As the word fell from his lips I nearly leaped from my saddle, and mechanically raised my sabre to cleave him on the spot.
“Then follow me!” shouted he, pointing with his sword to the glistening ranks before us.
“Come on!” said I, with a voice hoarse with passion, while burying my spurs in my horse’s flanks, I sprang on a full length before him, and bore down upon the enemy. A loud shout, a deafening volley, the agonizing cry of the wounded and the dying, were all I heard, as my horse, rearing madly upward, plunged twice into the air, and then fell dead upon the earth, crushing me beneath his cumbrous weight, lifeless and insensible.
The day was breaking; the cold, gray light of morning was struggling through the misty darkness, when I once more recovered my consciousness. There are moments in life when memory can so suddenly conjure up the whole past before us, that there is scarcely time for a doubt ere the disputed reality is palpable to our senses. Such was this to me. One hurried glance upon the wide, bleak plain before me, and every circumstance of the battle-field was present to my recollection. The dismounted guns, the broken wagons, the heaps of dead or dying, the straggling parties who on foot or horseback traversed the field, and the dark litters which carried the wounded, all betokened the sad evidences of the preceding day’s battle.
Close around me where I lay the ground was marked with the bodies of our cavalry, intermixed with the soldiers of the Old Guard. The broad brow and stalwart chest of the Saxon lay bleaching beside the bronzed and bearded warrior of Gaul, while the torn-up ground attested the desperation of that struggle which closed the day.
As my eye ranged over this harrowing spectacle, a dreadful anxiety shot through me as I asked myself whose had been the victory. A certain confused impression of flight and of pursuit remained in my mind; but at the moment, the circumstances of my own position in the early part of the day increased the difficulty of reflection, and left me in a state of intense and agonizing uncertainty. Although not wounded, I had been so crushed by my fall that it was not without pain I got upon my legs. I soon perceived that the spot around me had not yet been visited by those vultures of the battle-field who strip alike the dead and dying. The distance of the place from where the great conflict of the battle had occurred was probably the reason; and now, as the straggling sunbeams fell upon the earth, I could trace the helmet of the Enniskilleners, or the tall bearskin of the Scotch Greys, lying in thick confusion where the steel cuirass and long sword of the French dragoons showed the fight had been hottest. As I turned my eyes hither and thither I could see no living thing near me. In every attitude of struggling agony they lay around; some buried beneath their horses, some bathed in blood, some, with clinched hands and darting eyeballs, seemed struggling even in death; but all was still,—not a word, not a sigh, not a groan was there. I was turning to leave the spot, and uncertain which way to direct my steps, looked once more around, when my glance rested upon the pale and marble features of one who, even in that moment of doubt and difficulty, there was no mistaking. His coat, torn widely open, was grasped in either hand, while his breast was shattered with balls and bathed in gore. Gashed and mutilated as he lay, still the features wore no trace of suffering; cold, pale, motionless, but with the tranquil look of sleep, his eyelids were closed, and his half-parted lips seemed still to quiver in life. I knelt down beside him; I took his hand in mine; I bent over and whispered his name; I placed my hand upon his heart, where even still the life blood was warm,—but he was dead. Poor Hammersley! His was a gallant soul; and as I looked upon his blood-stained corpse, my tears fell fast and hot upon his brow to think how far I had myself been the cause of a life blighted in its hope, and a death like his.
CHAPTER LIV.
BRUSSELS.
Once more I would entreat my reader’s indulgence for the prolixity of a narrative which has grown beneath my hands to a length I had never intended. This shall, however, be the last time for either the offence or the apology. My story is now soon concluded.