about three
o'clock
We have beaten the English , and obliged them to abandon a portion of this unhappy country , which they had invaded in contempt of all the rights of justice , and which they continue to ravage without mercy , for , in these parts , warfare is another name for treachery , pillage , and massacre . This morning , after a toilsome march through a rocky and mountainous district , we received information from our scouts , that the enemy had been reinforced , and was preparing to act on the offensive ; and , as we were separated from them by a distance of a few leagues only , an engagement became inevitable . My old friend the prince , the father of my deliverer , was impatient to march to the attack . The action began about three o'clock ; it was very bloody and furious . Seeing that our men wavered for a moment , for they were inferior in number , and the English reinforcements consisted of fresh troops , I charged at the head of our weak reserve of cavalry . The old prince was in the centre , fighting , as he always fights , intrepidly ; his son , Djalma , scarcely eighteen , as brave as his father , did not leave my side . In the hottest part of the engagement , my horse was killed under me , and rolling over into a ravine , along the edge of which I was riding , I found myself so awkwardly entangled beneath him , that for an instant I thought my thigh was broken . ''