of dead and wounded lay between. For two miles in length and half a mile
across the ground was strewed and heaped with them. But slaughter was
no new sight to me, and it was not that which held me spellbound. It
was that up the long slope of the British position was moving a walking
forest-black, tossing, waving, unbroken. Did I not know the bearskins of
the Guard? And did I not also know, did not my soldier's instinct tell
me, that it was the last reserve of France; that the Emperor, like a
desperate gamester, was staking all upon his last card? Up they went
and up--grand, solid, unbreakable, scourged with musketry, riddled with
grape, flowing onward in a black, heavy tide, which lapped over the
British batteries. With my glass I could see the English gunners throw
themselves under their pieces or run to the rear. On rolled the crest of
the bearskins, and then, with a crash which was swept across to my
ears, they met the British infantry. A minute passed, and another, and
another. My heart was in my mouth.

They swayed back and forward; they no longer advanced; they were held.
Great Heaven! was it possible that they were breaking? One black dot ran
down the hill, then two, then four, then ten, then a great, scattered,
struggling mass, halting, breaking, halting, and at last shredding out
and rushing madly downward. "The Guard is beaten! The Guard is beaten!"
From all around me I heard the cry. Along the whole line the infantry
turned their faces and the gunners flinched from their guns.

"The Old Guard is beaten! The Guard retreats!" An officer with a livid
face passed me yelling out these words of woe. "Save yourselves! Save
yourselves! You are betrayed!" cried another. "Save yourselves! Save
yourselves!" Men were rushing madly to the rear, blundering and jumping
like frightened sheep. Cries and screams rose from all around me. And at
that moment, as I looked at the British position, I saw what I can
never forget. A single horseman stood out black and clear upon the
ridge against the last red angry glow of the setting sun. So dark, so
motionless, against that grim light, he might have been the very spirit
of Battle brooding over that terrible valley. As I gazed, he raised his
hat high in the air, and at the signal, with a low, deep roar like a
breaking wave, the whole British army flooded over their ridge and came
rolling down into the valley.

Long steel-fringed lines of red and blue, sweeping waves of cavalry,
hor