front ! only the bayonet ! trust to nothing 
but the bayonet," cried a voice, whose almost cheerful accents 
contrasted strangely with the death notes around, and Gurwood, who 



192 CHARLES O'MALLEY, 

led the forlorn  of the fifty-second, bounded into the chasm; all the 
officers sprang simultaneously after him ; the men pressed madly on ; 
a roll of withering musketry crashed upon them ; a furious shout 
replied to it. The British, springing over the dead and the dying, 
bounded like blood-hounds on their prey. Meanwhile, the ramparts 
trembled beneath the tramp of the light division, who, having forced 
the lesser breach, came down upon the flank of the French. The 
garrison, however, thickened their numbers, and bravely held their 
ground. Man to man was now the combat. No cry for quarter. 
No supplicating look for  ; it was the death struggle of vengeance 
and . At this instant, an explosion louder than the loudest 
thunder shook the air ; the rent and torn up ramparts sprang into the 
sky ; the conquering and the conquered were- alike the victims : for one 
of the great magazines had been ignited by a shell ; the black smoke, 
streaked with a lurid flame, hung above the dead and the dying. The 
artillery and the murderous musketry