But there was no time for hesitation, no choice for the timid. The front ranks were forced onwards by the pressure of those in the rear, and as men fell wounded on the breach, there they lay, being trodden into and covered by the shifting rubbish displaced by the feet of their comrades. Some few, more lucky, when wounded fell or rolled down the slope into the ditch, and they added by their outcries to the wildness of the scene. The enemy’s resistance slackened, and they suddenly fled. Some guns they left behind in their panic. It was now seven o’clock; the breach was carried, and the town virtually ours. About that time a wooden magazine placed on the rampart blew up, destroying our General and many with him, as well as a number of the garrison. Patterson of the 43rd and Uniacke of the 95th were of the number. “I distinctly remember the moment of the explosion and the short pause it occasioned in our proceedings--a pause that enabled us to hear the noise of the attack still going forward near the little breach. I met Uniacke walking between two men. One of his eyes was blown out, and the flesh was torn from his arms and legs. “I asked who it was. He replied, ‘Uniacke,’ and walked on. “He had taken chocolate with our mess an hour before! “At this time a gigantic young Irish volunteer attached to our regiment, observing a gallant artilleryman still lingering near his gun, dashed at him with bayonet fixed and at the charge. “The man stepped backwards, facing his foe; but his foot slipping, he fell against the gun, and in a moment the young Irish fellow’s bayonet was through his heart. The yell with which he gave up the ghost so terrified B---- that he started back, the implement of death in his hands, and, apostrophizing it, said, ‘Holy Moses! how aisy you went into him!’ This saying became celebrated afterwards through the whole division. “Colonel McLeod caused Lieutenant Madden of the 43rd to descend the small breach with twenty-five men, to prevent soldiers leaving the town with plunder. At eleven o’clock I went to see him. He had very judiciously made a large fire, which, of course, showed up the plunderers to perfection. He told me that no masquerade could, in point of costume and grotesque figures, rival the characters he stripped that night.” Well, to go back to the storming party. The men who lined the breastwork having fled, our men dropped from the wall into the town and advanced in pursuit. At first they were among ruins, but gradually made their way into a large street which led nearly in a straight line from the principal breach to the _plaza_, or square. Up this street they fought their way, the enemy slowly retiring before them. At about half the length of the street was a large open space on the left hand, where was deposited the immense battering train of “the army of Portugal.”