The gratified vanity of authorship induced me to accept his portmanteau and valuables, and to allow the poor wretch to go free.

I put the Magazine in my coat-pocket, and left him and the podesta.
The men, to my surprise, had quitted the building, and it was full time for me to follow; for I found our sallying party, after committing dreadful ravages in Oraa's lines, were in full retreat upon the fort, hotly pressed by a superior force of the enemy.

I am pretty well known and respected by the men of both parties in Spain (indeed I served for some months on the Queen's side before I came over to Don Carlos); and, as it is my maxim never to give quarter, I never expect to receive it when taken myself.

On issuing from the podesta with Sheeny's portmanteau and my sword in my hand, I was a little disgusted and annoyed to see our own men in a pretty good column retreating at double-quick, and about four hundred yards beyond me, up the hill leading to the fort; while on my left hand, and at only a hundred yards, a troop of the Queenite lancers were clattering along the road.
I had got into the very middle of the road before I made this discovery, so that the fellows had a full sight of me, and whiz! came a bullet by my left whisker before I could say Jack Robinson.

I looked round--there were seventy of the accursed malvados at the least, and within, as I said, a hundred yards.