Still he lurched forward over uneven cobbles.  He had forgotten his design upon the two houses, but a light shone at the end of this dark lane, and he made for it, gained it, and found himself in a wider street.  And there the enchantment fell on him.

For the street was empty, utterly empty, yet brilliantly illuminated.  Not a soul could he see:  yet in house after house as he passed lights shone from every window, in the lower floors behind blinds or curtains which hid the inmates.  It was as if Badajos had arrayed itself for a fete; and still, as he staggered forward a low buzz, a whisper of voices surrounded him, and now and again at the sound of his footstep on the cobbles a lattice would open gently and be as gently re-shut.  Hundreds of eyes were peering at him, the one British soldier in a bewitched city; hundreds of unseen eyes, stealthy, expectant.  And always ahead of him, faint and distant, sounded the bugles and the yells around the Trinidad and the breaches.

He stood alone in the great square.  While he paused at the corner, his eyes following the rows of mysterious lights from house to house, from storey to storey, the regular tramp of feet fell on his ears and a company of Foot marched down into the moonlight patch facing him and grounded arms with a clatter.  They were men of his own regiment, and they formed up in the moonlight like a company of ghosts.  One or two shots were fired at them, low down, from the sills of a line of doorways to his right; but no citizen showed himself and no one appeared to be hit.  And ever from the direction of the Trinidad came the low roar of combat and the high notes of the bugles.

He was creeping along the side of the square towards an outlet at its north-east corner, when the company got into motion again and came towards him.  Then he turned up a narrow lane to the left and fled.  He was sobbing no longer; the passion had died out of him, and he knew himself to be mad.  In the darkness the silent streets began to fill; random shots whistled at every street corner; but he blundered on, taking no account of them.  Once he ran against a body of Picton’s men—­half a score of the 74th Regiment let loose at length from the captured Castle, and burning for loot.  One man thrust the muzzle of his musket against his breast before he was recognized.  Then two or three shook hands with him.

He was back in the square again and fighting—­Heaven knew why—­with an officer of the Brunswickers over a birdcage.  Whence the birdcage came he had no clear idea, but there was a canary-bird inside, and he wanted it.  A random shot smashed his left hand as he gripped the cage, and he dropped it as something with which he had no further concern.  As he turned away, hugging his hand, and cursing the marksman, a second shot from another direction took the Brunswicker between the shoulders.