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Henty, G. A. (George Alfred), 1832-1902

"Or, The Beginnings of an Empire"


Two days passed without any further operations on the part of the
enemy; and then Bussy, seeing that nothing whatever could be done
towards assaulting the fortress, so long as the battery remained in
the hands of the besieged, determined to make a desperate effort to
carry it, ignorant of its immense strength. At night, therefore, he
ordered two bodies of men, each fifteen hundred strong, to mount the
hillside, far to the right and left of the town; to move along at the
foot of the wall of rock, and to carry the battery by storm at
daybreak.
Charlie, believing that such an attempt would be made, had upon the
day following the fall of the town taken his post there, and had
ordered a most vigilant watch to be kept up, each night; placing
sentries some hundred yards away, on either side, to give warning of
the approach of an enemy.
Towards daybreak on the third morning a shot upon the left, followed a
few seconds later by one on the right, told that the enemy were
approaching. A minute or two afterwards the sentries ran in, climbed
from the ditch by ladders which had been placed there for the purpose,
and, hauling these up after them, were soon in the battery, with the
news that large bodies of the enemy were approaching on either flank.


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