Meanwhile Blake was preparing, though with no great self-confidence, to make an attack on Suchet’s siege-lines, and was only awaiting the arrival of Mahy and the Murcians before striking. He began by trying a feeble diversion on the flank, sending back Obispo’s division once more to Segorbe, and getting some of the Empecinado’s bands to threaten Teruel, the southernmost of the garrisons in Aragon. This so far annoyed the French marshal that on the 20th of October he sent off Palombini, with one French and one Italian brigade and 400 horse, to drive Obispo out of Segorbe, and to open the road to Teruel. By so doing he placed himself in a dangerous position, for he had detached 4,500 men on an excursion which could not take less than four days, and if Blake had refused to wait for Mahy, and had let Obispo amuse Palombini, he could have marched against the siege-lines with 20,000 men, including all his best troops, and would have found only 12,000, besides the gunners of the siege artillery, left in the French camp. If Suchet had left any detachments to maintain the blockade, as he probably would have done, he could only have fought with odds of less than one to two. If he had brought up all his battalions, the garrison would have sallied forth and destroyed his siege-works. But Blake did not take his chance--whatever it may have been worth: he waited for Mahy, who was only due on the 23rd. Meanwhile Palombini made a rapid raid upon Segorbe: but Obispo, leaving two battalions only to make a show of resistance, crossed the hills by by-paths and drew in to Liria, on the flank of the main army, and in close touch with it. He could have been used for a battle, if Blake had chosen to deliver one upon the 22nd or 23rd. But the unlucky Spanish general did not so choose: and Palombini--finding nothing serious in front of him, and hearing that Teruel had been already relieved by Severoli--rightly returned by forced marches to Saguntum, which he reached on the afternoon of the 24th of October. Meanwhile the long-expected Mahy arrived at Liria on the night of the 23rd, and found Obispo already lying there. The two forces united, and marched on the 24th to Betera, but there again divided, the Murcians going on to join Blake’s main body, while the Valencian division received orders from the Commander-in-Chief to move as an independent flanking column, and from Naquera to fall upon the flank or right rear of Suchet’s position in front of Saguntum. On the same day Blake himself broke out of the lines behind the Guadalaviar, and after issuing a well-worded proclamation, in which he said that Andriani’s gallant garrison must not perish unassisted, and declared a confidence which he must have been far from feeling in the resolution of his troops, advanced for some miles along the high-road, so as to place himself at nightfall within striking distance of the enemy.