Picton having assumed command of all the troops, seventeen thousand, in the valley of Zubiri on the evening of the 26th, retreated before dawn the 27th, without hope or intention of covering Pampeluna; Soult followed in two columns down both banks of the Guy river, his cavalry and artillery closing the rear: both moved in compact order, the narrow valley was overgorged with troops, and a bicker of musketry alone marked the separation of the hostile forces. Meanwhile the garrison of Pampeluna attacked the Count of Abispal, who in great alarm spiked some of his guns, destroyed his magazines, and would have suffered a disaster, if Carlos España had not fortunately arrived from the Ebro with his division and checked the sally. Imminent was the crisis however, for Cole, first emerging from the Zubiri valley, had passed Villalba, three miles from Pampeluna, in retreat; Picton, following close, was at Huarte, and Abispal’s Spaniards were in confusion: in fine Soult was all but successful, when Picton, feeling the importance of the crisis, suddenly turned on some steep ridges which stretched across the mouths of the Zubiri and Lanz valleys and screened Pampeluna. Posting the third division on the right, he prolonged his left with Morillo’s Spaniards, called upon Abispal to support him, and directed Cole to occupy some heights a little in advance. That general had however noted a salient hill one mile farther on, commanding the great road, where two Spanish regiments of the blockading troops were still posted, and towards them he directed his course. Soult had also marked this hill, and a French detachment was in full career to seize it, when the Spaniards, seeing the British so close, vindicated their ground by a sudden charge. This was for Soult the stroke of fate. His double columns, just then emerging exultant from the narrow valley, stopped at the sight of ten thousand men crowning the summit of the mountain in opposition, while two miles further back stood Picton with a greater number, for Abispal had now taken post on Morillo’s left. To advance by the great road was then impossible, and to stand still was dangerous; for the French army, contracted to a span in front, was cleft in its whole length by the river Guy, and compressed on each side by mountains which there narrowed the valley to a quarter of a mile. In this difficulty Soult, with the promptness of a great commander, instantly shot the head of Clausel’s columns to his right, across the ridge which separated the Zubiri from the Lanz valley, and threw one of Reille’s divisions of infantry and a body of cavalry across the mountains on his left, beyond the Guy river, thus giving himself a strong position of battle and menacing Picton’s right flank. Reille’s remaining divisions he established at the village of Zabaldica in the Val de Zubiri, close under Cole’s right, while Clausel seized the village of Sauroren as close under that general’s left.