A moment’s respite to re-form in the hollows below, and back they came once more, in the face of a fearful fire from our artillery, whose guns were double-shotted--some loaded with scattering grape and canister. Lanes, sickening to behold, were torn through the squadrons; but Milhaud’s men were not to be daunted, and the same strange scene was repeated many times. A small body of Cuirassiers that had surrendered was being escorted to the rear by a weak party of the 7th Hussars, when they made a bold dash for liberty along the Nivelle road, stampeding, _ventre à terre_, until they reached the _abattis_ at the end of the Hougoumont avenue. Here they met Ross’s company of the 51st, who killed eight men and twelve horses, the rest--about sixty--surrendering again. One artilleryman was seen, under his gun, dodging a French trooper, who tried to reach him with his long sword. After some moments the cuirassier’s horse was shot, and the gunner, sallying out, hit him over the head with his rammer, and packed him off to the rear with a parting kick. [Illustration: DEFENCE OF LA HAYE SAINTE BY THE GERMAN LEGION (_p._ 66).] The ridge was once more cleared, and Mercer’s battery brought into the front line. The whole field was now littered with corpses and accoutrements. Gaily-dressed trumpeters, and officers on whose breasts hung crosses of the Legion of Honour, lay bleeding in the barley among hundreds of dead and wounded horses. Here a lancer in green and light blue, there a heap of cuirassiers of the 1st Regiment, mown down by grape shot; yonder a _chasseur-à-cheval_, propped against his charger, while swords and cuirasses were almost as numerous as the stalks of corn. All the slope was torn and trampled; flies were busy in the now loathsome hollows; there was constant firing still at Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, when the trumpets sounded again, and with _seventy-seven_ squadrons, including the cavalry of the Guard, France returned to the charge. Every arm of the mounted service was represented in this attack, the beauty and brilliancy of the uniforms baffling description. Carabiniers, white-coated, with brass cuirasses and red-crested helmets; Lancers, Dragoons, and Chasseurs in green, with facings of every hue; the Red Lancers of the Guard, clad in scarlet from head to heel, and Napoleon’s own favourite _Chasseurs-à-cheval_, with hussar caps and red pelisses, richly braided with orange lace; tall bearskinned Horse Grenadiers, with white facings to their blue coats; the Cuirassiers, dark and sombre looking; the high felt shakoes of the Hussars--it was as though a flower garden in all its summer dress were moving at a slow trot upon us, heralded by the thunder of hell from the batteries behind it.