The Commander-in-Chief

and driving the enemy up the opposite slopes, was now with difficulty holding its own doggedly against superior numbers. On the right the French flanking columns were being driven steadily through the valley by Paget's division, and Franceschi's dragoons were already retiring behind the great battery, where eleven guns at almost point-blank range were now tearing huge gaps in Bentinck's slender columns.

Jack had halted for a moment to get his bearings; he was beginning to make his way down the slope towards Elvina when he caught sight of three officers on his left, galloping towards him on the crest of the hill. In the leading horseman, mounted on a cream-coloured charger with black tail and mane, he instantly recognized Sir John Moore; the others were officers of the staff. Jack had eyes only for the general as the well-known figure swept up at headlong speed to within a few yards of the spot where he had halted, then suddenly drew rein, throwing the gallant charger upon its haunches, with quivering nostrils and heaving flanks. Jack never forgot the picture of horse and rider at this moment: the charger snorting with excitement, its eyes dilated, its ears cocked forward, its hoofs ploughing deep furrows in the soft earth; the rider, with eyes fixed searchingly upon the enemy, seeming to keep his seat without conscious effort, his whole being concentrated in the lightning glance with which he took in every detail of the fight.

He was about to move away when Jack trotted up, saluted, and delivered his message. Sir John seemed too much preoccupied to notice who his informant was. After an instant's reflection he said: "Follow me, sir; I shall probably have a message for General Paget in the course of a few minutes." Then, setting spurs to his horse, he galloped down the hill towards Elvina.

As they approached the village the 50th Regiment, commanded by Major Charles Napier, was making a desperate effort to retake the place. They drove the enemy at the point of the bayonet through the village street and beyond some stone walls on the outskirts; but there the French rallied, and, being reinforced from the slopes above, again advanced, capturing Major Napier, who was desperately wounded, and pressing hard upon the 50th regiment and

A Hero's Death

the Black Watch, both of which were running short of ammunition. The 42nd, mistaking an order, began to retire. Then the commander-in-chief rode up, and addressing them said: "Men of the 42nd, you have still your bayonets. Remember Egypt! Remember Scotland! Come on, my gallant countrymen!"

The

With a cheer the Black Watch returned to the attack. Moore followed the brilliant charge with kindling eyes. "Splendid fellows!" he exclaimed. He was just turning to give Jack the promised message when a cannon-shot from the battery above struck him to the ground. For one brief moment it might almost have been thought that the hurt was a trivial one, for the general, raising himself upon his right arm, continued to gaze eagerly and with a look of noble pride upon the struggle beneath. It was not until the success of his troops was assured that he sank back and allowed himself to be removed from the field. Four soldiers carried him tenderly in a blanket to the rear. No doctor was needed to tell the grief-stricken bearers that the wound was mortal. injured man knew that there was no hope. They would have removed his sword; its hilt was pressing against the wound. "It is as well as it is," he said. "I had rather it should go out of the field with me." As they carried him towards Corunna he more than once bade them turn to learn how the fight was going. They bore him to a house in the town; as he lay dying his mind was filled with his country and the commanders who had served him and England so well during the bitter days of the retreat. "I hope the people of England will be satisfied. I hope my country will do me justice." He spoke of Paget, asking to be remembered to him. "General Paget, I mean; he is a fine fellow." He left messages for all his friends, and in the midst of his agony mentioned for promotion several officers whose gallantry in the field he had noticed. He bore his dreadful sufferings without a murmur. Only when he dictated a last message to his aged mother did he show signs of breaking down. And thus, nobly as he had lived, when night had stilled the sounds of war and the stars blinked over the awful field, the great soldier passed away.

Jack had accompanied the bearers to the little room

"Alone with his Glory"

whither the general was carried, and remained for some time doing such small services as Moore's aides-de-camp required of him. When it was seen beyond all doubt that death was very near, he was sent back to the battle-field with the sad news. During his absence the fight had been raging with undiminished fury. The enemy were retiring; the British were pressing forward on all sides; and but for the lamentable event that had just occurred it is possible that Soult's army would have been utterly destroyed, for his ammunition was failing, and behind him his retreat was barred by an impetuous torrent, spanned by only one narrow bridge. It was not to be. Sir David Baird, who would naturally have succeeded to Moore's command, had himself been wounded. Sir John Hope, to whom the command now fell, ordered the advance to be checked as the shades of evening were falling. His decision was doubtless wise. He was not in a position to follow up a successful action, for the cavalry and guns were all on board ship. The advantage already gained secured the immediate object for which the battle had been fought-the safe embarkation of the army.

When Jack, sad at heart, regained his regiment, below the great French battery, he brought no message from the commander-in-chief. What the message would have been he could only guess. But he felt that had Moore lived, the 95th would have had stern work to do upon the rugged hills above. Sadly the army retired into its lines at Corunna; and as the last shot from the French guns boomed across the valley, and the watch-fires of the British pickets broke into flame on the heights, the body of the noble Moore was laid to rest in the citadel, simply, peacefully, without pomp, amid a reverent silence.

CHAPTER XVII

In the Guadalquivir

THE sadness which overshadowed the whole army was partly alleviated by the bustle of embarkation. The battle had been won; the object of the great retreat had been achieved. There was nothing to be gained by postponing the return of the victorious but battered army to England. Delay would have enabled reinforcements to reach Soult, which might place him in a position to renew his attack with better hope of success; while the state of the British army was such that it was impossible to follow up their success by a pursuit of the French. Sir John Hope, therefore, upon whom the command had fallen through Moore's death, gave orders that the embarkation of the troops should be hastened, and within twenty-four hours the men were aboard the transports, ready to set sail for home.

Jack was resting in the afternoon with the officers of his company. Illness and fatigue had worn them all to shadows. Pomeroy was wounded, Smith was so haggard as to be hardly recognizable, while Shirley's spirits had forsaken him, and his chums were too much depressed even to object to the melancholy dirges which he quoted, on the homœopathic principle, for his own solace. Jack alone retained something of his old cheerfulness, and he was doing his best to hearten his companions, before their turn came to embark, when a messenger entered, saying that Sir John Hope desired to see Mr. Lumsden at once. He hurried off, and returned half an hour later with even greater cheerfulness in his eyes and gait.

"What do you think, you fellows?" he cried.

not going to sail with you after all!"

"I am

"Thank heaven!" said Pomeroy, with his head bandaged. Jack smiled at his old chum's petulance.

In the Dumps

"But for

As it is-"

"I'm not so thankful, Pommy," he said. one thing I'd much rather go home with you. "Well, what's your one thing?" said Smith, as he paused.

"I'll tell you some day. I don't want to leave Spain just now, that's all."

"What are you going to do, then?" asked Pomeroy. "Hope is sending me with a despatch to Seville, to Mr. Frere, our minister there. I'm to put myself at his orders. The general thinks that people at home will be so mad at this retreat that they'll howl for leaving Spain to its fate; so it's very probable that I shall not be long behind you. And you'll be as fit as fiddles when I see you again."

My own mother wouldn't know me now," said Smith. "You always have had all the luck. Ten chances to one you'll be promoted again, while we, what with our wretched condition and that awful Bay of Biscay, shall either be thrown to the fishes on the way home or drop into our graves as soon as we get there."

"Call for the robin redbreast and the wren,'" Shirley dolefully.

"Now, Shirley, cheer up!" said Jack. the fellows the blues."

quoted

"Don't give all

66 'Faith, no," said the voice of Captain O'Hare, who had heard the last words as he entered. "I'm so weak myself I could hardly kill a fly, but I'm captain o' this company, and I won't have my men driven into the dumps. There's that Wilkes, now. I left him outside, smoking some unmentionable stuff with his mates, singing Down among the dead men', in a voice that would scare an undertaker. 'Faith,' says I, 'it's delighted ye ought to be, seeing ye're a sergeant before your time.' 'Sir,' says he, 'I'm only promoted cos poor Sergeant Jones is down among the dead men, and what I want to know is, whether it ain't my dooty to have the natʼral feelings of a man and a brother.' But what's this I hear, Lumsden?-we leave you behind, eh?"

"Yes, though I hope you'll soon be out again. Surely our government won't throw up the sponge!"

"Bedad, not if they ask my advice. No Englishman, let alone an Irishman, ever turned his back for good on a