artillery, Prince Napoleon and St. Arnaud's reserves were jammed
together in the bottom of the valley. We see, as though on the
spot, the advance, irregular and unsupported, of Codrington's
brigade, their dash into the Great Redoubt and subsequent
disorderly retreat; the enemy checked by the two guns from Lord
Raglan's knoll and by the steadiness of the Royal Fusiliers; the
repulse of the Scots Fusiliers and the peril which hung over the
event; then the superb advance of Guards and Highlanders up the
hill, thin red line against massive columns, which determined
finally the action.

The interest of the Balaclava fight centres in the two historic
cavalry charges. Here again, from his position on the hill above,
Kinglake witnessed both; the first, clear in smokeless air, the
second lost in the volleying clouds which filled the valley of
death. He saw the enormous mass of Russian cavalry, 3,500 sabres,
flooding like an avalanche down the hill with a momentum which
Scarlett's tiny squadron could not for a moment have resisted;
their unexplained halt, the three hundred seizing the opportunity
to strike, digging individually into the Russian ranks, the scarlet
streaks visibly cleaving the dense grey columns. Inwedged and
surrounded, in their passionate blood frenzy, with ceaseless play
of whirling sword, with impetus of human and equestrian weight and
strength, the red atoms hewed their way to the Russian rear,
turned, worked back, emerged, reformed; while the 4th and 5th
Dragoons, the Royals, the 1st Inniskillings, dashed upon the amazed
column right, left, front, till the close-locked mass headed slowly
up the hill, ranks loosened, horsemen turned and galloped off, a
beaten straggling herd. Eight minutes elapsed from the time when
Scarlett gave the word to charge, until the moment when the