iably edged away and retired. Sometimes they would
halt and gaze at the triple row of bayonets, when two or three
brave officers would advance and strive to urge the attack,
raising their helmets aloft on their sabres--but all in vain, as
no efforts could make the men close with the terrible bayonets,
and meet certain destruction."[516]

After the fire of the rear squares had done its work, our cavalry fell
on the wavering masses; and, as they rode off, the gunners ran forth
from the squares and plied them with shot. In a few minutes the
mounted host that seemed to have swallowed up the footmen was gone,
the red and blue chequers stood forth triumphant, and the guns that
should have been spiked dealt forth death. Down below, the confused
mass shaped itself for a new charge while its supports routed our
horsemen.

In this second attack Ney received a powerful reinforcement. The
Emperor ordered the advance of Kellermann and of Guyot with the heavy
cavalry of the Guard, thus raising the number of horsemen to about
10,000. At the head of these imposing masses Ney again mounted the
slope. But Wellington had strengthened his line by fresh troops,
ordering up also Mercer's battery of six 9-pounders, to support two
Brunswick regiments that wavered ominously as the French cannon-balls
tore through them. Would these bewildered lads stand before the wave
of horsemen already topping the crest? It seemed impossible. But just
then Mercer's men thundered up between them with the guns, took post
behind the raised cross-road, and opened on the galloping horsemen
with case-shot. At once the front was strewn with steeds and men; and
gunners and infantry riddled the successive ranks, that rushed on only
to pile up writhing heaps and bar retreat to the survivors in front.
Some of these sought safety by a dash through the guns, while the
greater number struggled and even laid about with their sabres to hew
their way out of this _battue_.

Elsewhere the British artillery was too exposed to be defended, and
the gunners again fled back to the squares. Once more the cavalry
surrounded our footmen, like "heavy surf breaking on a coast beset
with isolated rocks, against which the mountainous wave dashes with
furious uproar, breaks, divides, and runs hissing and boiling far
beyond." Yet, as before, it failed to break those stubborn blocks, and
a perplexing pause occurred, varied by partial and spasmodic rushes.
"Will those E