rried
lines of the 43rd and 52nd, and what a moment before was empty space
was now filled with the frowning visage of battle. The British lines
broke into one stern and deep-toned shout, and 1800 bayonets, in one
long line of gleaming points, came swiftly down upon the French. To
stand against that moving hedge of deadly and level steel was
impossible; yet each man in the leading section of the French raised
his musket and fired, and two officers and ten soldiers fell before
them. Not a Frenchman had missed his mark! They could do no more.
"The head of their column," to quote Napier, "was violently thrown back
upon the rear, both flanks were overlapped at the same moment by the
English wings, and three terrible discharges at five yards' distance
shattered the wavering mass." Before those darting points of flame the
pride of the French shrivelled. Shining victory was converted, in
almost the passage of an instant, into bloody defeat; and a shattered
mass, with ranks broken, and colours abandoned, and discipline
forgotten, the French were swept into the depths of the ravine out of
which they had climbed.

One of the dramatic episodes of the fight at this juncture is that of
Captain Jones--known in his regiment as "Jack Jones" of the 52nd.
Jones was a fiery Welshman, and led his company in the rush on General
Simon's column. The French were desperately trying to deploy, a
_chef-de-bataillon_ giving the necessary orders with great vehemence.
Jones ran ahead of his charging men, outstripping them by speed of
foot, challenged the French officer with a warlike gesture to single
combat, and slew him with one fierce thrust before his own troops, and
the 52nd, as they came on at the run, saw the duel and its result, were
lifted by it to a mood of victory, and raised a sudden shout of
exultation, which broke the French as by a blast of musketry fire.

For hours the battle spluttered and smouldered amongst the skirmishers
in the ravines, and some gallant episodes followed. Towards evening,
for example, a French company, with signal audacity, and apparently on
its own private impulse, seized a cluster of houses only half a musket
shot from the light division, and held it while Craufurd scourged them
with the fire of twelve guns. They were only turned out at the point
of the bayonet by the 43rd. But the battle was practically over, and
the English had beaten, by sheer hard fighting, the best troops and the
best marshals o