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2 GO THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. chap, much what might have been expected from men ' who had received such instructions as these. Two of them only, in the first instance, came up close to him, and these not, as I gather, in a truc- ulent way, for they seemed as though they would have liked to make him prisoner. Lord Cardigan, however, showing no signs of an intention to sur- render, they began to assail him with their lances, and for a moment his demeanour was like that of a man who regarded the movements of the Cos- sacks as disorderly rather than hostile ; for — full of high scorn at the wretchedness of their nags — he sat up stiff in his saddle, and kept his sword at the slope. Presently, however, he found him- self slightly wounded by a thrust received near the hip, and in peril of being unhorsed by a lance which caught hold of him by the pelisse, and nearly forced him out of his saddle. Yet that last effort seems to have been made by a Cossack who was himself almost in retreat ; for the man at the time had his back half turned to Lord Car- digan, and the thrust he delivered was the one known to science by the name of the ' right rear ' point.' The assailant had possibly learnt by this time that his comrades a little way off were flying from the English cavalry, and that he must not be too slow in conforming. i.or.i It was right, of course, that instead of submit- Cardigan . . Lag ting to be taken prisoner, or to be butchered himself from ° r bis Cossack by overwhelming numbers, Lord Cardigan, being Msailauts : J ° . . nearly alone, and altogether unaided, should dis- engage himself, if he could, from the reach of his