As we galloped in sections round the flank of the 51st, and just as that regiment began to fall back from its line of dead and dying, I saw a dreadful episode, caused by the French Artillery. Thrown from a mortar, a cartouche fell amid their ranks, and, by its explosion, in a single moment killed and wounded five officers and sixty rank and file! For the information of the non-military reader, I may state that this deadly missile is a case of wood about three inches thick at the bottom, bound about with marline, holding ten iron balls, each a pound in weight, and four hundred musket-balls. It had been fired from a howitzer on the rocks above the pass, and by one of this dreadful shower of balls the young Prince was wounded in the shoulder. When the retreat began, several of the German regiments fell into confusion, and the French were not slow in taking advantage of it. The task of repelling them fell upon the Scots Greys, with the 1st or King's and 3rd Dragoon Guards, and with enthusiastic cheers we followed the young Prince in a succession of brilliant charges, which drove the enemy back, enabling our unfortunate comrades in the Infantry to make an almost undisturbed retreat. I say almost, for the French, who continued the pursuit till evening, brought up their Flying Artillery, and in the dusk we could plainly see the fiery arcs described by the shells, which the field mortars threw nearly at random to the distance of a thousand yards. So brightly burned the fuses, that we could avoid the falling bombs by scattering, dismounting, and throwing ourselves flat, as their exploding splinters always rise at an angle of several degrees from the earth. On this service, which saved our Infantry from entire capture, few officers distinguished themselves more than Count Keilmansegge, Colonel Preston, and Major Hill of our 1st Dragoon Guards. Our corps lost but one man, who, with his horse, was killed by a single cannon shot that passed between Sergeant Duff and me. By another, the colonel of the 51st was slain. I have elsewhere mentioned two cases of presentiment, one of which was fatally realized at the time, the other afterwards. The leader of the 51st was inspired by a crushing emotion of this kind on that day at Corbach, and as the anecdote is little known, being related in the long since forgotten memoirs of a Scottish officer who served under him, I may quote it here. "My old Lieutenant-Colonel, Noel Fury, was one of the slain. It is said by some that individuals may be visited by an undefined presentiment or mental warning of their approaching fate, though such ideas are treated by others as visionary and impossible. I shall not attempt to enter into a discussion which might lead me into the mazes of metaphysical inquiry, but shall content myself with a simple narrative of what I witnessed on the morning of this engagement.