Was it a French fleet or a Turkish?
Did it bring succour to the besieged or a triumph to the besiegers?
The approaching ships flew the crescent. It was the Turkish fleet from
Rhodes bringing reinforcements. But the wind was sinking, and
Napoleon, who had watched the approach of the hostile ships with
feelings which may be guessed, calculated that there remained six hours
before they could cast anchor in the bay. Eleven assaults had been
already made, in which eight French generals and the best officers in
every branch of the service had perished. There remained time for a
twelfth assault. He might yet pluck victory from the very edge of
defeat. At ten o'clock that night the French artillery was brought up
close to the counterscarp to batter down the curtain, and a new breach
was made. Lannes led his division against the shot-wrecked tower, and
General Rimbaud took his grenadiers with a resistless rush through the
new breach. All night the combat raged, the men fighting desperately
hand to hand. When the rays of the level morning sun broke through the
pall of smoke which hung sullenly over the combatants, the tricolour
flew on the outer angle of the tower, and still the ships bringing
reinforcements had not reached the harbour! Sidney Smith, at this
crisis, landed every man from the English ships, and led them, pike in
hand, to the breach, and the shouting and madness of the conflict awoke
once more. To use Sidney Smith's own words, "the muzzles of the
muskets touched each other--the spear-heads were locked together." But
Sidney Smith's sailors, with the brave Turks who rallied to their help,
were not to be denied.

Lannes' grenadiers were tumbled headlong from the tower, Lannes himself
being wounded, while Rimbaud's brave men, who were actually past the
breach, were swept into ruin, their general killed, and the French
soldiers within the breach all captured or slain.

One of the dramatic incidents of the siege was the assault made by
Kleber's troops. They had not taken part in the siege hitherto, but
had won a brilliant victory over the Arabs at Mount Tabor. On reaching
the camp, flushed with their triumph, and seeing how slight were the
apparent defences of the town, they demanded clamorously to be led to
the assault. Napoleon consented. Kleber, who was of gigantic stature,
with a head of hair worthy of a German music-master or of a Soudan
dervish, led his grenadiers to the edge of the breach and st