“For better, for worse,” cried Hilary, talking to himself, even in his agony, by the power of habit: “go into that hole, my friend, and do your utmost there.” So much had he been knocked about, that the shell (although a light one) was as much as he could stagger with; till he dropped it into a shelfy hole, which he had long been looking at, under the baulk of six-inch beam, into which the swords were rivetted. Then down he fell--whether from exhaustion or presence of mind he could never tell. Through the jags of the riven granite he heard the shell in a smothered way sputtering (like a “devil” in a wasp’s nest), and then with a thunderous roar and whiz, and a rush through the air of wood, stone, and iron, the Frenchman’s deadly bar was burst. For a moment Lorraine was so stunned and shaken that all he could do was to stay on the ground; but the shock made one of his wounds bleed afresh, and this perhaps revived him. At any rate he arose, and feebly tottered in over the crest of the breach. The soldiers of the Forty-third and Fifty-second Regiments gave him a cheer as they ran up the steep, while on the part of the enemy not a weapon was levelled at him. This, however, was not from any admiration of his valour--though Frenchmen are often most chivalrous foes--but because these heroic defenders at last were compelled to abandon the breaches. Being taken in the rear by the Fifth Division, which had forced its way in at San Vincente, knowing also that the castle had fallen, and seeing their main defence lie shattered, they retired through the town and across the bridge of the Guadiana. And now it is an accursed truth that the men who had been such glorious heroes, such good brethren to one another, strong, and grand, and pitiful turned themselves within half an hour into something lower than the beasts that perish. They proved that the worst of war is not bloodshed, agony, and slow death; not even trampled freedom, hatred, tyranny, and treachery. On that same night of heroism, patriotism, and grand devotion, the nicest and most amiable vice indulged by those very same heroes and devoted patriots, was swinish and wallowing drunkenness. Rapine, arson, fury, murder, and outrages unspeakable--even their own allies the Spaniards, glad to be quit of the French, and to welcome warmly these deliverers, found bitter cause, ere sunrise, to lament the British victory. So it came to pass that young Lorraine, weak and weary, and vainly seeking a surgeon to bind up his wounds, was compelled to fight once more that night, before he could lay him down and rest. CHAPTER XXXIX. SHERRY SACK.