Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/437

THE MAIN FIGHT. 393 and repeated discomfitures already sustained by chak the Eussians, but the now actual state of the L_ battle as altered by the interposition of our two st'i/'mod overmastering eighteen-pounders, there was reason to trust that his forces, if wielded with vigour and skill, might prove able to end the conflict. Indeed many who witnessed the coming of the Demeanoui •^ *^. . ofthetwo two fresh battalions under Dubos and Wimpfcn fresh bat- ^ taiions. made sure that by those troops alone — irrespec- tively of Bosquet's other resources — the repression already suffered by the enemy must soon be turned into defeat. And it was not in quiet obscurity, with their light hidden under a bushel, that the two fresh battalions came up. Borne along in that swift storm of sound that bursts at such moments from unnumbered French bugles and drums, they came on in two colunms, the black Algerines on the right, the Zouaves on the left : the Algerines bounding like panthers — so Wimpfen their commander described them — and crying already for blood ; the Zouaves now spiinging, now crouching, but always making swift way, for they were led by their vivandi^re gaily moving in her pretty costume fit alike for a dance or a battle, and she did not seem minded to loiter whilst taking her lads into action. IV. But — apparently not knowing the ground and Bosquet's 1 • r. n 1 ? i-i 1 advance to ' hankering alter Hank movements — lieueral UieSaudbag . battery; Bo.squet persisted in the resolve which first made