Note 21 — Chapter IV

Several thousand infantry slept in the long galleries of an immense convent built round a square; the lower corridors were filled with the horses of the cavalry and artillery, so thickly stowed that it was scarcely possible for a single man to pass them, and there was but one entrance. Two officers returning from the bridge, being desirous to find shelter for their men, entered the convent, and with horror perceived that a large window shutter being on fire, and the flame spreading to the rafters above, in a few moments the straw under the horses would ignite, and six thousand men and animals would inevitably perish in the flames. One of the officers, (captain Lloyd, of the forty-third,) a man of great activity, strength, and presence of mind, made a sign to his companions to keep silence, and springing on to the nearest horse, run along the backs of the others until he reached the flaming shutter, which he tore off its hinges and cast out of the window; then returning quietly, awakened some of the soldiers, and cleared the passage without creating any alarm, which in such a case would have been as destructive as the flames. Captain Lloyd was a man of more than ordinary talents; his character has been forcibly and justly depicted in that excellent little work called the “Life of a Sergeant.”