Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/154

 132 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. chap, combat, there rose a low murmur of that indefinite kind which attests the presence of a crowd with- out disclosing its humour. As heard on the edge of the Chersonese, a mile and a half towards the west, the collective roar which ascended from this thicket of intermixed combatants had the unity of sound which belongs to the moan of a distant sea. If this struggle bore closer resemblance to the fights of earlier ages than to those of modern times, it had also the characteristic of being less destructive than might be imagined to life and limb. General Scarlett's old Eton experience of what used to be there called a ' rooge ' was per- haps of more worth to him than many a year of toil in the barrack-yard or the exercise -ground. Close wedged from the first in an enemy's column, and on all sides hemmed in by the Bussians, he was neither killed nor maimed, for the sabre which stove in his helmet was stopped before reaching his skull, and the only five wounds he received were, each of them, so slight as to be for the time altogether unheeded. By some chance, or possibly as a consequence of wearing a head- gear which announced the presence of a staff- officer, Lieutenant Elliot, the aide-de-camp of the Brigadier, was beset with great determination by numbers gathering round him on all sides ; and although his skill as a swordsman and the more than common length of his blade enabled him for a while to ward off the attacks of his many assail- ants, they at length closed about him so resolutely that it seemed hardly possible for a single horse-