Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/272

 250 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. chap, them, so now our horsemen drove in between the L guns ; and some then at the instant tore on to assail the grey squadrons drawn up in rear of the tumbrils. Others stopped to tight in the battery, and sought to make prize of the guns. After a long and disastrous advance against clouds and invisible foes, they grasped, as it were, at reality. What before had been engines of havoc dimly seen or only inferred from the jets of their fire and their smoke, were now burnished pieces of cannon with the brightness and the hue of red gold — cannon still in battery, still hot with the slaughter of their comrades.* In defiance of our cavalry raging fiercely amongst them, the Eussian artillerymen with exceeding tenacity still clung to their guns. Here and there indeed gunners were seen creeping under the wheels for safety, but in general they fought with rare devotion, striving all that men could, in such conditions of fight, against the sabres and lances of horsemen. They desired at all hazards to save their Czar's cannon from capture by removing them in haste from the front ; and apparently it was to cover this operation — an operation they had already begun to attempt — that the gunners, with small means of resistance, stood braving the assaults of dragoons. It so happened that Captain Morris, the officer pounders. Their metal had thai reddish tinge which is ohserv" able in the sovereigns coined of late years by tin; English Mint
 * There is reason for believing that tin pieces were twelve-