clove down with one desperate blow the dragoon with whom he was engaged,
and then setting his spurs to the very rowels into his horse, dashed at
once through the circle of his foes. His remarkable presence of mind,
and the strength and sagacity of his horse, befriended him. Three sabres
flashed before him, and glanced harmless from his raised sword, like
lightning on the water. The circle was passed! As he galloped towards
Riego, his horse started from a dead body that lay across his path. He
reined up for one instant, for the countenance, which looked upwards,
struck him as familiar. What was his horror, when in that livid and
distorted face he recognised his uncle! The thin grizzled hairs were
besprent with gore and brains, and the blood yet oozed from the spot
where the ball had passed through his temple. Falkland had but a brief
interval for grief; the pursuers were close behind: he heard the snort of
the foremost horse before he again put spurs into his own. Riego was
holding a hasty consultation with his principal officers. As Falkland
rode breathless up to them, they had decided on the conduct expedient to
adopt. They led the remaining square of infantry towards the chain of
mountains against which the village, as it were, leaned; and there the
men dispersed in all directions. "For us," said Riego to the followers
on horseback who gathered around him, "for us the mountains still promise
a shelter. We must ride, gentlemen, for our lives--Spain will want them
yet."

Wearied and exhausted as they were, that small and devoted troop fled on
into the recesses of the mountains for the remainder of that day
--twenty men out of the two thousand who had halted at Lodar. As the
evening stole over them, they entered into a narrow defile: the tall
hills rose on every side, covered with the glory of the setting sun, as
if Nature rejoiced to grant her bulwarks as a protection to liberty. A
small clear stream ran through the valley, sparkling with the last smile