On the 3d some guns were turned against the curtain behind the San Roque, but the masonry proved hard, ammunition was scarce, and as a breach there would have been useless, while the inundation remained, the fire was soon discontinued. The two breaches in the bastion were now greatly enlarged and the besieged assiduously laboured at the retrenchments behind them, and converted the nearest houses and garden walls into a third line of defence. All the houses behind the front next the castle were also thrown down, and a battery of five guns, intended to flank the ditch and breach of the Trinidad, was commenced on the castle hill, but outside the wall; the besiegers therefore traced out a counter-battery, of fourteen Shrapnel howitzers, to play upon that point during the assault. The crisis of the siege was now approaching rapidly. The breaches were nearly practicable, Soult, having effected a junction with Drouet and Daricau, was advancing; and as the allies were not in sufficient force to assault the place and give battle at the same time, it was resolved to leave two divisions in the trenches, and to fight at Albuera with the remainder. Graham therefore fell back towards that place, and Hill having destroyed the bridge at Merida, marched from the Upper Guadiana to Talavera Real. Time being now, as in war it always is, a great object, the anxiety on both sides redoubled; but Soult was still at Llerena, when on the morning of the 5th the breaches were declared practicable, and the assault ordered for that evening. Leith’s division was even recalled to the camp to assist, when a careful personal examination of the enemy’s retrenchments caused some doubt in lord Wellington’s mind, and he delayed the storm, until a third breach, as originally projected, should be formed in the curtain between the bastions of Trinidad and Maria. This could not, however, be commenced before morning, and during the night the enemy’s workmen laboured assiduously at their retrenchments, regardless of the showers of grape with which the besiegers’ batteries scoured the ditch and the breach. But the 6th, the besiegers’ guns being all turned against the curtain, the bad masonry crumbled rapidly away, in two hours a yawning breach appeared, and Wellington, having again examined the points of attack in person, renewed the order for the assault. Then the soldiers eagerly made themselves ready for a combat, so fiercely fought, so terribly won, so dreadful in all its circumstances, that posterity can scarcely be expected to credit the tale; but many are still alive who know that it is true.