into a squadron for our rescue, for which purpose it was he had so unceremoniously left us. Heavy as the rain was and thick the weather, yet the French could not but have seen the confusion we were in, as they had closed up to the entrance of the enclosure; and yet they did not at once take advantage of it. Things could not remain long in this state. A heavy column of cavalry approached us by the chaussée, whilst another, skirting the enclosures, appeared pushing forward to cut us off. Retreat now became imperative. The order was given, and away we went, helter-skelter--guns, gun-detachments, and hussars all mixed _pêle-mêle_, going like mad, and covering each other with mud, to be washed off by the rain, which, before sufficiently heavy, now came down again as it had done at first in splashes instead of drops, soaking us anew to the skin, and, what was worse, extinguishing every slow-match in the brigade. The obscurity caused by the splashing of the rain was such, that at one period I could not distinguish objects more than a few yards distant. Of course we lost sight of our pursuers altogether, and the shouts and halloos, and even laughter, they had at first sent forth were either silenced or drowned in the uproar of the elements and the noise of our too rapid retreat; for in addition to everything else the crashing and rattling of the thunder were most awful, and the glare of the lightning blinding. In this state we gained the bridge of Genappe at the moment when the thundercloud, having passed over, left us in comparative fine weather, although still raining heavily. The town of Genappe stands on the slope of a hill rising immediately from the little verdant valley through which the Lys flows--here little better than a brook. Arrived at the bridge, we slackened our pace, and ascended leisurely the narrow winding street, in which not a living soul was visible. The shutters were all closed, and stream of water pouring from the roofs formed a perfect torrent of the gutter running down the middle of it. This solitude was rather a disappointment, for I had hoped here to have got fire to relight our slow-match. For the last mile or so we had neither seen nor heard anything of our lively French friends, and now silently wound our way up the deserted street, nothing disturbing its death-like stillness save the iron sound of horses’ feet, the rumbling of the carriages, and the splashing of water as it fell from the eaves,--all this was stillness compared with the hurly-burly and din from which we had just emerged. On gaining the high ground beyond the town, we suddenly came in sight of the main body of our cavalry drawn up across the chaussée in two lines, and extending away far to the right and left of it.