Filling up the background of this novel and picturesque scene, on one side rose the dark citadel, with its heavy ramparts and macciolated battlements, in the style of the middle ages; on the other, lay the little Italian town, with its balconies, verandahs, and terraces—its flat roofs of wood or tile, and its little square towers open on four sides, and covered with broad projecting roofs—one-half in light the other in deep shadow, as the setting sun poured its ruddy lustre from the summits of the distant hills. Beneath the castled rocks shone the glassy gulf, where cape and headland, breasting the rolling waves, stretched away to the horizon in dim perspective, till the soft blue of the ocean blended with that of the evening sky, and some white shadowy sail alone indicated the line where air and ocean met. Immediately after the gun was fired from the _Amphion_, the French drums were heard beating, and the garrison came forth about six hundred strong; having two field pieces in front, with two tumbrils of ammunition, and two of baggage. They marched in subdivisions, with bayonets fixed, the right in front, the field officers mounted, with colours flying and brass drums beating; the gunners carried their linstocks lighted at both ends, and a ball was placed in the mouth of each piece of ordnance. Their _tout ensemble_ was peculiarly service-like and soldierly; their dark greatcoats enlivened by red worsted epaulettes and scarlet trousers, and the bear-skin caps surmounting bronzed visages with rough wiry mustachios. Many of them were veterans of the empire, with hair grey as their goatskin knapsacks. The hoarse rattle of their brass drums, the sharply sonorous trumpets and clashing cymbals—a not unharmonious clangour of metallic music—loudly resounding as they marched through the archway of the citadel, lent additional spirit to the scene, as they advanced with all the order and steadiness of a review on the Champ de Mars. Their bayonets, brass-feruled musket-barrels, and the gilt eagles on their caps, gleamed in the rays of the setting sun, and the heavy silken tricolour flapped in the breeze, as it was up-borne above the marching column by Bourmont’s only son, a mere boy, fitter for his mother’s side than the harrowing scenes of war. "Portez vos armes!" cried Bourmont, lowering his sabre on passing the first stand of colours.