, he fell back upon the grim and naked ridges of Busaco,
where at the end of September he delivered battle and a murderous
detaining wound upon the advancing hosts of France. That done, he
continued the retreat through Coimbra. And now as he went he saw to it
that the devastation was completed along the line of march. What corn
and provisions could not be carried off were burnt or buried, and
the people forced to quit their dwellings and march with the army--a
pathetic, southward exodus of men and women, old and young, flocks of
sheep, and herds of cattle, creaking bullock-carts laden with provender
and household goods, leaving behind them a country bare as the Sahara,
where hunger before long should grip the French army too far committed
now to pause. In advancing and overtaking must lie Massena's hope.
Eventually in Lisbon he must bring the British to bay, and, breaking
them, open out at last his way into a land of plenty.

Thus thought Massena, knowing nothing of the lines of Torres Vedras; and
thus, too, thought the British Government at home, itself declaring that
Wellington was ruining the country to no purpose, since in the end the
British must be driven out with terrible loss and infamy that must make
their name an opprobrium in the world.

But Wellington went his relentless way, and at tire end of the first
week of October brought his army and the multitude of refugees safely
within the amazing lines. The French, pressing hard upon their heels and
confident that the end was near, were brought up sharply before those
stupendous, unsuspected, impregnable fortifications.

After spending best part of a month in vain reconnoitering, Massena took
up his quarters at Santarem, and thence the country was scoured for
what scraps of victuals had been left to relieve the dire straits of the
famished host of France. How the great marshal contrived to hold out so
long in Santarem against the onslaught of famine and concomitant disease
remains something of a mystery. An appeal to the Emperor for succour
eventually brought Drouet with provisions, but these were no more than
would keep his men alive on a retreat into Spain, and that retreat
he commenced early in the following March, by when no less than ten
thousand of his army had fallen sick.

Instantly Wellington was up and after him. The French retreat became a
flight. They threw away baggage and ammunition that they might travel
the lighter. Thus they fled towards Spain