But to return to the events of the 30th August 1813: while Clausel awaited Soult's orders at San Antonio, Reille had renewed the attack on San Marcial. For some hours the Spaniards continued to hold their own, but it is doubtful if they could have done so much longer, when fortunately the elements came to their aid. At about 3 P.M. there fell on the combatants one of the most violent storms ever experienced even in these lofty mountains, and the tempest of wind and rain raged for two or three hours, pinning the assailants to the ground and making further progress absolutely impossible. As darkness came on Reille succeeded in withdrawing his force across the river, but Clausel, who had now been ordered by Soult to retire from San Antonio, was less fortunate, for although he himself with two brigades succeeded in fording the Bidassoa near Vera, his lieutenant, General Vandermaesen, with the remainder of the troops, was cut off by the rising waters. His sole prospect of escape from this perilous situation was by forcing the passage of the guarded bridge a little above Vera, and this, during the dark and stormy night, he was successful in doing, though at the cost of his own life, and with the loss of nearly three hundred of his men. Soult's attempt, therefore, to interrupt the operations against San Sebastian had proved a dismal failure, and while the covering force had been employed in thus holding the French in check, the great fortress had fallen, after an assault as desperate and as bloody as that which had won Badajoz in the previous year. But Wellington had now cleared up the situation, for, save the garrison of the castle within San Sebastian, which held out for a few days longer, and that of Pampeluna, which was kept locked up until its capitulation in November, no Frenchmen (other than those of Suchet's corps in Catalonia) tarried beyond the Spanish slopes of the Pyrenees. It remained for the Allies to drive them through the mountains into France, and there was still heavy fighting in front of them. CHAPTER XII. THE CLOSE OF THE PENINSULAR WAR.