supply of the two necessaries,
powder and bread, on one hundred and seventy sledges across the Harlem
Lake, together with four hundred veteran soldiers. The citizens continued
to contest the approaches to the ravelin before the Cross-gate, but it
had become obvious that they could not hold it long. Secretly,
steadfastly, and swiftly they had, therefore, during the long wintry
nights, been constructing a half moon of solid masonry on the inside of
the same portal. Old men, feeble women, tender children, united with the
able-bodied to accomplish this work, by which they hoped still to
maintain themselves after the ravelin had fallen:

On the 31st of January, after two or three days' cannonade against the
gates of the Cross and of Saint John, and the intervening curtains, Don
Frederic ordered a midnight assault. The walls had been much shattered,
part of the John's-gate was in ruins; the Spaniards mounted the breach in
great numbers; the city was almost taken by surprise; while the
Commander-in-chief, sure of victory, ordered the whole of his forces
under arms to cut off the population who were to stream panic-struck from
every issue. The attack was unexpected, but the forty or fifty sentinels
defended the walls while they sounded the alarm. The tocsin bells tolled,
and the citizens, whose sleep was not-apt to be heavy during that
perilous winter, soon manned the ramparts again. The daylight came upon
them while the fierce struggle was still at its height. The besieged, as
before, defended themselves with musket and rapier, with melted pitch,
with firebrands, with clubs and stones. Meantime, after morning prayers
in the Spanish camp, the trumpet for a general assault was sounded. A
tremendous onset was made upon the gate of the Cross, and the ravelin was
carried at last. The Spaniards poured into this fort, so long the object
of their attack, expecting instantly to sweep into the city with sword
and fire. As they mounted its wall they became for the first time aware
of the new and stronger fortification which had been secretly constructed
on the inner side. The reason why the ravelin had been at last conceded
was revealed. The half moon, whose existence they had not suspected, rose
before them bristling with cannon. A sharp fire was instantly opened upon
the besiegers, while at the same instant the ravelin, which the citizens
had undermined, blew up with a severe explosion, carrying into the air
all the soldiers who had ju