'Suddenly an alarm was given, and a terrific fire--a literal garland of flame--flashed along the bulwarks, a storm of lead went whistling over our helmets, and the air seemed laden with the pinging and whizzing of bullets, while cannon boomed hoarsely, and the roaring rockets screamed high in the air.
'The pipes struck up along the Highland line, a wild cheer burst from every man, and we advanced with a furious and headlong rush, flinging ourselves into the ditches and climbing up the scarp; all weariness after the toilsome night-march was gone; sore feet and thirst were alike forgotten.
'And now for the first time the voices of the officers were heard: "Come on, Camerons--this way, the Gordons--forward, the Black Watch!" The marines and the Irish regiments were on the right, and bravely they went at the trenches, too; but the _first_ within them were the Highlanders, and the first of these was young Donald Cameron, of the Camerons, who, as he leaped in with bayonet fixed, was shot through the head just as we carried the first line of works.
'The dim light of the early morning enabled the enemy now to direct their fire; for a minute or two we drew breath, poured in some heavy file-firing, and again dashed on, while one portion of our forces that had passed between the redoubts now opened a flank fusilade, which proved too much for the Egyptians, who--all save their wretched gunners, who were chained to the cannon--fled wildly across the open, where our fire mowed them down in hundreds, while they rent the air with cries of, "Ya Allah! ya mobarek!" (O God! O Blessed!)
'Then it was that our brigadier rode up and said to the 79th, "Well done, the Cameron men! Will not Scotland be proud of this day's work!"
'On the other flank of the works, the Horse Artillery were pouring in shell, till the Royal Irish carried them at the bayonet's point, after a regular hand-to-hand fight, in which Major Hart shot an Egyptian leader, who endeavoured to wrest away his revolver.
'Our troops swept over the batteries on every hand, and the enemy fled as rapidly and hopelessly as those on the other side of the Canal had fled before the Highlanders, whose costume and fury alike terrified them. Arabi, we are told, informed his people that "the Scottish soldiers were only old women;" but now they dub us demons.