Wellington at once arranged for a third assault on the outer _enceinte_, telling off for it not details from many regiments, as on the previous occasion, but--what was much better--a single compact battalion, the 2/24th. Only the supports were mixed parties. At 5 p.m. the mine was fired, with excellent effect, throwing down nearly 100 feet of the rampart, and killing many of the French. Before the dust had cleared away, the men of the 2/24th dashed forward toward both breaches, with great spirit, and carried them with ease, and with no excessive loss, driving the French within the second or middle _enceinte_. The total loss that day was 224, of which the assault cost about 190, the other casualties being in the batteries on San Miguel and in the trenches. But the curious point of the figures is that the 2/24th, forming the actual storming-column, lost only 68 killed and wounded; the supports, and the workmen who were employed to form a lodgement within the conquered space, suffered far more heavily. Dubreton reports the casualties of the garrison at 27 killed and 42 wounded [October 4]. In the night after the storm the British, after entrenching the two breaches, began to make preparations to sap forward to the second _enceinte_, which being ditchless and not faced with masonry, looked less formidable than that which had already been carried, though it was protected by a solid row of palisades. Meanwhile the artillery officers proposed that battery No. 2 on San Miguel should be turned against a new objective, the point where the walls of the second and the inner lines met, immediately in front of the hornwork, in the re-entering angle marked III in the map. Battery No. 1 was meanwhile to play on the palisades of the second _enceinte_. This it did with some success. At 5 o’clock in the evening, however, there was an unexpected tumult in the newly-gained ground. Dubreton, misliking the look of the approaches which the assailants were beginning to run out from the breaches, ordered a sortie of 300 men, who dashed out most unexpectedly against the lodgements in front of the northern breach (No. I), and drove away the workmen with heavy loss, seizing most of their tools, overthrowing the gabions, and shovelling earth into the trench. They gave way when the covering party came up, and retired, having done immense mischief and disabled 142 of the besiegers, while their own loss was only 17 killed and 21 wounded. This was an unpleasant surprise, as showing the high spirit and resolution of the garrison; but the damage was not so great but that one good night’s work sufficed to repair it: the loss of tools was the most serious matter--the French had carried off 200 picks and shovels which could not be replaced, the stock (as usual in Peninsular sieges) being very low[42].