"Dead, monsieur, dead! He fell when planting the standard of the 2nd Zouaves on the summit, where you may still see it flying. Poor Captain Victor Baudeuf, who used to flirt so terribly with Rigolboche, and pay such frightful sums for a fauteuil every night she danced, till Mademoiselle Theresa took her place at the cafés chantants—well, he, too, and two hundred of our rank and file, are lying there."
The vivandière wept and wrung her hands.
All great excitements are followed by a painful reaction; and I shall not readily forget the dreary night that followed the day of the Alma.
My troop bivouacked near the old ruined walls that lie on the western flank of the Kourgané Hill.
Vast numbers of dead were lying near; they disturbed us not. But the wounded, the dying—ah, their moans and cries were frightful! I muffled my head in my cloak, and strove to shut out the piteous-sounds, and court sleep beside my jaded charger, close to whose side I crept for warmth.
CHAPTER XLI.
Mine own one! years have passed away
Since I have seen your thoughtful face;
Yet could I every feature trace—
Your image haunts me night and day.
A song brings back the time we walked
Above the brown cliff's sloping lawn;
From music I have even drawn
The very words we used to talk.
The crumbling church, the upland lea,
The river wimpling round the bridge,
The brave grey wold—the far-off ridge,
The mournful singing of the sea.
A few days after the startling telegram reached Calderwood, the newspapers teemed with despatches and details of the victory at the Alma, the flight of the shattered Russian Army towards Baktchiserai, and the advance of the Allies on Sebastopol.
Among those details were the official lists of the killed, wounded, and missing, furnished by the adjutant-general. How many a home in the British Isles did these fatal lists fill with grief? how many a heart they wrung?
Cora Calderwood, pale, and still suffering from the recent shock, read over the lists; but looked in vain for the name of her cousin Newton. It was not among the killed; neither was it among the wounded or the missing. There was no casualty among the officers of the lancers, save the death of Lieutenant Rakeleigh, who was killed by a cannon shot in the affair of Bulganak, on the evening preceding the great battle of the Alma, "and whose body Captain Newton Calderwood Norcliff, with a few lancers, made a gallant attempt to rescue and carry off."