with the French guns, when,
turning sharp to the left, they swept along the line cutting up the
artillerymen, until suddenly they were charged by a brigade of
lancers, while a large body of infantry threatened their line of
retreat. Fortunately at this moment the light cavalry came up to their
assistance.

Riding right through the infantry column the light cavalry fell upon
the French lancers and rolled them over with the fury of their charge,
and then charged another regiment of lancers and checked their
advance. Light and heavy horse were now mixed up together, and a fresh
body of French cavalry coming up, drove them down the hill with great
loss--they being saved, indeed, from total destruction by the Eleventh
Hussars, who, coming up last, had kept their formation. Covered by
these the remnants of the cavalry regained their own crest on the
hill, and reformed under cover of the infantry. General Ponsonby was
killed, and his brother, the colonel of the Twelfth, severely wounded
and left on the field.

While this desperate fight had been raging on the center and left,
fresh columns had advanced from Jerome's and Foy's divisions against
Hougoumont, and had again, after obstinate fighting, captured the
orchard and surrounded the chateau, but were once more repulsed by a
fresh battalion of guards who moved down the slope to the assistance
of their hardly-pressed comrades. Then for a while the fighting
slackened, but the artillery duel raged as fiercely as ever. The
gunners on both sides had now got the exact range, and the carnage was
terrible. The French shells again set Hougoumont on fire, and all the
badly wounded who had been carried inside perished in the flames.

At the end of an hour fresh columns of attack moved against the
chateau, while at the same moment forty squadrons of cavalry advanced
across the valley toward the English position.

The English batteries played upon them with round shot, and, as they
came near, with grape and canister; but the horsemen rode on, and at a
steady trot arrived within forty yards of the English squares, when
with a shout they galloped forward, and in a moment the whole of the
advanced batteries of the allies were in their possession; for
Wellington's orders had been that the artillerymen should stand to
their guns till the last moment, and then run for shelter behind the
squares. The French cavalry paused for a moment in astonishment at the
sight that met their eyes. They h