THE MAIN FIGHT. 355 noiili side ; but all liis efforts proved vain, and the chap. defeated masses, still pursued by the men of the ' 21st and G3d, poured down by the line of the ^<^i'«riod. Post-road as well as by the old country track pursued by through the entrance oi the Quarry Iiavine. tinougii tim p 1 /-.o 1 eiitiaiRe of On his chestnut near the colours oi the bod, the Quarry Ravine. and exposed to the fire they were drawing, Colonel Swyny had been welcoming Dalzell (his senior Major), saying genially, ' Yes, I knew you were ' on duty in the trenches, l)ut like a good fellow ' you've come, and I'm glad to have you here. 'Go and bring up the left;'* and then — little thinking, perhaps, that the officer he had greeted would presently become his successor — he gave the ear to his Adjutant, Lieutenant Robert Ben- nett, who rode up to ask for instructions. Bennett, pointing to the unbridled rush of our soldiery past both the flanks of the Barrier, said : — ' Had we not better stop them?' The Colonel looked keenly ahead, as though weighing the answer he would give, then suddenly dropped coionei out of his saddle ; and, the adjutant being at kiued. this moment stricken, and his horse too receiving a shot, and ramping up into the air, there was pre- sently a wreck on the ground, the colonel lying slain by a ball through the head, the adjutant severely wounded, the charger dying or dead.
- Major the Honble. Robert Dalzell had been the field-officer
in the trenches during the day and the night of the 4th November, and when relieved from that duty on the moniing of the battle, had come up in time to take part in the charge described anil. Second Period, sec. xviii.
