What the Austrians had suffered during the earlier part of the morning our people were suffering now, only on a more fearful scale.
Yet we gathered from the messenger that they had not retreated a foot, though it was impossible for them to advance.
Our sole hope now lay in Prince Leiningen and the reserve which he commanded.
Klapka had already sent to him, and now Szondi returned with the information that the prince was advancing with reckless bravery against the Austrian left.
Görgei could no longer contain himself. Go forward he must; go forward he would; and if his wound burst out afresh and killed him, as the doctors feared, well--he would not be the only man to die!
I jumped into the saddle and went with the others.
The awful cannonade continued without intermission, and every man who had ever seen a battle felt his heart sink at the thought of the havoc it was committing.
But we did not altogether ride without hope. Another messenger had found the general to tell him that the gallant Leiningen had broken the Austrian left, and we cheered the news heartily.
The story of the fight, as it thus came to us piecemeal, was a succession of ups and downs.
Ill news, it is said, travels apace; and hardly had we finished cheering when a fresh officer brought word that the Russians, by a sharp manoeuvre, had trained their guns on our reserve, and were decimating it.