ang
together with as perfect a precision as on a private field of exercise.
Then, waiting for the smoke to clear a little, another volley came with
almost the same precision; after which the firing came in choppy waves
of sound, and again in a persistent clattering. Then a light breeze
lifted the smoke and mist well away, and a wayward sunlight showed us
our foe, like a long white wave retreating from a rocky shore, bending,
crumpling, breaking, and, in a hundred little billows, fleeing seaward.

Thus checked, confounded, the French army trembled and fell back. Then
I heard the order to charge, and from near four thousand throats there
came for the first time our exultant British cheer, and high over all
rang the slogan of Fraser's Highlanders. To my left I saw the flashing
broadswords of the clansmen, ahead of all the rest. Those sickles of
death clove through and broke the battalions of La Sarre, and Lascelles
scattered the good soldiers of Languedoc into flying columns. We on the
right, led by Wolfe, charged the desperate and valiant men of Roussillon
and Guienne and the impetuous sharpshooters of the militia. As we came
on, I observed the general sway and push forward again, and then I
lost sight of him, for I saw what gave the battle a new interest to
me: Doltaire, cool and deliberate, animating and encouraging the French
troops.

I moved in a shaking hedge of bayonets, keeping my eye on him; and
presently there was a hand-to-hand melee, out of which I fought to reach
him. I was making for him, where he now sought to rally the retreating
columns, when I noticed, not far away, Gabord, mounted, and attacked by
three grenadiers. Looking back now, I see him, with his sabre cutting
right and left, as he drove his horse at one grenadier, who slipped and
fell on the slippery ground, while the horse rode on him, battering him.
Obliquely down swept the sabre, and drove through the cheek and chin of
one foe; another sweep, and the bayonet of the other was struck aside;
and another, which was turned aside as Gabord's horse came down,
bayoneted by the fallen grenadier. But Gabord was on his feet again,
roaring like a bull, with a wild grin on his face, as he partly struck
aside the bayonet of the last grenadier. It caught him in the flesh of
the left side. He grasped the musket-barrel, and swung his sabre with
fierce precision. The man's head dropped back like the lid of a pot, and
he tumbled into a heap of the faded golden-r