The rumour ran that the city would be surrendered to the invader on Corpus Christi day, and not a Spaniard was to be left alive, and much more to the same effect. But, alas! on one occasion when a few English prisoners were being brought in a panic-cry arose that the invaders had entered the city, and then each man fled to hiding to save his own skin rather than to his post, and the few Spanish guards that remained had to drag them out of cellars and lofts by main force, kicking {55} and cuffing them for a set of cowards for not helping the defenders. The Count de Fuentes, once on a false alarm, was sent out of the city with every man who could be spared to Orlas, three leagues off on the road to Cascaes, where it was expected the enemy would pass; but the English went by Torres Vedras, and Fuentes had to hurry back into Lisbon again the same day, to avoid being cut off and the gates being shut against him. On the 19th of May Norris and his troops marched into Torres Vedras, where Dom Antonio was received with regal honours, and the oath of allegiance taken to him. He was desirous of making a detour to Santarem, through, as he said, a rich country favourable to him, but Norris knew the danger of delay, and insisted upon pushing forward to Lisbon. Guzman and his Spanish horsemen had fallen back during the previous night to Jara, nearer Lisbon, but he had left Captain Alarcon, with two companies of horse, to hang on the skirts of the enemy. The next day Captain Yorke, who commanded Norris' cavalry, determined to try their metal, and sent a corporal with eight men who rode through forty of the enemy, whilst Yorke himself, with forty English horse, put to precipitous flight Alarcon's two hundred. On the following day, May 21st, the English, disappointed again of a fight, were lodged in the village of Louvres, not far from Lisbon, which Guzman had hurriedly evacuated after being very nearly surprised by Norris. The village was small and the accommodation poor, so Drake's regiment, thinking to better their quarters, went to sleep at a {56} little hamlet a mile off. In the early dawn a cry was raised of "Viva el Rei Dom Antonio!" which was the usual friendly salutation of the country folk. The young English sentries fraternised with those who approached, and admitted them into the sleeping-camp. It was an ambuscade, and many of the English were slain, but the enemy was finally driven off by two companies of Englishmen who were lodged near. The next day, at a village near Lisbon, a large number were treacherously poisoned by the bad water from a well, or, as some said, by the honey which they found in the houses. This was three miles from Lisbon, at a place called Alvelade, and at eleven o'clock at night Essex left the camp with Sir Roger Williams and 1,000 men to lie in ambuscade near the town. When they had approached almost to the walls a few of them began banging at the gates and otherwise trying to alarm those within and provoke a