French commander, having seen enough in this hour, detached sufficient forces to hold back and punish our too audacious expedition. They beat the drum in Monte Torrero, and we saw a great force of cavalry coming against us; but we who were with Renovales had had our desire, the same as those with Butron, and were not obliged to wait for those horsemen who arrived at the end of the action; so we retired, giving them from a distance a “Good day” of the most sharp and pointed phrases in our vocabulary. We still had time to make useless some pieces placed ready for employment on the following day. We took a multitude of tools and spades, and we destroyed in all haste whatever we could of their entrenchments without losing hold upon the dozens of prisoners, of which we had taken up a collection.
Juan Pirli, one of our companions in the battalion, was carrying home to Saragossa the steel helmet of an engineer for the admiration of the public, and also a frying-pan in which were still the remnants of a breakfast begun in camp before Saragossa and ended in the other world.