Colonel Subervie of the 10th Chasseurs, advancing with heedless confidence to charge the body of Spaniards in front of him, suddenly saw himself enveloped and surrounded by the two regiments placed in ambush. There was a furious _mêlée_, in which the chasseurs lost one officer and sixty-two men killed and about seventy more wounded, before they could cut their way out of the snare. The sight of Lasalle’s main body coming up in haste to the rescue made Henestrosa give the order for a prompt retreat, which he accomplished without loss. ‘We arrived,’ writes a French officer of one of the supporting regiments, ‘too late, and saw nothing but a cloud of dust in the distance, made by the Spaniards as they rode away, and the colonel of the 10th tearing his hair at the sight of his numerous wounded[172].’ This lesson taught Lasalle more caution: it was creditable to Henestrosa, though it must be confessed that he had two men to one in the skirmish, in addition to the advantage of taking his enemy by surprise. Oddly enough the regiments which accomplished this successful _coup_ on the twenty-first were the same which behaved worst in the great battle of the next week[173]. [172] Rocca, p. 268. [173] See pp. 162-3. At Miajadas, where this skirmish had taken place, the road descending from the pass of Santa Cruz forks in two directions. One branch goes towards Merida and Badajoz, the other and less important to Medellin, La Serena, and the upper Guadiana. It would have been natural for Cuesta to take the former route, which brought him nearer to his base at Badajoz, and at the same time enabled him to cover the main road to Andalusia, at which Victor was presumably aiming. But the old general left this line unprotected, and retired by the eastern path to Medellin. His main object was to secure his junction with the reinforcements from La Mancha, which Albuquerque was bringing to him. They were nearing La Serena, and would be cut off from him if he took the road to Badajoz. At the same time he argued that, as he had thus placed himself on the flank of the French, they could not afford to march past him, since the moment that they left Merida behind them he would be enabled to cut their communications with Madrid. He imagined that Victor would prefer to fight him, and would not dare either to take in hand the siege of Badajoz, or to advance against Andalusia, without clearing his flank by a general action. The moment that he should have picked up Albuquerque, Cuesta was prepared to indulge the enemy with a fight, and if he were not attacked himself he intended to take the offensive. This was sheer madness; even when he had drawn in his last reserves the old general had but 20,000 foot and 3,000 horse[174], a number which only exceeded Victor’s total by three or four thousand men because the latter had been dropping detachments between Almaraz and Merida. Considering the relative value of the