Through the whole night the battle still raged furiously. The enemy fought on with reckless, unparalleled daring. Chasseurs and Zouaves, Cuirassiers, Dragoons, and infantry from the Loire and the Rhone struggled desperately, contesting every step, and confident of ultimate victory. But the enemy had at last, by the splendid tactics of the defenders, been forced into a gradually contracting square, bounded by Dorking and Guildford in the north, and Horsham and Billinghurst in the south, and soon after midnight, with a concentric movement from each of the four corners, British Regulars and Volunteers advanced steadily upon the foe, surrounding and slaughtering them. The horrors of that night were frightful; the loss of life on every hand enormous. Britannia had husbanded her full strength until this critical moment; for now, when the fate of her Empire hung upon a single thread, she sent forth her valiant sons, who fell upon those who had desecrated and destroyed their homes, and wreaked a terrible vengeance. Through the dark, sultry hours this awful destruction of life continued with unabated fury, and many a Briton closed with his foe in death embrace, or fell forward mortally wounded. Of British heroes there were many that night, for true pluck showed itself everywhere, and Englishmen performed many deeds worthy their traditions as the most courageous and undaunted among nations. [Illustration: BRITISH BLUEJACKETS MARCHING THROUGH THE STRAND AFTER THE VICTORY.] Although the French Commander-in-chief had been killed, yet the enemy still fought on tenaciously, holding their ground on Leith Hill and through Pasture Wood to Wotton and Abinger, until at length, when the saffron streak in the sky heralded another blazing day, the straggling, exhausted remnant of the once-powerful legions of France and Russia, perspiring, dust-covered, and bloodstained, finding they stood alone, and that the whole of Sussex and Surrey had been swept and their comrades slaughtered, laid down their arms and eventually surrendered. After these three breathless days of butchery and bloodshed England was at last victorious! In this final struggle for Britain's freedom the invader had been crushed and his power broken; for, thanks to our gallant citizen soldiers, the enemy that had for weeks overrun our smiling land like packs of hungry wolves, wantonly burning our homes and massacring the innocent and unprotected, had at length met with their well-merited deserts, and now lay spread over the miles of pastures, cornfields, and forests, stark, cold, and dead. Britain had at last vanquished the two powerful nations that had sought by ingenious conspiracy to accomplish her downfall.