ild beasts.

At five hundred yards the line wavered an instant, then swirled and
broke in a frightful eddy that brought Prosper to the ground. He
clutched Zephyr by the mane and succeeded in recovering his seat. The
center had given way, riddled, almost annihilated as it was by the
musketry fire, while the two wings had wheeled and ridden back a
little way to renew their formation. It was the foreseen, foredoomed
destruction of the leading squadron. Disabled horses covered the ground,
some quiet in death, but many struggling violently in their strong
agony; and everywhere dismounted riders could be seen, running as fast
as their short legs would let them, to capture themselves another
mount. Many horses that had lost their master came galloping back to the
squadron and took their place in line of their own accord, to rush with
their comrades back into the fire again, as if there was some strange
attraction for them in the smell of gunpowder. The charge was resumed;
the second squadron went forward, like the first, at a constantly
accelerated rate of speed, the men bending upon their horses' neck,
holding the saber along the thigh, ready for use upon the enemy. Two
hundred yards more were gained this time, amid the thunderous, deafening
uproar, but again the center broke under the storm of bullets; men and
horses went down in heaps, and the piled corpses made an insurmountable
barrier for those who followed. Thus was the second squadron in its turn
mown down, annihilated, leaving its task to be accomplished by those who
came after.

When for the third time the men were called upon to charge and responded
with invincible heroism, Prosper found that his companions were
principally hussars and chasseurs de France. Regiments and squadrons,
as organizations, had ceased to exist; their constituent elements were
drops in the mighty wave that alternately broke and reared its crest
again, to swallow up all that lay in its destructive path. He had long
since lost distinct consciousness of what was going on around him, and
suffered his movements to be guided by his mount, faithful Zephyr, who
had received a wound in the ear that seemed to madden him. He was now in
the center, where all about him horses were rearing, pawing the air, and
falling backward; men were dismounted as if torn from their saddle by
the blast of a tornado, while others, shot through some vital part,
retained their seat and rode onward in the ranks with vacant