D’Armagnac forced the picquet back with great loss upon the light companies, who sustained his assault with infinite difficulty; the alarm guns were then heard from the Maya pass, and Pringle hastened to the front; but his battalions, moving hurriedly from different camps, came up irregularly. The 34th arrived first at a running pace, yet by companies not in mass, and breathless from the length and ruggedness of the ascent; the 39th and 28th followed, but not immediately nor together, and meanwhile D’Armagnac, closely supported by Abbé, with domineering numbers and valour combined, maugre the desperate fighting of the light companies and the 34th, established his columns on the broad ridge of the position. Colonel Cameron sent the 50th from the left to the assistance of the overmatched troops, and that fierce and formidable old regiment, charging the head of an advancing column drove it clear out of the pass of Lessessa in the centre. But the French were many, and checked at one point assembled with increased force at another; nor could Pringle restore the battle with the 39th and 28th Regiments, which, cut off from the others, were, though fighting strongly, forced back to a second and lower ridge crossing the main road into the Bastan. They were followed by D’Armagnac, while Abbé pushed the 50th and 34th towards the Atchiola road to the left, upon Cameron’s brigade. That officer, still holding the pass of Maya with the left wings of the 71st and 92nd Regiments, now brought their right wings and the Portuguese guns into action: yet so dreadful was the slaughter, especially of the 92nd, that the enemy was, it is said, actually stopped for a time by the heaped mass of dead and dying; and then the left wing of that noble regiment, coming down from the higher ground, was forced to smite wounded friends and exulting foes alike, as mingled together they stood or crawled before its fire.[33] Such was the state of affairs when Stewart reached the field by the mountain road of Atchiola. The passes of Lessessa and Aretesque were lost; that of Maya was still held by the left wing of the 71st, but Stewart, seeing Maransin’s men gathered thickly on one side, and Abbé’s men on the other, abandoned it for a new position on the first rocky ridge covering the road over the Atchiola. He called down the 82nd from the highest part of that mountain, sent messengers to demand further aid from the seventh division, and meanwhile, though wounded, made a strenuous resistance, for he was a very gallant man. During this retrograde movement, Maransin suddenly thrust the head of his division across the front of the British line and connected his left with Abbé, throwing as he passed a destructive fire into the wasted remnant of the 92nd, which even then gave way but sullenly, and still fought, though two-thirds had fallen: however, one after the other, all the regiments were forced back, the Portuguese guns were taken and the position lost.