In the night of the 20th the parallel was extended to the left, across the Seville road, and three counter-batteries were commenced; but they were traced, in rear of the parallel, partly because the ground was too soft in front to admit of the guns moving; partly for safety, because the batteries were within three hundred yards of the San Roque, and as the parallel, eighteen hundred yards long, was only guarded by fourteen hundred men, a few bold soldiers might by a sudden rush have succeeded in spiking the guns if they had been placed in front of the trench. A slight sally was this day repulsed, and a shoulder was given to the right of the parallel to cover that flank. The 21st the enemy placed two field-pieces on the right bank of the Guadiana, designing to rake the trenches, but the shoulder, made the night before, baffled the design, and the riflemen’s fire soon sent the guns away. Indications of a similar design against the left flank, from the Pardaleras hill, were also observed, and a guard of three hundred men with two guns, was posted on that side in some broken ground. [Sidenote: La Marre’s Siege of Badajos.] In the night another battery against the San Roque was commenced, and the battery against the Picurina was finished; but heavy rain again retarded the works, and the besiegers having failed in an attempt to drain the lower parts of the parallel, by cuts, made an artificial bottom of sand-bags. On the other hand the besieged thinking the curtain adjoining the castle was the true object of attack, threw up an earthen entrenchment in front, and commenced clearing away the houses behind it. A covered communication from the Trinidad gate to the San Roque, intended to take this supposed attack in reverse, was also commenced; but the labour of digging being too great, it was completed by hanging up brown cloth, which appeared to be earth, and by this ingenious expedient, the garrison passed unseen between those points.