In the meanwhile the fourth and light divisions had flung themselves with cool and silent speed on the breaches. The storming party of each division leaped into the ditch. It was mined, the fuse was kindled, and the ditch, crowded with eager soldiery, became in a moment a sort of flaming crater, and the storming parties, five hundred strong, were in one fierce explosion dashed to pieces. In the light of that dreadful flame the whole scene became visible--the black ramparts, crowded with dark figures and glittering arms, on the one side; on the other, the red columns of the British, broad and deep, moving steadily forward like a stream of human lava. The light division stood at the brink of the smoking ditch for an instant, amazed at the sight. “Then,” says Napier, “with a shout that matched even the sound of the explosion,” they leaped into it and swarmed up to the breach. The fourth division came running up and descended with equal fury but the ditch opposite the Trinidad was filled with water; the head of the division leaped into it, and, as Napier puts it, “about one hundred of the fusiliers, the men of Albuera, perished there.” The breaches were impassable. Across the top of the great slope of broken wall glittered a fringe of sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, fixed in ponderous beams chained together and set deep in the ruins. For ten feet in front the ascent was covered with loose planks, studded with sharp iron points. Behind the glittering edge of sword-blades stood the solid ranks of the French, each man supplied with three muskets, and their fire scourged the British ranks like a tempest.