Abbé now followed D’Armagnac on the road to the town of Maya, leaving Maransin to deal with Stewart’s new position; and notwithstanding its extreme strength the French gained ground until six o’clock; for the British, shrunk in numbers, wanted ammunition, and a part of the 82nd defended the rocks on which they were posted with stones. In this desperate condition Stewart was upon the point of abandoning the mountain entirely, when Barnes’ brigade of the seventh division, arriving from Echallar, charged and drove the French back to the Maya ridge. Stewart was then master of the Atchiola, and D’Erlon thinking greater reinforcements had come up, recalled his other divisions from the Maya road and re-united his whole corps on the _Col_. He had lost fifteen hundred men and a general, but he took four guns, and fourteen hundred British soldiers and one general were killed or wounded. Such was the commencement of Soult’s operations to restore the fortunes of France. Three considerable actions fought on the same day had each ended in his favour. At San Sebastian the allies’ assault was repulsed; at Roncesvalles they abandoned the passes; at Maya they were defeated--but the decisive blow was still to be struck. Lord Wellington heard of the fight at Maya on his way back from San Sebastian, after the assault, but with the false addition that D’Erlon was beaten. As early as the 22nd he had known that Soult was preparing a great offensive movement; yet the impassive attitude of the French centre, the disposition of their reserve, twice as strong as he at first supposed, together with the bridges prepared by Reille, were calculated to mislead, and did mislead him. Soult’s combinations to bring his centre finally into line on the crest of the great chain being impenetrable, the English general could not believe he would throw himself with only thirty thousand men into the valley of the Ebro, unless sure of aid from Suchet. But that general’s movements indicated a determination to remain in Catalonia, and Wellington, in contrast to Soult, knew that Pampeluna was not in extremity, and thought, the assault not having been made, that San Sebastian was. Hence the operations against his right, their full extent not known, appeared a feint, and he judged the real effort would be to raise the siege of San Sebastian. But in the night of the 25th, correct intelligence of the Maya and Roncesvalles affairs arrived. Graham was then ordered to turn the siege into a blockade, to embark the guns and stores, and hold his spare troops ready to join Giron, on a position of battle marked out near the Bidassoa. Cotton was directed to move the cavalry up to Pampeluna, and Abispal was instructed to hold some of his Spanish troops ready to act in advance of that fortress. Meanwhile Wellington, having arranged his lines of correspondence, proceeded to San Esteban, which he reached early in the morning.