Sells glided away, not many minutes before the forlorn hope--a hundred men with scaling ladders, crept round to the back of the fort where the grim eighteen pounders frowned. Percy led them, his colonel knowing that in spite of his affected indolence, his thoughtful kindness to his men made him a leader whom the warm hearted Irish would have followed to certain death. With the thought of burnt Newark firing his blood and steeling his nerves, Ned followed Percy, climbing, scrambling, and slipping in the ghostly snow light, up the ladders and across icy, snow-laden roofs. The sentries were surprised at their posts, and captured or killed before they could give the alarm. And there was no stir in the main buildings of the fort, as the reckless assaulters dropped into the dark courtyard. Leonard, the commander, had his quarters at the village, but most of the officers were in their mess-room playing whist. "What's trumps?" one asked. The room door swung open--"British bayonets, I think, gentlemen," said Percy, quietly, and the startled men knew they were prisoners. The main body, led by their colonel, and with Ferguson among them, had seized the outer works before the main gate, capturing the sentries, who gave them the password, which enabled them to reach the gate of the inner fort without their presence being known. The bitter cold of the night kept every one in their warm quarters, with every door and window closed. The minutes seemed endless hours as they waited then, for the signal that would show their friends were within. Then a single shot rang out, followed by a scattering musket fire, and a tumult of noise--shouting men, English cheers, and the screams of the women in the married quarters, mingling with the sound of running feet. Like hounds unleashed the waiting men went forward, carrying the gate with a rush--the leaders asking themselves if the little advance guard had been able to capture the yard batteries. If not, in a minute the deadly six pounders would open on the mass of the invaders penned within the high yard walls. But with their officers prisoners, the bewildered Americans had only fired from their barrack windows at the redcoats running across the snowy yard. Many of them fell, but a dozen were beside the coveted guns, when the main force surged through the gate. Ned, feeling strangely breathless and giddy with a bullet in his side, sat on the ground behind the guns, as his wildly cheering friends came in. They charged the barracks, where every window was ablaze with rifle fire. And from somewhere behind, a score of blue clad men dashed on the guns, fighting hand to hand with their defenders. "Hold the guns," said the young English lieutenant. "Hold the guns, for five minutes," cried Ned springing up, forgetting wounds. The pieces were covered with a tangle of fiercely fighting men, but they were not fired.