At day-break Cotton’s outposts were again driven in by the enemy, and the bulk of his cavalry with a troop of horse artillery immediately formed in front of the two infantry divisions, which were drawn up, the fourth division on the left, the light division on the right, but at a considerable distance from each other and separated by a wide ravine. The country was open and hilly, like the downs of England, with here and there water-gulleys, dry hollows, and bold naked heads of land, and behind the most prominent of these last, on the other side of the Trabancos, lay the whole French army. Cotton however, seeing only horsemen, pushed his cavalry again towards the river, advancing cautiously by his right along some high table-land, and his troops were soon lost to the view of the infantry, for the morning fog was thick on the stream, and at first nothing could be descried beyond. But very soon the deep tones of artillery shook the ground, the sharp ring of musketry was heard in the mist, and the forty-third regiment was hastily brought through Castrejon to support the advancing cavalry; for besides the ravine which separated the fourth from the light division, there was another ravine with a marshy bottom, between the cavalry and infantry, and the village of Castrejon was the only good point of passage. The cannonade now became heavy, and the spectacle surprisingly beautiful, for the lighter smoke and mist, curling up in fantastic pillars, formed a huge and glittering dome tinged of many colours by the rising sun; and through the grosser vapour below, the restless horsemen were seen or lost as the fume thickened from the rapid play of the artillery, while the bluff head of land, beyond the Trabancos, covered with French troops, appeared, by an optical deception close at hand, dilated to the size of a mountain, and crowned with gigantic soldiers, who were continually breaking off and sliding down into the fight. Suddenly a dismounted cavalry officer stalked from the midst of the smoke towards the line of infantry; his gait was peculiarly rigid, and he appeared to hold a bloody handkerchief to his heart, but that which seemed a cloth, was a broad and dreadful wound; a bullet had entirely effaced the flesh from his left shoulder and from his breast, and had carried away part of his ribs, his heart was bared, and its movement plainly discerned. It was a piteous and yet a noble sight, for his countenance though ghastly was firm, his step scarcely indicated weakness, and his voice never faltered. This unyielding man’s name was Williams; he died a short distance from the field of battle, and it was said, in the arms of his son, a youth of fourteen, who had followed his father to the Peninsula in hopes of obtaining a commission, for they were not in affluent circumstances.