The men
faltered, and several officers were wounded while urging them on.
Suddenly Reid, conspicuous by his brilliant uniform, sprang to his feet,
and shouted, "Men, if we don't take Chapultepec, the American army is
lost. Let us charge up the walls!"

The soldiers answered, "We are ready."

At that moment the three guns on the parapet fired simultaneously.
There would be a moment's interval while they reloaded. Reid seized
that interval, and crying "Come on," leaped over the scarp, and rushed
up to the very walls. Half-way up he saw that the parapet was crowded
with Mexican gunners, just about to discharge their guns. He threw
himself on his face, and thus received only a slight wound on his sword
hand, while another shot cut his clothes.

Instantly on his feet again, he made for the wall, but in front of it he
was struck down by a Mexican bullet tearing through his thigh.

There Lieutenant Cochrane, of the Voltigeurs, saw him as he advanced to
the walls. Reid raised himself, and sang out, entreating the men to
stand firm.

"Don't leave the wall," he cried, "or we shall be cut to pieces. Hold
on, and the castle is ours."

"There is no danger of our leaving it, captain," said Cochrane; "never
fear!"

Then the scaling ladders were brought, the rush was made, and the castle
taken. But Reid had been _the very first man under its walls_.

When the war was over, Captain Reid resigned his commission in the
American army, and organised a body of men in New York to go and fight
for the Hungarians, but news reached him in Paris that the Hungarian
insurrection was ended, so he returned to England.

Here he settled down to literary work, publishing "The Scalp Hunters,"
and many wonderful stories of adventure and peril.

The great African explorer, the good Dr Livingstone, said in the last
letter he ever wrote, "Captain Mayne Reid's boys' books are the stuff to
make travellers."

Captain Mayne Reid died on the twenty-first of October, 1883, and the
"Land of Fire" is his unconscious last legacy to the boys of Great
Britain, and to all others who speak the English language.

CHAPTER ONE.

"THE SEA! THE SEA! THE OPEN SEA!"

One of the most interesting of English highways is the old coach road
from London to Portsmouth. Its interest is in part due to the charming
scenery through which it runs, but as much to memories of a bygone time.
One travelling this road at the present day might well deem it lonel