THE MAIN FIGHT. 133 Because provoked by a special emergency, and CHAP. bending off at the angle which that emergency L_ dictated, the onset of the left flank company has ^" ^*'"**^ been hitherto regarded under a separate aspect; but — preceding the action of the other three com- panies by moments so few as to be hardly ap- preciable by our own people, still less by their adversaries — it formed part, after all, of the charge in which the whole wing was concurring. So, retrieving as well as one can this untimely though enforced interruption, and coming back once more to Egerton, we must remember the order he gave, ' Halt ! then fire a volley, and
- charge ! '
The foremost of the Russians had not long stopped their advance, when across the dim, narrow space, now dividing them from Egerton's force, they heard English words of command. They saw their foe come to a halt. They saw his long hedgerow of firelocks, now engrafted with bayonets, bend down, come level, then blaze, and in the instant a pitiless volley tore through their loose masses in front, and swept down like a blast on the face of the column behind them. Then, from under the new ridge of smoke which Eger- ton's troops by this fire had piled uj) along their whole line, there rose the ' Hurrah I ' of the Eng- rne vouey lish, as though in some outburst of joy. Whilst ^^^^l^ the Russians yet listened to the roar of their '=^"*'^*- enemy's welcome, all before them lay still wrapt in cloud ; but presently, those who stood calm, and could look in the eye of the storm, saw here
