It was three o'clock in the afternoon when the fire of the enemy's cannon ceased along the whole line, and the assaulting columns, in their varicolored uniforms of buff, blue, and scarlet, moved down to the intrenchments as gayly as if on parade, and halted. The fire within the town also ceased, and an ominous silence settled over the scene, the combatants on each side, standing with bated breath, and as motionless as statues. An unusual drought prevailed,--not a drop of rain had fallen for three weeks;[48] the weather was intensely hot, and the sun threw a flood of unobstructed light upon dome and spire, while the river glided away through its autumnal foliage, as placid as if peace had returned and war should revisit it no more. Some time passed on, and suspense was becoming painful, when the signal: one! two! three! pealed forth. The British grenadiers were over the palisades in a twinkling, hurling their destructive missiles, and followed by the Dutch Guards, while the cannon rang out again along the whole front, excepting the point of assault. So quick was the movement, that the Irish troops, though awaiting it, were actually taken by surprise, and the grenadiers had reached the breach before they met with any opposition. Here, they were checked by a shower of grape that did great execution; still they pressed on with a headlong impulse, mounted the breach, and passed the first line of guards drawn up to oppose them. But they were destined to go no farther; another storm of grape tore through their ranks, the Irish Guards closed in on them, front and rear, cutting them off from their supports, and assailing them with such fury that in a short time they were nearly all slain, only four or five escaping out of this gallant body, which was reckoned the flower of the English army. The Dutch Guards pressed boldly on, and under the eye of their Prince, performed prodigies of valor; several times they bore back the defenders from the breach, and were as often repulsed through it; but being continually reinforced from the other divisions outside, the Irish troops were gradually forced back into the city, where they divided right and left, still disputing every inch of the way. William now threw forward a Brandenburg regiment to storm the Black Battery, and, filling up the breach with his remaining columns, prepared to enter the city. While this conflict raged along the widening expanse inside, the fire of the enemy's batteries was unabated; the soldiers were driven from the parapets; the populace from the house-tops; the city was on fire in several places, and "it seemed," says an eye-witness, "as if the heavens were rent, and the smoke that arose from the town reached, in one continued cloud, to the top of a mountain six miles off."