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Updated: May 14, 2025
The left of the battalion advanced to within seventy yards of the work, being exposed to the fire of two pieces of artillery, en barbette, in addition to the fire of a considerable force of infantry and some of them still nearer, so that they had a destructive fire on the cannoniers and infantry; which position the battalion maintained until the enemy were driven from their guns and bastion, when they were followed into their work and surrendered."
Already was the match in the act of descending, which would have blown the unfortunate Gerald to atoms, when suddenly an officer, whose uniform bespoke him to be of some rank, and to whose quick eye it was apparent the rash assailant was utterly unsupported, sprang upon the bastion, and, dashing the fuze from the hand of the gunner, commanded that a small sally-port, which opened into the trench a few yards beyond the point where he stood, should be opened, and the brave soldier taken prisoner without harm.
Each bastion was honeycombed with casemates and subterranean storehouses, and capable of containing within its bowels a vast supply of provisions, munitions, and soldiers. Such was the celebrated citadel built to tame the turbulent spirit of Antwerp, at the cost of those whom it was to terrify and to insult.
The shield-shaped battlements; the courtyards, with their brutal columns, narrowing as they recede towards the mountains; the heavy gateways, with superimposed chambers; the towers; quadrangular bastion to protect, inclined basement to resist the attacks of sappers and cause projectiles to rebound all these things contribute to this very definite effect.
Invincible Vernon, it is thought by Gazetteers, 'will look in at Carthagena shortly; much more important Place, where a certain Governor Don Blas has been insolent withal, and written Vernon letters. Vernon hopes he did hit the Jesuits' College, South Bastion, Custom-house and other principal edifices; but found that there was no getting near enough on that seaward side.
The breached bastion was found to be a tough piece of masonry, extremely thick and well put together; so we pegged away at its foundation.
We moved around an angle of the wall and found a low bastion eight feet high without ten or twelve within. Denny prepared to scale it, and we got ready to follow. By dint of hard scrambling he finally straddled the top, but some loose stones crumbled away and fell with a crash into the court within. There was instantly a banging of doors and a shout.
If we are not, we shall have all the time to talk, and nobody will hear us for I guarantee the walls of the bastion have no ears; if we are, we will talk of our affairs just the same. Moreover, in defending ourselves, we shall cover ourselves with glory. You see that everything is to our advantage." "Yes," said d'Artagnan; "but we shall indubitably attract a ball."
"But," continued General Raimbaut, "they are overruled by imperious circumstances, some of which he did not reveal; they remain in his own breast. However, on the eve of a general attack, which he cannot postpone, that bastion must be disarmed, otherwise it would be too fatal to all the storming parties. It is a painful necessity."
Before him came bellying along the damp trench, the dense smoke from the fatal bastion, as it were a funeral shroud for its victims; and behind him were to be seen the mangled and distorted forms of his companions, some dead, others writhing in acute agony, and filling the air with shrieks, and groans, and prayers for water wherewith to soothe their burning lips, that mingled fearfully, yet characteristically, with the unsubdued roar of small arms.
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