the captain said with a smile, as he turned away,
"He most certainly is."
The next day was a saints' day, and it was strongly suspected, and at
length clearly perceived, that the Spanish sentinels had left their
posts and gone off to mass. It would have been easy to carry the place
at once, but the necessary storming had been done, and the allied
commanders were only waiting for the besieged to give the signal of
capitulation. The besiegers, soldiers and sailors, had nothing to do
but chat.
Presently some of the sailors declared that it would be a prime joke
to climb the heights and plant their flag there. The notion was taken
up, and presently the temptation grew irresistible to certain of them,
and with merry chuckles the fellows prepared for the task, an
enterprise that was risky in the extreme.
"I'm one of you!" cried George Fairburn, as he followed the handful of
sailors to the foot of the steep rock.
"And I!" chimed in yet another voice, and, to George's astonishment,
Lieutenant Fieldsend ran up, his arm in a sling.
"Better go back, sir," exclaimed the lad, gazing up at the towering
cliff in front of them.
"Better both on ye go back, I reckon," growled one of the sailors;
"this ain't no job for a landsman."
Nothing heeding this rebuff, the two soldiers followed up the steep
rock, George giving a hand at the worst spots to his friend and
superior. Up, up, the scaling party mounted, the business becoming
every moment more difficult and more full of danger. More than once
the gallant fellows-in front paused and declared that further progress
was impossible.
"Oh, go on!" called out George, impatiently, on one of these
occasions, from below, where he was helping up the lieutenant, "or
else let me come," he added, grumblingly.
The sailor lads needed no spur, however, and amid growing excitement
the summit of their bit of cliff was perceived not far away. In the
dash for the top the active lad passed his fellows in the race,
catching up the foremost man, who held the flag. Seizing the staff,
George Fairburn assisted in the actual planting of the colours. There,
fluttering at the very summit of the Rock, was the English flag, its
unfolding hailed with bursts of cheering, again and again repeated,
from the throngs far below.
The deed was done, and from that day, the twenty-third of July, 1704,
according to the old reckoning, the third of August by the new style,
the British flag has floated from the
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