THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 321 his charger had just been shot under him. He chap so quickly succeeded in catching and mounting • a stray horse as to be able to join the 4th Light Dragoons when they came on, and advance with them down to the guns. There, however, his newly-caught horse was killed under him (as his own charger had been some minutes before), and, this time, he found himself surrounded by twenty or thirty Russian Lancers, who took from him his sword and his pistol, and made him prisoner. It happened that Captain Morris (then also, as we know, a prisoner and with his head deeply cut and pierced by sabre and lance) was brought to the spot where Wombwell stood ; and it is inter- esting to observe that, in spite of his own dread- ful condition, Morris had still a word of timely counsel that he could give to a brother officer. ' Look out,' he said to Wombwell — ' look out and ' catch a horse.' At that moment, two or three loose horses came up, and Wombwell, darting suddenly forward from between the Russian Lan- cers who had captured him, seized and mounted one of these riderless chargers, and galloped for- ward to meet the 4th Light Dragoons, which he then saw retiring. He succeeded in joining the regiment, and, with it, returned to our lines. When Captain Morris (unhorsed and grievously me escape wounded) found himself surrounded by Russian Morris, dragoons, it was to an officer, as we saw, that he surrendered his sword.* That officer, however, quickly disappeared, and then the Russian horse-
- See ante, p. 256.
VOL. V. X
