shouts of
contending men, rose the awful sound of a tempest of galloping hoofs.
The French lancers and hussars caught the English in open order, and in
five fierce and bloody minutes almost trampled them out of existence!
Two-thirds of the brigade went down. The 31st Regiment flung itself
promptly into square, and stood fast--a tiny island, edged with steel and
flame, amid the mad tumult; but the French lancers, drunk with
excitement, mad with battle fury, swept over the whole slope of the hill.
They captured six guns, and might have done yet more fatal mischief but
that they occupied themselves in galloping to and fro across the line of
their original charge, spearing the wounded.

One lancer charged Beresford as he sat, solitary and huge, on his horse
amid the broken English regiments. But Beresford was at least a
magnificent trooper; he put the lance aside with one hand, and caught the
Frenchman by the throat, lifted him clean from his saddle, and dashed him
senseless on the ground! The ensign who carried the colours of the 3rd
Buffs covered them with his body till he was slain by a dozen
lance-thrusts; the ensign who carried the other colours of the same
regiment tore the flag from its staff and thrust it into his breast, and
it was found there, stiff with his blood, after the fight. The
Spaniards, meanwhile, were firing incessantly but on general principles
merely, and into space or into the ranks of their own allies as might
happen; and the 29th, advancing to the help of Colborne's broken men,
finding the Spaniards in their path and firing into their lines, broke
sternly into volleys on them in turn. Seldom has a battlefield witnessed
a tumult so distracted and wild.

The first English counter-stroke had failed, but the second followed
swiftly. The furious rain and fog which had proved so fatal to
Colborne's men for a moment, was in favour of Beresford. Soult, though
eagerly watching the conflict, could not see the ruin into which the
British had fallen, and hesitated to launch his reserves into the fight.
The 31st still sternly held its own against the French cavalry, and this
gave time for Stewart to bring up Houghton's brigade. But this time
Stewart, though he brought up his men with as much vehemence as before,
brought them up in order of battle. The 29th, the 48th, and the 57th
swept up the hill in line, led by Houghton, hat in hand. He fell,
pierced by three bullets; but over his dead body, eager