Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/152

 130 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. chap, alarms of the kind which seize upon masses ; but L still the individual trooper who chanced to be so placed in the column as to have to undergo the assaults of one of the Scots Greys or Inniskilling dragoons, seemed to own himself personally over- matched, and to meet the encounter almost hope- lessly, like a brave man oppressed by the strong. Without apparently doubting — for there was no sign of panic — that overwhelming numbers must secure the general result, he yet found that, for the moment, those mere numbers could not give him the protection he needed, and he would so rein his charger, and so plant himself in his saddle, and so set his features, as to have the air of stand- ing at bay. Of the objects surrounding our people whilst engaged in this closely locked fight, none stamped themselves more vividly on their minds than those numberless cages of clenched teeth which met them wherever they looked. From the time when the ' three hundred ' had fairly closed with the enemy, there was but little recourse to carbine or pistol ; and the movement of the horses within the column being necessarily slight, and on thick herbage, there resulted little sound from their tramp. The clash of sabres overhead had become so steady and ceaseless, and its sound so commingled with the jangle of cavalry accoutrements proceeding from thousands of horsemen, that upon the whole it was but little expressive of the numberless separate conflicts in which each man was holding to life with the strength of his own right arm.