It was now a struggle of endurance--firing and counter-firing month after month, with exciting incidents now and then to relieve the monotony of the siege. Of these episodes the most notable was the sortie executed on the night of November 26, 1781. The siege had lasted more than two years, and the Spaniards, boastful and confident as they are apt to be, by this time appreciated the enormous difficulty of attacking the Rock of Gibraltar. To do them justice, instead of being daunted by the greatness of the task, their military ardor rose with the vastness of the undertaking, and they had been engaged for months in rearing a stupendous parallel across the Neutral Ground, to be mounted with the heaviest battering artillery. The Governor had kept his eye upon the progress of the work, and as he saw its lines spreading out wider and wider, and rising higher and higher, he could not but feel anxiety for the moment when these batteries should open, and rain shot and shell upon the devoted garrison. The way in which he met the new danger showed that he had the promptness in action of a great commander. From the beginning of the siege he had observed the utmost economy in the use of his resources. He was sparing of his ammunition, and sometimes reproached his officers with great severity for wasting it in unimportant attacks. He saved his powder as he saved his men. Indeed he was sparing of everything except himself. Yet "he never relaxed from his discipline by the appearance of security, nor hazarded the lives of his garrison by wild experiments. Collected within himself, he in no instance destroyed, by premature attacks, the labors which would cost the enemy time, patience, and expense to complete; he deliberately observed their approaches, and seized on the proper moment in which to make his attack with success." For months he had been waiting and watching: the time for action had now come. During the siege there had been frequent desertions on both sides. Now and then soldiers of the garrison, wearied with the interminable siege (and thinking it better to take the chances of instant death than to be shut up in a fortress-prison and perish by inches), let themselves down by ropes over the face of the Rock. Some escaped to the enemy, and some were dashed on the rocks below. On the other side there were among the Spanish soldiers a good many Walloons from Belgium, who had no interest in the contest, and were as ready to fight on one side as the other. Occasionally one of these would stray out of the camp, as if without intention, and when he had got at a distance which he thought gave him a chance of escape, would take to his heels and run for the gates of the fortress. If discovered, he was immediately fired at, and a mounted guard started in pursuit, and if overtaken, he was brought back, and the next day his body, hanging from the scaffold, in full sight of the Rock, served as a ghastly warning alike to the besiegers and the besieged.