in confusion. The French pressed forward and at this point also of the
field, the day was won.

In the mean time the British army had been also engaged. Long before
they came in sight of the point which they were to attack they heard
the roar of cannon on their right, and knew that Bosquet's division
were engaged. As the troops marched over the crest of the rounded
slopes they caught glimpses of the distant fight. They could see
masses of Russian infantry threatening the French, gathered on the
height, watch the puffs of smoke as the guns on either side sent their
messengers of death, and the white smoke which hung over the fleet as
the vessels of war threw their shells far over the heads of the French
into the Russian masses. Soon they heard the louder roar which
proclaimed that the main body of the French army were in action, and
burning with impatience to begin, the men strode along to take their
share in the fight. Until within a few hundred yards of the river the
troops could see nothing of it, nor the village on its banks, for the
ground dipped sharply. Before they reached the brow twelve Russian
guns, placed on rising ground some 300 yards beyond the river, opened
upon them.

"People may say what they like," Harry Archer said to his captain,
"but a cannon-ball makes a horribly unpleasant row. It wouldn't be
half as bad if they would but come silently."

As he spoke a round shot struck down two men a few files to his right.
They were the first who fell in the 33d.

"Steady, lads, steady," shouted the officers, and as regularly as if
on field-day, the English troops advanced. The Rifles, under Major