the hitherto silent batteries all at once burst
into a sheet of flame, pouring shot and shell, jinghal balls, rifle
bullets, in fact every variety of deadly missile known in war, on the
heads of our devoted men, at such close quarters, too, that not one in
three escaped the avalanche of destruction!

The Tartar garrison defending the place, we subsequently learnt, used
bows and arrows and matchlocks, in addition to the best modern weapons,
the better to discomfit their foes; "those vile red devils of
barbarians," as they called us, who had so rashly ventured to tackle
them at close quarters, thinking to "catch a weasel asleep."

"Oh, Vernon, look, look!" cried Larkyns, as the gloomy night with its
overhanging pall of smoke from the endless bombardment, which had been
going on ever since mid-day, was lit up by a crimson glow that enabled
us to see every detail of what took place and even recognise the
features of some of our officers. "See how they are mowed down--not a
man of them will come back alive!"

Saying which, grown lad that he was of seventeen, and courageous and
foolhardy to desperation, he burst into tears, the tension on his nerves
from the excitement we had all gone through since the early hours of
that ill-fated morning having completely unmanned him, making him for
the moment a perfect baby!

But I was just as bad; and, to relieve our feelings, we helped the
marine gunners, who were pounding away at the rascally Chinese, although
we had presently to stay our fire, for fear of hitting friends as well
as foes.

The end was not far off now, things shortly coming to a climax.

Half our men fell at the first discharge; but the remainder resolutely
rushed on to the broad ditch in front of the bastion, and about a third
of these got bravely through this obstruction, some fifty finally
reaching the base of the works.

There were no scaling ladders, however, wherewith to climb the steep
escarpments, no available reinforcements, for every man jack that could
be spared from the gunboats was there, to fill the voids in the ranks
which dwindled and dwindled each instant; and so at last, although the
handful of heroes who succeeded in getting up to the foremost fort,
advancing almost within sight, so to speak, of victory, might possibly
have held their own where they were until morning, if they had been
allowed to remain, being partly sheltered now by the salient angle of
the fortification, our senior officer