I sprang to my feet with some sudden impulse, but, as I did so, the blood rushed madly to my head, and I fell.  My arm was again broken, and ere day I was delirious.

Hours, days, weeks rolled over, and when I returned to consciousness and convalescence I found I had been removed to the senhora’s villa, and to her I owed, in a large part, my recovery.  I was deeper in my dilemma than ever.  Nevertheless, before I returned to the front, I found an opportunity to vindicate to Lucy my unshaken faith, reconciling the conflicting evidences with the proofs I proffered of my attachment.  We were interrupted before I could learn how my protestations were received.  Power, I found soon after, was the one favoured by the fair Inez’s affections.

V.—­A Desolate Hearth

It is not my intention, were I even adequate to the task, to trace with anything like accuracy the events of the war at this period.  In fact, to those who, like myself, were performing duties of a mere subaltern character, the daily movements of our own troops, not to speak of the continual changes of the enemy, were perfectly unknown, and an English newspaper was more ardently longed for in the Peninsula than by the most eager crowd of a London coffee-room.

So I pass over the details of the retreat of the French, and the great battle of Fuentes D’Onoro.  In the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, that death struggle of vengeance and despair, I gained some notoriety in leading a party of stormers through a broken embrasure, and found myself under Lord Wellington’s displeasure for having left my duties as aide-de-camp.  However, the exploit gained me leave to return to England, and the additional honour of carrying dispatches to the Prince Regent.

When I arrived in London with the glorious news of the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo, the kind and gracious notice of the prince obtained me attentions on all sides.  Indeed, so flattering was the reception I met with, and so overwhelming the civility showered on me, that it required no small effort on my part not to believe myself as much a hero as they would make me.  An eternal round of dinners, balls, and entertainments filled up an entire week.

At last I obtained the Prince Regent’s permission to leave London, and a few mornings after landed in Cork.  Hastening my journey, I was walking the last eight miles—­my chaise having broken down—­when suddenly my attention was caught by a sound which, faint from the distance, scarce struck upon my ear.  Thinking it probably some delusion of my heated imagination, I rose to push forward; but at the moment a slight breeze stirred, and a low, moaning sound swelled upward, increasing each instant as it came.  It grew louder as the wind bore it towards me, and now falling, now swelling, it burst forth into one loud, prolonged cry of agony and grief.  O God, it was the death-wail!