Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/409

 COMBAT OF THE 26TH OF OCTOBER. 387 ing that any good troops could well have. The chap. few left to strive with the many discovered, and !__ discovered with glee, that against extravagant odds they could stand combating Eussian infantry for an indefinite time, losing ground indeed, little by little, when coerced by turning movements, but suffering no ruinous carnage, and not having one man taken prisoner. From the success of such an experiment, even if it had been carried no further, they could hardly have failed to acquire a strong sense of their relative power ; but this lesson of course impressed them more forcibly still, when they saw that their interesting and even amusing strife against numbers was crowned all at once with a victory. In reality, as we know, Evans so drew advantage from the valour of the pickets, and the sure quality of all his infantry, that he soon became the master of the combat, and determined its issue at exactly the time he judged best by his use of the artillery arm ; but this was a truth hardly evident to the English foot-soldier engaged out in front with the enemy. He of course heard the roar of the cannon, and with more or less certainty knew that flights of round-shot and shell were passing over his head, but still he looked chiefly, as was natural, to his own particular task ; and when, after a lengthened struggle, maintained at huge odds, he found the hostile crowd at length receding before him, and began to advance in pursuit, he imagined that the result must be owing entirely to the inferior quality of the Russian troops. He