Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/292

 270 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. CHAP. I. Men uniler O'Hara. Mayow's charge. His advance 11 pursuit. were only impending, and before they became the assailants. Therefore warning the Lancers that if they remained in the battery they would presently be closed in upon and cut to pieces, he called upon them to push forward. He was obeyed ; but from the way in which, at the time, he chanced to be carrying the pistol then held in his ha- :d, his order was in part mistaken ; for O'Hara supposed that the brigade-major, by pointing, as he seemed to be doing, towards his left front, must be intending to order an advance in that direction. Accordingly O'Hara, with the Lancers acting under his immediate guidance, moved off towards his left front, and there then only remain d about fifteen men who continued to act under Mayow. Putting himself at the head of these last, Mayow led them against a body of Russian cav- alry which stood halted in rear of the guns.* With his handful of Lancers he charged the Prussian horsemen and drove them in on theii second reserve, pushing forward so far as to be at last some five hundred yards in the rear (Rus- sian rear) of the battery, and in sight of the bridge over the aqueduct on the main road which led to Tchorgouu. It may well be imagined that, intruding, as he was, with less than a score of horsemen, into the very rear of the Eussian position, and dealing with a hostile cavalry which numbered itself when Lord Cardigan in person approached it
 * This was probably the body which went about and fronted