Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/401

COMBAT OF THE 26TH OF OCTOBER. 379 clump of Eussians, and then, with the butt-ends chap. of their rifles, knocked away the foremost of IL their assailants, and ran down to the foot of the bank. There, however, they were in the midst of a mob of Eussians advancing up the ravine. To their great surprise, no one seized them ; and it was evident that, owing to the grey cloaks and plain caps they both wore, the enemy was mistaking them for his own fellow-country- men. Shielded by this illusion, and favoured, too, by the ruggedness of the ground, and obstructive thickets of brushwood, which enabled them to be constantly changing their neighbours without ex- citing attention, they moved on unmolested in the midst of their foes ; and, though strange, it is not the less true, that this singular march was con- tinued along a distance of more than half a mile. At length, with its two interlopers, the Eussian throng came to a halt, and not without a reason, for it was confronted by the sixty men of the Guards, who, after the lengthened retreat they had made when their chief was cut off from them, were now plainly making a stand, and had posted themselves some thirty yards off, behind a little trench, which there seamed the bed of the gorge. Goodlake, with his trusty sergeant, soon crossed the intervening space which divided the Eussians from the English, and found himself once more amongst his own people. When halted in front of Goodlake's men, the separate column was not far from being abreast of