Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/279

THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 257 with his revolver against a Cossack who sought chap. to despatch him ; but presently, from the direc- ' tion of our right rear, other Cossacks, to the number of eight or ten, rode down yelling, with lances poised, and to thes^ (when they circled around him, and made signs that he might have quarter if he would throw down his pistol) Lieu- tenant Chadwick at length surrendered. At this time, and in this part of the field, several of the wounded English who lay on the ground without means of defending themselves were despatched by the Cossacks ; but I have not been compelled to learn that men were guilty of acts such as these where any Russian officer was present. It was before our supports had come down, and whilst the English were still combating in the battery or pushing their onset beyond it, that the enemy, for a moment, was thus able to exercise dominion in rear of Lord Cardigan's first line. Of those who swept on at the instant without continued staying to subdue the resistance of the artillery- by Lord men, Lord Cardigan from the first had been one. in person. After charging into the battery, he continued his onset with but little remission of speed ; and although the smoke was so thick as to put him in danger of crushing his legs against wheels, he pierced his way through at a gallop between the limber-carriages and the tumbrils by a gangway so narrow as hardly to allow a passage for two vol. v. R