withstood a falling shell, it would sometimes explode at the open door, wounding those within. Men were killed sleeping in their beds. The scene at night was more terrible than by day, as the shells were more clearly seen in their deadly track. Sometimes a dozen would be wheeling in the air at the same moment, keeping every eye strained to see where the bolts would fall, and the bravest held their breath when (as was several times the case) they fell near the powder magazines! Again, the soldiers were not the only ones to suffer: their wives and children were their partners in misery. When the town was on fire, the people fled from it, and at a distance watched the flames that rose from their burning dwellings, in which all their little property was consumed--the roofs that sheltered them, and even the food that fed them. For six weeks they had not a moment's rest, day nor night. Although they had fled to the southern end of the Rock, destruction pursued them there. The Spanish ships had a custom of sailing round Europa Point, and firing indiscriminately on shore. This was generally at night, so that the poor creatures who had lain down to snatch a moment of forgetfulness, were roused at midnight and fled almost naked to seek for shelter behind rocks and in holes in the ground, in which they cowered like hunted beasts, till the storm of fire had passed over them. The troops were not quite so badly off, for though they were shelled out of their old quarters, and had not a roof to cover them, yet English soldiers and sailors are ingenious, and getting hold of some old ship canvas they rigged up a few forlorn tents, which they pitched on the hillside. But again they were discomfited. Gibraltar is subject at certain seasons to terrific storms of thunder and lightning, and now the rains poured down the side of the Rock in such floods as to sweep away the tents, and leave the men exposed to the fury of the elements. It seemed as if the stars in their courses fought against them. But they were to find that the stars in their courses fight for those who fight for themselves. Sometimes the storms, so terrible in one way, brought relief in another. There had been a scarcity of fuel as well as of food. A soldier could hardly pick up sticks to make his pot boil, and cook his scanty meal; so that when a furious gale wrecked a ship in the bay, and cast its fragments on the shore, which furnished fuel for their camp-fires for some weeks, they counted it a providential interposition for their deliverance; and as the firelight cast its ruddy glow in their faces, they thanked God and took courage. But with all their courage, kept up by such occasional good fortune, it was a life-and-death struggle, as they fought not only with the enemy, but with hunger and cold, and every form of privation.