many, sometimes by a few, ascended the ruins; and so furious were the men themselves that in one of these charges the rear strove to push the foremost on to the sword-blades, willing even to make a bridge of their writhing bodies, but the others frustrated the attempt by dropping down; and men fell so fast from the shot it was hard to know who went down voluntarily, who were stricken, and many stooped unhurt that never rose again. Vain also would it have been to break through the sword-blades, for the trench and parapet behind the breach were finished, and the assailants, crowded into even a narrower space than the ditch was, would still have been separated from their enemies, and the slaughter would have continued.

"At the beginning of this dreadful conflict Andrew Barnard had, with prodigious efforts, separated his division from the other, and preserved some degree of military array; but now the tumult was such, no command would be heard distinctly except by those close at hand, and the mutilated carcasses heap on each other, and the wounded struggling to avoid being trampled upon, broke the formations; order was impossible! Officers of all ranks, followed more or less numerously by the men, were seen to start out as if struck by sudden madness, and rush into the breach, which, yawning and glittering

In

with steel, seemed like the mouth of a huge dragon belching forth smoke and flame. one of these attempts Colonel Macleod, of the Forty-third, a young man whose feeble body would have been quite unfit for war if it had not been sustained by an unconquerable spirit, was killed; wherever his voice was heard his soldiers had gathered, and with such a strong resolution did he lead them up the fatal ruins that when one behind him, in falling, plunged a bayonet into his back, he complained not; but, con- · tinuing his course, was shot dead within a yard of the sword-blades. Yet there was no want of gallant leaders or desperate followers, until two hours passed in these vain efforts had convinced the troops the breach of the Trinidad was impregnable; and as the opening in the curtain, although less strong, was retired, and the approach to it impeded by deep holes and cuts made in the ditch, the soldiers did not much notice it after the partial failure of one attack which had been made early.

"Gathering in dark groups and leaning on their muskets, they looked up with sullen desperation at the Trinidad, while the enemy, stepping out on the ramparts, and aiming their shots by the light of the fire-balls which they threw over, asked, as their victims fell, 'Why they did not come into Badajos?' In

this dreadful situation, while the dead were lying in heaps, and others continually falling, the wounded crawling about to get some shelter from the merciless shower above, and withal a sickening stench from the burned flesh of the slain, Captain Nicholas, of the Engineers, was observed by Lieutenant Shaw, of the Forty-third, making incredible efforts to force his way with a few men into the Santa Maria bastion. Shaw immediately collected fifty soldiers, of all regiments, and joined him, and although there was a deep cut along the foot of that breach also, it was instantly passed, and these two young officers led their gallant band, with a rush, up the ruins; but when they had gained two-thirds of the ascent a concentrated fire of musketry and grape dashed nearly the whole dead to the earth. Nicholas was mortally wounded, and the intrepid Shaw stood alone! With inexpressible coolness he looked at his watch, and, saying it was too late to carry the breaches, rejoined the masses at the other attack.

After this no further effort was made at any point, and the troops remained passive but unflinching beneath the enemy's shot, which streamed without intermission; for of the riflemen on the glacis many leaped early into the ditch and joined in the assault, and the rest, raked by a cross-fire of grape from the distant