[Illustration:  George found himself engaged in a hand-to-hand encounter.]

No place so meagrely manned with defenders as was Gibraltar could long stand such an attack, and at length the two Moles, and the long Line Wall between them, were in the hands of the Allies.  Of all the attacking party none showed more vigorous and fearless dash than a certain lad of sturdy build, and Hicks himself perceived the fact.

“Who is that boy in your company?” he enquired of the sergeant.

“Name Fairburn, sir,” was the reply; “all along he’s been a hot member,” to which the captain said with a smile, as he turned away, “He most certainly is.”

The next day was a saints’ day, and it was strongly suspected, and at length clearly perceived, that the Spanish sentinels had left their posts and gone off to mass.  It would have been easy to carry the place at once, but the necessary storming had been done, and the allied commanders were only waiting for the besieged to give the signal of capitulation.  The besiegers, soldiers and sailors, had nothing to do but chat.

Presently some of the sailors declared that it would be a prime joke to climb the heights and plant their flag there.  The notion was taken up, and presently the temptation grew irresistible to certain of them, and with merry chuckles the fellows prepared for the task, an enterprise that was risky in the extreme.

“I’m one of you!” cried George Fairburn, as he followed the handful of sailors to the foot of the steep rock.

“And I!” chimed in yet another voice, and, to George’s astonishment, Lieutenant Fieldsend ran up, his arm in a sling.

“Better go back, sir,” exclaimed the lad, gazing up at the towering cliff in front of them.

“Better both on ye go back, I reckon,” growled one of the sailors; “this ain’t no job for a landsman.”

Nothing heeding this rebuff, the two soldiers followed up the steep rock, George giving a hand at the worst spots to his friend and superior.  Up, up, the scaling party mounted, the business becoming every moment more difficult and more full of danger.  More than once the gallant fellows-in front paused and declared that further progress was impossible.

“Oh, go on!” called out George, impatiently, on one of these occasions, from below, where he was helping up the lieutenant, “or else let me come,” he added, grumblingly.

The sailor lads needed no spur, however, and amid growing excitement the summit of their bit of cliff was perceived not far away.  In the dash for the top the active lad passed his fellows in the race, catching up the foremost man, who held the flag.  Seizing the staff, George Fairburn assisted in the actual planting of the colours.  There, fluttering at the very summit of the Rock, was the English flag, its unfolding hailed with bursts of cheering, again and again repeated, from the throngs far below.

The deed was done, and from that day, the twenty-third of July, 1704, according to the old reckoning, the third of August by the new style, the British flag has floated from the Rock of Gibraltar.