w an officer received a severe
wound in the shoulder, apparently from a jagged ball. When the missile
was extracted, however, it turned out to be a huge human double-tooth.
Its owner's head had been shattered by a cannon-ball, and the very
teeth transformed into a radiating spray of swift and deadly missiles.
There were other cases of soldiers being wounded by coins driven
suddenly by the impact of shot from their original owners' pockets.
The sustained fire of the French tirailleurs, too, wrought fatal
mischief.

La Haye Sainte by this time had been captured. The brave men who held
it for so many hours carried rifles that needed a special cartridge,
and supplies of it failed. When the French captured the farmhouse,
they were able to push some guns and a strong infantry attack close up
to the British left. This was held by the 27th, who had marched from
Ghent at speed, reached Waterloo, exhausted, at nine A.M., on the very
day of the battle, slept amid the roar of the great fight till three
o'clock, and were then brought forward to strengthen the line above La
Haye Sainte. The 27th was drawn up in square, and the French
skirmishers opened a fire so close and fatal, that, literally, in the
space of a few minutes every second man was shot down!

VII. THE OLD GUARD

"On came the whirlwind--like the last,
But fiercest sweep of tempest blast--
On came the whirlwind--steel-gleams broke
Like lightning through the rolling smoke;
The war was waked anew."
--SCOTT.

Napoleon had expended in vain upon the stubborn British lines his
infantry, his cavalry, and his artillery. There remained only the
Guard! The long summer evening was drawing to a close, when, at
half-past seven, he marshalled these famous soldiers for the final
attack. It is a curious fact that the intelligence of the coming
attack was brought to Wellington by a French cuirassier officer, who
deserted his colours just before it took place. The eight battalions
of the immortal Guard formed a body of magnificent soldiers, the tall
stature of the men being heightened by their imposing bearskin caps.
The prestige of a hundred victories played round their bayonets. Their
assault had never yet been resisted. Ney and Friant led them on.
Napoleon himself, as the men marched past him to the assault, spoke
some fiery words of exhortation to each company--the last words he ever
spoke to his Guard.

It is a matter of keen disp