"The passes of Banos and Periles will be held by the troops of Marshal Beresford and General Del Parque, and it is to the country between the mountains and Marshal Cuesta's force, at Almaraz, that Colonel O'Connor is directed to concentrate his attention. In case of being attacked by superior forces, Colonel O'Connor will, if possible, retreat into the mountains on his left flank, maintain himself there, and open communications with Lord Beresford's forces at Banos or Bejar.

"Colonel O'Connor is authorized to requisition six carts from the quartermaster's department, and to hand over his tents to them; to draw 50,000 rounds of ball cartridge, and such rations as he may be able to carry with him. The paymaster has received authority to hand over to him 500 pounds, for the payment of supplies for his men. When this sum is exhausted, Colonel O'Connor is authorized to issue orders for supplies payable by the paymaster to the forces, exercising the strictest economy, and sending notification to the Paymaster General of the issue of such orders.

"This despatch is confidential, and the direction of the route is, on no account, to be divulged."

"You hear that, O'Grady; and you too, Dicky. I ought not to have read the despatch out loud. However, I know you will keep the matter secret."

"You may trust us for that, Terence, for it is a secret worth knowing. It is evident that Sir Arthur is going to join Cuesta, and make a dash on Madrid. Well, he has been long enough in making up his mind; but it is a satisfaction that we are likely to have hot work, at last, though I wish we could have done it without those Spaniards. We have seen enough of them to know that nothing, beyond kind words, are to be expected of them and, when the time for fighting comes, I would rather that we depended upon ourselves than have to act with fellows on whom there is no reliance, whatever, to be placed."

"I agree with you there, heartily, O'Grady. However, thank goodness we are going to set out at last; and I am very glad that it falls to us to act as the vanguard of the army, instead of being attached to Beresford's command and kept stationary in the passes.

"Now I must be at work. I daresay we shall meet again, before long."

Terence wrote an acknowledgment of the receipt of the general's order, and handed it to the orderly who had brought it. A bugler at once sounded the field-officers' call.

"We are to march at once," he said, when Herrara, Bull, and Macwitty arrived. "Let the tents be struck, and handed over to the quartermaster's department. See that the men have four days' biscuit in their haversacks.

"Each battalion is to take three carts with it. I will go to the quartermaster's department, to draw them. Tell off six men from each battalion to accompany me, and take charge of the carts. Each battalion will carry 25,000 rounds of spare ammunition, and a chest of 250 pounds. I will requisition from the commissariat as much biscuit as we can carry, and twenty bullocks for each battalion, to be driven with the carts.

"As soon as the carts are obtained, the men will drive them to the ordnance stores for the ammunition, and to the commissariat stores to load up the food. You had better send an officer in charge of the men of each battalion.

"I will myself draw the money from the paymaster. I will go there at once. Send a couple of men with me, for of course it will be paid in silver. Then I will go to the quartermaster's stores, and get the carts ready by the time that the men arrive. I want to march in an hour's time, at latest."

In a few minutes the camp was a scene of bustle and activity. The tents were struck and packed away in their bags, and piled in order to be handed over to the quartermaster; and in a few minutes over an hour from the receipt of the order, the two battalions were in motion.

After a twenty-mile march, they halted for the night near the frontier. An hour later they were joined by twenty troopers of a Portuguese regiment, under the command of a subaltern.

The next day they marched through Plasencia, and halted for the night on the slopes of the Sierra. An orderly was despatched, next morning, to the officer in command of any force that there might be at Banos, informing him of the position that they had taken up.

Terence ordered two companies to remain at this spot, which was at the head of a little stream running down into an affluent of the Tagus; their position being now nearly due north of Almaraz, from which they were distant some twenty miles. The rest of the force descended into the plain, and took post at various villages between the Sierra and Oropesa, the most advanced party halting four miles from that town.

The French forces under Victor had, in accordance with orders from Madrid, fallen back from Plasencia a week before, and taken up his quarters at Talavera.

At the time when the regiment received its uniforms, Terence had ordered that twenty suits of the men's peasant clothes should be retained in store and, specially intelligent men being chosen, twenty of these were sent forward towards the river Alberche, to discover Victor's position. They brought in news that he had placed his troops behind the river, and that Cuesta, who had at one time an advanced guard at Oropesa, had recalled it to Almaraz. Parties of Victor's cavalry were patrolling the country between Talavera and Oropesa.

Terence had sent Bull, with five hundred men, to occupy all the passes across the Sierras, with orders to capture any orderlies or messengers who might come along; and a day later four men brought in a French officer, who had been captured on the road leading south. He was the bearer of a letter from Soult to the king, and was at once sent, under the escort of four troopers, to headquarters.

The men who had brought in the officer reported that they had learned that Wilson, with his command of four thousand men, was in the mountains north of the Escurial; and that spies from that officer had ascertained that there was great alarm in Madrid, where the news of the British advance towards Plasencia was already known; and that it was feared that this force, with Cuesta's army at Almaraz and Venegas' army in La Mancha, were about to combine in an attack upon the capital. This, indeed, was Sir Arthur's plan, and had been arranged with the Supreme Junta. The Junta, however, being jealous of Cuesta, had given secret instructions to Venegas to keep aloof.

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