So thought most of those who thought of him at all. Yet, even while his name was on their lips, the Phoenix was reviving. Sir Robert Herrick knew it. General Hartwell and Linton knew it; and there were others, quick of hearing, keen of sight, who already heard the flapping of the wings; saw the Phoenix rising from the ashes of the past and speeding from afar towards our violated shores. CHAPTER XIV. THE FIGHT FOR THE FORT. The enemy still held the fort. All through the night a terrific bombardment had been maintained, and even when the first grey line of dawn began to creep across the downs the insistent fury of the guns increased rather than diminished. Major Wardlaw estimated that during the last twelve hours over eleven thousand shots had been fired from the big guns of Fort Warden, while thousands of shrapnel hurled against its fortifications from the various encircling field batteries manned by British gunners were beyond all definite calculation. At the height of the bombardment not less than 80 per minute must have been directed by way of return against the British batteries, and in this onslaught the great guns (of which there were seven at work in Fort Warden) contributed the most overwhelming and terrible results. This deafening and incessant rain of fire was directed mainly against the Castle and Fort Burgoyne, but, incidentally, it had wrought ruin and convulsion on every side. Shells falling into the town of Dover had already reduced it to heaps of tumbled masonry. Here and there great volumes of smoke rose from the wreckage of shops and houses. The Town Hall--the ancient _Maison Dieu_, founded by Hugh de Burgh, Constable of Dover, in the reign of John--having escaped destruction during the night, caught fire about daybreak, the flames, rushing upward in the morning air, watched by thousands from the western heights, to which the terrified inhabitants had fled for safety.