Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/257

 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 235 has not been reluctant to disclose the tenor of chap the ideas which possessed themselves of his mind 1_ whilst he thus led his troops down the valley. From moment to moment he was an expectant of death ; and it seems that death by some cannon- ball dividing his body was the manner of coming to an end which his fancy most constantly harboured ; but there is a waywardness in the human mind which often prevents it from lay- ing a full stress on any one thought, however momentous ; and despite the black prospect of what the next moment might bring, Lord Cardi- gan — not knowing that his anger was with the dead — still dwelt, as he rode, on the incident which had marked the commencement of the advance — still raged, and raged against Nolan for having ridden in front of him, for having called out to his troops * By thus affording dis- traction to one who supposed himself doomed, hot anger for once, it would seem, did the work of faith and philosophy. Lord Cardigan and his first line had come down to within about eighty yards of the mouths of the guns, when the battery delivered a fire from so thought chiefly occupying his mind at this time is confirmed by what we know from other sources of the first utterances to which he gave vent after coming out of the charge. No one was more struck than Lord Cardigan was by the strange and ' unearthly ' shriek which Nolan had uttered ; but oddly enough, he failed to infer that the cry was one immediately preceding death.
 * The accuracy of Lord Cardigan's impression as to the