Hearing these words, the band again raised their terrific war-cry, overpowering the rattling sound of the musketry, and rushed impetuously to meet the charge which the advancing troops of fierce Cossacks seemed about to make. On both parties rushed, shrieking in their eagerness; their eyes starting from their sockets; their sabres clenched firmly in their hands; the hoofs of their steeds spurning the soil, and foam flying from their nostrils. The meeting crash of the hostile cavalry was terrific; but many of the first ranks of the Cossacks were overthrown by the superior agility of the Circassian warriors, their active steeds well seconding their riders, as their swords whirled rapidly round their heads, and descended with tremendous force on the unguarded bodies of their foes, whose sabres were shivered against their steel breast-plates and helmets. So fierce was the onslaught of the mountaineers, that the sturdy horsemen of the plain recoiled at first before their desperate charge. They might have succeeded in cutting their way through the ranks of their opponents, had they not been already weakened, and their numbers thinned by the deadly fire of the infantry, who continued to harass their rear from a distance; part only as yet having reached the spot to which the combat had been removed. These were kept at bay by a few horsemen who wheeled rapidly again and again when they ventured to approach; caring but little for the infantry, whom they despised now that their guns were destroyed; yet the force of the Cossacks was almost overpowering, so that nothing but the most determined and desperate bravery would have excited the Circassians to persist in the unequal combat. Their movements too were impeded by the women. The young Ina, undaunted amid the scene of desperate strife, endeavoured to urge her palfrey to her father's side; and was almost surrounded by the enemy, when the chieftain hewed his way towards her, and cleared a passage for her escape. Yet, notwithstanding the most heroic and desperate fighting, the Circassians were at length driven back towards the river, when nothing seemed to remain for them but to sell their lives dearly, or to yield themselves as prisoners to their detested foes. The courage of the chieftain, even then, quailed not before the danger; but he thought of his loved Ina, and what her fate might be should he fall. Again shouting their war-cry, his clansmen rallied round him, having retreated a short space to renew the charge. On they rushed with a furious shock; but it was only to find the hopelessness of their attempt.