Loison shewed no disposition to renew the attack, but Marchand’s people, who had followed the main road, broke into several masses, gained a pine wood half-way up the mountain, and sent a cloud of their skirmishers against the highest part, at the very moment that Simon was defeated. Such however was the difficulty of ascending, that Pack alone held the enemy in check, and half a mile higher up, Spencer shewed a line of the royal guards which forbade any hope of success; and from the salient point of land occupied by the light division, Crawfurd’s artillery took the main body of the French in the wood, in flank. Ney, who was there in person, after sustaining this murderous fire for an hour, relinquished the attack. The desultory fighting of the light troops then ceased, and before two o’clock Crawfurd having assented to a momentary truce, parties of both armies were mixed amicably together searching for the wounded men. Towards evening, however, a French company having, with signal audacity, seized a village within half-musket shot of the light division, refused to retire; which so incensed Crawfurd that, turning twelve guns on the village, he overwhelmed it with bullets for half an hour. After paying the French captain this distinguished honour, the English general recovering his temper, sent a company of the forty-third down, which cleared the village in a few minutes. Meanwhile an affecting incident, contrasting strongly with the savage character of the preceding events, added to the interest of the day. A poor orphan Portuguese girl, about seventeen years of age, and very handsome, was seen coming down the mountain and driving an ass, loaded with all her property, through the midst of the French army. She had abandoned her dwelling in obedience to the proclamation, and now passed over the field of battle with a childish simplicity, totally unconscious of her perilous situation, and scarcely understanding which were the hostile and which the friendly troops, for no man on either side was so brutal as to molest her. In this battle of Busaco, the French after astonishing efforts of valour, were repulsed, in the manner to be expected from the strength of the ground, and the goodness of the soldiers opposed to them; and their loss, although prodigiously exaggerated at the time, was great. General Graind’orge and about eight hundred men were slain, generals Foy and Merle wounded, Simon made prisoner, and the sum total may be estimated at four thousand five hundred men, while that of the allies did not exceed thirteen hundred. For on the one side musketry and artillery were brought into full activity, but the French sought to gain the day by resolution and audacity rather than by fire. [Illustration: _Vol. 3, Plate 7._ OPERATIONS on the MONDEGO, 1810. _Published by T. & W. Boone 1830._]