There came a roar, a rush of fire, a shaking of the land. Mud, brick, stone, shards of iron and wood, all the ruin of the gate, crashed among them, flying far among the trees, thumping them on their backs as they lay. After the roar there was a dismayed silence. A wail of a hurt man sounded, as though the wrecked gate cried. Then with a volley the privateers stormed in. From where he lay, Margaret could watch them plainly; the dawn had broken. He saw them charging, tripping in the sand, their gun-barrels glinting. An Indian led them, a screaming Indian, who danced and spun round, waving his machete. “Lie still,” he shouted to his pioneers. “Let them pass. They’ll shoot you down. Lie still.” With yells and shots the storming party swept up the ruin. “Up with her,” they shouted. “Up with her.” They were clambering over the wreck, tripping, stumbling, kneeling, to fire, clubbing at the guard. “Now,” said Margaret, drawing his sword. They rose up from their nest among the tip. They were with their fellows, they were climbing the heaped stone, amid smoke and oaths and fire-lit faces. Margaret was inside Tolu. The south wall was won. The land-breeze, very faint now, drifted the smoke slowly. He could see little. He could see in glimpses the whitewashed houses, the line of the south road, a man with his back to a wall, a woman fallen, figures rushing. He could see enough to know that the enemy were making no stand. He ran on up the road to the Plaza, one of a mob. Windows opened above him. People fired from the windows. Women were flinging pots, tiles, braziers. Some one had begun to ring the alarm bell in the church. The broken clang sounded out above the screams and the firing. Now it was all clear before him. He was in the Plaza, shouting to his mob to form. There in front of him the troops were mustering. They were running from their quarters, half clad, in rags, just as they had started from sleep. Heavy fire was rolling at the north wall. Troops were running thither. In the centre of the Plaza, about a cotton tree, a score of Spaniards were forming in line. A halberdier was dressing them. They stood firm, handling their guns, hearkening to their capitan. Margaret saw them clearly, and praised them in his heart for the flower of soldiery. They were of the old Spanish foot, the finest troops in the world. Even as he looked he saw them falling forward. He was among them. His sword jarred him to the shoulder as it struck on a gun-barrel. He saw them about him. They were breaking. They were gathering into clumps. They were being swept into the mob of citizens flying to the east gate.