Behind the barrier now to be taken, was a platform whence cannon poured grape-shot, defended by two ranges of musketeers with fixed bayonets. The enemy fired also from the upper windows of houses beyond. The Americans speedily upbuilt an elevation to a height approaching that of the barrier, men falling all the while beneath the fire from the barrier, the houses beyond, and the walls far above at the right. Morgan's first lieutenant, Humphreys, climbed this mound to scale the barrier, but a row of bayonets forced him back. Seeing the impregnability of the barrier to his present force, and the rapidity with which that force was depleted by the terrible fire, Morgan thundered and cursed. Hendricks and Steele were calm, encouraging their men to patience, and directing them whither to return the enemy's fire. At last Lieutenant Humphreys fell in the street, dying on the spot. Then Morgan ordered his men to enter a house close to the barrier, and fire from the windows. Into the house and up to the second story rushed Hendricks, Steele, Tom MacAlister, and many others. Steele ran to the first window and aimed his gun towards the barrier; but, without firing, he suddenly stepped back with a sharp cry, and held up one of his hands to look at it, entrusting his gun wholly to the other. Where three fingers had been, there were now three crimson stumps. Hendricks and MacAlister took another window. As Hendricks was about to shoot, a ball tore its way to his heart; he lowered his rifle, took on a swift look of pain, staggered a few feet backward, fell with half his body on a bed, and died there almost instantly. While the hell continued in and about the house, as the daylight increased, a party of British rushed out from Palace Gate, captured Dearborn and his men, fell upon the rear of Morgan's party, and presently, when the dauntless Virginian had had his rage out, received the surrender of him and his officers and men. "I wonder," thought old Tom MacAlister, as he marched in the line of prisoners to the great ruined Franciscan monastery, near the Reguliers, "how the lad Dick would 'a' fared if he'd been wi' us the braw night past? Weel, weel, maybe it's better he was called away when he was, for, whether he be on the earth or under, it's little he'd 'a' relished finding out 'twas for this we marched through Maine and hungered and froze in the snaws of Canada!" 'Twas for that, had been the planning and the money-spending, the suffering and the starving, the toils and the bloodshed,--for that, and for the glory of heroic failure. CHAPTER XI. THREE WHIMSICAL GENTLEMEN AND A BEAUTIFUL LADY.