To call off the attention of the Portugueze guard, some twenty men were stationed to keep up a fire upon the entrenchments, so directed as not to endanger the sappers who had volunteered for the real service of the hour. It was a service so hopeful and hazardous as to excite the liveliest solicitude for its success. The barrel was covered with a gray cloak, that it might neither be heard nor seen, and the man who undertook to deposit it in its place wore a cloak of the same colour. The clear moonlight was favourable to the adventure, by the blackness of the shadow which the parapet on one side produced. In that line of darkness the sapper crept along at full length, pushing the barrel before him with his head, and guiding it with his hands. His instructions were to stop if he heard the slightest movement on the Portugueze side; and a string was fastened to one of his feet, by which the French were enabled to know how far he had advanced, and to communicate with him. Having placed the barrel, ♦1809. MAY.♦ and uncovered that part where it was to be kindled, he returned with the same caution. Four barrels, one after the other, were thus arranged without alarming the Portugueze. The fourth adventurer had not the same command of himself as his predecessors had evinced. Possessed either with fear, or with premature exultation, as soon as he had deposited the barrel in its place, instead of making his way back slowly and silently along the line of shadow, he rose and ran along the middle of the bridge in the moonlight. He was seen, fired at, and shot in the thigh. But the Portugueze did not take the alarm as they ought to have done; ... they kept up a fire upon the entrance of the bridge, and made no attempt to discover for what purpose their entrenchments had been approached so closely. ♦THE FRENCH WIN THE BRIDGE. MAY 2.♦