Hilary, under these disadvantages, naturally tried to lessen them; and though he was pretty safe where he lay--unless a shell came through the Yorkshireman, and that would have needed a very strong charge--still he became discontented. What with the pain of his wound or wounds (for he knew to his cost that he had several of them), also the violent thirst which followed, as well as the ache of his cramped position, and a piece of spiked plank that worried him, he began to grow more and more desirous of a little change of air. “Now, my dear sir,” he said, with his usual courtesy, to the Yorkshireman, “you do not mean to be in my way of course, but the fact is that I can’t get out of this hole by reason of your incumbency. If you could only, without inconvenience, give a little roll to the right or left, you would be in quite as good a position yourself; or if you have grown attached to this particular spot, I would try to replace you afterwards.” “Grah!” was the Yorkshireman’s only reply, a grunt of contempt and of surly temper, which plainly meant “go to--Halifax.” “This is uncivil of you,” answered Hilary; “it is getting so hot in here that I shall be forced to retort, I fear, your discourtesy. I beg your pardon a thousand times for making this sharp suggestion.” With these words he pricked the great son of the north in a sensitive part with a loose spike he had found by the light of a French fire-ball; whereupon, with a curse, the fellow rolled over, like one of his father’s millstones. Then Hilary crawled from his hole of refuge, and stiffly resting on his hand and knees, surveyed the scene of carnage. The moon had now risen, and was shining gloomily under a stripe of heavy cloud, over the bastion of the Trinidad, and into the channel of the fatal breach, down which the sultry night wind sighed, laden with groans, whenever curses and roar of artillery left room for them. The breach itself was still unstormed, and looked more terrible than ever; for the sword-blades fixed at the top were drenched and reeking to the hilt with red, and three had corpses impaled upon them with scarlet coats, gay in the moonlight. The rest, like the jaws of a gorging crocodile, presented their bloody jaggedness, clogged here and there with limbs, or heads, or other parts of soldiers. For the moment the British had fallen back to the other side of the ravelin, and their bugles were sounding for the retreat, while the triumphant French were shooting, and shouting “Why enter you not all at Badajos, messieurs? It is a good place for the English health. Why enter you not then Badajos?”