riders struggled knee to knee, pushing,
shouting, colliding.

Posted behind the upper and lower windows of the houses, the Prussians
shot into them, so close that the flames from the rifles set the
jackets of the cuirassiers on fire: a German captain opened the
shutters of a window and fired his pistol at a cuirassier, who replied
with a sabre thrust through the window, transfixing the German's
throat.

Then a horrible butchery of men and horses began; the fusillade became
so violent and the scene so sickening that a Prussian lieutenant went
crazy in the house opposite, and flung himself from the window into
the mass of writhing horsemen. Tall cuirassiers, in impotent fury,
began slashing at the walls of the houses, breaking their heavy sabres
to splinters against the stones; their powerful horses, white with
foam, reared, fell back, crushing their riders beneath them.

In front of the barricade a huge fellow reined in his horse and
turned, white-gloved hand raised, red epaulets tossing.

[Illustration: "'HALT! HALT!' HE SHOUTED"]

"Halt! Halt!" he shouted. "Stop the lancers!" And a trumpeter,
disengaging himself from the frantic chaos, set his long, silver
trumpet to his lips and blew the "Halt!"

A bullet rolled the trumpeter under his horse's feet; a volley riddled
the other's horse, and the agonized animal reared and cleared the
bristling abatis with a single bound, his rider dropping dead among
the hay-wagons.

Then into this awful struggle galloped the two squadrons of the lancers.
For a moment the street swam under their fluttering red-and-white
lance-pennons, then a volley swept them--another--another--and down
they went.

Herds of riderless horses tore through the street; the road undulated
with crushed, quivering creatures crawling about. Against the doorway
of a house opposite a noble horse in agony leaned with shaking knees,
head raised, lips shrinking back over his teeth.

Bewildered, stupefied, exhausted, the cuirassiers sat in their
saddles, staring up at the windows where the Prussians stood and
fired. Now and then one would start as from a nightmare, turn his
jaded horse, and go limping away down the street. The road was filled
with horsemen, wandering helplessly about under the rain of bullets.
One, a mere boy, rode up to a door, leaned from his horse and began to
knock for admittance; another dismounted and sat down on a doorstep,
head buried in his hands, regardless of the bullets which t