Colville forming his battalions in two squares immediately descended from the hill, but Picton had a considerable distance to move, and at this moment, the allied squadrons, fearing to be surrounded by the French, who had completely turned their right, galloped away, and took refuge with the Portuguese regiment, which was farthest in retreat. Then the fifth and seventy-seventh, two weak battalions formed in one square, were quite exposed, and in an instant the whole of the French cavalry came thundering down upon them. But how vain, how fruitless to match the sword with the musket! To send the charging horseman against the steadfast veteran! The multitudinous squadrons, rending the skies with their shouts, and closing upon the glowing squares, like the falling edges of a burning crater, were as instantly rejected, scorched, and scattered abroad; and the rolling peal of musketry had scarcely ceased to echo in the hills, when bayonets glittered at the edge of the smoke, and with firm and even step, the British regiments came forth like the holy men from the Assyrian’s furnace. [Illustration: _Vol. 4. Plate 3._ EXPLANATORY SKETCH of the _OPERATIONS AND COMBAT_ of EL BODON. _London. Published by T. & W. BOONE._] Picton now effected his junction and the whole retired over the plain to the position at Guinaldo, which was about six miles distant. The French, although fearing to renew the close attack, followed, and plied the troops with shot and shell, until about four o’clock in the evening, when the entrenched camp was gained. Here the fourth division presented a fresh front, Pack’s brigade came up from Campillo, and the heavy cavalry from the Upper Azava, being also brought into line, the action ceased. By this retrograde movement of the left and centre of the third division, the seventy-fourth and the sixtieth regiments, posted at Pastores, were cut off; they however crossed the Agueda by a ford, and moving up the right bank happily reached Guinaldo in the night, after a march of fifteen hours, in the course of which they captured a French cavalry patrol.