ONE OF THE SIX HUNDRED (continued 8)

Thanks to me, and the use of a kabitka I procured, we had plenty of provisions. A ham, some cold fowls, Bass's pale ale, sherry, even champagne, were produced by some of ours; and these, with a few cucumbers and gourds, medlars, and filberts, which Willie Pitblado had found in the deserted garden of a Tartar, formed, all things considered, a sumptuous repast, and what it lacked in style and equipage was amply made up for in fun and jollity, for "men accommodate themselves unconsciously to the modes of living that are forced upon them. It is a law of our being, and it is well that it should be so. A bomb bursting in the midst of a fashionable London dinner party would do no more mischief than one of the numbers which used to burst daily within the walls of Lucknow; but assuredly it would produce a far greater impression."

"This is really the tug of war!" exclaimed Wilford, who, after various ineffectual efforts to uncork a champagne bottle, adroitly struck off its head by the stroke of a knife.

"Yes, by Jove! and think of the mess!" added Jocelyn.

"To feel," said the colonel, "that one has a soul—and what is more, an appetite, a taste, and decided predilection for turtle soup and recherché entrées—and yet compelled to appreciate this style of thing!"

"I can appreciate everything and anything," exclaimed the paymaster.

"Even an 'aggis, eh?—haw!" said Berkeley.

"Yes, even a haggis. My stomach is as empty as a kettledrum," replied the paymaster, as he sliced away at the ham.

"I think there is something going on in front," observed Wilford, pausing in the act of dissecting a fowl.

"Yes," said Beverley; "Lord Raglan, with some squadrons of the 11th and 13th, has crossed the river to reconnoitre; but let us make the most of the present, our turn will come all in good time. Pass the wine, M'Goldrick; a slice of meat, Studhome—thanks."

"Ugh!" remarked the paymaster; "'the bed of honour,' as Jean Paul Richter says, 'since whole regiments lie on it, and frequently have received their last unction, should really be filled anew, beaten and sunned.'"

"What—aw, haw—does that quotation mean?" asked Berkeley, adjusting his eyeglass, contracting the muscles of his eye, and giving our old Scots paymaster an inquiring and quizzical stare. "It sounds doocid queer, and—haw—unpleasant."

"I was thinking of the hard bed I shall sleep on to-night, sir," replied M'Goldrick, rather sternly.

"By Jove, some of us may sleep sound enough to-night yet," said the colonel, half starting up. "There is a decided movement in front, and here comes a French mounted officer."

At that moment a subaltern of Zouaves, mounted on a French dragoon horse, in a somewhat excited manner, dashed up to where we lay lounging on the grass, reined his trooper sharply in on the bit, shouting something of which I could only make out the prefix, "Messieurs les officiers!"

"Diable! you don't speak French?" he added, in English, to Travers of ours.

"No, sir; I am sorry——"

"Peste!" interrupted the Frenchman; "every staff officer should speak at least two European languages."

"Dioul na bocklish! There, I can speak my mother tongue, being an Irishman; and if that won't do, the devil is in it. But I am not a staff officer," he added, to the stranger, in whom I now recognized M. Jolicoeur, of the 2nd Zouaves.

"The enemy is in great force in front, and your commander-in-chief, with the two regiments of your advanced guard, will be surrounded and cut off."

"Lord Raglan, with the 11th and 13th!" we exclaimed, starting to our feet; and just at that moment an aide-de-camp, Captain Bolton, of the 1st Dragoon Guards, came galloping up, and exclaimed—

"Boot and saddle, Colonel Beverley; the 11th and 13th, under Lord Cardigan, are engaged in front. Cavalry supports and horse artillery are instantly required."

The trumpets sounded, the regiment formed by troops, and joined the brigade, which formed in squadrons, and advanced rapidly in search of the enemy.

"Aw—doocid bore, after our pleasant little tiffin," I heard Berkeley say, with a bantering air; but I could see that he looked very white for all that, and Beverley only smiled superciliously, as he twisted his thick moustaches.

"I wonder Berkeley has not his white gloves on," he whispered to me, and I saw some of our men smiling, for it was a regimental joke, or notoriety, that he was in the habit of pencilling on his gloves the words of command he had to issue in succession.

As the junior regiment, we were in the centre of the brigade, the senior corps being on the right, and the next in seniority on the left; and we advanced at a rapid trot, in a column of squadrons at wheeling distance, while the artillery, making a dreadful clatter, with all their tumbrils limbered up, their spare wheels, forge waggons, rammers, sponges, buckets, and other apparatus, went thundering at full gallop to the front.

"In a few minutes, my lads, we may be hand to hand with the enemy," shouted Beverley, as he stood up in his stirrups and brandished his sword; "let us be true to the old motto of the regiment!"

All knew what he meant, and responded by a long and ringing cheer, for our lancers had been raised as light dragoons in 1759, by Colonel John Hale, the officer who came to London with the news of Wolfe's fall and victory at Quebec; and in that year it was ordered by his Majesty George II. that "on the front of the men's caps, and on the left breast of their uniforms, there was to be a death's head, with two crossbones over it, and underneath the motto, 'Or Glory.'" And this grim but significant badge we still wear on all our appointments.[*] It would appear that, early in the afternoon, and before the whole army had halted, our old and one-armed leader, the good Lord Raglan, who had ridden far in advance of the first division of infantry, observed a group of Cossacks hovering on the brow of a green hill, towards the south, on which he ordered part of Lord Cardigan's command, the 11th Hussars and 13th Light Dragoons, forward to reconnoitre. On this occasion Lord Lucan was also present.

[*] Our predecessors in the service were the old Scots 17th Light Dragoons, raised at Edinburgh in the winter of 1759, during the alarm of the projected invasion under the Marechal Duc d'Aiguillon, by Sholto, Lord Aberdour, afterwards sixteenth Earl Morton, who died in Sicily in 1774. This corps, which never consisted of more than two troops, served in the Seven Years' War, and was disbanded in 1763. One of its officers, Lieutenant the Honourable Sir T. Maitland, son of the Earl of Lauderdale, died so lately as 1824, a lieutenant-general, G.C.B., governor of Malta and the Ionian Isles.

Where the road from Eupatoria to Sebastopol crosses the Bulganak, the bank of the river rises for several hundred yards, and then the ground slopes down into a valley, beyond which rises a succession of grassy undulations. The hussars and light dragoons rode boldly forward. Formed in four squadrons, they splashed through the stream, galloped up the bank, and descended into the hollow, before they became aware that no less than two thousand Russian cavalry were advancing to meet them, with a line of skirmishers in front in extended order.

"Forward, skirmishers!" was now the command.

The trumpet sounded, and from the flanks of each squadron, as it halted to form line, the few selected men for this duty spread at intervals of twenty yards from each other, at the distance of two hundred yards from the column; sheathing their swords and unslinging their carbines, as they took up their dressing from the right. Beyond the crest of the second eminence, a steady glittering in the sunshine revealed to the keen eyes of General Airey that it came from the points—the mere tips—of fixed bayonets, and that there were concealed in the hollow way many battalions of an infantry force, quietly waiting to open a close and murderous fire upon our little body of cavalry, when they were lured sufficiently far forward to secure their total destruction. In fact, our advanced guard, composed of only two slender regiments, was thus suddenly opposed to six thousand men of the 17th Russian division, posted in ambush, with two batteries of artillery, a brigade of regular cavalry, and nine sotnias of Cossacks, the whole under General Carlovitch Baur. It was a perilous—a terrible dilemma! Lord Raglan knew that he must avoid an action on one hand, and secure the retreat of the 11th and 13th with complete honour on the other. To the roughly-mounted and loosely-handled Russian horsemen, the beautiful and ceremonious formation of our gay hussars, with their glittering dolmans, and our smart light dragoons in blue and buff, with all their swords and bright appointments flashing in the sunshine, was a cause of hesitation. They could not suppose but that this slender force had a greater body of troops at hand, and feared the very snare they were preparing for others; thus they were quietly and tranquilly confronting each other, out of musket-range, when we, with the light and second division, the 8th Hussars, and nine-pounder batteries, came up at a gallop, to succour our comrades, and got into position. After this, the wily and savage Muscovites found their opportunity gone, and the gallant Baur was rather nonplussed.

When the regiments of the infantry divisions came up, they deployed into line, and all their bright steel ramrods glittered in the sunshine, as they loaded with ball cartridge and "capped." We, the cavalry support, took up a position in the left rear of the advanced force under Lord Cardigan, and rapidly loaded our pistols and carbines, awaiting further orders. In each of my holsters I carried a six-chambered revolver. So close were we to our advanced guard, that we could hear the officers of the 11th and the 13th recalling their skirmishers.

"Retire the skirmishers," rang again and again on the clear air; "shorten stirrups—girth up—reload and reform."

Every heart was beating high, for we were now face to face with an enemy—many among us for the first time.

"Keep your dressing, squadron leaders," said Colonel Beverley, whose eyes were lit up by a strange brightness—indeed, it seemed to spread over all his handsome and sunburned face; "close up, gentlemen. We have all been used to ride to hounds, and that is more than any of those Russian fellows have done. By Jove! I should like to see them crossing a stiff stone-wall country. In a few minutes, lancers, I repeat we may be hand to hand with the enemy; so, when we come to close quarters, remember the old fencing-school advice, 'Watch your antagonist's eyes, not his blade.'"

I was leader of our left squadron, and had my post, of course, half a horse's length in front of the standard, which was carried by Sergeant Stapylton. It was a white swallow-tailed pennon, with a skull, and the words, "Or Glory" embroidered beneath—terribly significant at such a time, as it rustled out in the breeze. My secret enemy, Mr. Berkeley, was a troop leader on my left, at some little distance, and at this exciting moment there was a singular expression in his eyes. I thought he was about to ride up and extend his hand to me, for I had known of forgiveness being often asked and accorded when men were face to face with death; but if it were so, I was pitiless. I remembered Lady Louisa Loftus, and the cottage by the Reculvers, and resolved that the hard expression of my glance should chill him. Little did I know the ideas that were in his mind, and the mischief he was yet to work me, ere we passed the heights of Alma. On this evening, so cool were some of our fellows, that I detected several of the rear-rank men tickling the front-rank horses, to make them kick. Lord Raglan now became apprehensive that the numerous cavalry of General Baur, in their longing for a little sword exercise, might be tempted to charge the Earl of Cardigan's slender force; thus it became necessary to draw it off without further delay, and to express his desire to that officer, despatched General Airey, whose movements we watched with irrepressible excitement.

"Your brigade will immediately retire, my lord, and by alternate squadrons," said the general, reining in his horse, and saluting.

Lord Cardigan bowed, and gave the necessary orders for throwing back the squadrons of direction.

"Right squadron and left—threes about—march—trot!"

The remainder of the 11th and 13th remained motionless in their saddles, with swords drawn, waiting till the flank squadrons halted and fronted, about a hundred yards in their rear, when their own turn came to retire, and so the movement of retreating alternately in this fashion went on. But the moment it began, General Baur's Russian brigade of horse artillery came galloping out of the hollow, and were wheeled round and unlimbered in battery on the ridge. The red flash of the first field-piece made every heart bound and every pulse quicken; and ere we had time for reflection, another and another boomed, with a cloud of white smoke, from the green eminence. Then a gap appeared here and there in the ranks of the 11th and 13th, as a horse, a hussar, or light dragoon went down, and we saw them rolling in agony on the sward; but their comrades closed in, holster to holster, and still the retreat by alternate squadrons went coolly and quietly on. The six-pounder guns attached to Cardigan's force had no power upon the enemy; but the nine-pounders which accompanied our brigade slew many of the Russians at their guns. At every boom that echoed through the still evening air, the scared birds flew about, screaming and flapping their wings wildly, till, at last, they actually grovelled among our horses' hoofs.

The 11th and 13th retired beyond us, and then came our turn to go threes about, and fall back by squadrons, under cover of our artillery, whose balls told so well that Beverley mentioned he could reckon through his glass at least thirty-five Russian dragoons, with their horses, lying stiff enough on the slope, where our nine-pounders had roughly loosed their "silver cords" for ever. Prior to this, we had moved ten paces to the left—a lucky thing for me, as a shrub which my horse had been nibbling was torn into pieces by a five-inch shell a second or so after. Glory apart, I was not sorry when we got the order to retire, for we could achieve little honour here. My horse seemed sensible of our danger, when the balls of the Russian artillery began to plough and tear up the earth at his feet, or to hum past with a sound that made him shrink. He kicked, lashed out behind, pawed with his forefeet, bore with his teeth on the bit, and uttered strange snorts.

"By heaven! there is one of ours down!" exclaimed Jocelyn, my sub, in an excited manner, as he turned in his saddle; and we saw a lancer in blue lying on his back in our rear, his horse galloping away, and three Russian skirmishers busy about him, while four dragoons were cantering on to join them.

"'Tis poor Rakeleigh," said Studhome, galloping up; "a shot has just smashed his right thigh."

"Colonel, may I try to save him—to recover his body?" I asked, hurriedly.

"Certainly; but, Norcliff, be wary."

"Who will come with me?" cried I, wheeling round my horse.

"I, sir," replied Sergeant Dashwood.

"And I!" added Pitblado.

"And I! and I!" said others, unslinging their lances.

"Thanks, my brave lads!" cried Beverley. "Go at those devils like bricks, and show them what true British pluck is!"

Attended by the first six who spoke, I galloped back to where the poor fellow lay, heedless of the Russian cannon shot, and the three skirmishers, in long grey coats and flat blue caps, who, after firing their rifles without effect at us, scampered off to meet their troopers. We found poor Rakeleigh quite dead, almost stripped already, and hideously mutilated about the body. He had always been particular in his person, and studiously fashionable in his dress. How often had we quizzed those bandolined moustaches, now covered with froth and blood gouts! His handsome face was terribly distorted, and his uniform was almost gone—torn from him by those brutal Russian plunderers! Watch, purse, and rings were also gone. We could but cut off a lock of his rich brown hair to send to his poor mother in Athlone. He probably had not been dead when overtaken by the Russians, as a bayonet wound was perceptible in his breast. I had barely time to remark this, when a shot from a Minie rifle whistled past me; and just as I sprang into my saddle there was a shout and a crash—we were engaged in a mêlée with the seven Russians. Sergeant Dashwood pinned an infantry man to the turf with his lance, and shot a trooper with the pistol which he grasped in his bridle-hand. A gigantic Russian dragoon, with a red snub nose, a thick black beard, and coarse green uniform, all over red braid, cut through the shaft of Pitblado's lance, inflicting on his shoulder a wound which many a volunteer officer would give a good round sum for the honour of possessing; but, quick as lightning, Willie's sword was out, and, after a few passes, he clove him through the glazed helmet down to the nose. It was one of those tremendous strokes we read of sometimes, but seldom see; such a stroke as that which Bruce gave Bohun, when he "broke his good battle-axe" in front of the Scottish line. It rather appalled our new acquaintances, who spurred away, dragging their two infantry men with them. We then rode back to the regiment at a hand-gallop; for we were compelled to leave the body of poor Rakeleigh. What became of it I know not; but every vestige of it had disappeared when we marched past that way on the morrow.

And so, as the twilight came down on land and ocean—on the plains of the Chersonesus Taurica, and the waters of the Black Sea—ended this "first approach to a passage at arms between Russia and the Western Powers;" and Lord Raglan rejoiced in the steadiness and coolness displayed by his slender force of cavalry in the now forgotten skirmish of Bulganak, which the greater glories of the following day so completely eclipsed.

"Poor Rakeleigh," said Beverley, as we gradually gathered at the place where we had squatted before the alarm was given, and threw off our accoutrements, while the grooms were unbitting our horses; "poor lad—lying yonder to-night, mutilated and unburied—his first engagement, too! Thank Heaven, his mother and sister don't see him as we have done! But greater work is to come."

"Aw—the dooce, colonel!" said Berkeley, who, after the past danger, was smoking his cigar vigorously, in a great flow, or rather revulsion, of spirit; "what do you mean—haw—to infer?"

"That to-morrow we shall see the Russians, where their strength is all concentrated in position on the heights of Alma!"

His words were rather prophetic; but all knew that matters must come to the musket ere long. We passed the wine bottle from hand to hand, and wrapped our cloaks and blankets about us preparatory to passing the night as best we could. We were certainly less chatty and hilarious than before, and had quite relinquished our jovial friend, Mr. Punch. Doubtless each one was reflecting that poor Jack Rakeleigh's fate might have been his own. If mine, would Louisa have shed a tear for me? The doubt was a pang! We saw no more of General Baur, who fell back towards the river Alma in the night; but long after we thought the affair over, a shell, the last missile fired, came souse from a long gun into our bivouac, and caused a new alarm.

Pitblado, after his wound was dressed, was about to feed his horse, and placed the corn in a tin platter on the ground. While grooming the charger, he saw a large raven come to feed at the corn. Twice he threw a stone at it in vain—the greedy bird continued its repast obstinately. On the third occasion, armed with another stone, he ran towards it, on which the raven flew into a tree, where he croaked as angrily as if he had Elijah to feed as well as himself. At that moment a shell—a five-inch one—-came whistling from the other side of the stream, and exploded on the very place Pitblado had left, disembowelling and killing his horse; so, in this instance, a raven was not the precursor of evil fortune, or, as Willie said, sadly, while contemplating his dying charger, "one hoodiecrow didna bode an ill wind."

At a future period I was fated to see more of the gallant Schleswiger who commanded the Russian reconnaissance at Bulganak; but there is an anecdote connected with his origin, and how he became a soldier, so creditable to human nature, and that which is dying fast among us, genuine love of home, that I may be pardoned relating it here, just as Beverley told it in our bivouac—especially as it is only to be found in the old Utrecht Gazette, or the scarcer memoirs of a Scottish soldier of fortune, Count Bruce, neither of which may be within the reader's reach. Prior to the conclusion of the dispute between Denmark and the ducal house of Gottorp, when the Muscovite troops were in Schleswig and Holstein, their cavalry were commanded by a general named Baur—a soldier of fortune, who had attained his rank by merit and bravery alone, his family and country being secrets to all save himself. His troops occupied Husum, a small seaport at the mouth of the Hever, while he, with his staff, lived in the old palace of the Duke Karl Peter of Gottorp, who became Emperor of Russia, and lorded it over the people with somewhat of a high hand. The little bailiwick was then a charming place. The green meadows were fertile and rich, and spotted by golden buttercups; the uplands were well tilled, and covered with wavy corn, or deep rich clover; the farmhouses, of red brick and bright, yellow thatch, were wondrously clean and pretty, their quaint porches covered with flowing trailers, and borders gay with gorgeous hollyhocks.

The windmills whirled gaily in the breeze, and the laden boats, their brown sails shining in the sun, floated lazily down the clear waters of the river towards the calm and dark blue sea that stretched in the distance far away—that sea where, as the Schleswigers aver, Waldemar and Paine Jager, the Wild Huntsman, and Gron Jette, were never tired of hunting and killing the mermaids, who sat on the slimy rocks, combing their hair, and singing in the moonshine. All was peaceful, and all so calm and rural, that the good men of Schleswig, their plump wives and pretty daughters, trembled at the woes that might be wrought among them by their bearded visitors from the Neva and the Wolga; and more than ever were they alarmed on hearing that the general of the Muscovites had sent for poor old Michel Baur, the miller by the wooden bridge, and also for his wife, who went with many misgivings to the palace of the duke, over which the standard with the cruel double eagle of the Czars was flying.

"Make yourselves easy, my good people," said the Russian general, kindly, as they entered the great hall, with eyes abashed and shrinking hearts; "I mean only to do you a service, so this day you shall dine with me."

Dine—dine with him—the general of the Muscovites? Did they hear aright, or did their ears deceive them? Then he set the goodman Michel and his goodwife Gretchen at table among the splendidly attired and brilliantly accoutred officers of his staff—those counts and colonels of Uhlans, hussars and cuirassiers, who gnawed their moustaches, and raised their fierce eyebrows superciliously, with wonder and inquiry, at proceedings so novel; while some of the younger laughed covertly at the terror and bewilderment of the worthy couple, who, however, ate heartily of dainties to which they were all unused, after their first alarm subsided. The Muscovite general, who sat between them, at the head of the table, with a kind smile on his handsome face—for handsome it was, though his hair was now thin and grey—asked Michel many questions about his family and household affairs—how the mill prospered and flour sold in the market.

Then Michel, who scarcely ventured to raise his eyes from the order, with the cross batons and crown of St. Andrew of Russia, which sparkled on the general's breast, told him that he was the eldest son of his father, who had been a miller at the same mill years and years ago, even when Frederick V. of Denmark, married to the Princess Louisa of Great Britain, was a boy.

"The eldest son, say you, Michel?"

"Yes, herr general," replied the miller, smoothing down his white hair nervously.

"Then you had, at least, a brother?"

"Yes, herr general; poor Karl. He disappeared."

"How?"

"Some said he became a soldier, others that he was spirited away by the fairies," said Gretchen.

"Many a prayer my good wife and I have said for Karl, though it is so long since he was lost; and in his memory we have named our only son Karl, too."

On hearing this, the Russian general became greatly moved, and, seeing that the astonishment of his officers at the interest he took in these humble rustics could no longer be repressed, he rose, and taking Michel and his wife by the hand—"Gentlemen," said he, "you know me but as a soldier of fortune, and have often been curious to learn who I am, whose breast the Emperor has covered with stars and orders, and whence I came. This village is my native place. In yonder crumbling mill by the wooden bridge I was born. This is my brother Michel, and Gretchen, his wife! I am Karl Baur, son of old Karl, the miller of Husum. Here was I bairn ere I relinquished my miller's dusty coat to become a soldier. Oh, brother Michel, who then could have spaed[*] the present?" he added, in their old native dialect, as he embraced the wondering pair.

[*] Foretold.

"I was supposed to have been stolen on St. John's night by the golden-haired Stillevolk of the marshes, or the cranky old red-capped Trolds, who dwelt among the green holms; but it was not so. I became a hussar under Duke Karl Peter of Gottorp, and have risen to be what thou seest—general of cavalry under our father the Emperor! So drink a deep becker of our Danish beer, brother Michel; drink to the old times of our boyhood, and fear not. I know our patrimony is but one of the poor Bauerhafen, which are divided according to the number of ploughs; but to-morrow thy hufe shall be a Freihufen, Michel, free of all burdens, even to the duke's bailiff or the King of Denmark."

Next day the general dined at the old mill, where he sat upon the same hard stool he had used in boyhood, supping his Schleswig groute with a horn spoon from a wooden platter. In memory of the olden time, he placed a marble cross above his parent's grave. Three days after the trumpets were heard, and the army marched from Schleswig to return no more; but the general—the same General Bauer who served under Suwarrow in the famous campaigns of Italy—made a plentiful provision for his poor relatives, and sent the miller's only son, his namesake, Karl, to Court for his education, Karl rose to a high place in the household of the Czar, and it was his son, Karlovitch Bauer, who prepared so specious a trap for our advanced guard on the Bulganak—a trap happily rendered useless by the skill and foresight of our leader, the good and brave Lord Raglan.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Let me go! The day is breaking,

Morning bursts upon mine eye,

Death this mortal frame is shaking;

But the soul can never die!

Let me go! The day-star beaming,

Gilds the radiant realms above;

Full its glory on me streaming

Lights me to the land of love!

LAYS OF THE PIOUS MINSTRELS.

Wrapped in my cloak and blanket, I had fallen into an uneasy slumber, close by a fragment of ruined wall, the boundary, perhaps, of a deserted Tartar garden, when I was roused by Sergeant Stapylton of my troop.

"I beg pardon, sir, for disturbing you," said he, in an apologetic way; "but as I was returning from the river side with water for some of the wounded horses, I passed a Frenchwoman, as I take her to be, dying to all appearance, and thought, as she can't be left where she is, that if you would come and speak to her——"

"Of course," said I, springing up; "where is she?"

"Near a grove of olive trees—just a pistol-shot or so beyond our advanced sentries. You can pass me to the front, sir, as your guide."

Leaving the sleeping group of my brother officers, I accompanied Stapylton, with stiffened joints and chattering teeth. The morning was yet dark, but a red streak of light above the hilly ground that rose between our left flank and the Perekop road, showed where the dawn was about to break. All was still around me. Save the occasional neigh of a horse, scarcely a sound broke the silence of that place, where so many thousands of our soldiers were sleeping, or dozing as men may do, after reflecting that the night which was passing away might be their last in the land of the living, and that the coming day must find them face to face with danger, and—death! On the chill breeze of the September morning, I could hear the rush of the Bulganak over its stony bed, between which and our bivouac could be traced the line of our cavalry vedettes, seated, cloaked, in their saddles, with carbine on thigh, and the advanced sentinels, muffled in their great coats, standing motionless, with "ordered arms," and their faces turned to the southward, where all knew the enemy lay. Passing through the Light Brigade, where each man slept beside his horse, I stumbled over a sleeper, in whom I recognized a medical officer, and asked him to accompany us, which he did readily; and, guided by Stapylton, we proceeded towards the grove of olive trees.

As we quitted the bivouac, the medical officer said—"You perceive that vapour which is rising so steadily from the ground?"

"Yes," said I, with an irrepressible shudder; "I saw enough of it at Varna."

"You are right," he continued, in a low and impressive voice; "that pale, blue, fetid vapour is the cholera mist—always a bad sign. We shall have many cases on our lists ere sunset to-morrow, and Heaven knows they are full enough already. Nearly all the women and children of my regiment were buried on the roadside yesterday. A sick Frenchwoman, I think you said, sergeant?" he observed, recurring to the business in hand.

"Yes, sir," replied Stapylton, saluting.

"Strange! What should bring her here? The French are at present far away on our right, and in the rear. I presume you have heard of what took place this evening, Captain Norcliff?"

"Where?"

"At head-quarters."

"The little post-house on the Bulganak, where Lord Raglan passes the night?"

"Exactly. Marshal St. Arnaud, attended by Colonel Trochier, of the imperial army, rode up there to concert the plan of an attack to-morrow. So, whatever it is, our part in the play of to-morrow is already assigned us; and now, sergeant, your Frenchwoman."

"Is here, sir, to speak for herself, if she can, poor thing."

Close by the grove of olive trees, with a coarse blanket spread over her, lay the woman of whom Stapylton had spoken.

"Cholera!" said the surgeon, as he turned down the blanket, and knelt beside her; "cholera, and in the last stages, too. No pulse can be felt, the extremities cold and rigid, the face ghastly, the strength exhausted. I can be of no use here," he added to me, in a low voice. "A little time and all will be over."

From my hunting flask he poured a little brandy between the lips of the sufferer, who proved to be a soeur de charité, by her white coif and black serge dress; and, on drawing nearer, imagine what were my sensations on recognising, through the twilight of the coming day, the pale and convulsed features of Sister Archange—of Mademoiselle de Chaverondier! An exclamation of sorrow and astonishment burst from me. All the memory of her kindness when I lay sick in the house of the Armenian merchant at Varna; all her singleness of heart; all her purity and self-devotion; all the memory of her story, and of her own happy home amid the mountains of Beaujolais, and how and why she had devoted herself to Heaven and acts of charity; all her simple belief in magic and miracles, with her child-like love and piety; her regard for her brother Claude, the gallant officer of Canrobert's regiment, his wife, Cecile Montallé, and the cruel Lucrece, whose revenge wrought all their sorrow—all the memory of these things, I say, rushed upon me like a flood, as I stood, bewildered, by the side of the dying girl—dying like an outcast in that wild and savage place—and they deeply moved me. To leave her to die thus, untended and uncared for, was impossible. Yet what was to be done? How was I to succour her? Already the trumpets of the cavalry, and the ringing bugles of the infantry, were sounding the "rouse" and the "assembly," and the army was getting rapidly under arms—all the more rapidly that there were no tents to strike and no baggage to pack. Each man fell into the ranks on the ground where he had slept; the cavalry were mounting, the artillery were tracing their horses and limbering up, and long ere the Bay of Kalamita glittered in the rising sun, the whole British army was on the move towards the Alma.

My friend the surgeon, finding that he could do no more—that he had, perhaps, patients enough elsewhere—suggested, ere he departed, that she might be put into one of the kabitkas of the ambulance corps; but, as he assured me that she could not live above an hour, I despatched Stapylton to explain the matter to Colonel Beverley; and in a few minutes he returned with Pitblado, Lanty O'Regan, my groom, and four other lancers and our horses, and with permission for me "to look after my sick friend; but, at all risks, not to be ten minutes' march behind the rear guard, as General Bosquet's division was already advancing rapidly on our right flank, and the French sister might be more properly handed over to her own people."

We lifted her into the olive thicket, out of the way of the passing troops; for already our advanced guard, under Lord Cardigan—"Prince Albert's Own," with their blue jackets and scarlet pelisses covered with glittering lace, and the 13th Light Dragoons—were once more splashing through the Bulganak, laughing and joking merrily, as if it were a fox that was to break cover in the Lincolnshire fens, and not the hordes of the southern and western Russias that were before them. By means of three barrel-hoops and a horse-sheet, we improvised something like that which the French term a day-tent, to hide her and her sufferings. Then the idea occurred to me as to what I could do if she survived beyond the time allotted to us by the colonel. Could I leave her in that wild place to die alone, and to lie unburied, save by the wolves and birds of prey? Alas! a very brief time now resolved all my doubts and fears. A little way apart from us, a silent and sympathetic group, my seven lancers stood, each by his horse's head, leaning on his lance, and awaiting me. If they conversed, it was in half whispers, for they sincerely pitied the girl, those French sisters of charity being the admiration of the whole army. I was bathing her lips with some diluted brandy, when she fully, and for the first time, recognised me. Then a little smile of joy passed over her ghastly face, and she began to speak, painfully, huskily, and at long intervals.

"It is my turn now; but I am dying, you see, mon frère," said she, "dying. Many of my sisters have died in the camp—but—but few thus."

"Few, indeed," said I, in a low, sad voice.

"In ardent prayers for the repose of my soul you find no solace. I say not this upbraidingly, yet the mortuary chants of the 'Dies Iræ' and the 'De Profundis' will never be said for me, because I die—die thus!" she said, in a low and piercing voice, as she closed her eyes.

Perplexity was now added to my sorrow, for I knew not what the poor girl wished or meant; but I implored her to tell me how she came to be left thus alone and in illness. In the night when, asleep and weary, she had fallen unseen from a French ambulance cart, some scouting Cossacks had found and carried her off in mocking triumph; but, on finding that the deadly pestilence had seized her, they barbarously flung her into the Bulganak. She had crept ashore, and was making her way to our bivouac, when the progress of her illness became so rapid and destroying that she was reduced to the condition in which Stapylton found her. Such was the short story she told me, in long and painful intervals, her voice being at times so low that I had to place my ear close to her lips.

"And now," she added, with a divine smile, which brought back much of the wonderful beauty of her face, "I am so glad—so happy that I shall die!"

"Why, ma soeur?"

"Lest I should live longer; because, in doing so, I could scarcely fail in some way to offend heaven," replied the poor girl. "I confessed me two days ago—I die in peace, and forgive those Cossaques—mon ami—mon frère, I should say—you will close my eyes—you will see me buried—promise me that you will!"

I could only answer her by my tears; and strange it seemed that all around the thicket where this solemn scene was acting, and when the spirit of this good being was hovering between eternity and time, the thousands of our army, horse, foot, and artillery, with ammunition and stores, were pouring past in the bright morning sunshine, towards the passage of the Bulganak.

All around was instinct with the glitter and bustle of martial life; but within that olive grove was death, sublime humility, and suffering.

"Are you in pain now?" I asked, as this thought occurred to me.

"Oh, no—pain is long since passed away. If I could but live till three in the afternoon, I could then die more than ever happily."

"Why at three?"

"For at that time our Blessed Lord yielded up his soul on Calvary!" said she, with a voice of enthusiasm, while a strange brightness seemed to pass over all her face.

As she turned restlessly her eyes fell upon Sergeant Stapylton and the lancers, and beckoning them forward, she bestowed her blessing on each; and they listened with bowed heads, and took off their caps. I was deeply moved, and drew a pace or two aside.

"Heaven has always been so good to me," she muttered, in broken English, as the sergeant placed his cloak as a pillow under her head; "because, as you must know, messieurs les soldats, my mother dedicated me to heaven, and I am a child of the Holy Virgin."

Poor Stapylton, a worthy but stolid John Bull, looked rather bewildered by this information; but my Irish groom understood her.

"Thrue for you, miss," said Lanty, wiping his eyes with the worsted tassels of his yellow sash. "Oh, it's fast she's goin' to glory, the poor cratur. Oh, never a ha'porth she thinks of herself; but it is us she's prayin' for, boys."

"Other souls than mine shall pass away to-day, for ere nightfall a great battle is to be fought—I know that."

At that moment, through an opening in the olive trees, we saw a regiment of infantry marching past in close column of subdivisions, with the band in front, colours flying, and bayonets gleaming in the sun. It was our 88th, of gallant memory, with Colonel Shirley riding at the head of the column, and the drums and fifes made the blue welkin ring to the air of "The Young May Moon." She looked wistfully at the defiling ranks; there was so much of life there, so much of death here! Then, clasping her white hands, which were so thin and tremulous, and, closing her eyes, she began to repeat a little prayer in Latin, for those who were to fall on both sides—the Russians as well as the English.

Of that prayer I can only remember a single sentence—

"O clementissime Jesu, amator animarum, lava in sanguine Tuo peccatores totius mundi, nunc positos in agoniâ et hodie morituros."[*]

[*] "O most merciful Jesus, lover of souls, wash in Thy blood the sinners of the whole world who are now in their agony and are to die this day!"

Then, whispering something of her "mother who was in heaven, kneeling for her before the Mother of God," the pure spirit of this French girl passed out into the black night of eternity. We stood for a time silent, and nothing roused us but our rear-guard defiling to the front from the right of troops, and then the orders of the colonel recurred to me. Were I to live a thousand years I shall never forget the calm and soothing, yet sorrowful, impression made upon me by this poor girl's death. I closed her eyes, and their long, dark lashes fell over the pale cheek, from which they never more would rise, and she lay under the poor horse-rug, looking so calm, with a peaceful and beautiful expression on her sweet dead face. Her hands were now folded on her breast; her black ebony crucifix had fallen from them; but Lanty O'Regan replaced it gently, and kindly closed the stiffening fingers round it, and there was a big sob in Lanty's throat as he did so. Death brought back all the strange loveliness of other days to Sister Archange; and I could not behold her lying there, looking so peaceful, so white and still, without feeling my heart very full indeed. For when I saw so much self-devotion, poverty, and charity united with peace and goodwill to all mankind—to Christian and Osmanli, to friend and foe alike—it seemed to me truly that of such as she was the kingdom of God. I kissed the dead girl's forehead as we drew the horse-rug over her, and prepared for her interment, as we had not a moment to lose.

The soil was soft, and we had only our sword-blades and hands to dig with; but we contrived to scoop a hole about three feet deep. Reverently, as if she had been their sister, my comrades laid her in it, and then we heaped the mould above her. She lies in that little thicket of olives, about a mile from Bulganak, and sleeps in what is called unconsecrated earth; though the ashes of that sister of charity might bring a blessing on the city of the Sultan. We now mounted, put our horses to full speed, and soon passing our rear-guard, came up with our brigade, and rejoined the regiment. By this time the whole army was on the march to force the position of the Alma, and already our right flank was almost united to the left of the French column under General Bosquet, as the allies advanced together.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

News of battle!—news of battle!

Hark, 'tis ringing down the street!

And the archways and the pavement

Bear the clang of hurrying feet.

News of battle!—who hath brought it?

News of triumph! Who should bring

Tidings from our noble army?

Greetings from our gallant king?

LAYS OF THE SCOTTISH CAVALIERS.

While these events were occurring by the shore of the Euxine, brown autumn was spreading her sober tints upon the Scottish woods; and one seldom sees the country more attractive than when its beauty is decaying, and a soothing sadness mingles with our delight.

The long grass is dank in the shady places, for there the dew falls early at eve, and lingers long after sunrise; and now in Calderwood Glen the dark leaves of the chestnuts were varied by the golden yellow of the lime tree, whose frail leaves are among the earliest to whirl before the gusty autumn wind.

Already the first leaves—the early spoil of the season—were lying in the long, shady avenue, or were gathered in heaps, even as the breeze had swept them, about the well of James V., the yew hedgerows, and the grass walks of the antique Scottish garden, where tradition avers that Anne of Denmark flirted with the bonnie Earl of Gowrie. There the asters and dahlias still contended for a place with the old-fashioned hollyhock. Summer had gone; but the corn-marigold and the gorgeous crimson poppy yet lingered among the yellow stubble, or on the green burn braes; scarlet hips and haws made gay the hedgerows, and the ladybirds were pecking at the sweet apples in the orchard. The shadows of the flying clouds passed over the green mountain slopes, over Largo's lofty cone, the round swelling Lomonds—the Mamelles of Fife, as a French officer not inaptly termed them—the breeze of the German Sea came up the long, fertile Howe, and brought softly to the ear the lowing of cattle from Falkland Woods and many a cosy homestead. The autumn was lovely in Calderwood Glen; but the old manor house seemed empty and silent, and the heart of Cora was sad, for—

Great events were on the gale,

And each hour brought a varying tale,

and she knew that the same autumnal sun which was browning the woods of Scotland was lighting her kilted regiments on their path of death and peril by the Alma. There were times when Cora thought that, bitter though it was, this hopeless sorrow for the absence of one she loved, how sweet it might have been—how sadly sweet—had Newton loved her in return. Ah! it had not been hopeless then; but Newton loved another, who loved him too. Yet, did that other love him so well as she, poor quiet Cora, did? And would she love him always? Then, when she heard the thistlefinch, with its golden wings, singing among the linden trees, the words of the old, old song seemed to come home truly to her heart as she hummed them over.

There sat upon the linden tree

A bird, and sang its strain;

So sweet it sang, that, as I heard,

My heart went back again;

It went to one remembered spot,

It saw the rose-trees grow,

And thought again the thoughts of love

There cherished long ago.

A thousand years to me it seems

Since by my love I sate,

Yet thus to have been a stranger long,

Was not my choice, but fate;

Since then I have not seen the flowers,

Nor heard the bird's sweet song,

My joys have all too briefly passed,

My griefs have been too long!

Ladies were setting forth to join the army of the East as nurses! An idea occurred to her, and then she shrank from it, for Cora was not one of our strong-minded British females but a good and kind-hearted, earnest and high-souled Scottish girl; and it is a peculiarity of the women of Scotland ever to shrink from publicity; and, somehow, public life seems neither their forte nor their rôle.

"Ah, oh!" thought Cora; "what if this is not merely a separation, but a loss for ever!"

No battle had yet been fought; but already many men had perished at Varna, at Scutari, and elsewhere, of fever and cholera. And so, often as she wandered alone in the garden walks, by the old Battle Stone in the woods, by the Adder's Craig, or King James's Well, she wept, as she thought of the lively young lancer whom she had last seen marching for the East, and still more for her early playmate and cousin, who in boyhood so petted her at home.

And when Cora would say, or old Willie Pitblado would read, that the lancers had embarked, that they had touched at Gibraltar, at Malta—that they were at Varna or elsewhere—he would pause, and look up wistfully, saying—"Nae word yet o' my Willie?"

"But the papers don't mention Captain Norcliff either."

"Ay, ay, true, Miss Cora," the old man would mutter, and shake his head at omissions so strange.

Anxiety, love, and fear injured the poor girl's health. She was alternately resigned and gentle, or short-tempered and irritable. Though frequently self-absorbed and pre-occupied, she strove, by affected gaiety, to prove to those about her that she was neither. By turns she was grateful for sympathy or irritated by it, while her craving for news about the army of the East became a source of speculation—shall we call it friendly?—among such sharp-witted visitors as the Mesdames Spittal and Rammerscales, the wife of the parish minister, or the slavishly suave Mrs. Wheedleton, the rib of the village lawyer.

To add to her annoyances, she had a new admirer in young Mr. Brassy Wheedleton—a newly-fledged legal prig—who had in his hands a dispute concerning a bond over a portion of the Calderwood property, and whom, as Sir Nigel patronized him, being the son of a neighbour, a dependent, and beginner at the bar, she saw rather oftener than she cared for as a visitor at the Glen. Cora was always most irritable when a letter came from her English friends in Kent. However, her correspondence with Chillingham Park had lessened every day since the regiment left England, why neither could exactly say. Louisa's missives were generally full of gaiety and the world of fashion, with all its tinsel glitter and heartless frivolity. As for the war, and our poor soldiers in the East, she heeded them no more than the clock of St. Paul's, or the last year's snow. Her last letter had been all concerning the elevation of my Lord Slubber to a marquisate (skipping the intervening titles of viscount and earl,) and enclosing a slip from a fashionable morning paper, which announced that the garter king had given to the noble peer "a coat of augmentation, in addition to the three guffins' heads mange, of the grand Anglo-Norman line of De Gullion, with the cage in chief granted to the fourth baron of that illustrious name, by the greatest of the Plantagenets, when that chivalrous monarch hung the Scottish Countess of Buchan outside the walls of Berwick for four years in an iron cage, and when 'ye potente and valyant Lord Slobbyr de Gulyone was captain yairof with CCC archeris.'"

This afforded her father the first hearty laugh in which he had indulged for some time past, for he, too, had become somewhat dull and peevish.

"Three guffins' heads; Cora, this is excellent!" said the old baronet, laughing still; "it is very droll how the English snob of high family boasts of his descent from the rabble of William the Norman, just as our Scotch snob likes to deduce his pedigree from those Saxon hildings who fled from Hastings, or the savage Danes we licked at Luncarty and elsewhere. There were Calderwoods in the Glen before either of those times! What says the old rhyme?

Calderwood was fair to see,

When it gaid to Cameltrie;

But Calderwood was fairer still,

When it grew owre Crosswood Hill."

Sir Nigel's old chum, General Rammerscales, was laid up with the gout and jungle fever, and their political friend, Lickspittal, was absent in Parliament—where, like a true Scottish M.P., he served to fill the house, to vote with the lord advocate or the majority, to work on all committees (which paid); but, of course, remaining as oblivious of Scottish interests as of those of the Sioux Indians.

Now that he was residing almost permanently at the old manor house—the Place of Calderwood, as it was named par excellence—Sir Nigel became somewhat infected by his daughter's melancholy. Thoughts of his two dead sons—Nigel, who fell at Goojerat, of his pet boy Archie, and also of his nephew, his favourite sister's only son, exposed to all the perils of disease and war in Turkey—recurred to him again and again, as he wandered through the rooms and under the old linden trees that had often echoed to their voices in infancy; and he thought of how the old estates, and the title first granted by King Charles to Sir Norman Calderwood, Primus Baronettorum Scotiæ, would go after his death, an event which he knew must happen some day; for, though hale and hearty yet, he felt that he rode a stone or two heavier now, was apt to "funk" at a sunk fence, and was finding that noble brute Splinterbar a trifle hard in the mouth for his bridle-hand now.

Even Cora's old song of "The Thistle and Rose" only served to make him sad—to make him think of those who had sung it long, long ago; and then he would order another bottle of that rare, creamy old claret, that Mr. Binns kept among the cobwebs, in a particular corner of the cellar, for themselves.

Faithful old Davie Binns! He had grown grey, white, and bald in the service of the Calderwoods, like his fathers before him, and like many other servants in that kind old Scottish household—one, indeed, "of the olden time." If he had been dismissed for a dereliction of duty, he would have thought the world was coming to an end, and doubtless would have flatly refused to go; for Davie was one of a class of servitors that are passing away, even in Scotland and Ireland; and from the sister-kingdom I fear they have long since vanished.

Accompanied by old Willie, Sir Nigel and a friend or two had occasionally a shot at the partridges in the stubble or the turnip-fields; but when the first meet of the hounds took place their master was absent.

In vain the horns were blown by Largo's slopes and Balcarris Wood; in vain the dogs gave mouth, and yelped, and wagged their upright tails. The cover was drawn, and every spur struck deep, as the huntsmen sped over dyke and ditch, by loch, and moor, and mountain; but Sir Nigel was sorrowing at his house in the Glen, and his favourite hunters, Saline and Splinterbar, were forgotten in their stalls.

Why was this?

On a Sunday towards the end of September—a Sunday which many must recall with sorrow—mysteriously, as if borne in the air, there passed a whisper over all the land of a great event that had happened far, far away; and that whisper found an echo in many a heart and home in England—in many an Irish mud cabin and Scottish glen—in many a high and many a humble dwelling.

In the quaint old village kirk of Calderwood, during the morning service, it passed along the pews from ear to ear among the people, even to the old haunted aisle of St. Margaret, where Cora sat (her sweet, earnest eyes intent on the preacher, though her thoughts were far away) beside her father in his carved oak seat, with all its armorial bearings overhead; for he was lord of all the glen and manor—a little king, but a very kind one, among the peasantry there.

So, on this calm, sunny summer morning, when no sound disturbed the preacher's voice but the rustle of the oak woods without, or the twittering of the martins in their nests among the Gothic carvings, there came vaguely to the pastoral glen—vaguely, wildly, no one knew how—news that a great battle had been fought far, far away in the East, and that we had lost four, five, some said even six thousand men; but that we were, thank God, victorious.

Pausing in his sermon, while his eyes kindled and his cheek flushed as they had never done when detailing the bloody wars of the Jews and Egyptians, the aged minister announced the tidings from the pulpit, adding (the first false rumour) "that the Duke of Cambridge had fallen at the head of the Guards and our own Highland lads, as he led them, sword in hand, up the braes of the Alma."

Every eye turned to St. Margaret's aisle, where, through the painted windows, the yellow sunshine streamed on Sir Nigel's silver hair and Cora's smooth dark braids, for all knew that they had a dear kinsman in that distant field, and when the minister asked the people to join with him in prayer for those who might fall, and for the widows and orphans of the slain, it was with earnest, humble, and contrite hearts that the startled and anxious rustics added their voices to his.

Cora covered her face with her handkerchief; and old Pitblado looked round him, grim and sternly as any Covenanter who ever wore a blue bonnet; but the poor man's heart was full of tears, as he prayed to heaven that his Willie might be safe. Besides, as a native of Fife, he had much of the old and inbred horror of soldiering peculiar to that peninsula, since those dark days when the Fifeshire infantry found their graves on the field of Kilsythe.

Ere the red autumn sun went down beyond the green hills of Clackmannan, the electric wire had announced the passage of the Alma over all the length and breadth of the land—flashing over all Europe, from the shores of the Bosphorus to those of the Shannon.

But in reply to a message sent by Sir Nigel to the War Office—a telegram despatched to soothe the agony of love—came the brief but terrible answer—

"The name of your nephew is among the killed!"

"Papa—papa—among the killed—among the killed!" Cora exclaimed, after the first stunning paroxysm of her grief was past.

"Yet I do not despair, Cora," said the old man, in his bewilderment, caressing her, and not knowing what to say, while remembering the keen bitterness that the gazette of Goojerat brought to his heart, when there he read the name of his eldest son and hope—his dark and handsome Nigel.

"Oh, do not speak of hope to me, papa. Poor Newton, I did so love him! I cannot dare to hope!"

"Dearest Cora, we have no details. He may be missing. I have heard of many returned so in the old Peninsular times. My old friend, Jack Oswald, of Dunnik, among others; but he was always found under a heap of dead men, or so forth."

"But the telegram says distinctly, among the killed—his body, his poor, mangled body, must have been seen——"

"Colonel Beverley will write to me. In a few days we shall know all the particulars."

"Even were he only wounded, I should be miserable; but to know that he is dead—dead—Newton dead—buried far, far away by strangers, and among strangers, and that I shall never, never see him more! Oh, papa—my dear papa!" she exclaimed, as she flung herself upon his breast, "I loved Newton dearly—far more dearly than life!"

And so the great secret escaped her in her grief.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

The fight's begun;—in momentary blaze

Bright o'er the hills the volleying lightning plays,

Bursts the loud shell, the death shots hiss around,

And the hoarse cannon adds its heavier sound,

Till wide the gathering clouds that rise between

Clothe in a thicker gloom the maddening scene;

And as the billow's wild and angry crest,

That swells in foam on Ocean's lurid breast,

Through each long line the curling volumes spread,

And hang their white wreaths o'er the column's head.

After the troops crossed the Bulganak, strict silence was enjoined, and no drum was beaten or bugle blown. Scattered parties of Russian cavalry scoured all the ground before us; and as they galloped to and fro, the gleam of Cossack lances, the flash of a carbine, or the steady glitter of sword-blades and cuirasses, shone at times from among the groves of the turpentine trees, and between the rocky undulations of the landscape. Thus we, the British, could not make ourselves quite aware of the nature of the ground we were approaching, while the French marched straight and confidently towards certain great cliffs, which had been carefully reconnoitred from the sea on the extreme right, and which they were to storm, with the village of Almatamack, at the point of the bayonet. At nine o'clock, the French on our right—Bosquet's column—halted, and quietly cooked their coffee, while our troops were still moving laboriously over rough ground, to bring our flank closer to theirs; and now, far beyond the extended columns of the allies—those long, bright lines of bayonets, sloped barrels, and waving colours that shone in the sun of a lovely morning—we saw the dark smoke of the war-steamers towering into the clear air, as they crept in-shore, seeking opportunities to open fire upon the Russian's lofty position; and at twenty minutes past ten we heard the first cannon booming, as they threw their shot among the imperial troops in rear of the telegraph station, which was distant nearly five thousand metres from the shore. Two more protracted halts took place, while final consultations were made between Lord Raglan and Marshal St. Arnaud; but still we were drawing nearer the scene of the coming conflict.

Before us rolled the Alma—a picturesque river—which takes its rise among the western slopes of the Chatyrdagh, in Crim Tartary, and falls into the Euxine, about twelve miles from Sebastopol. High rises its southern bank into picturesque rocks, that in some places are precipitous, and terminate in a lofty cliff which overhangs the sea; and this formidable position was to be defended against us by more than thirty-nine thousand Russians and one hundred and six pieces of cannon, led by Prince Alexander Menschikoff, one of the Emperor's most distinguished generals, who had entered the world as the son of a poor pastrycook, but who now held the supreme civil and military command in the Crimea. A round shot from a Turkish cannon had mutilated him severely at the siege of Varna, and hence the hatred he bore the race and faith of the Osmanlis was deep and fierce. His skill was not equal to his presumption, for he fully thought—as a letter found in his carriage by Captain Travers of ours, after the battle, asserted—that if the three invading armies were not routed at the Alma, he would be fully able to defend its hills for three weeks, until the Emperor sent him reinforcements from the steppes of Bessarabia.

Two miles from the mouth of the Alma stood the picturesque little village of Burliuk. It was now in flames, and the smoke of the conflagration was rolling among the vineyards, which covered the slope that extended between the stream and the base of those cliffs along which glittered the hostile lines of the Russian army. Two miles in length those lines extended along the hills, which were intersected by deep ravines. On every ridge strong batteries of cannon swept the approaches to these; deep trenches were dug along the mountain slopes, and therein were posted the infantry. Constructed on the side of the Kourgané Hill, which rises to the height of six hundred feet above the Alma, was an enormous battery, forming two sides of a triangle, and mounting fourteen heavy guns, thirty-two pounders, and twenty-four pound howitzers. The ascent to this was commanded by three other batteries, mounting twenty-five guns. To assail the Kourgané Hill—the right wing of the Russian army—with all its cannon, howitzers, and trenches, was the task assigned to the Light Division under Sir George Brown, supported by the Duke of Cambridge, with the Guards and Highlanders; and so intent was Menschikoff on its defence, that he had there concentrated sixteen battalions of regular infantry, two battalions of sailors, and two brigades of field-pieces. Near them were many ladies in carriages from Sebastopol, and elsewhere, waiting to see the "English curs" beaten.

During one of the protracted halts referred to, I could not help thinking how lovely was the morning for the unholy work we had in hand! The sun was without a cloud, and the soft breeze of the September morn played along the grassy slopes, rustling the leaves of the olive and turpentine groves, and the broader foliage of the vineyards, till at last even its breath died away upon the summit of the hostile hills. "It was then that in the allied armies there occurred," says Kinglake, "a singular pause of sound—a pause so general as to have been observed and remembered by many in remote parts of the ground, and so marked that its interruption by the mere neighing of an angry horse seized the attention of thousands; and although this strange silence was the mere result of weariness and chance, it seemed to carry a meaning; for it was now that, after nearly forty years of peace, the great nations of Europe were once more meeting for battle!"

The French steamers were now shelling the heights, the Russians making but a poor response; and just as a bomb, splendidly thrown by the former, among the smoke wreaths that curled round the brow of the cliffs, unmasked an ambush which had been prepared for the advancing Zouaves, after the smoke cleared away, showed by the prostrate forms of the riflemen it slew, how well it had done its fatal work—just as I was watching this episode, through my glass, I heard Studhome say, "Norcliff, we are to go to the front."

"Ours, alone?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Can't say; but you see the danger of having a reputation, Newton," said Jack, laughing, for he was in unusual high spirits. "We lancers served against the Pindarees in Central India, at Neerbudda, and elsewhere—the men and horses, poor nags, change; but the name and the number remain. Thus, you see what the honour of having a good name and gallant number costs us. The lancers must advance."

"Only your squadron, Captain Norcliff," said Colonel Beverley, cantering up to where we were halted in brigade; "you will advance and extend to double the usual skirmishing distance, simply to feel the enemy."

I saluted and gave the command, "Threes right—left-wheel—forward," and away we went at a swinging trot, with plumes and pennons glittering in the air.

"If they hit you, Bill?" cried one of our men to Sergeant Dashwood, of Wilford's troop, which formed the left of my squadron.

"Bah! I escaped often enough in India," said the sergeant, laughing; "and, please Heaven, were it only for my poor wife's sake, I shall do so again."

It did not please Heaven, however, for within one hour after this worthy Sergeant Dashwood was lying on his back, pale and stiff, with a bullet in his heart.

As we halted, formed line to the front, and extended from the right at full speed, I heard Jocelyn of ours, a wild and extravagant fellow, say to Sir Henry Scarlett, "I wonder how many infernal post obits will be cancelled to-day!"

We now advanced slowly over the open ground, halting at times, and every moment gave us a clearer and nearer view of the enemy's position.

I looked to the rear. How steadily they were coming on, those splendid lines of British infantry—the Royal and the Welsh Fusiliers, the 19th, and 33rd, and Connaught Rangers—stretching far away from flank to flank, in scarlet—that glorious and historic colour, which fills at once the eye and the mind—their bayonets flashing in the sun, and their colours threateningly advanced, but hanging listless, for the wind had died away. Thousands of those who were now marching there, in youth, and pride, and health—whose place at home was still vacant in many a parent's heart—were doomed to fatten the earth with their bones, and make the grass of future summers grow greener on the slopes of the Alma. Strong memories of my early youth, of my dead mother's face and voice, were with me now, and tears came too—I scarcely knew why; but I felt somewhat as if in a dream. I had a strong yearning also to see the proud Louisa, the tender Cora Calderwood, and my kind old uncle—those I might never see again.

I strove to imagine how Louisa Loftus would bear the shock of hearing that I had fallen—if fall I should. When and by whom would the news be broken to her? I thought, too, of the quiet old woods of Calderwood Glen, under the shadow of the greater Lomond. There, at least, all was peace, thank Heaven; and in my heart I prayed that long, long might it be so. And strange it was, too, that in this exciting time, when so many thousands of various races were about to close in the shock of battle—when a few minutes more might see me face to face with death—death by the cannon, the rifle, or the sabre—even while the explosion of the French shells rung every instant in the air—there flickered in my memory snatches of frivolous musical strains, and one or two trivial mess-room incidents; so that the vast array along the Alma seemed almost a phantasmagoria. But here a hand was laid upon my bridle arm. It was the hand of my faithful follower, Willie Pitblado, who slung his lance, and, sinking the soldier in the friend and countryman, said, while his bright grey eyes sparkled under his lancer cap—

"Hear you that, sir? It is the pipes of the Highland brigade!"

We were so far to the right of our squadron as to be close to the division of the Duke of Cambridge, which was composed of the Grenadier, Coldstream, and Scots Fusilier Guards, with three of the Highland regiments (the 42nd, 79th, and 93rd), whose pipers were now playing each the pibroch of their corps during the second halt; and then over all the field the old wild "memory of a thousand years" was kindled in every Scotchman's heart. I felt his enthusiasm; I saw that Willie felt it too, and in the kindly smile we exchanged there was conveyed a world of hidden sentiment. Wild, barbarous, and uncouth as it may be deemed—an instrument, perhaps, beyond improvement—the voice of the war-pipe seldom falls without a strange and stirring effect upon the Scottish ear; and let neither Englishman nor Irishman ever trust that Scot who hears it unmoved by the love of country and of home. There is something rotten at his heart's core! In whatever part of the distant world a Scotchman hears its strange notes, and the hoarse hum of its deep bass drones, it sets him dreaming of home; of the old thatched cottage in the mountain-glen, where the trouting burn gurgles under the long yellow broom, or "the auld brigstane" where he fished in boyhood; and with its voice come back the faces of "the loved, the lost, the distant, and the dead," and the glories and the battles of the years that are gone. He sees, too, the old kirk, where he prayed by his mother's knee; the graveyard, with all its mossy stones, and the forms of those who are lying there rise again in memory's eye. So the storm-beaten Isleman may seem to hear once more the waves that lash on Jura's rocks, or the scream of the wild birds over Scarba's shore, when ploughing far away in the wastes of the Indian Sea. It is difficult to define what this influence is; but that Scot is little to be envied who hears the warpipe unmoved, when far away from home, or as we heard it on that day beside the Alma; and though proud of his lancer regiment, I could see that my comrade Willie's heart was with the Highlanders, whose dark plumes were tossing on our right. It was at this time that Sir Colin Campbell, in his quiet, grave way, said to one of his officers, as the historian before quoted records, "This will be a good time for the men to get loose half their cartridges."

"And when the command travelled along the ranks of the Highlanders, it lit up the faces of the men one after another, assuring them that now, at length, and after long expectance, they indeed would go into action. They began obeying the order, and with beaming joy, for they came of a warlike race; yet not without emotion of a grave kind. They were young soldiers, and new to battle."

But now the trumpets recalled us to our brigade in rear of the infantry, who had the chief work of that bloody day to do. And just as we wheeled into our places, a roar of musketry on our right announced that the impetuous French had commenced the attack! The enemy's shot and shell were coming souse among us now, and many heard for the first time the fierce rushing sound, and then the mighty shock, as a bullet ripped up the earth, or swept a man away; while shells that burst in mid-air fell in hissing showers, that tore our clothing with their jagged edges, when they failed to wound. Dashing through the Alma, in front of the steep cliffs, under a terrific shower of round shot, grape, and musketry, which clothed the whole face of the slopes with spouting lines of white smoke, streaked with flashes of fire, waking a thousand echoes in the sky above and earth below, the French poured forward in yelling and impetuous masses. Fresh from their campaigns and conquests in burning Algeria, those fierce little Zouaves, in their blue jackets, red breeches, and turbans, active as mountain goats, were seen swarming up at the point of the bayonet, and forming in two lines, which charged with headlong rush on the astonished Muscovites, whose general, being thus completely outflanked on the cliffs being scaled, sought, but sought in vain, to change his front, and drive the French from those hills they had taken so rapidly and so gallantly, but at awful loss.

"Allah-Allah Hu!" was now the cry that rent the air, as the Turks advanced.

Under their green standards—the holy colour—with the crescent and star, massed in close column at quarter distance, the Turkish troops came on; and through the sea of red fezzes the cannon balls made many a deadly lane, until the battalions deployed into line, sending, as Studhome said, "many a believer to Paradise in a state of mutilation such as the houris wouldn't appreciate." But on they went against that sheet of lead and iron, shoulder to shoulder with the French; and many a shaven crown and many a scarlet fez, with its broad military button and blue tassel, were lying on the turf, while, with visions of the dark-eyed girls of Paradise waving their green scarves from their couches of pearl, and crying, "Come, kiss me, for I love thee," many a grim, Turkish soul passed forth into the night of death. On the other flank were the French linesmen, crying on "Dieu, et la Mère de Dieu," to help them in their last agony, while the sisters of charity and the vivandières rivalled each other in the rear in their attention to the wounded and dying.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic,

And thirty thousand muskets flung their pills

Like hail to make a bloody diuretic.

Mortality! thou hast thy monthly bills;

Thy plagues, thy passions, thy physicians, yet tick,

Like the death-watch, within our ears the ills

Past, present, and to come;—but all may yield

To the true portrait of one battle-field. BYRON.

At half-past one the British infantry advanced into action; like lightning the order flew along the line, for it was borne by Nolan, the impetuous and the gallant.

The village of Burliuk, the centre of our position, was still in flames that rose to a vast height, especially from the well-filled stackyards.

To the right of the conflagration, two regiments of Adams's brigade, the Welsh[*] and 49th, or Hertfordshire, crossed the river by a deep and dangerous ford, under a galling fire from the Russian Minie Riflemen, who were ensconced among the vineyards on the opposite bank. The remainder crossed on the left of Burliuk, and, both uniting beyond it, the whole division of De Lacy Evans found themselves engaged in sanguinary strife, while we, the cavalry, could but sit in our saddles and look on, but burning with impatience to advance.

[*] 41st—so called since 1831.

On the extreme left of the British advance, the Light Division, under Sir George Brown, G.C.B. (a Peninsular veteran of the old fighting 43rd), crossed the stream in their immediate front. Rugged and precipitous, the bank rose above them. So steep was it in some places that one of our officers, when in the act of climbing, was mortally wounded by having his entire spinal column traversed by a ball, which had been fired perpendicularly down from the Russian ranks above. Dense vineyards and abattis of felled trees partially obstructed the advance of our gallant Light Division; but in vain, for the 7th, the 33rd, and Welsh Fusiliers, the 77th, and Connaught Rangers pressed on under the volleying fire; and such was their coolness, that the soldiers threw to each other bunches of the delicious crimson grapes, to quench their thirst, for they had been long in marching order under a burning morning sun. The Minie balls were showering past like hail; caps, epaulettes, ears, fingers, and teeth were torn away, and every moment the men fell fast on every hand; but from right to left the cries of "Forward! on! on! forward!" were incessant, and the human surge of the Light Division swept on, bearing with it the whole 95th regiment. Rapidly they formed in line beyond the broken ground—rapidly and magnificently—and threw their steady fire into the strong redoubts with terrible effect; but hundreds were falling on both sides, and now commenced that ever memorable charge up hill by which we won the Alma. Faintly in the air came a yell of defiance from the Russians; it was very different from "the strong-lunged, massive-throated, deep-chested outbursts of cheering" that ran along the ranks of the British infantry.

Conspicuous on a grey horse, amid the clouds of passing smoke, we could see old Sir George Brown, riding as he had ridden with the Light Division of other days, at Busaco and Talavera. A deadly sheet of fire now tears through the 7th Fusiliers—led by Lacy Yea—they waver, but re-form! By the same fire the 23rd are decimated, and Colonel Chester falls at their head, shouting, "On, lads, on!" Relief after relief is shot down under the colours of the 7th. One is lost for a time; but, hurrah! it is safe among the soldiers of the Royal Welsh!

Under their colour, young Anstruther (the son of my uncle's neighbour, Balcaskie) is shot dead, and the poor boy rolls down the hill, enveloped in its silken folds; but again it waves in the wind, as Private Evans snatches it up, and bears it on towards the Great Redoubt.

Thicker fall the dead on every hand, for it is all musketry, and the deep, hoarse boom of the cannon, surging like a stormy sea, roll upon roll. The wounded are crawling, limping, and streaming to the rear; the dead lie close as autumn leaves in Vallombrosa. On stretchers and crossed muskets, officers and men are borne to the riverside, and, reeking with blood, the stretchers return for other victims. Hythe is forgotten now, and all her science of musketry; for no man thinks of sighting his Minie rifle, but all load, and cap, and blaze away at random, though many an officer is shouting, "Steady, men, steady, and aim below the crossbelts."

On, yet on, rolls the human surge, for what or who could withstand them—our noble infantry, our 19th and 33rd, our 77th and 88th, as they rush on, with colours flying and loud hurrahs!

But now there is a louder cry!

Their leader falls! In a cloud of dust both horse and man go down, and for a moment the advance is paralyzed—but for a moment only.

Again the grand old soldier is at their head on foot, his sword glittering above his white head, and, reckless of the tremendous fire which sweeps through them, our troops dash at the redoubts—a mighty torrent in scarlet—the flashing bayonets are lowered—man seeks man, ready to grapple body to body with his foe, and the sparks of fire rise in the midst as steel clashes on steel, for the Russian hearts are stout and their hands are strong as ours; the dead and the dying are heaped over each other, to be trampled on and smothered in their blood.

Nine hundred of our officers and men fell, killed and wounded, amid the terrible mêlée in the Great Redoubt, and all up the scorched slope that leads to it. In the torn vineyards, and among the leafy abbatis, the poor redcoats are lying thicker than ever I have seen the scarlet poppies stud the harvest fields in Lothian or the Merse!

The red dragon of the Royal Welsh is flying on that fatal redoubt, but not yet is the victory ours!

Descending from the higher hills, a mighty column of Russian infantry—a double column, composed of the Ouglitz and Vladimir battalions, bearing with them the image of St. Sergius, a solemn trust given to them by the Bishop of Moscow—a supposed miraculous idol, borne in the wars of the Emperor Alexis, of Peter the Great, and Alexander I.—came rushing to the mortal shock, in full confidence of victory.

Deploying into line, the great grey mass, with their flat caps and spiked helmets—for the corps were various—came boldly on, and followed up a deadly volley by a powerful bayonet charge. Then the ranks in scarlet, exhausted by their toilsome ascent, began to waver and fall back, followed down hill by the yelling Russian hordes, who had a perfect belief in their own invincibility, and barbarously bayoneted all our wounded as they came on.

Terribly fatal was this temporary repulse to the gallant Welsh Fusiliers in particular; but now the 7th and 33rd, with the Guards and Highlanders, advanced, and again the struggle was resumed.

Of the 33rd, nineteen sergeants fell, chiefly in defence of the colours; and fourteen bullet holes in one standard and eleven in the other attested to the fury of the conflict.

Throwing open his ranks to allow the retreating regiments to re-form and recover breath, the Duke of Cambridge now brought up his division, though there was a momentary fear of its success, for an officer high in rank exclaimed—

"The brigade of Guards will be destroyed. Ought it not to fall back?"

"Better that every man of her Majesty's Guards should lie dead upon the field than turn their backs upon the enemy!" was the stern and proud response of grim old Colin Campbell, a veteran of the old and glorious wars of Wellington, as he galloped off to put himself at the head of his Highlanders, whom he had had skilfully brought on in échelon of regiments. They reserved their fire, and advanced in solemn silence.

Terribly was our splendid brigade of Guards handled, when the Highlanders came up, and then, as Kinglake tells us, a man in one of the regiments re-forming on the slope cried, in the deep, honest bitterness of his heart, "Let the Scotsmen go on—they'll do the work!" and, with three battalions in the kilt, Sir Colin (whose horse was killed under him) advanced to meet twelve of the flushed and furious enemy.

"Now, men," said he, "you are going into action, and remember this, that whoever is wounded—I don't care what his rank is—must lie where he falls. No soldier must carry off wounded men. If any one does such a thing, his name shall be stuck up in his parish kirk. Be steady—keep silence—fire low! Now, men—the army are watching us—make me proud of my Highland brigade!"

The brilliant author of "Eöthen," an eye-witness of this part of the field, describes their movements so beautifully that I cannot resist quoting him again.

"The ground they had to ascend was a good deal more steep and broken than the slope close beneath the redoubt. In the land where those Scots were bred, there are shadows of sailing clouds skimming up the mountain side; and their paths are rugged and steep; yet their course is smooth, easy, and swift. Smoothly, easily, swiftly, the Black Watch seemed to glide up the hill. A few instants before, and their tartans ranged dark in the valley; now their plumes were on the crest."

Another line in échelon, and another—the Cameron and the Sutherland Highlanders; and now, to the eyes of the superstitious Muscovites, the strange uniform of those troops seemed something terrible; their waving sporrans were taken for horses' heads; they cried to each other that the Angel of Light had departed, and the Demon of Death had come!

Close and murderous was the fire that opened on them; then a wail of despair floated over the grey masses of the long-coated Russian infantry, as they broke and fled, casting away knapsacks, and everything that might encumber their flight, and, for the first time, rose the Highland cheer. "Then," says the great historian of the war, "along the Kourgané slopes, and thence west almost home to the Causeway, the hill-sides were made to resound with that joyous and assuring cry, which is the natural utterance of a northern people, so long as it is warlike and free."[*]

[*] Kinglake, vol. ii.

The Heights of the Alma were won!

CHAPTER XL.

Had ye no graves at home,

Across the briny water,

That hither ye must come,

Like bullocks to the slaughter?

If we the work must do,

Why the sooner 'tis begun,

If flint and trigger hold but true,

The quicker 'twill be done,

By the rifle! the good rifle!

In our hands it is no trifle!

The battle was fought and won; the thunder had died away along the heights of the Alma; it was all over now—that "hell of blood and ferocity" was past; and little more remained but to number the dead, and lay them in their last ghastly homes. The agonies even of the wounded—that terrible grey acre of Russian wounded—were half forgotten by the untouched; but many a bright-eyed girl in England far away, and in that northern land which was to me the dearest half of "sea-walled Albion," who was wearing her gay muslins and flowers, would be coming forth, ere long, in the crape and sable livery of grief; for many a father and mother's hope and pride were among the redcoats that lay so motionless and still along those fatal slopes.

The sun was verging westward, the smoke of the villanous saltpetre hung like a lurid canopy over the summit of the Kourgané Hill, and that final scene of slaughter in the Great Redoubt; and now men, who had been separated in the confusion and hurry of the conflict, were meeting again, and congratulating each other that they were spared.

We, the small force of cavalry, a thousand sabres and lancers, who had hitherto been impatient onlookers, now dashed through the river, without Lord Raglan's authority; and, though the upsetting of a field-gun, and the slippery nature of the ford, were the cause of much delay, we reached the summit of the Kourgané Hill soon after the Highlanders had swept the foe from it. We had six guns with us, and their fire told fearfully upon the retreating masses of the Russians, who left mangled piles of dead in their rear. The battery was divided; one half our force, led by Lord Cardigan, escorting those on the right, while Lord Lucan, with the rest, conducted those that were on the left. Our orders were, also, to glean up cannon, prisoners, and other trophies.

The earl rode in advance with my squadron of lancers. We picked up a good many prisoners, who sullenly threw down their arms and submitted. These men were all light infantry, wearing flat forage-caps, and long grey coats that reached to their ankles.

On this duty we had to traverse a great portion of the field, and its aspect was harrowing; a day of slaughter was to be followed by a night of agony.

Here and there were pools of blood, in which the flies were battening, and from whence the honey-bee and the snow-white butterfly strove in vain to free their tiny pinions; and on the glacis of the Great Redoubt, where men of all regiments—but chiefly Welsh Fusiliers—lay blended together, were bodies to be seen without heads, or legs, or arms, bowels torn out, brains crushed, blood oozing from eyes, or ears, or mouths—blood, blood everywhere: for it was there that grape, canister, and round-shot had bowled through the advancing columns.

Among those ghastly piles lay an ensign of one of our line regiments—a poor boy, fresh from Eton or Harrow, struck down in his first red coat. He had a miniature in his hand—a young and beautiful girl, thought I. But Pitblado handed it to me, and then I saw that it represented a grey-haired woman, of comely and matronly aspect.

She was his mother, no doubt. Could she have seen him there!

A ball had pierced his chest. He was not quite dead; for when Pitblado poured some water between his lips, his eyes opened, and he began to mutter as if speaking to his mother—that his head lay on her breast, and he heard, in fancy, her replies.

True, in the end, to the first instinct, or first tender impulse of nature, as, when a little child, he had, under pain or wrong, hid his weeping face in his mother's lap, the old spirit came over him; and as his dying ear seemed to hear that mother's voice, a holy light shone over his livid face, and the poor lad died happily.

He must have been shot under his colours, for the standard belt was yet over his left shoulder.

The roar of battle was gone now, and the bushes where the dead ensign lay were literally alive with larks, thrushes, and linnets in full song.

Many of the Russian slain had half-bitten cartridges in their open mouths. Many who were shot in the head lay with their faces on the sod, and their muskets under them; and when struck in the heart, death was so instantaneous that all retained the position in which they had been shot. By their attitudes, we might know the time they had been in dying.

In one place seven of the Russian 26th—for that number was on their glazed leather helmets—lay all in a line, with their bayonets at the charge. All these men had been slain by a shower of grape, and were shot in the head or breast.

As we rode on we secured many prisoners and several battery guns; all the cannon were on stocks of wood, painted green, with white crosses on the breeches and muzzles.

And now we were traversing the Kourgané Hill, where the fine fellows of our household brigade, in their bright scarlet and black bearskins, were lying in great numbers, and close by were many of the Black Watch, but all dead. I reined in my horse, and looked at them earnestly.

The countenances of some seemed as if still in life, so far as expression went. Some were calm and resigned; some as if in prayer. Others were fierce and stern; but all were pale and white as the cold Carrara marble. The evening breeze passed over them; it lifted their hair and the black plumes in their bonnets. Then the dead seemed as if about to stir. There they lay, with the blood stiffening on their tartans. My heart was very full.

In some faces I could read a ghastly and defiant smile, and several were stretched at length, as if the friends that would ere long be sorrowing for them in their distant home were about to commit them to their winding-sheet.

Where our cannon had mauled their retreating cavalry, the horses lay in close ranks, with their long necks stretched out, and their riders beneath them, all torn, brained, or disembowelled alike by the iron storm of grape-shot that had swept through the squadron. In some places we saw only a red, muddy pulp, composed of flesh and bones, where the enemy's brigade of guns had traversed the ground.

"War!" says a French writer; "those by whose will war comes—those who make men resemble the savage beasts—will have a fearful account to render to the righteous Judge above!"

As we passed along with our prisoners, many of our wounded reviled and execrated them, for on all hands we heard stories of Russian treachery.

Our soldiers, in some instances, when supplying their wounded enemies with water from their canteens, were shot down by the very wretch whose thirst they had just quenched. Captain Eddington, of the 95th, was murdered in this fashion by a Russian rifleman, in sight of the whole regiment, and of his brother, a lieutenant, who rushed in advance to avenge him and fell riddled with bullets. Maddened by several such incidents, our soldiers, with their musket butts, dashed out the brains of several of the wounded, slaying them like reptiles, and undeserving of mercy.

Such details are only calculated to weary and revolt; but the stern scene was not without its brighter features.

Already the surgeons were busy among the wounded, and our gallant seamen were all tenderness, sympathy, and activity, as they conveyed them on board the ships, from the rigging of which the events of that exciting day had been witnessed by thousands.

"Cheer up, sodjer," I sometimes heard them shout, as they bore a maimed victim, pale and bloody, to the boats; "we shall all eat our Christmas duff in Sebastopol."

Many whom they bore away were "booked" for Chelsea, "the poor soldier's last home in the land of the living;" but many were fated to die of their wounds ere the sun of the morrow lit up the waters of the Euxine.

We were now far in the rear of the original Russian position, and were actually riding along the Sebastopol road, when Captain Bolton, of the 1st Dragoon Guards, whose sword hand was muffled in a bloody handkerchief, came galloping after us, to explain that Lord Raglan desired we should fall back at once.