Foiled in his first attack, Ney drew the whole of Kellerman's division--thirty-seven squadrons, eleven of cuirassiers, six of carabineers, and the Bed Lancers of the Guard--into the whirlpool of his renewed assault, and this time the mass, though it came forward more slowly, was almost double in area. Gleaming with lance and sword and cuirass, it undulated as it crossed the broken slopes, till it seemed a sea, shining with 10,000 points of glancing steel, in motion. The British squares, on the reverse slope, as they obeyed the order, "Prepare to receive cavalry!" and fell grimly into formation, could hear the thunder of the coming storm--the shrill cries of the officers, the deeper shouts of the men, the clash of scabbard on stirrup, the fierce tramp of the iron-shod hoofs. Squadron after squadron came over the ridge, like successive human waves; then, like a sea broken loose, the flood of furious horsemen inundated the whole slope on which the squares were drawn up. But each square, a tiny, immovable island of red, with its fringe of smoke and steel and darting flame, stood doggedly resolute. No French leader, however daring, ventured to ride home on the very bayonets. The flood of maddened men and horses swung sullenly back across the ridge, while the British gunners ran out and scourged them with grape as they rode down the slope. From four o'clock to six o'clock this amazing scene was repeated. No less than thirteen times, it was reckoned, the French horsemen rode over the ridge, and round the squares, and swept back wrecked and baffled. In the later charges they came on at a trot, or even a walk, and they rode through the British batteries and round the squares, in the words of the Duke of Wellington, "as if they owned them." So dense was the smoke that sometimes the British could not see their foes until, through the whirling blackness, a line of lances and crested helmets, or of tossing horse-heads, suddenly broke. Sometimes a single horseman would ride up to the very points of the British bayonets and strike at them with his sword, or fire a pistol at an officer, in the hope of drawing the fire of the square prematurely, and thus giving his comrades a chance of breaking it. With such cool courage did the British squares endure the fiery rush of the French cavalry, that at last the temper of the men grew almost scornful. They would growl out, "Here come these fools again," as a fresh sweep of horsemen came on. Sometimes the French squadrons came on at a trot; sometimes their "charge" slackened down to a walk. Warlike enthusiasm had exhausted itself. "The English squares and the French squadrons," says Lord Anglesey, "seemed almost, for a short time, hardly taking notice of each other."