our imagination can conceive, be dealt on all sides; the hurried, fitful
thought of home; the years long past compressed into one minute's space;
the last adieu of all we've loved, mingling with the muttered prayer to
Heaven, while, high above all, the deep pervading sense that earth has no
temptation strong enough to turn us from that path whose ending must be a
sepulchre!

Each heart was too full for words. We followed noiselessly along the turf,
the dark figure of our leader guiding us through the gloom. On arriving
at the ditch, the party with the ladders moved to the front. Already some
hay-packs were thrown in, and the forlorn hope sprang forward.

All was still and silent as the grave. "Quietly, my men, quietly!" said
M'Kinnon; "don't press." Scarcely had he spoken when a musket whose charge,
contrary to orders, had not been drawn, went off. The whizzing bullet could
not have struck the wall, when suddenly a bright flame burst forth from the
ramparts, and shot upward towards the sky. For an instant the whole scene
before us was bright as noonday. On one side, the dark ranks and glistening
bayonets of the enemy; on the other, the red uniform of the British
columns: compressed like some solid wall, they stretched along the plain.

A deafening roll of musketry from the extreme right announced that the
Third Division was already in action, while the loud cry of our leader, as
he sprang into the trench, summoned us to the charge. The leading sections,
not waiting for the ladders, jumped down, others pressing rapidly behind
them, when a loud rumbling thunder crept along the earth, a hissing,
crackling noise followed, and from the dark ditch a forked and livid
lightning burst like the flame from a volcano, and a mine exploded.
Hundreds of shells and grenades scattered along the ground were ignited at
the same moment; the air sparkled with the whizzing fuses, the musketry
plied incessantly from the walls, and every man of the leading company
of the stormers was blown to pieces. While this dreadful catastrophe was
enacting before our eyes, the different assaults were made on all sides;
the whole fortress seemed girt around with fire. From every part arose the
yells of triumph and the shouts of the assailants. As for us, we stood upon
the verge of the ditch, breathless, hesitating, and horror-struck. A sudden
darkness succeeded to the bright glare, but from the midst of the gloom the
agonizing cries of the wounded and th