It was now evident that the assault must fail unless some accident intervened, for the tide was rising, the reserves all engaged, and no greater effort could be expected from men whose courage had been already pushed to the verge of madness. In this crisis fortune interfered. A number of powder barrels, live shells, and combustible materials which the French had accumulated behind the traverses for their defence caught fire, a bright consuming flame wrapped the whole of the high curtain, a succession of loud explosions were heard, hundreds of the French grenadiers were destroyed, the rest were thrown into confusion, and while the ramparts were still involved with suffocating eddies of smoke the British soldiers broke in at the first traverse. The defenders bewildered by this terrible disaster yielded for a moment, yet soon rallied, and a close desperate struggle took place along the summit of the high curtain, but the fury of the stormers whose numbers increased every moment could not be stemmed. The French colours on the cavalier were torn away by lieutenant Gethin of the eleventh regiment. The horn-work and the land front below the curtain, and the loop-holed wall behind the great breach were all abandoned; the light division soldiers who had already established themselves in the ruins on the French left, immediately penetrated to the streets, and at the same moment the Portuguese at the small breach, mixed with British who had wandered to that point seeking for an entrance, burst in on their side. Five hours the dreadful battle had lasted at the walls and now the stream of war went pouring into the town. The undaunted governor still disputed the victory for a short time with the aid of his barricades, but several hundreds of his men being cut off and taken in the horn-work, his garrison was so reduced that even to effect a retreat behind the line of defences which separated the town from the Monte Orgullo was difficult. Many of his troops flying from the horn-work along the harbour flank of the town broke through a body of the British who had reached the vicinity of the fortified convent of Santa Téresa before them, and this post was the only one retained by the French in the town. It was thought by some distinguished officers engaged in the action that Monte Orgullo might have been carried on this day, if a commander of sufficient rank to direct the troops had been at hand; but whether from wounds or accident no general entered the place until long after the breach had been won, the commanders of battalions were embarrassed for want of orders, and a thunder-storm, which came down from the mountains with unbounded fury immediately after the place was carried, added to the confusion of the fight.