THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 291 musket-ball, his horse being also struck b) r shot chap. in two places.* ' Lord Lucan was not, however, disabled by the wound ; and, continuing his advance, he passed quickly so far down the valley as to be on ground nearly parallel with the Arabtabia Eedoubt : -f- but the distance between his two brigades, which he thus, as it were, sought to span or bridge over by his personal presence, was increasing with each stride of our Light Cavalry squadrons. Growing more and more faint to the sight, those splendid, doomed squadrons were sinking and sinking into the thick bank of smoke which now closed in the foot of the valley ; and even if no new motive had interposed, Lord Lucan could scarcely have with- held his decision many moments more. What hap- pened, however, was that, upon looking back, he perceived the Eoyals and the Greys to be under- going a destructive cross-fire ; and then, at all events, if it had not done so before, the terrible question forced itself upon him, and peremptorily exacted a decision. Should he risk the loss of his The ques. second brigade by flinging it after his first, or sub- forced mit to one disaster (if disaster it was to be) for attention the sake of avoiding fresh hazards ? He was the link which connected one brigade with the other ; and so long as he might choose to hold fast to each, he would be realising his own conception of
- The apparently absolute indifference of Lord Lucan under
this fire was specially remarked by an officer — not at all an ad- mirer of his divisional chief — whose testimony enabled me to make the statement contained in a former page — p. 10. + The same as Number Three Redoubt.
