rench general out of his dilemma. But he
was a man of honour, and I was sure of him. In the midst of a thunder of
cannon, which absolutely seemed to shake the ground under our feet, the
firing suddenly ceased on the enemy's side. The cessation was followed on
ours; there was an extraordinary silence over the field, and probably the
generalissimo expected a flag of truce, or some proposal for the
capitulation of the enemy's corps. But none came; and after a pause, in
which aides-de-camp and orderlies were continually galloping between the
advance and the spot where the duke stood at the head of his staff, the
line moved again, and the hill was in our possession. But Kellerman was
gone; and before our light troops could make any impression on the
squadrons which covered the movement, he had again taken up a position on
the formidable ground which was destined to figure so memorably in the
annals of French soldiership, the heights of Valmy.

"What think you now, my friend?" was my question.

"Just what I thought before," was the answer. "We want science, without
which bravery _may_ fail; but we have bravery, without which science
_must_ fail. Kellerman may have been deceived in his first position, but
he has evidently retrieved his error. He has now shortened his distance
from his reinforcements, he has secured one of the most powerful positions
in the country, and unless yon drive him out of it before nightfall, you
might as well storm Ehrenbreitstein, or your own Gibraltar, by morning."

"Well, the experiment is about to be made, for my glass shows me our
howitzers _en masse_, moving up to cannonade him with grape and canister.
He will have an uneasy bivouac of it."

"Whether Kellerman can manoeuvre, I do not know. But that he will fight, I
am perfectly sure. He is old, but one of the most daring and firm officers
in our service. If it is in his orders to maintain those heights, he will
hold them to his last cartridge and his last man."

Our conversation was now lost in the roar of artillery, and after a
tremendous fire of an hour on the French position, which was answered with
equal weight from the heights, a powerful division was sent to assail the
principal battery. The attempt was gallantly made, and the success seemed
infallible, when I heard, through all the roar, the exclamation of
Macdonald, "Brave Steingell!" At the words, he pointed to a heavy column
of infantry hurrying down the ravine in rear of the redoub