: Uther and Igraine by Deeping Warwick Benda Wladyslaw T Wladyslaw Theodore Illustrator - Uther Pendragon (Legendary character) Fiction

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The Guerilla Chief, by Mayne Reid.

CERRO GORDO.

I heard these words, as I lay in my tent, on the field of Cerro Gordo.

It was the night after the battle bearing this name--fought between the American and Mexican armies in the month of April, 1847.

From early daylight until the Mexicans gave way, we kept firing at them across the stupendous chasm that lay between us, doing them no great damage, unless they were frightened by the whizz of an occasional rocket, which our artillerist, Ripley--now a second-rate Secesh general--succeeded in sending into their midst.

For all this security, our stick-to-the-text colonel held close to the little battery of howitzers; and would not have moved ten paces from it to have accomplished the capture of the whole Mexican army.

Perfectly satisfied, from the "lights with which we had been furnished," that there was no danger to our battery, and chafing at the ill-luck that had placed me so far away from the ground where laurels were growing, and where others were in the act of reaping them, I lost all interest in Ripley and his popguns; and straying along the summit of the cliff, I sat me down upon its edge.

A yucca stood stiffly out from the brow of the precipice. It was the tree-yucca, and a huge bole of bayonet-shaped leaves crowning its corrugated trunk shaded a spot of grass-covered turf, on the very edge of the escarpment.

Had I not scaled the Andes, I might have hesitated to trust myself under the shadow of that tree. But a cliff, however sheer and stupendous, could no longer cause a whirl in my brain; and to escape from the rays of a tropical sun, at that moment in mid-heaven, I crept forward, caught hold of the stem of the yucca, lowered my extremities, all booted and spurred as they were, over the angle of the porphrytic rock, took a Havana out of my case, drew a fusee across the steel-filings, and, hanging ignited the cigar, I commenced watching the deadly strife then raging in full fury on the opposite side of the ravine.

I saw them, one and all, regulars and volunteers, horse and foot, move at the "forward." I saw them advance towards the hill "El Telegrafo." I saw them mending their pace to the double-quick, and break into a run at the "charge!"

Then the smoke upon the summit became dissolved into translucent vapour; the tricoloured Mexican flag flickered for a moment longer through its film, until, as if by some invisible hand, it was dragged down the staff; while at the same instant the banner of the stars and stripes swept out upon the breeze, announcing the termination of the battle of Cerro Gordo.

THE ESCAPE OF EL COJO.

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