Ginckle soon saw that to silence the guns of the castle was a work of the first necessity, and to this end all his heavy guns and mortars were at once directed. The labor of the gunners on both sides now became incessant. Night brought no respite to the toils and dangers of the day. The weather was extremely hot; an unusual drought had prevailed, rendering the fascines as dry as tinder; and their continual ignition made the work of the soldiers more harassing. The skies were clear, and the evening twilight almost ushered in the dawn, while the glare of the batteries lit up the intrenchments and rendered the assailants and assailed continually visible to each other, while the fire of Ginckle's mortars, being directed on the houses beyond the castle, added perpetual conflagration to the other horrors of the scene. After a short time, a mill which stood in the middle of the river, to the north of the bridge, and into which the Irish had thrown a detachment of sixty-four men to keep up a fire on the broken arch, attracted the fire of the enemy. The passage which connected it with the bridge was soon broken down, and the building itself taking fire, the whole detachment--with two exceptions--perished in the flames. The wall of the castle crumbled bit by bit, a rent became discernible in the eastern wall, and gradually widening, the greater part of the front gave way, strewing the passage to the bridge, choking up the sally-port, and exposing the interior to the great guns of the besiegers.