Charles O'Malley - 1910 Author:Charles James Lever Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE LINES OF CIUDAD RODRIGO. The small, twinkling lights which shone from the ramparts of Ciudad Rodrigo were our only guide, as we issued for... more »th upon our perilous expedition. The storm raged, if possible, even more violently than before, and gusts of wind swept along the ground with the force of a hurricane ; so that at first, our horses could scarcely face the tempest . Our path lay along the little stream for a considerable way ; after which, fording the rivulet, we entered upon the open plain, taking care to avoid the French outpost on the extreme left, which was marked by a bivouac fire, burning under the heavy down pour of rain, and looking larger through the dim atmosphere around it. I rode foremost, followed closely by Hampden and Mike; not a word was spoken after we crossed the stream. Our plan was, if challenged by a patrol, to reply in French and press on; so small a party could never suggest the idea of attack, and we hoped in this manner to escape. The violence of the storm was such that many of our precautions as to silence were quite unnecessary; and we had advanced to a considerable extent into the plain before any appearance of the encampment struck us. At length, on mounting a little rising ground, we perceived several fires stretching far away to the northward; while still to our left, there blazed one larger and brighter than the others. We now found that we had not outflanked their position as we intended, and learning from the situation of the fires, that we were still only at the outposts, we pressed sharply forward, directing our course by the twin stars that shone from the fortress. " How heavy the ground is here! " whispered Hampden, as our horses sunk above the fetlocks. " We had betterstretch away to the right; the rise of the...« less