Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/295

BATTLE or THE ALMA. 2G9 English array; and, coming as it did from the chap, extreme right of the enemy's position, this last ' attack was aimed almost straight at the file — the lile of only two men — which closed the line of the 93d. But some witchcraft, the doomed men might fancy, was causing the earth to hear giants. Ahove the crest or swell of ground on the left rear of the 93d, yet another array of the tall bending ])]umcs began to rise up in a long, ceaseless line, stretching tar into the east; and presently, in all the grace and beauty that marks a Highland regiment when it springs up the side of a hill, the 79th came bounding forward. Without a halt, or with only the halt that was needed for dressing the ranks, it advanced upon the flank of the right Sousdal column, and caught the mass in its sin — caught it daring to march across the front of a Highland battalion — a battalion already near, and swiftly advancing in line. Wrapped in the fire thus poured upon its flank, the hapless column could not march, could not live. It broke, and Defe.it of began to fall back in great confusion ; and the Russ'ian left Sousdal column being almost at the same time overthrown by the 93d, and the two columns which had engaged the 'Black Watch' being now in full retreat, the spurs of the hill and the wind- ing dale beyond became thronged with the enemy's disordered masses. Then, again, they say, there was heard the sorrowful wail that bursts from the heart of the brave Russian infantry when they have to suffer