were 4,000 English
against 40,000 Russians.

_The curtain-mist_; The battle began about 6 A.M. under heavy mist and
drizzling rain, which lasted for several hours. Through this curtain the
Russian forces coming down from the hill were seen only when near enough
to darken the mist by their masses.

_Egerton_; He commanded four companies of the 77th, and charged early in
the battle with brilliant success;--his men, about 250, scattering 1500
Russians.

_The gallant chief_; General Soimonoff, killed just after Egerton's
charge.

_With that old Albuera cry_; Prominent in the defence of the English main
base of operations, the Home Ridge, against a weighty Russian advance,
was Captain Stanley, commanding the 57th. This regiment, it was said, at
the battle of Albuera had been encouraged by its colonel with the words,
'Fifty-seventh, die hard':--and Stanley, having less than 400 against
2000, thought the time had come to remind his 'Die-hards' of their
traditional gallantry;--after which he himself at once fell mortally
wounded.

AFTER CAWNPORE

June: 1857

Fourteen, all told, no more,
Pack'd close within the door
Of that old idol-shrine:
And at them, as they stand,
And from that English band,
The leaden shower went out, and Death proclaim'd them
_Mine_!
Fourteen against an army; they, no more,
Had 'scaped Cawnpore.

With each quick volley-flash
The bullets ping and plash:
Yet, though the tropic noon
With furnace-fury broke
The sulphur-curling smoke,
Scarr'd, sear'd, thirst-silenced, hunger-faint, they stood:
And soon
A dusky wall,--death sheltering life,--uprose
Against their foes.

Behind them now is cast
The horror of the past;
The fort that was no fort,
The deep dark-heaving flood
Of foes that broke in blood
On our devoted camp, victims of fiendish sport;
From that last huddling refuge lured to fly,
--And help so nigh!

Down toward the reedy shore
That fated remnant pour,
Had Fear and Death beside;
And other spectres yet
Of darker vision flit,--
Old unforgotten wrongs, the harshness and the pride
Of that imperial race which sway'd the land
By sheer command!

O little hands that strain
A mother's hand in vain
With terror vague and vast:--