During these movements the skirmishing of the light troops continued, but a thick fog coming up the valley prevented Soult from making dispositions for a general attack with his six divisions, and when night fell general Cole still held the great chain of the mountains with a loss of only three hundred and eighty men killed and wounded. His right was however turned by Orbaiceta, he had but ten or eleven thousand bayonets to oppose to thirty thousand, and his line of retreat being for four or five miles down hill and flanked all the way by the Lindouz, was uneasy and unfavourable. Wherefore putting the troops silently in march after dark, he threaded the passes and gained the valley of Urros. His rear-guard composed of Anson’s brigade followed in the morning, general Campbell retired from the Alduides by the pass of Urtiaga to Eugui in the valley of Zubiri, and the Spanish battalion retreating from the foundry of Orbaiceta by the narrow way of Navala rejoined Morillo near Espinal. The great chain was thus abandoned, but the result of the day’s operation was unsatisfactory to the French general; he acknowledged a loss of four hundred men, he had not gained ten miles, and from the passes now abandoned, to Pampeluna, the distance was not less than twenty-two miles, with strong defensive positions in the way where increasing numbers of intrepid enemies were to be expected. [Sidenote: Pellot, Mémoires des Campagnes des Pyrennées.] Soult’s combinations, contrived for greater success, had been thwarted, partly by fortune, partly by errors of execution the like of which all generals must expect, and the most experienced are the most resigned as knowing them to be inevitable. The interference of fortune was felt in the fog which rose at the moment when he was ready to thrust forward his heavy masses of troops entire. The failure in execution was Reille’s tardy movement. His orders were to gain with all expedition the Lindouz, that is to say the knot tying the heads of the Alduides, the Val Carlos, the Roncesvalles, and the valley of Urroz. From that position he would have commanded the Mendichuri, Atalosti, Ibañeta and Sahorgain passes, and by moving along the crest of the hills could menace the Urtiaga, Renacabal, and Bellate passes, thus endangering Campbell’s and Hill’s lines of retreat. But when he should have ascended the rocks of Airola he halted to incorporate two newly arrived conscript battalions and to issue provisions, and the hours thus lost would have sufficed to seize the Lindouz before general Ross got through the pass of Mendichuri. The fog would still have stopped the spread of the French columns to the extent designed by Soult, but fifteen or sixteen thousand men, placed on the flank and rear of Byng and Morillo, would have separated them from the fourth division, and forced the latter to retreat beyond Viscayret. [Sidenote: Official Despatch to the Minister of war, MSS.]