All through the evening the cannonade along the English lines seemed to relax its wonted spirit; farther on it ceased altogether, and it was observed that some of the guns were being limbered and removed from the river towards the camp. The _ruse_ immediately had the desired effect. The Irish soldiers, believing that the enemy had actually commenced to retire, came gradually out of their trenches, and ventured down towards the river. The English soldiers, too, seemed to relax in discipline, and came down to meet them. Jest and repartee were bandied across the stream; the soldiers of Ginckle twitting those of St. Ruth on their miserable "penny a day," and the latter reminding the former that they had given "bad penny-worths" for the money which their general had lately distributed among them. So they beguiled the time; with the closest secrecy and circumspection on the one side, and a feeling of security and a total unconsciousness of approaching danger on the other. As the night wore on both parties retired from the river, and sought repose in the trenches, and a deep silence settled over the scene, only broken at intervals by the occasional challenge of the sentries as they met each other in their measured round. Nor was it in the unconsciousness of the Irish soldiers alone that fortune seemed to favor the besiegers. The orders which St. Ruth had lately given, on withdrawing his army from the town, had not been carried out. The houses were still the same shapeless ruins he had left them; the western wall was still entire; but a roadway had been cleared behind the intrenchments on the river, and all the defensive works to the rear of it had been defaced and levelled. This neglect was the consequence of a disagreement between St. Ruth and General d'Usson--the former wishing to have all obstructions removed, so as to give battle on the ruins of the town if the batteries on the river were carried; and the latter wishing to preserve the walls as a line of defence, in the event of such a conjuncture. It therefore happened that the work "went by default," or that the bad parts of it were executed and the more necessary totally neglected. However this be, a want of concord was manifest among the leaders; and when to these untoward events it is added, that d'Usson was absent from the camp, that three untrained regiments manned the defences, and that a scarcity of ammunition prevailed along the lines, the whole train of circumstances pointed to a manifest destiny, and--the reader may anticipate an evil one.