Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/105

THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 83 through it, but also, having a weight of numbers chap which, for the moment, stood as that of an army to a regiment, he already had made bold to be driving his cavalry at the very heart of the Eng- lish resources, when the Turkish battalions — troops constituting two-thirds of that small and last body of foot with which Campbell yet sought to withstand his assailant — dissolved all at once into a horde of fugitives thronging down in despair to the port. If, in such a condition of things, some few hundreds of infantry men stood shoulder to shoulder in line, confronting the victor upon open ground, and maintaining, from first to last, their composure, their cheerful- ness, nay, even their soldierly mirth, they proved themselves by a test which was other than that of sharp combat, but hardly, perhaps, less trying. And the Highlanders whilst in this joyous Thonewfoe mood were not without a subject of merriment ; bytheTurki for they saw how the Turks in their flight met a flight. new and terrible foe. There came out from the camp of the Highland regiment a stalwart and angry Scotch wife, with an uplifted stick in her hand ; and then, if ever in history, the fortunes of Islam waned low beneath the manifest ascendant of the cross ; for the blows dealt by this Christian woman fell thick on the backs of the Faithful. She believed, it seems, that, besides being guilty of running away, the Turks meant to pillage her camp ; and the blows she delivered were not mere expressions of scorn, but actual and fierr*