creating amongst the Russians, as he plunged in bareheaded amongst
their ranks, the belief that he was sheltered by some Satanic
charm. He notes on the Alma the singular pause of sound maintained
by both armies just before the cannonade began; the first death--of
an artilleryman riding before his gun--a new sight to nine-tenths
of those who witnessed it; {18} the weird scream of exploding
shells as they rent the air around. He crossed the Alma close
behind Lord Raglan, cantering after him to the summit of a
conspicuous hillock in the heart of the enemy's position, whence
the mere sight of plumed English officers scared the Russian
generals, and, followed soon by guns and troops, governed the issue
of the fight. The general's manner was "the manner of a man
enlivened by the progress of a great undertaking without being
robbed of his leisure. He spoke to me, I remember, about his
horse. He seemed like a man who had a clue of his own and knew his
way through the battle." When the last gun was fired Kinglake
followed the Chief back, witnessed the wild burst of cheering
accorded to him by the whole British army, a manifestation, Lord
Burghersh tells us, which greatly distressed his modesty--and dined
alone with him in his tent on the evening of the eventful day.

If Lord Raglan was the Hector of the Crimean Iliad, its Agamemnon
was Lord Stratford: "king of men," as Stanley called him in his
funeral sermon at Westminster; king of distrustful home Cabinets,
nominally his masters, of scheming European embassies, of insulting
Russian opponents, of presumptuous French generals, of false and
fleeting Pashas (Le Sultan, c'est Lord Stratford, said St. Arnaud),
of all men, whatever their degree, who entered his ambassadorial
presence. Ascendency was native to the man; while yet in his teens
we find Etonian and Cambridge friends writing to him deferentially