So the bombardment continued until the night of the 13th. Then the roar suddenly ceased. A thrill of expectation ran through the camp. Captain Taylor had reported that the breaches in the walls were practicable; every man knew that the moment for the great assault was at hand. And in the city men knew it too. The old king spent many hours in his private mosque praying for victory. The traders had all closed their shops, for fear of being carried off to serve at the fortifications. The officers wrangled; there was no commanding spirit like Nicholson among them. Bakht Khan was brave enough, but he was merely a fighter; he had no genius for leadership. On the night of the 12th a proclamation was carried with beat of drum through the streets, commanding all the men of the city, Hindu and Mohammedan alike, to assemble at the Kashmir gate, bringing picks and shovels; the king himself would lead them forth, and they would fall on the infidels and sweep them away. The Hindus paid no heed; but ten thousand faithful Mohammedans, inflamed with fanatic ardour, their religious feelings wrought upon by shrieking fakirs and mullahs, congregated at the gates waiting the arrival of their king. But he came not. Till midnight they remained; then hope died away, and with despairing hearts the great throng dispersed to their homes. On the night of the 13th, ere the bombardment ceased, every available man in the British force, including men just risen from their sick beds in the hospital, went to his appointed station. The assault was to be made in four columns. A thousand men,--detachments from the 1st Fusiliers, the 15th Regiment, and the 2nd Panjab Infantry--under Nicholson himself, were to storm the breach in the Kashmir bastion, and escalade the walls. The second column, also a thousand strong, under Colonel Jones of the 61st, was simultaneously to storm and scale the Mori bastion. Meanwhile the Kashmir gate was to be blown up, and the third column, under Colonel Campbell of the 52nd, would sweep in through the breach. The fourth column, commanded by Major Reid, who had gallantly held Hindu Rao's house throughout the summer, was to attack the suburb of Kishenganj and enter by the Lahore gate. A fifth column, of 1,500 men, was held in reserve to give support to the first, and Colonel Hope Grant was to post himself on the Ridge, with the cavalry six hundred strong, to prevent the rebels from re-entering the city when thrust out of Kishenganj. The whole force consisted of some 7,000 men.