breach, but a scaling place; the men mounting in the holes made by
the shot. By this simple stratagem, I managed to pass each
successive barrier--for to ascend a wall which the General was
pleased to call "as smooth as glass" is an absurd impossibility: I
seek to achieve none such:-


"I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is neither more nor less."


Of course, had the enemy's guns been commonly well served, not one
of us would ever have been alive out of the three; but whether it
was owing to fright, or to the excessive smoke caused by so many
pieces of artillery, arrive we did. On the platforms, too, our
work was not quite so difficult as might be imagined--killing these
fellows was sheer butchery. As soon as we appeared, they all
turned and fled helter-skelter, and the reader may judge of their
courage by the fact that out of about seven hundred men killed by
us, only forty had wounds in front, the rest being bayoneted as
they ran.

And beyond all other pieces of good fortune was the very letting
out of these tigers; which was the dernier ressort of Bournonville,
the second commandant of the fort. I had observed this man
(conspicuous for a tricoloured scarf which he wore) upon every one
of the walls as we stormed them, and running away the very first
among the fugitives. He had all the keys of the gates; and in his
tremor, as he opened the menagerie portal, left the whole bunch in
the door, which I seized when the animals were overcome. Runty