There lay the ghastly dead, cold and pale in the grey light of the morning,—across them in heaps the wounded, quivering with intensity of agony, grasping the gory ground with convulsive clutches, and tearing up the earth, which was soon to cover them, in handfuls, while their eyes, starting from the sockets, were becoming glazed and terrible in death. Others, who had received wounds in less vital parts of the frame, were endeavouring to drag themselves from the press, or stanch their streaming blood, imploring those who neither heard or heeded them for "Water! water for the love of God!" Yells of sudden agony, the deep groan of the severely wounded and hoarse death-rattle of the dying men, mingled and were lost in the tumultuous shouts of the French, the steady and hearty cheers of the British, the clash of steel, the tramp of feet and discharge of musquetry, the notes of the wild war pipes of the 71st and 92nd, which were blown loud enough to awaken the heroes of Selma in their tombs. Many acts of personal heroism were performed on both sides before the enemy were fairly driven from their works, for which they fought with the characteristic bravery of their gallant nation. But longer contention would have been madness. The right wing of the Highland Light Infantry, and the whole of the 50th regiment, poured in upon them like a flood: the whole place was captured in the course of _fifteen minutes_, and its garrison driven into the little square formed by their barracks, and into the bastion from which their imperial tri-colour flung its folds over the conflict. "On! Forward! Capture the colours before they are destroyed!" was now the cry; and hundreds, following Colonel Stuart of the 50th, pressed forward into the bastion, across the demi-gorge of which the enemy had cast bundles of fascines, composed of billets of wood, baskets of earth, &c., over which they presented their bayonets, and kept up a rapid fire. Still eager to distinguish himself, Ronald pressed on by the side of the colonel of the 50th, and while endeavouring to break the hedge of steel formed by the enemy’s bayonets, he was thrust in among them and borne to the ground, and his campaigns would probably have ended there, had not Evan Iverach, at the peril of his life, plunged over the fascines after him, and borne to the earth a French officer, whose sabre was descending on his master’s head. The athletic Highlander pinned the Gaul to the earth, and unsheathing a skene-dhu (black knife), drove it through the breast of his discomfited foe. "_Nombril de Belzebub! Les sauvages Ecossais! Sacre bleu! Camarades, sauvez-moi!_"—but his comrades had barely time to save themselves from the tide of armed men, who poured through the gap which Evan and his master had formed.