THE MAIN FIGHT. 275 band .seemed to drop, and become altogether ex- chap. tinguislied, the actual truth being, however, that ^^' whilst several of the twenty were indeed at this ^'^ Period. moment laid low, some others, including the Cap- tain himself, yet remained unstricken, though being now fewer than ever and disparted, and mingled in close strife with their adversaries, they had ceased to be discernible at even a few paces distant. These survivors fought hard. Burnaby receiving the bayonet thrust of an eager assailant in the folds of his cloak, gave the point of his sword to two others ; and, his men closing fast and wrestling, as it were, with their nearest antagonists, the column, without being for an in- stant disheartened or turned from its purpose, was still so hampered and baffled by the hindrances resulting from these bodily combats, as to be either stopped dead, or at all events grievously retarded in its onward course, and this at a time when moments were precious, for our troops in charge of the colours had been all this while forcing their way through or past the intercept- ing battalion, and having now shaken it off,* they were gaining upon the other — the Okhotsk — body of infantry, thus obstructed in its eager pursuit P)ancroft, Archer, and Turner, by this time had been all three of them wounded ; whilst Troy and PuUen and Hill were not only living, but
- The intercepting — the lakoutsk — battalion had been
maimed, as we saw, by the defeat which a part of it suffered when charged and cut through by Wolseley. The line of re- treat for the lakoutsk troops was towards the head of the Quarry Ravine.
