Of the next bastion, fired away like devils,
And swept, as gales sweep foam away, whole ranks:
However, Heaven knows how, the Fate who levels
Towns—nations—worlds, in her revolving pranks,
So ordered it, amidst these sulphury revels,
That Johnson, and some few who had not scampered,
Reached the interior "talus"[432] of the rampart.[433]
XLV.
First one or two, then five, six, and a dozen