mit and key of all that Battle
area; rules it all, if you get cannon thither. It hangs steepish on the
southern side, over the Rohrgraben, where this Mollendorf-Austrian fight
begins; but it is beautifully accessible, if you bear round to the west
side,--a fine saddle-shaped bit of clear ground there, in shape like the
outside or seat of a saddle; Domitsch Wood the crupper part; summit of
this Height the pommel, only nothing like so steep:--it is here (on the
southern saddle-flap, so to speak), gradually mounting westward to the
crupper-and-pommel part, that the agony now is.

And here, in utter darkness, illuminated only by the musketry and cannon
blazes, there ensued two hours of stiff wrestling in its kind: not
the fiercest spasm of all, but the final which decided all. Lestwitz,
Hulsen, come sweeping on, led by the sound and the fire; "beating the
Prussian march, they," sharply on all their drums,--Prussian march,
rat-tat-tan, sharply through the gloom of Chaos in that manner; and join
themselves, with no mistake made, to Mollendorf's, to Ziethen's left
and the saddle-flap there, and fall on. The night is pitch-dark,
says Archenholtz; you cannot see your hand before you. Old Hulsen's
bridle-horses were all shot away, when he heard this alarm, far off: no
horse left; and he is old, and has his own bruises. He seated himself
on a cannon; and so rides, and arrives; right welcome the sight of him,
doubt not! And the fight rages still for an hour or more.

To an observant Mollendorf, watching about all day, the importance and
all-importance of Siptitz Summit, if it can be got, is probably known;
to Daun it is alarmingly well known, when he hears of it. Daun is
zealously urgent on Lacy, on O'Donnell; who do try what they can; send
reinforcements, and the like; but nothing that proves useful. O'Donnell
is not the man for such a crisis: Lacy, too, it is remarked, has always
been more expert in ducking out of Friedrich's way than in fighting
anybody. [Archenholtz's sour remark.] In fine, such is the total
darkness, the difficulty, the uncertainty, most or all of the
reinforcements sent halted short, in the belly of the Night, uncertain
where; and their poor friends got altogether beaten and driven away.

MAP FACING PAGE 527, BOOK XX----

About 9 at night, all the Austrians are rolling off, eastward, eastward.
Prussians goading them forward what they could (firing not quite done
till 10); and that all-important pommel of t