Meantime the troops were climbing the heights, the admiral had landed, and so had Commodore Elliot and many other naval officers, leading their bluejackets. As the stormers got within fifty yards of the summit, the garrison fired a volley, and then retreated down the hill; nor could the fire of the marines, who had gained the fort, make them run. The fort gained, the naval officers hurried down to their boats and pulled up towards the junks, which, as the flotilla advanced, opened a heavy fire. As the boats dashed alongside, the Chinamen invariably discharged a round of grape, but generally too high to do damage; and the seamen boarding under it, they leaped overboard and swam on shore. Then junk after junk was set on fire and blown up. It being low tide, they were nearly all on shore, and could not escape. The _Haughty_ ran stem on into one, and crumpled her up as if she had been paper. Thus seventy-two were either burnt or captured. Heavy firing was heard in the distance. Commodore Keppel had meantime gone up through the right-hand channel. His own steamer grounded, and so did the _Plover_; and he, therefore, with seven boats of the _Calcutta, Bittern_, and _Niger_, pulled on under the fire of the six-gun battery, and boarded a big junk, which, when the boats were scarcely free of her, blew up. On he went, right through the junks, till he came to an island causing two narrow channels. One was thickly staked. Across the other were moored twenty large junks, their guns so placed that they could sweep both channels. In vain the commodore attempted to dash through with his galley. Three boom-boats following took the ground. Grape, canisters, and round shot came tearing among them. Numbers were struck. Major Kearney, a volunteer, was torn to pieces; Barker, a midshipman of the _Tribune_, was mortally wounded; the commodore's coxswain was killed, and every man of his crew was struck. A shot came in right amidships, cut one man in two, and took off the hand of another. Lieutenant Prince Victor of Hohenlohe was leaning forward to bind up with his neckcloth the arm of the seaman whose hand had been taken off, when a round shot passed between his head and that of the commodore, wounding two more of the crew. Had he been sitting in his place, it would have taken off his head. The boat, almost knocked to pieces, was filling with water. The commodore jumped on one of the seats, to keep his legs out of the water, when a third round shot went through both sides of the boat, not more than an inch below the seat on which he was standing. Many of the boats had now got huddled together, the oars of most being shot away. A boat of the _Calcutta_ being nearest, Commodore Keppel and his officers got in, hauling all the wounded men after them. The commodore had a dog with him, "Mike" by name, and the animal having been a favourite of the coxswain, Tolhurst, and always fed by him, refused to leave his dead