ttack the fort in more serious earnest. Boats came passing and
re-passing to her, and, as I found was the case, as all our guns were on
shore, Captain Packenham with the greater part of the ship's company
went on board the other ships to assist in fighting them. The ships
stood in very close to the walls of the fort before they dropped their
anchors, and then commenced a heavy cannonade, the effects of which soon
became apparent by the crumbling away of the works on every side.
Night, however, put a stop to the work of destruction. Darkness had
just closed in when I received orders to leave my exalted post and to
join the party destined to storm the works at daybreak on the following
morning. This was just according to my taste. I had never a fancy to
know that work was being done and not to be engaged in it.

It was nearly midnight before I joined O'Driscoll and my other friends.
I found them sitting round their watch-fires, not so much on account of
the cold as to keep off the mosquitoes, and enjoying a good supper,
which they ate as they cooked. We had no cloaks, so we sat up all night
discussing the probabilities of our success on the morrow. We talked
and laughed and joked as if there was nothing particularly serious to be
done. Adams, one of our midshipmen, was the merriest of the merry. He
above all of us was making light of the difficulties and dangers to be
encountered. Towards morning our voices grew lower and lower, and at
length no one spoke. I sat also silent, looking up at the dark sky
studded with a thousand stars, wondering to which of them I should wing
my flight should I lose my life in the coming struggle. I dozed off for
a few moments, it seemed to me, and then the drum beat to arms and I
sprang to my feet. At the same moment the ships re-commenced their
cannonade. Every arrangement had already been made, so that each man of
the expedition knew his station. Not an instant, therefore, was lost.
We hurried to our ranks. I had a hundred men under me. Of course
Grampus and Rockets were among them. Grampus had armed himself with a
musket and cutlass, but Rockets had managed to get hold of two
cutlasses. I asked him why he had thus encumbered himself.

"Why, sir, you see as how one on 'em may be broken, and then I shall
have t'other for fighting with," he answered with his usual simplicity.

Down the hill we rushed, the marines and Loyal Irish on either flank.
Nothing stopped us. It se