Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/188

 166 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. C H A P. I. ruin, or at least into grievous disaster. Were no such squadrons at hand ? The Light Brigade at the time of Scarlett's engage- ment: its neu- trality. Impatience of the brigade ; VII. Whilst this combat of Scarlett's was raging, people witnessed, hard by, a more tranquil scene, and one which indeed was so free from all the tumult of battle as to offer a kind of repose to eyes wearied with gazing at strife. Overlooking the flank of the Eussian cavalry in its struggle with Scarlett's brigade, and at a distance from the combatants which has been computed at 400 or 500 yards, there stood ranged in two lines a body of near 700 men. They all of them bore arms ; they all wore military uniforms ; and each man was either mounted, or else had his charger be- side him. They were troops of the same nation as Scarlett's combating regiments. In truth, they were nothing less than the famous Light Brigade of the English ; but, strange to say, these superb horse- men were engaged for the time as spectators, main- taining a rigid neutrality in the war which they saw going on between Eussia and our Heavy Dragoons. Of the impatience with which our Light Cav- alry chafed when they found themselves withheld from the fight, some idea perhaps may be formed by any one who recalls to his mind the far-famed exploit they were destined to be performing at a later hour of the same day. It was not without a grating sense of the contrast that, whilst thus condemned to inaction, they saw Scarlett hotly