"What say you?" said he. "These friends of ours arrive late to the dance. Think you that they will force their way through us and gain the bridge?"
"That is more than they can do," replied Marcelino.
"Just so, but they will try it, probably by an attack on my right flank. Your negroes march well; when the action commences I shall send orders to you to make a circuit beyond yon clump of poplars and fall upon their rear. Balviani will support you, but will advance by the road; the success of the movement will depend upon your speed."
"Your trust shall not be thrown away, general," replied Marcelino, dropping the point of his sword as the general rode on; then looking round he scanned the dark, eager faces of his men, as they watched the movements of the foe, and he knew that they would not fail him, but would follow him where he led, even into the thickest of that forest of glittering steel.
General Liniers had hardly completed the inspection of his forces, and the British were yet more than half-a-league distant, when Marcelino saw them halt. They had reached the crest of a lomada, from which the ground sloped gently towards the position occupied by the army of Buenos Aires, and which stretched away westwards as far as eye could reach, running nearly parallel to the course of the Riachuelo. On resuming the march, the hostile column left the highroad and turned off westwards, following the course of this lomada.
Liniers, fearing to be taken in flank, immediately commenced a corresponding movement to his right. Both armies thus marched parallel to each other, retaining much their former relative position, but hidden from each other by the rising ground and by the various chacras and plantations which lay scattered about.
The British, marching on the high ground, met with few obstacles to their progress, while the Buenos Airean army had to force its way through swamps and the many water-courses which intersected the low-lying grounds between the lomada and the Riachuelo. Through these swamps the men waded knee-deep in mud; in the water-courses many of them sank up to their elbows, wetting their ammunition. After more than a league of this toilsome marching they reached firmer ground, where the lomada approached nearer to the course of the river; here they found that the British had again halted behind the crest of the lomada. Again Liniers drew up his array, and the citizen soldiers forgot the sufferings of the rapid march and the cold which pierced them to the bones in their eagerness to close at once with the foe.
