and each man fighting for his "ain hand," swept
across the valley, rode up to the crest of the French position, stormed
through the great battery there, slew drivers and horses, and so
completely wrecked the battery that forty guns out of its seventy never
came into action again. Some of the men, in the rapture of the fight,
broke through to the second line of the French, and told tales, after
the mad adventure was over, of how they had come upon French artillery
drivers, mere boys, sitting crying on their horses while the tragedy
and tumult of the _melee_ swept past them. Some of the older officers
tried to rally and re-form their men; and Lord Uxbridge, by this time
beginning to remember that he was a general and not a dragoon, looked
round for his "supports," who, as it happened, oblivious of the duty of
"supporting" anybody, were busy fighting on their own account, and were
riding furiously in the very front ranks.

Then there came the French counter-stroke. The French batteries opened
on the triumphant, but disordered British squadrons; a brigade of
lancers smote them on the flank and rolled them up. Lord Edward
Somerset, who commanded the Household Brigade, was unhorsed, and saved
his life by scrambling dexterously, but ignobly, through a hedge. Sir
William Ponsonby, who commanded the Union Brigade, had ridden his horse
to a dead standstill; the lancers caught him standing helpless in the
middle of a ploughed field, and slew him with a dozen lance-thrusts.
Vandeleur's Light Cavalry Brigade was by this time moving down from the
British front, and behind its steady squadrons the broken remains of
the two brigades found shelter.

Though the British cavalry suffered terribly in retiring, nevertheless
they had accomplished what Sir Evelyn Wood describes as "one of the
most brilliant successes ever achieved by horsemen over infantry."
These two brigades--which did not number more than 2000 swords--wrecked
an entire infantry corps, disabled forty guns, overthrew a division of
cuirassiers, took 3000 prisoners, and captured two eagles. The moral
effect of the charge was, perhaps, greater than even its material
results. The French infantry never afterwards throughout the battle,
until the Old Guard appeared upon the scene, moved forward with real
confidence against the British position. Those "terrible horsemen" had
stamped themselves upon their imagination.

The story of how the eagles were captured is worth tel