and Marengo.
Massena led; Ney was second in command; both facts being pledges of
daring generalship. The English were falling sullenly back in the long
retreat which ended at Torres Vedras, and the French were in exultant
pursuit. Massena had announced that he was going to "drive the leopard
into the sea"; and French soldiers, it may be added, are never so
dangerous as when on fire with the _elan_ of success.

Wellington's army was inferior to its foe in numbers, and of mixed
nationality, and it is probable that retreat had loosened the fibre of
even British discipline, if not of British courage. Two days before
Busaco, for example, the light division, the very flower of the English
army, was encamped in a pine-wood about which a peasant had warned them
that it was "haunted." During the night, without signal or visible
cause, officers and men, as though suddenly smitten with frenzy,
started from their sleep and dispersed in all directions. Nor could
the mysterious panic be stayed until some officer, shrewder than the
rest, shouted the order, "Prepare to receive cavalry," when the
instinct of discipline asserted itself, the men rushed into rallying
squares, and, with huge shouts of laughter, recovered themselves from
their panic.

But battle is to the British soldier a tonic, and when Wellington drew
up his lines in challenge of battle to his pursuer, on the great hill
of Busaco, his red-coated soldiery were at least full of a grim
satisfaction. One of the combatants has described the diverse aspects
of the two hosts on the night before the fight. "The French were all
bustle and gaiety; but along the whole English line the soldiers, in
stern silence, examined their flints, cleaned their locks and barrels,
and then stretched themselves on the ground to rest, each with his
firelock within his grasp." The single advantage of the British lay in
their position. Busaco is a great hill, one of the loftiest and most
rugged in Portugal, eight miles in breadth, and barring the road by
which Massena was moving on Lisbon. "There are certainly," said
Wellington, "many bad roads in Portugal, but the enemy has taken
decidedly the worst in the whole kingdom."

The great ridge, with its gloomy tree-clad heights and cloven crest,
round which the mists hung in sullen vapour, was an ideal position for
defence. In its front was a valley forming a natural ditch so deep
that the eye could scarcely pierce its depths. The ravine a