Meanwhile the cavalry of Xuarez, supported by several regiments of infantry, were trying to carry the battery of the loyalists by storm. Their own artillery was now silent, as so inextricably mingled were rebels and loyalists round the battery that it was impossible for the gunners of Xuarez to fire without cutting their own men to pieces. The rebels were still steadily pouring, column after column, across the stream in the rear of the cavalry, when suddenly their line was cut in two by the victorious loyalists from the bridge.
These had utterly beaten the rebels defending the passage, by turning their own guns on them, and now those latter were flying towards the centre of the scene of operations, followed by a scattered body of cavalry, cutting them down in all directions. The loyalist infantry quickly crossed the river, and followed in the rear of the horsemen, but, being on foot, were necessarily far behind. The rebels attempted to re-form and reach the point where their columns were fording the stream but, flushed with victory, the cavalry of Benito passed clean through the mass, cutting off all further rebels from joining their comrades on the opposite shore.
At the same time, owing to the deadly fire of the loyalist battery, the invading soldiers of Xuarez were beginning to give way, and slowly fell back inch by inch towards the point where they had crossed. They were unable to get back, however, as the cavalry of Benito held them in check on the opposite bank, and seeing this, the General threw forward two regiments across the stream further up, where the bank, owing to the clean sweep made by his cavalry, was undefended.
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.
As yet, Xuarez had managed to keep the loyalists in front, and gathering his lines from the river bank to some distance into the plain, desperately resisted the attempts of the attacking force to break through and storm the battery. To protect his rear from the river side, he sent two hundred cavalry to the back of the sandhills, to guard the stream lest any straggling parties of loyalists should cross at that point and assail him unexpectedly. He was now entirely on the defensive, and, unless he succeeded in putting the loyalists to flight with his artillery, saw not how he could hope to win the victory.
How bitterly did he regret the desertion of the Indians, the cause of which disaffection he could not understand. With them coming from the north, he might have effected a conjunction by crossing the river as he had done, and thus captured the battery of Benito. As it was, however, his soldiers had been beaten back, the loyalists had crossed the river, and now his whole force was concentrated round the sandhills, upon which was placed his artillery.
In his despair, Don Hypolito longed for the darkness, in the hope that under cover of the night he might be enabled to fall back on Janjalla. Long since he would have done this but for the timely information that the town was blockaded by the warships of the Junta. It seemed like madness to retreat into such a death-trap, and yet if it could hold out against the bombardment until he arrived, he would at least have walls behind which to fight. He regretted intensely that he had not captured Centeotl and thrown himself therein to defend himself against the loyalists. Surrounded by stone walls, he could hope to wear out the troops of the Republic, and perhaps destroy them in detachments, but as it was he had no shelter. His whole front was being assaulted by the loyalists, and behind he had but his battery and a possible chance of falling back on Janjalla in the night-time.