"Mine!" said Macdonald. "Glendonwyn, I thank you. Smith, please to let the general know we shall be ready whenever he chooses."
This officer was the grandson of the loyal and gallant Lieutenant-Colonel Donald Macdonald, of Kinlochmoidart, who was aide-de-camp to Prince Charles Stuart, and was one of the many who perished in the Government shambles at the Castle of Carlisle in 1746. He inherited all the courage and spirit of his race, and prepared at once for the task in hand—to escalade the citadel of St. Pierre, which was destitute of ditches, but had a very troublesome advanced work of palisades and loopholes, with a cavalier of ten 24-pounders.
When night closed in, his company cast aside their knapsacks, carefully inspected their arms and ammunition, and fixed fresh flints, while ladders that would admit three or four men abreast, were hastily prepared from the flooring and rafters of a house which we dismantled for the purpose.
As the brigade advanced for the purpose of assaulting the citadel in the dark—or rather, when a full round moon was shooting its wild and wierdlike gleams of light through the rents in a mass of black clouds—a tumultuary hurrah, and sounds of drums and firing, were heard within the town. All this seemed perfectly unaccountable; but Lieutenant Haystone, who had daringly crept forward to reconnoitre, returned with the pleasing intelligence that, according to an originally concerted plan, of which we were ignorant, Colonel Symes and Major Maitland of the 58th had landed on the north of the town with a strong detachment of their regiment, while five companies of Grenadiers and five of light infantry under Colonel Myers had assailed it on another point, and thus saved us all further trouble.
When day dawned, the union-jack was floating quietly over the castle of St. Pierre.
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE CONVENT OF ST. URSULE.
Two other episodes will close my adventures in the Isle of Martinique.
I need not detail to the reader the investment of Fort Bourbon, where General Rochambeau, commander of the French West-India Islands, made a desperate resistance, at the head of twelve hundred men of a revolted regiment of the French line—the old 37th, or Marshal Turenne's corps; and how, at the point of the bayonet, we hurled Bellegarde and Pelocque, the leaders of the blacks and mulattoes, with all their dingy warriors, from the heights of La Sourrière, with the loss of all their cannon and plunder; or how we toiled day and night—officers and soldiers working side by Bide—to make a new road over the mountains, and to drag up heavy guns and mortars, till, finding the futility of further resistance, Rochambeau capitulated, delivering over the fortress, with five stand of colours, and all the cannon and arms. When Rochambeau came forth, he was clad in the new uniform of a general of the Republic—to wit, a blue coat, richly embroidered with gold; a white satin waistcoat and blue pantaloons, also laced with gold; a cocked hat and nodding tricoloured plume. The hilt and scabbard of his sabre were studded with precious stones.
From plainness, the sovereign people were hurrying into the extreme of military frippery.