Distributed along the clifts and terraces of the mountain, kneeling amongst the bushes and sheltered behind the trees that grew at its base, the Carlists kept up a steady fire, which was warmly replied to by their antagonists. In the most exposed situations, the Carlist officers of all ranks, from the ensign to the general, showed themselves, encouraging their men, urging them to take good aim, and not to fire till they could distinguish the faces of their enemies, themselves sometimes taking up a dead man's musket and sending a few well-directed shots amongst the Christinos. Here a man was seen binding the sash, which forms part of the dress of every Navarrese peasant, over a wound that was not of sufficient importance to send him to the rear; in another place a guerilla replenished his scanty stock of ammunition from the cartridge-belt of a fallen comrade, and sprang forward, to meet perhaps, the next moment, a similar fate. On the side of the Christinos there was less appearance of enthusiasm and ardour for the fight; but their numbers were far superior, and each moment increased, and some light guns and howitzers that had been brought up began to scatter shot and shell amongst the Carlists, although the manner in which the latter were sheltered amongst wood and rock, prevented those missiles from doing them very material injury. The fight was hottest around the hill on which the picket had been stationed, now the most advanced point of the Carlist line. It was held by a battalion, which, dispersed amongst the trees that fringed its sides, opposed a fierce resistance to the assaults of the Christinos. At last the latter, weary of the protracted skirmishing, by which they lost many men, but were unable to obtain any material advantage, sent forward two battalions of the royal guards to take the hill at the point of the bayonet. With their bugles playing a lively march, these troops, the finest infantry in the Spanish army, advanced in admirable order, and without firing a shot, to perform the duty assigned to them. On their approach the Carlists retreated from the sides of the hill, and assembled in the wood on its summit, at the foot of the higher mountains. One battalion of the guards ascended the hill in line, and advanced along the open ground, whilst the other marched round the skirt of the eminence to take the Carlists in flank. The Navarrese reserved their fire till they saw the former battalion within fifty yards of them, and then poured in a deadly volley. The ranks of the Christinos were thinned, but they closed them again, and, with levelled bayonets and quickened step, advanced to clear the wood, little expecting that the newly-raised troops opposed to them would venture to meet them at close quarters. The event, however, proved that they had undervalued their antagonists. Emerging from their shelter, the Carlists brought their bayonets to the charge, and, with a ringing shout of "_Viva Carlos Quinto!_" rushed upon their foe. A