THE MAIN FIGHT. 201 the appearance which our people observed; but chap. soldiers oi'ten harbour the fancy that impending L_ fate casts its shadow on the countenance of a man *""' ■ who is doomed, and General Pennefather, in the midst of his wrath with Colonel de Camas, was softened a little by seeing — for so he imagined he did, and that, too, with absolute certainty — that the Frenchman ' had death on his face.' * The battalion under this treatment exerted a hard self-restraint, but still through its ranks there travelled a murmur of acrid rage. The rudeness, nay almost the violence, with impatience which some of our people permitted themselves people witk to treat these two French battalions may be more battalions. or less palliated by alleging the excitement of the fight and the stress of crying emergencies, but still was very obviously wrong, and even, more- over, unjust. Our own reinforcements, it is true, upon reaching the field, had suffered themselves to be drawn into any part of the fight where they heard they were specially needed, and this they had done without waiting for the sanction of rightful authority ; but, however brilliant the feats which had hitherto resulted from this im- petuous course of action, it was one of a danger- ous kind, and very much less appropriate now than in the earliest hour of the battle. The two fresh battalions had come up at a season which was ripe for well-planned operations under the
- A prophecy or rather 'prognosis' of this kind is not often
mentioned unless it has heen fulfilled. For the mournful ful- filment in this instance, see post.
