Clauzel, thus dispossessed of the mountain, fell back fighting to a strong ridge beyond the pass of Echallar, having his right covered by the Ivantelly mountain which was strongly occupied. Meanwhile the light division emerging by Lesaca from the narrow valley of the Bidassoa, ascended the broad heights of Santa Barbara without opposition, and halted there until the operations of the fourth and seventh divisions were far enough advanced to render it advisable to attack the Ivantelly. This lofty mountain lifted its head on the right, rising as it were out of the Santa Barbara heights, and separating them from the ridges through which the French troops beaten at Echallar were now retiring. Evening was coming on, a thick mist capped the crowning rocks which contained a strong French regiment, the British soldiers besides their long and terrible march the previous day had been for two days without sustenance, and were leaning, weak and fainting, on their arms, when the advancing fire of Barnes’s action about Echallar indicated the necessity of dislodging the enemy from Ivantelly. Colonel Andrew Barnard instantly led five companies of his riflemen to the attack, and four companies of the forty-third followed in support. The misty cloud had descended, and the riflemen were soon lost to the view, but the sharp clang of their weapons heard in distinct reply to the more sonorous rolling musketry of the French, told what work was going on. For some time the echoes rendered it doubtful how the action went, but the following companies of the forty-third could find no trace of an enemy save the killed and wounded. Barnard had fought his way unaided and without a check to the summit, where his dark-clothed swarthy veterans raised their victorious shout from the highest peak, just as the coming night shewed the long ridges of the mountains beyond sparkling with the last musket-flashes from Clauzel’s troops retiring in disorder from Echallar. This day’s fighting cost the British four hundred men, and lord Wellington narrowly escaped the enemy’s hands. He had carried with him towards Echallar half a company of the forty-third as an escort, and placed a serjeant named Blood with a party to watch in front while he examined his maps. The French who were close at hand sent a detachment to cut the party off; and such was the nature of the ground that their troops, rushing on at speed, would infallibly have fallen unawares upon lord Wellington, if Blood a young intelligent man, seeing the danger, had not with surprising activity, leaping rather than running down the precipitous rocks he was posted on, given the general notice, and as it was the French arrived in time to send a volley of shot after him as he galloped away.