ice that! I vow they did not fire
So dexterously in Spain. [He calls up an aide.] Bid Ompteda
Direct the infantry to lie tight down
On the reverse ridge-slope, to screen themselves
While these close shots and shells are teasing us;
When the charge comes they'll cease.

[The order is carried out. NEY'S cavalry attack now matures.
MILHAUD'S cuirassiers in twenty-four squadrons advance down the
opposite decline, followed and supported by seven squadrons of
chasseurs under DESNOETTES. They disappear for a minute in the
hollow between the armies.]

UXBRIDGE

Ah--now we have got their long-brewed plot explained!

WELLINGTON [nodding]

That this was rigged for some picked time to-day
I had inferred. But that it would be risked
Sheer on our lines, while still they stand unswayed,
In conscious battle-trim, I reckoned not.
It looks a madman's cruel enterprise!

FITZROY SOMERSET

We have just heard that Ney embarked on it
Without an order, ere its aptness riped.

WELLINGTON

It may be so: he's rash. And yet I doubt.
I know Napoleon. If the onset fail
It will be Ney's; if it succeed he'll claim it!

[A dull reverberation of the tread of innumerable hoofs comes
from behind the hill, and the foremost troops rise into view.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Behold the gorgeous coming of those horse,
Accoutered in kaleidoscopic hues
That would persuade us war has beauty in it!--
Discern the troopers' mien; each with the air
Of one who is himself a tragedy:
The cuirassiers, steeled, mirroring the day;
Red lancers, green chasseurs: behind the blue
The red; the red before the green:
A lingering-on till late in Christendom,
Of the barbaric trick to terrorize
The foe by aspect!

[WELLINGTON directs his glass to an officer in a rich uniform
with many decorations on his breast, who rides near the front
of the approaching squadrons. The DUKE'S face expresses
admiration.]

WELLINGTON

It's Marshal Ney himself who heads the charge.
The finest cavalry commander, he,
That wears a foreign plume; ay, probably
The whole world through!

SPIRIT IRONIC

And when that matchless chief
Sentenced shall lie to ignominious death
But technically deserved, no finger he
Who speaks will lift to save him.!