_ the gray wave,
with its crest of glistening steel, surged up the few remaining yards
of glacis, topped the parapet, and overwhelmed the defenders. Monte
Sabotino, the key to the bridge-head and the city, was in the hands of
the Italians. But the Austrians intrenched on Hill 240, the highest
summit of the Podgora range, still held out, and it took several
hours of savage fighting to dislodge them. This last stronghold taken,
the gray-clad infantry suddenly debouched from the sheltering ravines
and went swarming down to the Isonzo. Almost simultaneously another
division crossed the river several miles below, at Sagrado. Into the
stream they went, their rifles held high above their heads, chanting
the splendid hymn of Garibaldi. The Austrian shrapnel churned the
river into foam, its waters turned from blue to crimson, but the
insistent bugles pealed the charge, and the lines of gray swept on.
Pausing on the eastern bank only long enough to re-form, the lines
again rolled forward. White disks carried high above the heads of the
men showed the Italian gunners how far the infantry had advanced and
enabled them to gauge their protecting curtain of fire. Though
smothered with shells, and swept by machine-guns, nothing could stop
them. "Avanti Savoia!" they roared. "Viva! Eviva Italia!"

Meanwhile, under a heavy fire, the Italian engineers were repairing
the iron bridge which carried the railway from Milan and Udine across
the Isonzo to Gorizia and so to Trieste and Vienna. The great stone
bridge over the river had been destroyed the day before beyond the
possibility of immediate repair. In an amazingly short time the work
was done and the Italian field-batteries went tearing over the bridge
at a gallop to unlimber on the opposite bank and send a shower of
shrapnel after the retreating Austrians. Close behind the guns poured
Carabinieri, Alpini, Bersaglieri, infantry of the line and squadron
after squadron of cavalry riding under thickets of lances. A strong
force of Carabinieri were the first troops to enter the city, and not
until they had taken complete possession and had assumed the reins of
the local government, were the line troops permitted to come in.

The fighting continued for three days, the Austrians, though
discouraged and to some extent demoralized, making a brave
resistance. In one _dolina_ which had been fortified, an officer and
a handful of men fought so pluckily against overwhelming odds that,
when at leng