"Keep close under your walls and trenches, lads," cried Campbell, who was watching the heights through a telescope levelled across the saddle of his horse. "Keep close; but never duck down when a ball comes: as old Sir Ralph used to say, ’it looks d—ned unsoldierlike.’ Here comes a shot." A flash, and a wreath of white smoke, announced the first cannon-ball, which, striking the wall of a house, brought a mass of masonry tumbling into the street. Whiz came a second, and a third, and a fourth,—all in quick succession. The French cannonade commenced then in good earnest, and continued incessantly from ten in the morning until five in the afternoon,—firing thirteen hundred round of shot and shell, and perhaps to so hot a discharge of cannon so small a body of troops, in such a defenceless place, were never subjected before. Without the least intermission it continued for seven hours, and even then the enemy only ceased to cool their guns, and await the completion of a plan formed by Soult for surrounding and completely cutting off the defenders of Alba. It was a miracle that every man in the place was not destroyed; but the enemy chiefly expended their shot on a large empty convent, which they supposed to be full of soldiers, and in consequence levelled it to the foundations. One sixteen-pounder came whizzing amongst the light company, and, striking the breast-work of loose earth, buried Seaton and a section of men under it; and a hearty laugh arose from the regiment, as they scrambled out of the trench, shaking off the soil and turf which had covered them up.