made them waver.
"Cease firing!" rang out, and the trampling of horses began once more,
as the lancers passed through us, and hurled themselves at full gallop
against the crowd.

That finished the attack, for the enemy turned and fled, throwing into
disorder reinforcements coming up; and as the lancers retired in single
file, right and left, we played round shot between them, and finished
the discomfiture of the attacking force, which rolled back into shelter
among the houses at the back.

Then, amidst frantic cheers, a portion of the nearest wall was thrown
down, and the guns were dragged into the enclosure, the lancers followed
into the shelter; and, as a part of our men repaired the breach, and the
guns were mounted ready for the next advance, such a scene of weeping,
shouting, and embracing took place as is beyond description, and can
only be recalled with a choking sensation of the throat.

I looked wildly round for the faces dear to me, but it was some time
before I could make them out in the little crowd of haggard ragged
ladies who had been obliged to crowd together in a mere cellar, so as to
avoid the shot poured into the enclosure night and day.

But there was no time for sorrow or joy. I had hardly embraced those
dear to me when there was a cry raised that the enemy were coming on
again, and as I was literally obliged to drag myself away from my
sister, she, in her faintness from want of food, staggered, and would
have fallen, had not an officer suddenly caught her in his arms.

"Thank you, Brace," I said, as he helped her to the door of the house
from whence she had come. "My sister must have suffered horribly."

"Your sister, Gil!" he said; "that lady? Ah!"

He twisted himself violently round as he uttered a sharp cry, and it was
my turn to catch him in my arms as he was falling.

"Not hit?" cried a familiar voice, and Danby hurried up as two of our
men helped me to bear our leader to the door through which my sister had
just passed; and there, sheltered from the bullets which had now begun
to fly fast from a tall building a short distance away, the doctor made
a rapid examination.

"Well?" I said excitedly, "is he wounded?"

"Badly," whispered the doctor, "through the lungs, I'm afraid."

I could stay to hear no more, as I had to hurry off to the guns, for
threatening shouts told me that the enemy were coming on again, and were
heralding their approach by a terrific fire prior to the next