"this ain't no job for a landsman."

Nothing heeding this rebuff, the two soldiers followed up the steep
rock, George giving a hand at the worst spots to his friend and
superior. Up, up, the scaling party mounted, the business becoming
every moment more difficult and more full of danger. More than once
the gallant fellows-in front paused and declared that further progress
was impossible.

"Oh, go on!" called out George, impatiently, on one of these
occasions, from below, where he was helping up the lieutenant, "or
else let me come," he added, grumblingly.

The sailor lads needed no spur, however, and amid growing excitement
the summit of their bit of cliff was perceived not far away. In the
dash for the top the active lad passed his fellows in the race,
catching up the foremost man, who held the flag. Seizing the staff,
George Fairburn assisted in the actual planting of the colours. There,
fluttering at the very summit of the Rock, was the English flag, its
unfolding hailed with bursts of cheering, again and again repeated,
from the throngs far below.

The deed was done, and from that day, the twenty-third of July, 1704,
according to the old reckoning, the third of August by the new style,
the British flag has floated from the Rock of Gibraltar.

Desperate efforts were made by the garrison to haul down the flag, but
they all failed, and the Governor capitulated. The Prince of
Hesse-Darmstadt was for claiming the fortress, but this Rooke would
not have, and he promptly declared the Rock to be the possession of