For now there was no time to think of life. Within a certain number of days the fort must be taken, or the army lost. The defences were strong, and the garrison brave, and supplied with artillery far superior to that of the besiegers; the season also, and the bitter weather, fought against the British; and so did the indolence of their allies; and so did British roguery. The sappers could only work in the dark (because of the grape from the ramparts); and working thus, the tools either bent beneath their feet or snapped off short. The contractor had sent out false-grained stuff, instead of good English steel and iron; and if in this world he earned his fortune, he assured his fate in the other. At length by stubborn perseverance, most of these troubles were overcome, and the English batteries opened. Roar answered roar, and bullet bullet, and the black air was striped with fire and smoke; and men began to study the faces of the men that shot at them, until after some days of hard pounding, it was determined to rush in. All who care to read of valour know what a desperate rush it was,--how strong men struggled, and leaped, and clomb, hung, and swung, on the crest of the breach, like stormy surges towering, and then leaped down upon spluttering shells, drawn swords, and sparkling bayonets. Before the signal to storm was given, and while men were talking of it, Hilary Lorraine felt most uncomfortably nervous. He did not possess that solid phlegm which is found more often in square-built people; neither had he any share of fatalism, cold or hot. He was nothing more than a spirited young Englishman, very fond of life, hating cruelty, and fearing to have any hand in it. Although he had been in the trenches, and exposed to frequent dangers, he had not been in hand-to-hand conflict yet; and he knew not how he might behave. He knew that he was an officer now in the bravest and hardiest armies known on earth since the time of the Samnites--although perhaps not the very best behaved, as they proved that self-same night. And not only that, but an officer of the famous Light Division, and the fiercest regiment of that division--everywhere known as the “Fighting-cocks”; and he was not sure that he could fight a frog. He was sure that he never could kill anybody, at least in his natural state of mind; and worse than that, he was not at all sure that he could endure to be killed himself.