More than four thousand persons, old and young and of both sexes, were seen pressing forward with wild tumult, some already on the bridge, others striving to gain it, and all in a state of phrenzy. The batteries on the opposite bank opened their fire when the French appeared, and at that moment a troop of Portuguese cavalry flying from the fight came down one of the streets, and remorseless in their fears, bore, at full gallop, into the midst of the miserable helpless crowd, and trampled a bloody pathway to the river. Suddenly the nearest boats, unable to sustain the increasing weight, sunk and the foremost wretches still tumbling into the river, as they were pressed from behind, perished, until the heaped bodies rising above the surface of the waters, filled all the space left by the sinking of the boats. The first of the French that arrived, amazed at this fearful spectacle, forgot the battle, and hastened to save those who still struggled for life--and while some were thus nobly employed, others by the help of planks, getting on to the firmer parts of the bridge, crossed the river and carried the batteries on the heights of Villa Nova. The passage was thus secured. But this terrible destruction did not complete the measure of the city’s calamities; two hundred men, who occupied the bishop’s palace, fired from the windows and maintained that post until the French, gathering round them in strength, burst the doors, and put all to the sword. Every street and house now rung with the noise of the combatants and the shrieks of distress; for the French soldiers, exasperated by long hardships, and prone like all soldiers to ferocity and violence during an assault, became frantic with fury, when, in one of the principal squares, they found several of their comrades who had been made prisoners, fastened upright, and living, but with their eyes bursted, their tongues torn out, and their other members mutilated and gashed. Those that beheld the sight spared none who fell in their way. [Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations MS.] It was in vain that Soult strove with all his power to stop the slaughter; it was in vain that hundreds of officers and soldiers opposed, at the risk of their lives, the vengeance of their comrades, and by their generous exertions rescued vast numbers that would otherwise have fallen victims to the anger and brutality of the moment. The frightful scene of rape, pillage, and murder, closed not for many hours, and what with those who fell in battle, those who were drowned, and those sacrificed to revenge, it is said that ten thousand Portuguese died in that unhappy day! The loss of the French did not exceed five hundred men. CHAPTER III.