"_Pardieu!_ look up and you will see the flag on the crown of the embankment. Come, push your boats off into the water, and put the ladders aboard, or I fire. If you want to talk, come alone or with Remonenq, and we will breakfast together, and talk as we eat. I have an excellent cook at Île Saint-Georges." Ravailly began to laugh, and encouraged his men with a glance. Meanwhile another company was preparing to land. Canolles saw that the decisive moment had arrived; and, assuming the firm attitude and serious demeanor befitting a man burdened with so heavy a responsibility as his, he cried:-- "Halt there, Ravailly! A truce to jesting, Remonenq! not another word or step, or I fire, as truly as the king's flag is above, and as your arms are raised against the lilies of France." Suiting the action to the threat, he overturned with his strong arm the first ladder that showed its head over the stones of the rampart. Five or six men, more eager than their fellows, were already on the ladder, and were overturned with it. They fell, and a great shout of laughter arose from besiegers and besieged alike; one would have said they were schoolboys at play. At that moment a signal was given to indicate that the besiegers had passed the chains drawn across the mouth of the harbor. Ravailly and Remonenq at once seized a ladder and prepared to go down into the moat, shouting:-- "This way, Navailles! Escalade! escalade! up! up!" "My poor Ravailly," cried Canolles, "I beseech you to stop where you are." But at the same instant the shore battery, which had kept silent hitherto, flashed and roared, and a cannon-ball ploughed up the dirt all around Canolles. "Go to!" said Canolles, extending his cane, "if you will have it so! Fire, my lads, fire all along the line!" Thereupon, although not a man could be seen, a row of muskets appeared, pointing down at the parapet, a girdle of flame enveloped the crown of the wall, while the detonation of two huge pieces of artillery answered Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld's battery. Half a score of men fell; but their fall, instead of discouraging their comrades, inspired them with fresh ardor. The shore battery replied to the battery on the rampart; a cannon-ball struck down the royal standard, and another killed one of Canolles' lieutenants, named D'Elboin. Canolles looked around and saw that his men had reloaded their weapons. "Fire!" he cried, and the order was executed as promptly as before. Ten minutes later not a single pane of glass was left on the island. The stones trembled and burst in pieces; the cannon-balls knocked holes in the walls, and were flattened on the great flags; a dense smoke overhung the fort, and the air was filled with shrieks and threats and groans. Canolles saw that Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld's artillery was doing the greatest amount of damage. "Vibrac," said he, "do you look out for Ravailly, and see that he doesn't gain an inch of ground in my absence. I am going to our battery."