le of wet trenches
and the narrow bridge that spanned the Rivillas, has left an amusing
account of the scene. At one time Picton declared MacCarthy was
leading them wrong, and, drawing his sword, swore he would cut him
down. The column reached the trench, however, at the foot of the
castle walls, and was instantly overwhelmed with the fire of the
besieged. MacCarthy says we can only picture the scene by "supposing
that all the stars, planets, and meteors of the firmament, with
innumerable moons emitting smaller ones in their course, were
descending on the heads of the besiegers." MacCarthy himself, a
typical and gallant Irishman, addressed his general with the exultant
remark, "Tis a glorious night, sir--a glorious night!" and, rushing
forward to the head of the stormers, shouted, "Up with the ladders!"
The five ladders were raised, the troops swarmed up, an officer
leading, but the first files were at once crushed by cannon fire, and
the ladders slipped into the angle of the abutments. "Dreadful their
fall," records MacCarthy of the slaughtered stormers, "and appalling
their appearance at daylight." One ladder remained, and, a private
soldier leading, the eager red-coated crowd swarmed up it. The brave
fellow leading was shot as soon as his head appeared above the parapet;
but the next man to him--again a private--leaped over the parapet, and
was followed quickly by others, and this thin stream of desperate men
climbed singly, and in the teeth of the flashing musketry, up that
solitary ladder, and carried the castle.

In the meanwhile the fourth and light divisions had flung themselves
with cool and silent speed on the breaches. The storming party of each
division leaped into the ditch. It was mined, the fuse was kindled,
and the ditch, crowded with eager soldiery, became in a moment a sort
of flaming crater, and the storming parties, 500 strong, were in one
fierce explosion dashed to pieces. In the light of that dreadful flame
the whole scene became visible--the black ramparts, crowded with dark
figures and glittering arms, on the one side; on the other the red
columns of the British, broad and deep, moving steadily forward like a
stream of human lava. The light division stood at the brink of the
smoking ditch for an instant, amazed at the sight. "Then," says
Napier, "with a shout that matched even the sound of the explosion,"
they leaped into it and swarmed up to the breach. The fourth division
came run