"Steady the ladder, Evan Bean Iverach," cried Stuart. "Keep close by me, and show yourself your father’s son. God aid our steel! Follow me, soldiers,—forward!—Hurrah!" With his sword in his right hand, his bonnet in his left, and his dark hair waving about his face, he ascended the ladder fearlessly, and striking up the bayonets which bristled over the parapet, leaped upon it, brandished his sword, miraculously escaping the shower of shot which hailed around him. With dauntless bravery he sprang from the parapet among them, and instantly the French gave way before the irresistible stream of British troops who poured in upon them, and a desperate struggle took place—short, bloody, but decisive. "_Ah, mon Dieu! Raille—raille! soldats! Diable! Croisez la baïonette!_" shouted D’Estouville frantickly,—setting his men the example by throwing himself headlong on the bayonets of the assailants,—but he was driven back, and his efforts were in vain; a score of ladders had been placed against the glacis at other places, and the works were stormed on almost every part at once. The defenders were driven back, but fighting with true French bravery for every inch of ground. The British assailed them with irresistible impetuosity, bearing them backwards with the charged bayonet, the clubbed musquet, the pike, and the sword. By the particular favour of Providence Ronald escaped the dangers of the forlorn hope, while the soldiers who composed his band were mown down like leaves in autumn; but while pressing forward among the enemy, two powerful grenadiers of _les Gardes Français_ rushed upon him with their levelled bayonets, putting him in imminent peril. The pike of a serjeant of the 50th freed him of one assailant, and closing with the other, he dashed his head against the breech of a carronade, and passed his sword through the broad breast of a third who came up to his rescue, and the warm blood poured over the hand and blade of his conqueror, who now could scarcely keep his feet on the wooden platform surrounding the inner side of the breast-work, which was covered with blood and brains, and piled with dead and wounded—with drums, dismounted cannon, and broken weapons. The scene which was now presented, is far beyond my humble powers of description. The blaze of cannon and musquetry from Ragusa, at the other end of the pontoon bridge,—where the garrison fired at the risk of killing their comrades,—glared on the glassy bosom of the Tagus, tinging it with that red and golden colour so freely bestowed upon it by poets. But within the inner talus of the breast-work and bloody platform, the scene would have produced horror in one less excited than men contending hand to hand, and who regarded honour rather than life.