The rebels now found themselves between two masses of their foes, between two fires, with nothing but the river between. They slowly retreated before the infantry, pressing forward from the direction of the battery, and falling back on the right bank of the river, found themselves unable to cross in the teeth of the loyalist cavalry holding the opposite bank, while the foot-soldiers behind fought viciously with the rebels. The cavalry and infantry of Xuarez thus caught became demoralized, and unable to keep a firm front to the loyalists, broke up into terrified masses, which were either cut to pieces, or forced into the stream, where they were shot down by their enemies on the opposite bank. It was now close on six o'clock, and, after five hours' incessant fighting, the advantage was now with the army of the Junta. Benito held the passage of the bridge near Centeotl, and from thence down to the battery, the banks of the stream on both sides were held by his own men. The enemy beaten on the right bank, were slowly falling back on the left, and concentrating themselves round the hillocks, from which thundered their artillery. Behind the battery, Xuarez still held three thousand men in reserve, and these he brought forward, with the intention of hurling them in one last effort of despair, against the advancing masses of the loyalists. General Benito no longer held back his army, but in person led his soldiers across the river. In a miraculously short space of time the combat was transferred from the right to the left bank of the Rio Tardo, and the whole force of the loyalists, with the exception of the corps of engineers attending to the battery, had crossed the river, and were pressing forward to carry the citadel of Xuarez by storm. What with killed and wounded, and prisoners taken, the number of fighting men on either side was terribly reduced; yet, numerically speaking, the advantage lay with the loyalists, who could oppose seven thousand men to four thousand on the part of Xuarez. Confident in his position, and in the shelter afforded by the sandhills, Don Hypolito gathered his four thousand round the base of his batteries, and played his guns with deadly effect on the advancing masses of the loyalists over the heads of his own men. It was now a hand-to-hand struggle, and though the loyalists had the advantage over the rebels in numbers, yet as they were unable to bring their guns across the river, the combat was more or less equalised. The deadly fire from the sandhills played havoc with their ranks, and they were mowed down in hundreds. Having no artillery to oppose these guns, and being unable to silence them by the battery on the opposite bank, the only hope of thrashing the enemy lay in carrying the sandhills by storm. This Benito, with desperate courage, now proceeded to do.