Craufurd, standing alone on one of the rocks, had silently watched the attack, but now, with a quick shrill cry, called on the two regiments to charge! Then a horrid shout startled the French column, and eighteen hundred British bayonets went sparkling over the brow of the hill: yet so sternly resolute, so hardy was the enemy, that each man of the first section raised his musket, and two officers with ten soldiers of the 52nd fell before them--not a Frenchman had missed his mark! They could do no more: the head of their column was violently thrown back upon the rear, both flanks were overlapped, three terrible discharges at five yards’ distance shattered the wavering mass, and a long trail of broken arms and bleeding carcasses marked the line of flight. The main body of the British stood fast, but some companies followed down the mountain, whereupon Ney threw forward his reserved division, and opening his guns from the opposite heights, killed some of the pursuers: thus warned, they recovered their own ground, and the Germans were brought forward to skirmish: meanwhile a small flanking detachment had passed round the right, and rising near the convent, was defeated by the 19th Portuguese Regiment under Colonel M‘Bean. Loison did not renew the fight, but Marchand, having gained a pine-wood half-way up the mountain, on the right of the light division, sent a cloud of skirmishers up from thence about the time General Simon was beaten: the ascent was however so steep that Pack’s Portuguese sufficed to hold them in check, and higher up Spencer showed his line of foot-guards in support; Craufurd’s artillery also smote Marchand’s people in the pine-wood; and Ney, who was there in person, after sustaining this murderous cannonade for an hour relinquished that attack. The desultory fighting of light troops then ceased, and before two o’clock parties from both armies were, under a momentary truce, amicably mixed searching for wounded men.