Colonel Donkin was in conversation with him.
"It has been a very close affair, sir," he said; "and I certainly thought that we should be rolled down the hill.

I believe that we owe our safety, in no small degree, to a couple of battalions of Spaniards, I fancy, who took up their post on the opposite hill this morning.

Just before you brought up your reinforcement, and while things were at their worst, I heard heavy volley firing somewhere just over the crest.

I don't know who it could have been, if it was not them; for there were certainly no other troops on my left." "They were Portuguese battalions, sir," Terence said quietly.
"Oh, is it you, O'Connor ?" General Hill exclaimed.

"If they were those two battalions of yours, I can quite understand it.
"This is Colonel O'Connor, Donkin, who checked Soult's passage at the mouth of the Minho, and has performed other admirable services." [Illustration: 'You may as well make your report to me, O'Connor.'] "You may as well make your report to me, O'Connor, and I will include it in my own to Sir Arthur." Terence related how, just as he was taking up his position for the night along the slopes of the Sierra, he heard the outbreak of firing on the front of the hill and, seeing a large force mounting its northern slope, and knowing that only one brigade was posted there, he thought it his duty to move to its assistance.