While Soult was thus establishing a line of battle, Wellington, who had quitted Hill’s quarters in the Bastan early on the 27th, crossed the great mountain spine into the valley of Lanz, without being able to learn anything of Picton’s movements or position until he reached Ostiz, a few miles from Sauroren. There he found Long’s brigade of light cavalry, placed to furnish posts of correspondence in the mountains, and from him heard that Picton had abandoned the heights of Linzoain: whereupon, leaving instructions to stop all the troops coming down the valley of Lanz until the state of affairs near Pampeluna could be ascertained, he made at racing speed for Sauroren. As he entered that village he saw Clausel’s divisions moving along the crest of the mountain, and thus knew the allied troops in the valley of Lanz were intercepted; then pulling up his horse, he wrote on the parapet of the bridge at Sauroren fresh instructions to turn everything from that valley to the right by a cross-road, which led out of it to Marcalain and thence round the hills, to enter the valley again at Oricain, in rear of the position occupied by Cole. Lord Fitzroy Somerset, who had kept up with him, galloped with these orders out of Sauroren by one road, the French light cavalry simultaneously dashed in by another, and Wellington rode alone up the mountain. A Portuguese battalion on the left, first recognising him, raised a joyful cry, and soon the shrill clamour was taken up by the next regiments, swelling as it run along the line into that stern and appalling shout which the British soldier is wont to give upon the edge of battle, and which no enemy ever heard unmoved. In a conspicuous place he stopped, desirous that both armies should know he was there. A spy who was present pointed out Soult, then so near that his features could be plainly distinguished. Fixing his eyes attentively upon that formidable man, Wellington thus spoke, “_Yonder is a great commander, but he is a cautious one and will delay his attack to ascertain the cause of these shouts; that will give time for the sixth division to arrive and I shall beat him._” The event justified the prediction. Cole’s position was the summit of a mountain mass, which filled all the space between the Guy and Lanz valleys, as far back as Huarte and Villalba. It was highest in the centre and well defined towards the enemy, yet the trace was irregular, the right being thrown back towards the village of Arletta so as to flank the great road, which was also swept by guns placed on a lower range behind.