The sun was in its zenith, and the only shade to be obtained was that afforded by the projections of the clumsy wooden balconies, which Spanish custom rendered necessary adjuncts even to the paltry habitations of this wretched village. In the black patches of shadow under these balconies, men, women, and children were huddled together, seeking refuge from the almost tropical heat; the men, for the most part wrapped in their shabby brown cloaks upon the Spanish principle of what keeps out the cold keeps out the heat, the women with their black, gipsy locks, peeping from under bright coloured-cotton handkerchiefs, and the younger portion of the community revelling in full liberty of limb, unbreeched, and for the most part, shirtless.

As the detachment passed, some of the men, roused from their midday doze by the measured tramp of the soldiers, gazed sullenly at them from the small space left between their slouched hats and gracefully draped capas; while a number of the children springing up from the bed of dust in which they were lying, ran after the French with cries of gavacho, and other unflattering epithets, till a gesture of menace, or the heat of the sun striking on their tawny little bodies, drove them back to their lairs. The reddish colour of the soil, and of the adjacent rocks-of fragments of which the houses were built-added to the glowing tone of the picture; the very birds sat silent on the trees and bushes, and two or three wiry-haired hounds lay with their parched tongues far out of their mouths, snapping and panting for breath. If looked at in detail, there was much filth and squalor in the scene, but the coup d'œil of the whole had a character and colouring, -an exotic sort of originality, that was striking in the highest degree.

"Vastly like a picture of Murillo's," muttered Eugene Larose to himself, as he strode up the mountain-path at the head of his little band. "Very picturesque, indeed; those cloaked fellows uncommonly bravo-like, and some of the women very pretty, or would be so, at least, if they could be persuaded of the virtues of soap-and-water. If I had time I should like to take a sketch of one or two of yonder groups. On the whole, I really do not regret having been sent south instead of north. To be sure, in the other case I should have served under the emperor, but then I should have seen nothing but heavy sourkraut-eating Germans, instead of basking in the double fires of Spanish sun and Spanish beauty. But here is my guide:-let us hear what he says as to the chances of capturing this terrible guerilla. Hola, camarado!"

The person thus accosted was the same who had left the posada after exchanging with Larose a concerted signal of recognition. He was a man who might have been taken for five-and-thirty years old, had not the colour of his hair which was gray, and a stooping, almost decrepit gait, given him the appearance of much greater age. His stoop, however, seemed partly owing to the slight lameness before mentioned, the cause of which was not very apparent, and which did not prevent his walking, aided by his stick, at a pace sufficiently rapid to keep up with the quick march of the soldiers. His countenance, although strongly marked, was unwrinkled, his hair cut short, contrary to the prevailing fashion among Spanish peasantry, of allowing it to grow in long ringlets over the shoulders; his dress was of plain coarse materials.

The conversation which now established itself between Larose and

this man not being carried on with any particular mystery or view to concealment, reached the ears of the leading files of the detachment and from them it soon became known to the whole party that the object of the expedition was to capture the guerilla known as "L'Invisible,' who with half a dozen of his associates had been traced to these mountains.

The Spaniard who had joined them, and who was to serve as their guide to the haunts of the guerilla, was recognised by some of the soldiers, who had seen him in different garrison towns, as a man believed to be occasionally employed by the French generals in the useful, if not very honourable capacity, of a spy.

After ascending for more than an hour, the guide struck into the bed of a watercourse, almost dry at this season, and overshadowed by trees that interlaced their branches above the heads of the party. Some few hundred yards up this gully was a perpendicular bank of earth and rock, over which rippled a small rivulet, that in winter and spring was often converted into a roaring torrent by the rains and melted snows. The bank was to be ascended by a narrow zigzag path, up which only one man could go at a time.

At the top of the precipice was a ravine, stretching far back between two mountains, and rendered gloomy as night by a forest of pine-trees, the space between the trunks of which was filled up with thick and tangled brushwood.

"This is a strange road you are bringing us," said Larose to his guide, as they arrived within a hundred yards of the waterfall.

"Those we seek are not to be found in the open field, or on the highway," was the reply. "Once through this ravine, the worst is over. But it were as well you gave your men a little breathing time. They are not used to this sort of work, and you should save their wind, for they may want it all by-and-by. Halt them here for a few moments, while I go forward and reconnoitre."

The detachment was accordingly halted, and the Spaniard ascended the winding path up the waterfall, slowly, and somewhat impeded by his lameness. On the top of the precipice he paused for a moment, gazed down upon the party he had just left, and then turning away, disappeared among the pine-trees.

The young officer who had been watching his ascent started. He fancied he saw a singular change in the man at the moment of his disappearance. The stoop in the shoulders disappeared, the slouching gait became an erect and manly carriage, the halting step a bold and fearless stride, during the ten seconds that elapsed between the peasant's attainment of the top of the high bank and his disappearance among the pine-trees.

Before Larose had time to reflect on this strange circumstance, or to decide whether it were not an effect of his own imagination, excited by the wild and novel scenes he had been passing through, a scuffling was heard in the wood, and the voice of the guide calling out for assistance.

The young officer darted forward, followed by his men; but he had not taken three steps towards the waterfall, when a musket was fired, and the unfortunate Frenchman fell back lifeless into his soldiers' arms. This first shot was followed by a second and third, admirably directed, and which took effect upon the two non-commissioned officers of the

party. The shots were evidently from the edge of the pinewood, for the flashes were plainly seen through the branches, but it was impossible to distinguish the persons who fired them; and panic-struck at the loss of their officer and sergeants, at the mysterious nature of the attack, and the deadly precision of the fire, the soldiers, after pouring one or two random volleys into the wood, retired down the watercourse, carrying their dead with them. They were not, however, allowed to retreat unmolested, and before they got upon open ground, two more of their number fell by shots fired from the banks overhanging the

ravine.

The last of the French had scarcely left the scene of this short, and to them fatal conflict, when a man, carrying three muskets on his shoulder, appeared upon it. Striding rapidly along the watercourse, he bounded with astonishing activity up the steep narrow path at its farther end, and entered the pinewood, whence he a moment afterwards emerged, disencumbered of the muskets. After pausing for a moment at the spot where one of the Frenchmen had fallen, the blood from whose wound formed a little pool upon the ground, he left the ravine.

The French detachment halted at the village on the mountain-side, the time necessary to press a bullock-cart, on which they placed the bodies of their dead comrades, and resumed their retreat. Evening was approaching, but they had no inclination to pass the night in that neighbourhood, and, tired though they were, preferred returning to their garrison.

They were leaving the village when they heard a shout, and looking back, to their no small astonishment, beheld their guide limping after them. He had evidently been roughly handled, for his head was bleeding, and bound up with a handkerchief, and he walked with greater difficulty than before.

The soldiers crowded round him, and overwhelmed him with questions as to what had passed, the character and number of the enemy that had driven them back, and how he had escaped with his life after running, as it seemed, into the very jaws of the lion. He was able to give them little information.

He had scarcely entered the wood, he said, when he ran against a man who struck him down with a blow from the butt end of a musket, which had rendered him insensible, and he heard nothing of the skirmish that followed. The guerillas, or whatever they were, doubtless left him as dead; for when he came to his senses, he was alone, and conjecturing that the soldiers had retreated, he followed them as soon as he found himself able.

"Well," said the corporal, who had now taken command of the party, "I am glad you are returned, and you must come back to Tora with us to explain the matter. I am sure I do not know what account

to give of it myself, it all passed so quickly and in such a cursed dark hole. Here! you can jump up on the cart. You won't mind riding with the dead men, will you?"

"Ningunamente, not in the least," replied the Spaniard, and climbing into the cart, installed himself, apparently very comfortably, amongst the as yet scarcely cold bodies of the Frenchmen.

The sun had set, and the soldiers, retarded by the slow pace of the bullock-cart, had as yet accomplished but a small portion of the way

to their garrison, when on passing a cross-road, the clatter of horses' feet was heard, and the next moment a party of light cavalry trotted up.

"Whom have we here?" cried the officer commanding the dragoons. "Whence, and whither going?"

The corporal on whom the charge of the detachment had devolved at the death of his superiors, related the events of the day. The officer became furious on hearing of the loss the infantry had sustained, and their inglorious retreat before what could be at most but a few armed peasants. Checking his horse, he allowed the soldiers to pass, and went to look at the dead bodies.

"That is the guide, sir," said the corporal; "he is lame, and was wounded in the skirmish, so I allowed him to ride."

"Hum!" replied the officer, "it is his fault that you got so maltreated. Hallo! you sir! how did you manage to lead the party into such a scrape?"

The Spaniard made no answer for a space of nearly a minute. The officer at first thought he slept, and pushed him with his sheathed sabre; but a second glance through the now fast increasing gloom satisfied him that he was broad awake, his eyes wide open, and their steady gaze fixed full on the face of his questioner.

"Is the fellow drunk or stupid?" exclaimed the officer. "Answer me, sirrah, will you? You undertake to guide a detachment to the lurking-place of this cursed Invisible,' and you get half of them cut off. Do you know that I should be justified in hanging you on the next tree upon suspicion of treachery?"

"As your excellency pleases," replied the deep voice of the guide. "The fault was none of mine, nor is it too late to repair it with your assistance."

"How so?" demanded the other. "What can cavalry do in the fastnesses in which these guerillas hide themselves?"

"Much," replied the peasant," in this particular case at least. ‘L'Invisible' and his party having beaten back the troops this morning, will not expect another attack to-night, and from my knowledge of the country and of their usual haunts, I can judge to a certainty where they will bivouac. It is in a mountain hollow, easily accessible to cavalry, the ascent being gradual, and ground open. I had already thought of offering to lead the infantry thither, but besides the loss of their officer, they are weary and disheartened."

The dragoon cast a searching and suspicious look at the speaker, and then turning away, rode in silence by the side of the cart, to which he was so near, that by extending his arm he might almost have touched the dead bodies it contained. The guide remained perfectly motionless, his eyes fixed upon the officer, and apparently expecting him to renew the dialogue between them.

After the lapse of two or three minutes, he began to raise himself in the cart, very slowly and gradually, and with a careful avoidance of noise, until he had got his left-arm on the side of the vehicle, supporting his body, which was stretched out over the wheel. In this position he was leaning almost across the crupper of the French officer's charger. He raised his right-hand, in which gleamed a long, keen knife, and remained for a moment motionless as a statue, for which he might have been taken, but for the expression of fierce triumph that

flashed out of his eyes, and illumined his dark and strongly-marked features. The hand quivered slightly; in another moment it would descend.

"Is this fellow trustworthy, think ye?" said the officer, suddenly touching his horse with the spur, and making him bound forward to the side of the corporal, who was marching a few paces in front.

The corporal glanced back at the cart where the guide was lying, apparently as inanimate as the dead bodies beside him.

"He is much esteemed, sir, by the general; and I am told has more than once made himself very useful. Our poor lieutenant seemed to put all confidence in him."

The officer again dropped back to the side of the cart.

"What if I accept your offer, fellow, and go in quest of these rascally guerillas. How far shall we have to ride, and how will you accompany us? Not in the bullock-cart, I imagine."

The Spaniard mused for a moment.

"Some three leagues perhaps, but the road is good. As to myself, dismount one of your men. I am not so much hurt but I will manage to ride."

"Bon!" replied the officer. "But hark ye," added he, as he drew nearer to the cart, "there is another point to settle. A thousand dollars are offered for the head of L'Invisible.' The reward will be paid to you if we capture him; but I shall expect half of it. Otherwise you may catch him yourself, or return to Tora to be rated, and perhaps shot, for leading your detachment into an ambuscade."

"I accept the terms," answered the guide. "Depend on it, whatever reward I get, you shall share with me."

"That is not all," said the officer; "I trust you fellows no farther than I can see you, and shall take care you do not give me the slip in the dark. Remember, that on the first shadow of treachery, I send a bullet through your head."

The Spaniard made no reply to this threat, nor did he once open his lips to object or remonstrate, when, after being mounted on a troop horse, a rope was tied tightly round his right wrist, and the other end consigned to the keeping of a herculean dragoon. The officer himself took up his station close to the guide's bridle-hand, and pointing significantly to his holsters, whence projected the butt ends of two pistols, gave the word, and the horsemen began retracing their steps towards the mountains.

The night was starless and exceedingly dark when the party of dragoons, who had been marching for two hours along country lanes and sheep-paths, the intricacies of which never for a moment caused the smallest hesitation on the part of their guide, commenced the ascent of a long hill, that sloped, however, so gradually, as to cause little fatigue to the horses. Nearly two more hours were consumed in ascending this mountain, and in marching along the ridge of which it formed a part. The officer began to get impatient.

"Do you mean to keep us wandering about here till daylight?" demanded he, glancing suspiciously at his guide, whom he had not left for an instant during the whole march. "Or is it that you cannot perform your promise, and are afraid to confess as much?"" "Not so, señor," replied the Spaniard, in a low voice. "On the contrary, we are close to the place where I expect-nay, am certain to