The sun was clear of the horizon when, at a signal, the batteries ceased. A sudden silence fell on the slope of the Ridge and on the enemy’s wall. A thrill ran through the waiting columns, as each man, like a hound on the leash, braced himself up for the desperate rush. Nicholson had been standing, silent and alone, in front of his column; and now with a gesture of his hand he gave the signal. A shout, sudden, and stern, and fierce, broke through the air. It came from the 60th Rifles, who with a vehement cheer ran out to the front in skirmishing order, and in a moment the four columns were in swift and orderly movement. Then the enemy’s guns from every point broke into flame! It is impossible to compress into a few paragraphs of cold type the story of that great assault; the fire and passion of the charge, the stubborn fury of the defence, the long, mad struggle through the streets. And the fact that four desperate combats at as many separate points broke out at once makes it still more difficult to give any single connected picture of the scene. Nicholson led column No. 1 steadily forward till it reached the edge of the jungle. Then the engineers and storming party went forward at a run. They reached the crest of the glacis, and stood there under a perfect blaze of musketry. The stormers had outrun the ladder parties! The ditch gaped sixteen feet wide below them. The breach in front was crowded with dark figures, shouting, firing, hurling stones, all in a tempest of Eastern fury. The ladders were quickly up, and were dropped into the ditch. The men leaped down, and almost with the same impulse swept up the further side—Nicholson’s tall figure leading—and men and officers, contending madly with each other who should be first, raced up the broken slope of the breach, dashed the Sepoys back in confused flight, and gained the city! The second column was as gallantly led as the first, and met with an almost fiercer resistance. At the signal its storming party ran out from the shelter of the Customs house. The two engineer officers, Greathed and Ovenden, and twenty-nine men out of the thirty-nine who formed the ladder parties were instantly shot down; but the attack never paused for an instant. The men of the 8th, the Sikhs, and the Fusileers came on with a silent speed and fury that nothing could stop. The ditch was crossed, as with a single effort. One officer—little more than a lad—Ensign Phillips, with soldierly quickness, and with the help of a few riflemen, swung round the guns on the Water Bastion, and opened fire with them on the Sepoys themselves.