Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/532

512 of differences on some plan within the domain of reason! But what have wire-pulling politicians to do with right or reason? What care office-seekers, men who spend their lives in their efforts to supplant others and gain for themselves a better place — what do they care who and how many are killed or mangled and buried in the ditches?

Numbers and impetus prevail; the redan is carried, and so closely are the defenders pursued that the officer charged to fire the saucissons of the mines, just beyond, waits for a moment. That moment saves the pursuers. He is disabled; the saucissons are destroyed, and the rush continues to the crest of the hill. Here the enemy have to pause, however, at the foot of the parapet, from which grape and bullets now pour upon them, tearing wide gaps in the ranks.

While waiting for ladders, they crouch back behind rocks and into hollows which have been neglected by the engineers, and thence begin to pick off artillerists and sharp-shooters with a precision so terrible as soon to silence the artillery and force the evacuation of the bastion at the knee of the front ascent. By this time Cadwalader, who had replaced the wounded General Pillow, brings up the ladders and fascines; and now there is a rush across the ditch to plant the ladders. The musketry fire redoubles, and down come the first climbers, dead and disabled, and so the next daring stormers; but assailants cluster thick and eager at the foot to take the vacant places, and finally they gain a foothold on the parapet.

A resistless number follows across the vacated priestcap and into the precincts of the yard, joined by