fearful sin."
"Look here," cried his friend impatiently, for the dark wood and the
dark saying got a little on his nerves; "will you tell me this story or
not? What other evidence is there to go on?"
"There are three more bits of evidence," said the other, "that I have
dug up in holes and corners; and I will give them in logical rather
than chronological order. First of all, of course, our authority for the
issue and event of the battle is in Olivier's own dispatches, which
are lucid enough. He was entrenched with two or three regiments on the
heights that swept down to the Black River, on the other side of which
was lower and more marshy ground. Beyond this again was gently rising
country, on which was the first English outpost, supported by others
which lay, however, considerably in its rear. The British forces as a
whole were greatly superior in numbers; but this particular regiment was
just far enough from its base to make Olivier consider the project of
crossing the river to cut it off. By sunset, however, he had decided to
retain his own position, which was a specially strong one. At daybreak
next morning he was thunderstruck to see that this stray handful of
English, entirely unsupported from their rear, had flung themselves
across the river, half by a bridge to the right, and the other half by a
ford higher up, and were massed upon the marshy bank below him.
"That they should attempt an attack with such numbers against such a
position was incredible enough; but Olivier noticed something yet more
extraordinary. For instead of attempting to seize more solid ground,
this mad regiment, having put the river in its rear by one wild charge,
did nothing more, but stuck there in the mire like flies in treacle.
Needless to say, the Brazilians blew great gaps in them with artillery,
which they could only return with spirited but lessening rifle fire. Yet
they never broke; and Olivier's curt account ends with a strong tribute
of admiration for the mystic valour of these imbeciles. 'Our line then
advanced finally,' writes Olivier, 'and drove them into the river;
we captured General St. Clare himself and several other officers. The
colonel and the major had both fallen in the battle. I cannot resist
saying that few finer sights can have been seen in history than the last
stand of this extraordinary regiment; wounded officers picking up the
rifles of dead soldiers, and the general himself facing us on horseback
bareheade
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