While it was still dark a straggling musketry was heard in the deep ravine, and when light broke, three heavy masses, entering the woods below, threw forward a swarm of light troops. One column, under General Marchand, on emerging from the dark chasm, turned to its left, and seemed intent to turn the right of the division; a second under Loison made straight up the face of the mountain by a road leading to the convent; the third remained in reserve. General Simon’s brigade was at the head of Loison’s attack, and it ascended with a wonderful alacrity; for though the skirmishers plied it unceasingly with musketry, and the artillery bullets swept through it from front to rear, its order was not disturbed, nor its speed abated. The English guns were worked with great rapidity, yet their range was contracted every round, the enemy’s musket-balls came singing up in a sharper key, and soon the British skirmishers, breathless and begrimed with powder, rushed over the edge of the ascent--the artillery then drew back, and the victorious cries of the French were heard within a few yards of the summit.
Craufurd, standing alone on one of the rocks, had silently watched the attack, but now, with a quick shrill cry, called on the two regiments to charge! Then a horrid shout startled the French column, and eighteen hundred British bayonets went sparkling over the brow of the hill: yet so sternly resolute, so hardy was the enemy, that each man of the first section raised his musket, and two officers with ten soldiers of the 52nd fell before them--not a Frenchman had missed his mark! They could do no more: the head of their column was violently thrown back upon the rear, both flanks were overlapped, three terrible discharges at five yards’ distance shattered the wavering mass, and a long trail of broken arms and bleeding carcasses marked the line of flight. The main body of the British stood fast, but some companies followed down the mountain, whereupon Ney threw forward his reserved division, and opening his guns from the opposite heights, killed some of the pursuers: thus warned, they recovered their own ground, and the Germans were brought forward to skirmish: meanwhile a small flanking detachment had passed round the right, and rising near the convent, was defeated by the 19th Portuguese Regiment under Colonel M‘Bean.