Thicker fall the dead on every hand, for it is all musketry, and the deep, hoarse boom of the cannon, surging like a stormy sea, roll upon roll. The wounded are crawling, limping, and streaming to the rear; the dead lie close as autumn leaves in Vallombrosa. On stretchers and crossed muskets, officers and men are borne to the riverside, and, reeking with blood, the stretchers return for other victims. Hythe is forgotten now, and all her science of musketry; for no man thinks of sighting his Minie rifle, but all load, and cap, and blaze away at random, though many an officer is shouting, "Steady, men, steady, and aim below the crossbelts." On, yet on, rolls the human surge, for what or who could withstand them—our noble infantry, our 19th and 33rd, our 77th and 88th, as they rush on, with colours flying and loud hurrahs! But now there is a louder cry! Their leader falls! In a cloud of dust both horse and man go down, and for a moment the advance is paralyzed—but for a moment only. Again the grand old soldier is at their head on foot, his sword glittering above his white head, and, reckless of the tremendous fire which sweeps through them, our troops dash at the redoubts—a mighty torrent in scarlet—the flashing bayonets are lowered—man seeks man, ready to grapple body to body with his foe, and the sparks of fire rise in the midst as steel clashes on steel, for the Russian hearts are stout and their hands are strong as ours; the dead and the dying are heaped over each other, to be trampled on and smothered in their blood. Nine hundred of our officers and men fell, killed and wounded, amid the terrible _mêlée_ in the Great Redoubt, and all up the scorched slope that leads to it. In the torn vineyards, and among the leafy abbatis, the poor redcoats are lying thicker than ever I have seen the scarlet poppies stud the harvest fields in Lothian or the Merse! The red dragon of the Royal Welsh is flying on that fatal redoubt, but not yet is the victory ours! Descending from the higher hills, a mighty column of Russian infantry—a double column, composed of the Ouglitz and Vladimir battalions, bearing with them the image of St. Sergius, a solemn trust given to them by the Bishop of Moscow—a supposed miraculous idol, borne in the wars of the Emperor Alexis, of Peter the Great, and Alexander I.—came rushing to the mortal shock, in full confidence of victory. Deploying into line, the great grey mass, with their flat caps and spiked helmets—for the corps were various—came boldly on, and followed up a deadly volley by a powerful bayonet charge. Then the ranks in scarlet, exhausted by their toilsome ascent, began to waver and fall back, followed down hill by the yelling Russian hordes, who had a perfect belief in their own invincibility, and barbarously bayoneted all our wounded as they came on.