But the sergeant was in a hurry, and ran on without answering. The Doctor began to finger his cartridge-box in a wild way, intending to get out a cartridge if he could, when a faint voice near him said, "I'll load your gun for you, sir." "_Would_ you be so kind?" replied the Doctor, delighted. "I am so dreadfully inexperienced in these operations! I am quite sorry to trouble you." The sick man--one of the invalids whom Gazaway had brought from New Orleans--loaded the piece, capped it, and added some brief instructions in the mysteries of half-cock and full-cock. "Really you are very good. I am quite obliged," said the Doctor, and hurried on to the river front, guided by the voice of Colburne. At the rampart he tried to shoot one of our men who was coming up wounded from the palisade, and would probably have succeeded, but that the lock of his gun would not work. Colburne stopped him in this well-intentioned but mistaken labor, saying, "Those are our people." Then, "Your gun is at half-cock.--There.--Now keep your finger off the trigger until you see a rebel." Then shouting, "Forward, men!" he ran down to the palisade followed by twenty or thirty, of whom one was the Doctor. The assailing brigade, debouching from the woods half a mile away from the front, had advanced in a wide front across the flat, losing scarcely any men by the fire of the artillery, although many, shaken by the horrible screeching of the hundred-pound shells, threw themselves on the ground in the darkness or sought the frail shelter of the scattered dwellings. Thus diminished in numbers and broken up by night and obstacles and the differing speed of running men, the brigade reached the fort, not an organization, but a confused swarm, flowing along the edge of the ditch to right and left in search of an entrance. There was a constant spattering of flashes, as individuals returned the steady fire of the garrison; and the sharp clean whistle of round bullets and buckshot mingled in the thick warm air with the hoarse whiz of Minies. Now and then an angry shout or wailing scream indicated that some one had been hit and mangled. The exhortations and oaths of the rebel officers could be distinctly heard, as they endeavored to restore order, to drive up stragglers, and to urge the mass forward. A few jumped or fell into the ditch and floundered there, unable to climb up the smooth facings of brickwork. Two or three hundred collected around the palisade which connected the northern front with the river, some lying down and waiting, and others firing at the woodwork or the neighboring ramparts, while a few determined ones tried to burst open the gate by main strength.