While these events were passing at Sabugal, Trant crossing the Lower Coa with four thousand militia, had taken post two miles from Almeida, when the river suddenly flooded behind him. Near fort Conception, there was a brigade of the ninth corps, which had been employed to cover the march of the battering train from Almeida to Ciudad Rodrigo; but ere those troops discovered Trant’s dangerous situation, he constructed a temporary bridge and was going to retire on the 6th, when he received a letter from the British head-quarters, desiring him to be vigilant in cutting the communication with Almeida, and fearless, because the next day a British force would be up to his assistance. Marching then to Val de Mula, he interposed between the fortress and the brigade of the ninth corps. The latter were already within half a mile of his position, and his destruction appeared inevitable; but suddenly two cannon shots were heard to the southward, the enemy immediately formed squares and commenced a retreat, and six squadrons of British cavalry and Bull’s troop of horse-artillery came sweeping over the plain in their rear. Military order and coolness, marked the French retreat across the Turones, yet the cannon shots ploughed with a fearful effect through their dense masses, and the horsemen continually flanked their line of march: they however gained the rough ground, and finally escaped over the Agueda by Barba del Puerco; but with the loss of three hundred men killed, wounded, and prisoners. The prince of Esling had reached Ciudad Rodrigo two days before, and lord Wellington now stood victorious on the confines of Portugal, having executed what to others appeared incredibly rash and vain even to attempt. CHAPTER V. Massena entered Portugal with sixty-five thousand men; his reinforcements while at Santarem were about ten thousand; he repassed the frontier with forty-five thousand; hence the invasion of Portugal cost him about thirty thousand men, of which fourteen thousand might have fallen by the sword or been taken. Not more than six thousand were lost during the retreat; but had lord Wellington, unrestrained by political considerations, attacked him vigorously at Redinha, Condeixa, Casal Nova, and Miranda de Corvo, half the French army would have been lost. It is unquestionable that a retreating army should fight as little as possible. When Massena reached the Agueda, his cavalry detachments, heavy artillery, and convalescents, again augmented his army to more than fifty thousand men, but the fatigues of the retreat and the want of provisions, would not suffer him to shew a front to the allies; wherefore, drawing two hundred thousand rations from Ciudad, he fell back to Salamanca, and lord Wellington invested Almeida. The light division occupied Gallegos and Espeja, the rest of the army were disposed in villages on both sides of the Coa, and the head-quarters were transferred to Villa Formosa.