Few of these, however, needed the injunction. Although galled by the severe fire of the enemy, they followed their leaders down the ravine with a steadiness worthy of a better result; then, climbing up the opposite ascent, under a shower of bullets, yet without pulling a trigger themselves, made for the ditch their officer had already gained. Cranstoun, still continuing in advance, was the first who arrived on the brink. For a moment he paused, as if uncertain what course to pursue, then, seeing Middlemore close behind him, he leaped in, and striking a blow of his sabre upon the stockade, called loudly upon the axemen to follow. While he was yet shouting, a ball from a loop-hole, not three feet above his head, entered his brain, and he fell dead across the trench. "Ha! well have you won your wager, my noble Captain!" exclaimed Middlemore, putting his hand to his chest, and staggering from the effect of a shot he had that instant received. "You are indeed the BETTER man," (he continued excited beyond his usual calm by the circumstances in which he found himself placed, yet unable to resist his dominating propensity, even at such a moment,) "and deserve the palm of honor this day. Forward, men, forward: --axemen do your duty. Down with the stockade, my lads, and give them a bellyfull of steel." Scarcely had he spoken, when a second discharge from the same wall-piece that had killed Cranstoun passed through his throat. "Forward," he again but more faintly shouted, with the gurgling tone of suffocation peculiar to a wound in that region, then, falling headlong into the ditch, was in the next instant trodden under by the advance of the column who rushed forward, though fruitlessly, to avenge the deaths of their officers.