Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/252

 230 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. chap pen of fire, the devoted brigade, with Lord Car- ' digan still at its head, continued to move down advan&Tof the va lley. The fire the brigade was incurring the brigade, k a( j nQ ^ y e ^ Gome i be of that crushing sort which mows down half a troop in one instant, and for some time a steady pace was main- tained. As often as a horse was killed or dis- abled, or deprived of the rider, the fall, or his plunge, or his ungoverned pressure, had com- monly the effect of enforcing upon the neigh- bouring chargers more or less of lateral move ment, and in this way there was occasioned a slight distension of the rank in which the casu- alty had occurred ; but, in the next instant, when the troopers had ridden clear of the disturbing cause, they closed up, and rode on in a line as even as before, though reduced by the loss just sustained. The movement occasioned by each casualty was so constantly recurring, and so constantly followed by the same process, — the process of re-closing the ranks, — that to distant observers, the alternate distension and contraction of the line seemed to have the precision and sameness which belong to mechanic contrivance. Of these distant observers there was one — and that too a soldier — who so felt to the heart the true import of what he saw that, in a paroxysm of admiration and grief, he burst into tears. In well-maintained order, but growing less every instant, our squadrons still moved down the valley. The pace. Their pace for some time was firmly governed. When horsemen, too valorous to be thinking of