At four o'clock the march began, the fireflies still flickering overhead against the darkness, the air close and still, and alive with the chirping, whistling, and croaking of the noisy tropic night. Within the camp men were lying in scores under the scourge of yellow fever, some tossing and raving in delirium, some gasping in the agonies of the last fatal symptom, some prostrate in helpless and ghastly collapse, waiting only for the dead hour before the dawn when they should die. These were left behind, and the red columns disappeared silently into the darkness. Before long Wynyard's men reached the foot of the hill and began the ascent. The ground before them was so steep that they were forced to climb upon their hands and knees, and the officers began to doubt whether their guides might not have played them false. Still the grenadiers scrambled on almost to the top of the hill, and then suddenly, at a range of thirty yards, the Spaniards opened a deadly fire. Now was the time for a rush, which would have swept the Spaniards pell-mell from their entrenchments. One man with the traditions of Cutts the Salamander would have carried the fort in two minutes; a few score of undisciplined Highlanders with naked broadswords would have mastered it even without a leader; but the officers had no experience except of the parade ground. They were conscious of a heavy fire in front and flanks, so they wheeled their platoons outwards to right and left for "street-firing," as it was called, and advanced slowly in perfect order, the men firing steadily at the flashes of cannon and musketry that blazed before them over the parapet. Raked through and through by grape and round shot, the soldiers stood without flinching for a moment, and loaded and fired as they had been taught, while the grenadiers lit their fuses coolly and hurled their hand-grenades into the belt of flame before them. They did not know, poor fellows, that the grenades provided for them were so thick, owing to the negligence of the authorities of the Ordnance, that not one in three of them would burst. So Wynyard's column fired dutifully on, though the men that composed it were mown down like grass.