The disastrous result of the various expeditions which, under Gomez, Garcia, and others, had left the Basque provinces for the interior of Spain, had not yet convinced Don Carlos that his cause was unpopular. Deceived by his flatterers, who assured him that his appearance would every where be the signal for a general uprising in his favour, he crossed the Ebro in the month of May with sixteen battalions and nine squadrons. Victorious at Huesca, at Gra, in Catalonia, his army was utterly routed by the Baron de Meer and Diego Leon; and his sole thought then became how to recross the Ebro, and take refuge at Cantavieja, under the wing of his faithful Cabrera. Orders were sent to the latter chief to come and meet his sovereign. He obeyed, and by his assistance the passage of the river was accomplished. It was shortly before this time that Cabrera, whilst witnessing the conflagration of a village set on fire by his command, was struck by lightning, which killed one of his aides-de-camp, and threw him senseless from his horse. At first it was thought that he also was dead; but bleeding restored him, and the next day he was again in the saddle, burning, plundering, and shooting. His atrocities at this period surpass belief, and are too horrible to recapitulate. The curious in such matters may find them set down in all their hideous details, in the pages of Señor Cabello. Whether on account of his cruelties, or of his other bad qualities, most of the Carlist generals in Arragon about this time refused to act with him, and even loaded him with abuse. Cabañero actually challenged him to fight--a challenge which he did not think proper to accept. The same chief repeatedly told Don Carlos that he would rather serve as a private soldier in the army of Navarre than as a general under the orders of Cabrera. Quilez, who hated Cabrera as the assassin of his friend and countryman Carnicer, published an address to the Arragonese troops, calling upon them to leave the standard of the vile, dissolute, and cowardly Catalonian who disgraced them by his cruelties. He invited their attention to the ruined and miserable condition of their province since Cabrera had commanded there, and urged them to petition Don Carlos to give them a general more worthy of defending his rights and leading them to victory. So high did the quarrel run, and so widely did it spread, that the Arragonese and Catalonian battalions were near coming to blows. Don Carlos supported Cabrera, and Quilez and Cabañero, with their divisions, separated themselves from the army, and went to make war elsewhere.