On came the Fusileers again, a cluster of officers leading, well in advance of their men. Major Jacob, who commanded the regiment, raced in that heroic group. Speke was there, the brother of the African explorer; Greville, Wemyss, and the gallant Butler once again. The first gun in the lane was captured once more, and Greville, a cool and skilful soldier, promptly spiked it. But the interval betwixt the first gun and the second, had to be crossed. It was only a hundred yards, but on every foot of it a ceaseless and fiery hail of shot was beating. The officers, as they led, went down one by one. Jacob, one of the most gallant soldiers of the whole siege, fell, mortally wounded. Jacob’s special quality as a soldier was a strangely gentle but heroic coolness. The flame of battle left him at the temperature of an icicle; its thunder did not quicken his pulse by a single beat, and his soldiers had an absolute and exultant confidence in the quick sight, the swift action, the unfaltering composure of their gallant commander. Some of his men halted to pick him up when he fell, but he called to them to leave him, and press forward. Six other officers, one after another, were struck down; the rush slackened, it paused, the men ebbed sullenly back; the second attack had failed! Nicholson, as the officer in general command of the assaulting columns, might well have remained at the Cashmere Gate, controlling the movements of the columns; but his eager, vehement spirit carried him always to the fighting front. He first accompanied Campbell’s column on its perilous march, but then rejoined his own proper column just as it came in sight of the Lahore Gate. The officers immediately about him—men themselves of the highest daring—advised that, as the attack of the fourth column had failed, it would be wise strategy to hold strongly the portion of the city they had carried and reorganise another general assault. They had done enough for the day. Their men had lost heavily, and were exhausted. They were in ignorance of the fortunes of the other columns. But Nicholson’s fiery spirit was impatient of half measures or of delays. He was eager, moreover, to check the dangerous elation caused amongst the Sepoys by their repulse of the fourth column. So he resolutely launched a new assault on the Lahore Gate. How gallantly the officers led in an attack which yet their judgment condemned has been told.