"They had not: on the contrary, shortly before I escaped, an aid-de-camp was despatched to Gembloux, to hasten his coming. And the troops, for they must be troops, debouching from the wood yonder—they seem to form a junction with the corps to the right—they are the Prussians. They arrived there before noon from St. Lambert, and are part of Bülow's corps. Count Löbau and his division of ten thousand men were despatched, about an hour since, to hold them in check."
"This is great news," said Lord Uxbridge. "Fitzroy must know it at once."
So saying he dashed spurs into his horse, and soon disappeared amid the crowd on the hill top.
"You had better see the Duke, Sir," said Graham: "your information is too important to be delayed. Captain Calvert, let this officer have a horse; his own is too tired to go much further."
"And a cap, I beg of you," added I, in an under tone; "for I have already found a sabre."
By a slight circuitous route, we reached the road upon which a mass of dismounted artillery-carts, baggage-wagons, and tumbrils, were heaped together as a barricade against the attack of the French dragoons, who more than once had penetrated to the very crest of our position. Close to this, and on a little rising ground, from which a view of the entire field extended from Hougoumont to the far left, the Duke of Wellington stood, surrounded by his staff. His eye was bent upon the valley before him, where the advancing columns of Ney's attack still pressed onwards; while the fire of sixty great guns poured death and carnage into his lines. The second Belgian division, routed and broken, had fallen back upon the twenty-seventh regiment, who had merely time to throw themselves into square, when Milhaud's cuirassiers, armed with a terrible long straight sword, came sweeping down upon them. A line of impassable bayonets, a living chevaux-de-frise of the best blood of Britain, stood firm and motionless before the shock: the French mitraille played mercilessly on the ranks; but the chasms were filled up like magic, and in vain the bold horsemen of Gaul galloped round the bristling files. At length the word "fire!" was heard within the square, and as the bullets at pistol range rattled upon them, the cuirass afforded them no defence against the deadly volley. Men and horses rolled indiscriminately upon the earth: then would come a charge of our dashing squadrons, who, riding recklessly upon the foe, were, in their turn, to be repulsed by numbers, when fresh attacks would pour down upon our unshaken infantry.
"That column yonder is wavering: why does he not bring up his supporting squadrons?" inquired the Duke, pointing to a Belgian regiment of light dragoons, who were formed in the same brigade with the seventh hussars.
"He refuses to oppose his light cavalry to cuirassiers, my lord," said an aid-de-camp, who had just returned from the division in question.
"Tell him to march his men off the ground," said the Duke, with a quiet and impassive tone.
In less than ten minutes the regiment was seen to defile from the mass, and take the road to Brussels, to increase the panic of that city, by circulating and strengthening the report, that the English were beaten,—and Napoleon in full march upon the capital.