Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/300

 278 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. chap, right troop passed in through the battery, and pushed on beyond the limbers and tumbrils which were in rear of the guns. Then the regi- ment was halted. The Eussians who stood gathered in the most immediate proximity to the 11th Hussars were a confused number, including, it seems, artillery- men and cavalry. They were in a state of appar- ent helplessness ; and one of their officers, not disguised, as was usual, in the grey outer-coat of the soldiers, but wearing the epaulettes of a' full colonel, came up, bare-headed, to the stirrup of Lieutenant Eoger Palmer, and voluntarily deli- vered his sword to him. Palmer handed over the sword to a corporal or sergeant at his side, and did not of course molest the disarmed officer, though the condition of things was not such as to allow of taking and securing prisoners. > It soon appeared, however, that this tendency to utter surrender was not as yet general ; for when the crowd cleared and made off, it disclosed to the 11th Hussars some squadrons of Paissian Lancers formed up and in perfected order.* who might be comparing this narrative with the official ac- counts of the Eussians, would have some right to ask what Lancers these could be, because Jeropkine's Lancers (called by the Russians the ' Combined Lancers ') were not in this part of the field, and the official accounts mention no other Lancers. It is, however, a fact proved decisively by the evidence of our officers, that both in the heavy cavalry charge and upon this occasion, squadrons of Lancers (not Cossacks) were present. Supposing that the Russian ollicial accounts did not actually omit any forces really present, the solution, 1 believe, is this :
 * These were not Cossacks, but regular Lancers. A reader