Soaked through with rain, not knowing where I was, I struck my repeater, which I never failed to carry, and found that the army would be in motion in little more than an hour and a half. I became desperate; I resolved at all hazard to ascertain our true position. With this determination I alighted, leaving my cloak on the saddle, since it was too heavy to support from the quantity of rain it had imbibed; my pistols I carried in my breast, to keep the locks dry. The Spaniard I prevailed upon to remain behind, between thirty and forty paces distant from the fire which burned in our front, with orders not to move unless he should hear a shot fired, when he should take it for certain that I was attacked; then he was to ride forward at full speed, taking care not to leave my horse behind. All thus arranged, with doubtful step I approached the fire. My preceding the dragoon arose neither from personal bravado nor from want of full confidence in the Spaniard, who, I felt convinced, would do his duty gallantly: in fact, I had some difficulty in prevailing upon him to remain behind; and he anxiously pleaded to accompany me, although he still felt offended at being taken for a Portuguese-Irishman. My taking the lead was in consequence of the haughty Castilian having been too proud to learn any language but his own; and I happened to have had a tolerably good acquaintance with the languages of the four nations whose troops were in the field, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Silently and cautiously I moved forward, until I arrived within a few yards of the fire; then lying down flat on the ground, and forming a kind of funnel with both hands close to the ground and laying my ear thereto, I now plainly heard words which I joyfully discovered to be Portuguese. Getting on my legs I approached the fire with confidence. A Portuguese sentry, lowering his bayonet, demanded who I was; this being soon explained, I holloaed out to Don Diego, the Spanish dragoon, who instantly galloped forward with his sabre drawn, but not forgetting my horse. Upon asking the Portuguese corporal, who commanded the piquet, where the English were encamped, I was much astonished at his replying, “Here.” I could discover no sign of an army or a camp, until moving forward about forty yards in the direction which the corporal indicated, I came upon the very spot upon which my own tent had been pitched. Here I found Lieutenant Huddleston, of the company, lying under the folds of the tent, which had been blown down. I asked the cause of the darkness which reigned around and which was the chief cause of my wandering for some hours close to the army without being able to discover it. He told me that immediately after my departure a general order was issued that not a light should be lit, except one in the commissariat tent, and that only while they served out an additional allowance of rum, granted in consequence of our long march and the dreadful state of the weather; and that the furious tempest, which I must have encountered in the forest, blew down almost every tent, which added to the obscurity.