
t