BERESFORD now becomes aware of this project on his flank, and sends orders to throw back his right to face the attack. The order is not obeyed. Almost at the same moment the French rush is made, the Spanish and Portuguese allies of the English are beaten beck, and the hill is won. But two English divisions bear from the centre of their front, and plod desperately up the hill to retake it. SPIRIT SINISTER Now he among us who may wish to be A skilled practitioner in slaughtery, Should watch this hour's fruition yonder there, And he will know, if knowing ever were, How mortals may be freed their fleshly cells, And quaint red doors set ope in sweating fells, By methods swift and slow and foul and fair! The English, who have plunged up the hill, are caught in a heavy mist, that hides from them an advance in their rear of the lancers and hussars of the enemy. The lines of the Buffs, the Sixty-sixth, and those of the Forty-eighth, who were with them, in a chaos of smoke, steel, sweat, curses, and blood, are beheld melting down like wax from an erect position to confused heaps. Their forms lie rigid, or twitch and turn, as they are trampled over by the hoofs of the enemy's horse. Those that have not fallen are taken. SPIRIT OF THE PITIES It works as you, uncanny Phantom, wist!... Whose is that towering form That tears across the mist To where the shocks are sorest?--his with arm Outstretched, and grimy face, and bloodshot eye, Like one who, having done his deeds, will die? SPIRIT OF RUMOUR He is one Beresford, who heads the fight For England here to-day. SPIRIT OF THE PITIES He calls the sight Despite itself!--parries yon lancer's thrust, And with his own sword renders dust to dust! The ghastly climax of the strife is reached; the combatants are seen to be firing grape and canister at speaking distance, and discharging musketry in each other's faces when so close that their complexions may be recognized. Hot corpses, their mouths blackened by cartridge-biting, and surrounded by cast-away knapsacks, firelocks, hats, stocks, flint-boxes, and priming horns, together with red and blue rags of clothing, gaiters, epaulettes, limbs and viscera accumulate on the slopes, increasing from twos and threes to half-dozens, and from half-dozens to heaps, which steam with their own warmth as the spring rain falls gently upon them. The critical instant has come, and the English break. But a comparatively fresh division, with fusileers, is brought into the turmoil by HARDINGE and COLE, and these make one last strain to save the day, and their names and lives. The fusileers mount the incline, and issuing from the smoke and mist startle the enemy by their arrival on a spot deemed won. SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]