he word "to fall in"
given, when a loud cheer rent the very air; the musketry seemed suddenly
to cease, and the dark mass which continued to struggle up the heights
wavered, broke, and turned.

"What can that be?" said Merivale. "What can it mean?"

"I can tell you, sir," said I, proudly, while I felt my heart throb as
though it would bound from my bosom.

"And what is it, boy? Speak!"

"There it goes again! That was an Irish shout! The Eighty-eighth are at
them!"

"By Jove, here they come!" said Hampden. "God help the Frenchmen now!"

The words were not well spoken, when the red coats of our gallant fellows
were seen dashing through the vineyard.

"The steel, boys; nothing but the steel!" shouted a loud voice from the
crag above our heads.

I looked up. It was the stern Picton himself who spoke. The Eighty-eighth
now led the pursuit, and sprang from rock to rock in all the mad
impetuosity of battle; and like some mighty billow rolling before the gale,
the French went down the heights.

"Gallant Eighty-eighth! Gloriously done!" cried Picton, as he waved his
hat.

"Aren't we Connaught robbers, now?" shouted a rich brogue, as its owner,
breathless and bleeding, pressed forward in the charge.

A hearty burst of laughter mingled with the din of the battle.

"Now for it, boys! Now for _our_ work!" said old Merivale, drawing his
sabre as he spoke. "Forward! and charge!"

We waited not a second bidding, but bursting from our concealment,
galloped down into the broken column. It was no regular charge, but an
indiscriminate rush. Scarcely offering resistance, the enemy fell beneath
our sabres, or the still more deadly bayonets of the infantry, who were
inextricably mingled up in the conflict.

The chase was followed up for above half a mile, when we fell back,
fortunately in good time; for the French had opened a heavy fire from their
artillery, and regardless of their own retreating column, poured a shower
of grape among our squadrons. As we retired, the struggling files of the
Rangers joined us,--their faces and accoutrements blackened and begrimed
with powder; many of them, themselves wounded, had captured prisoners; and
one huge fellow of the grenadier company was seen driving before him a
no less powerful Frenchman, and to whom, as he turned from time to time
reluctantly, and scowled upon his jailer, the other vociferated some Irish
imprecation, whose harsh intentions were made most palpably evident by a
f