s overpowered the
dissonant cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd, as
slowly and with a horrid carnage it was pushed by the incessant vigour
of the attack to the farthest edge of the hill. In vain did the French
reserves mix with the struggling multitude to sustain the fight; their
efforts only increased the irremediable confusion, and the mighty mass,
breaking off like a loosened cliff, went headlong down the steep; the
rain flowed after in streams discoloured with blood, and eighteen
hundred unwounded men, the remnant of six thousand unconquerable British
soldiers, stood triumphant on the fatal hill!

NAPIER.

[Note: _Battle of Albuera_, in which the English and Spanish armies won
a victory over the French under Marshal Soult, on 16th May, 1811.]

* * * * *

CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE AT BALAKLAVA.

The whole brigade scarcely made one efficient regiment according to the
number of continental armies; and yet it was more than we could spare.
As they passed towards the front, the Russians opened on them from the
guns in the redoubt on the right with volleys of musketry and rifles.
They swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in all the pride
and splendour of war. We could scarcely believe the evidence of our
senses! Surely that handful of men are not going to charge an army in
position? Alas! it was but too true; their desperate valour knew
no bounds, and far indeed was it removed from its so-called better
part--discretion. They advanced in two lines, quickening their pace
as they closed towards the enemy. A more fearful spectacle was never
witnessed than by those who, without the power to aid, beheld their
heroic countrymen rushing to the arms of death. At the distance of
twelve hundred yards the whole line of the enemy belched forth, from
thirty iron mouths, a flood of smoke and flame through which hissed the
deadly balls. Their flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks, by
dead men and horses, by steeds flying wounded or riderless across the
plain. The first line is broken, it is joined by the second; they never
halt or check their speed for an instant; with diminished ranks, thinned
by those thirty guns, which the Russians had laid with the most deadly
accuracy, with a halo of flashing steel above their heads, and with a
cheer which was many a noble fellow's death-cry, they flew into the
sm