rd," cries Lord Hill at last in desperation, "if you are killed,
what are we to do?"

"The same as I do now," replies Wellington unmoved, "hold this place to
the last man."

Then with a sudden outburst of vehemence, that seems to pierce almost
involuntarily the rigid armour of British phlegm and British
self-control, he calls to his old comrades of Salamanca and Vittoria:

"Boys, which of us now can think of retreating? What would England think
of us, if we do?"

Heroic, unflinching and cool the British army has held its ground
against the overwhelming power of Napoleon's magnificent cavalry. Raw
recruits some of them, against the veterans of Jena and of Wagram! But
they have been ordered to hold the place to the last man, and in close
and serried squares they have held their ground ever since half-past
eleven this morning, while one after another the flower of Napoleon's
world-famed cavalry had been hurled against them.

Cuirassiers, chasseurs, lancers, up they come to the charge, like
whirlwinds up the declivities of the plateau. Like a whirlwind they rush
upon those stolid, immovable, impenetrable squares, attacking from every
side, making violent, obstinate, desperate onsets upon the stubborn
angles, the straight, unshakable walls of red coats; slashing at the
bayonets with their swords, at crimson breasts with their lances, firing
their pistols right between those glowing eyes, right into those firm
jaws and set teeth.

The sound of bullets on breastplates and helmets and epaulettes is like
a shower of hailstones upon a sheet of metal.

Twice, thrice, nay more--a dozen times--they return to the charge, and
the plateau gleams with brandished steel like a thousand flashes of
simultaneous fork-lightning on the vast canopy of a stormy sky.

From midday till after four, a kind of mysterious haze covers this field
of noble deeds. Fog after the rain wraps the gently-billowing Flemish
ground in a white semi-transparent veil--covers with impartial coolness
all the mighty actions, the heroic charges and still more heroic stands,
all the silent uncomplaining sufferings, the glorious deaths, all the
courage and all the endurance.

Through the grey mists we see a medley of moving colours--blue and grey
and scarlet and black--of shakos and sabretaches, of English and French
and Hanoverian and Scotch, of epaulettes and bare knees; we hear the
sound of carbine and artillery fire, the clank of swords and bayonets,
the ca