the four outspread fingers of the human hand. The little finger represents the Causeway Heights, the fore-finger the parallel range called the Fedioukine Hills. Betwixt these ran the North Valley, up which the Russian cavalry and guns-representing the second and third fingers-had advanced. But the charge of the Heavy Brigade had flung this force back; the valley was empty, the two central fingers, so to speak, being doubled back. But there remained the parallel heights crowned by Russian batteries, corresponding to the outer fingers of the hand, while the position of the knuckles' of the reverted fingers was occupied by a battery of eighteen guns, with at least 400 cavalry drawn up in their rear as a support. Raglan meant the cavalry to attack the tip of the little finger. Lucan understood him to mean that the cavalry was to be launched down a mile and a quarter of level turf under the cross-fire of the hills the whole way, on the eighteen guns at the eastern end of the parallelogram. This was a simply lunatic performance, but Lucan considered he had no choice but to undertake it.

He rode to Cardigan, told him what was to be done, and that the Light Cavalry must lead. Cardigan brought down his sword in salute, said, 'Certainly, sir; but the Russians have a battery in our front, and riflemen and batteries on both flanks.' Lucan shrugged his shoulders, and said, 'We have no choice but to obey'; whereupon Cardigan turned quietly to his men and said, "The brigade will advance,' and set off on the ride which has become immortal, saying to himself, as he moved off, 'Here goes the last of the Brudenells.'

The brigade numbered a little over 600 men, seven dainty glittering squadrons, the perfection of military splendour. When the brigade was in full movement the 17th Lancers and the 13th Light Dragoons formed the first line, the 8th and 11th Hussars and 4th Light Dragoons the second line, under the command of Lord George Paget. Lord Cardigan, quite alone, led. Nolan joined in the charge, but before the brigade had moved a hundred paces he galloped across its head from left to right, shouting and waving his sword. To Cardigan's martinet soul this was an indecorous performance, which kindled in him a flame of anger that lasted at white-heat through the whole fatal charge; but Nolan had, as a matter of fact, discovered the tragical mistake that was being made, and tried to divert the brigade to the true point of attack, the Causeway Heights. That moment a Russian

shell—the first fired-exploded in front of Nolan, and instantly killed him. His horse, freed from the rider's hand, wheeled and galloped back on the front of the brigade, Nolan, though dead, sitting erect in the saddle, with sword uplifted, his death-cry still ringing in the air.

Meanwhile from the heights above, the spectators, to their horror, saw the double lines of English horsemen turn their heads straight up the fatal valley, and begin their famous ride into the mouth of hell. The heights on either side broke into a blast of flame, the white smoke swept across the valley, and within that wall of drifting smoke the gallant lines vanished, their trail already marked by fallen men and horses. Cardigan led magnificently. He chose the flash of the central gun in the battery across the head of the valley, and rode steadily, and without looking back, upon it. The galloping lines behind him quickened as the scourging of the cross-fire became more deadly, but Cardigan put his sword across the breast of the officer who led the Lancers, and bade him not to ride before the leader of his brigade. Fast rode the lines, and fast fell the men, and the iron bands of discipline began to relax. The eager troopers could not be restrained from darting forward in front of their officers, the racing spirit broke out, the thunder of hoofs behind Cardigan pressed ever closer. He could not keep down the pace, but he would not let it outrun him, and his own stride grew swifter, until the thoroughbred he rode was at full speed. When he was within eighty yards of the great battery, it fired its final blast. Half of the British line went down; not more than sixty horsemen were left untouched, and, with Cardigan still leading, they drove thundering through the smoke upon guns and gunners. They saw the brass cannon gleam before them, their mouths hot with the flame of the last discharge.

Cardigan dashed betwixt two of the pieces, his men broke over them, and fiercely hewed down the artillerymen. Morris, who led the Lancers, took the survivors of his squadron-some twenty horsemen—forward with a rush past the battery, full upon the cavalry behind. Morris himself drove his sword to the very hilt through the officer who stood in front of the Russian squadrons, and the Russian tumbled from his horse. Morris could not disengage his sword, and was dragged with his slain antagonist to the ground, where the lances of a dozen Cossacks were fiercely thrust into him. He was cruelly wounded, but not killed, and had to

a

surrender, though afterwards he broke away and escaped. His twenty Lancers meanwhile smote the Russian squadrons before them with such fury that they fairly broke them. Cardigan himself raced past the guns to within twenty yards of the Russian cavalry, close enough, indeed, to recognise in one of its officers an acquaintance he had met in London drawing-rooms.

But Cardigan was alone; he turned his horse's head round, and rode back to the captured battery. Up the valley he saw some remnants of the 13th and 17th in retreat, but through the whirls of eddying smoke there were no other men wearing the British uniform in sight. Cardigan concluded that the little cluster of troopers in retreat were the sole survivors of his brigade, and he rode off, and joined them, actually leaving his second line and the survivors of the 17th Lancers still in full conflict. The astonished spectators at the other end of the valley presently saw the leader of the Light Cavalry Brigade emerge alone from the smoke, returning without his brigade.

Meanwhile the second line, led by Lord George Paget, rode as gallantly as the first, but with even worse fortune. They had to ride over the bodies of their comrades who had fallen from the squadrons before them. The riderless horses from those squadrons, too, were a source of confusion. A horse in the horror of a great charge, suddenly finding itself riderless, goes half-mad with terror, and dashes, for mere company's sake, into the moving ranks of the squadrons. Paget, who rode in advance of his line, had at one time no fewer than five riderless horses galloping beside him and squeezing up against him. The officers strove steadily to keep down the pace, and hold the squadrons steady, but they were riding in a

, perfect hail of fire. Still the gallant lines swept onward in good formation, till, suddenly, through the grey smoke, gleamed the brazen mouths of the Russian guns. Then some officer put his hand to his mouth, and delivered a shrill Tally-ho!' The lines instantly broke into a tumult of galloping horsemen, and over the guns broke the British!

The 11th Hussars swept past the flank of the battery, and dashed at the cavalry drawn up in the rear. The 11th, from their cherry-coloured overalls, are familiarly known as the

Cherubims,' and here, says Lord George Paget, was witnessed the astonishing spectacle of forty Cherubims assaulting the entire Russian cavalry-indeed, the Russian army! There were now some 230 British horsemen—all military order gone, but each

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man in the highest mood of warlike fury-hewing fiercely at the Russian gunners or the Russian cavalry, and it is an amazing fact that before that fiery onset the great body of cavalry fell back and back until the mass was practically rent asunder; and then were visible behind them battalions of infantry, falling hastily into square, as though they expected these terrible British horsemen to sweep over them in turn!

The British officers, however, knew that their bolt was shot. They rallied their men, held brief consultation with each other, tried to discover the whereabouts of their first line, and asked one another, Where's Lord Cardigan?' That surprising officer was at that moment safely back in the British lines. The survivors of the heroic brigade turned their heads back, up the fatal valley, and found a line of Russian cavalry drawn betwixt them and safety! The guns, too, were re-manned behind them, and they were caught betwixt the flame of a Russian battery and the lances of Russian cavalry. They never hesitated, however. The cavalry that barred their path was broken through like a hedge of bulrushes, and back from the gates of death' and from the 'jaws of hell' they rode-but not the Six Hundred!'

There is no time to tell how the French had, meanwhile, by a gallant attack of Chasseurs d'Afrique, doubled up the batteries on one flank; and, in units, or in scattered clusters, bloody with wounds, and spent with riding, the wreck of the brigade came out of the smoke, and regained the British lines. As each survivor, or cluster of survivors, appeared, a cheer broke from the slope of the hills, and eager faces and friendly hands welcomed them. Lord George Paget was almost the last man to appear, and amongst the officers who welcomed him was Lord Cardigan, composed and formal as ever. Hullo! Lord Cardigan,' said Paget, 'weren't you there?' When the broken fragments of the squadrons were re-forming, Cardigan looked at them, and broke out, Men, it's a mad-brained trick, but it's no fault of mine.' And it tells the temper of the men that they answered him, 'Never mind, my lord, we're ready to go again!'

Of that mad but heroic charge a hundred incidents are preserved-thrilling, humorous, shocking. A man of the 17th Lancers, for example, was heard to shout, just as they raced in upon the guns, a quotation from Shakespeare-Who is there here. would ask more men from England?' The regimental butcher of the 17th Lancers was engaged in killing a sheep when he heard

the trumpets sound for the charge. He leaped on a horse; in shirt-sleeves, with bare arms and pipe in mouth, rode through the whole charge, slew, it is said, six men with his own hand, and came back again, pipe still in mouth! A private of the 11th was under arrest for drunkenness when the charge began; but he broke out, followed his troop on a spare horse, picked up a sword as he rode, and shared in the rapture and perils of the charge. The charge lasted twenty minutes; and was ever before such daring or such suffering packed into a space so brief! The squadrons rode into the fight, numbering 673 horsemen; their mounted strength, when the fight was over, was exactly 195.

It was all a blunder ; but it evoked a heroism which made the blunder itself magnificent. And as long as brave deeds can thrill the imagination of men the story will be remembered of how

• Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of death,
Into the mouth of hell;

Noble Six Hundred.'
Fate and the poets have been somewhat unkind to Scarlett's Three
Hundred. . Tennyson's lines on them have not the lilt which
makes them live in the ear of a people, though there is an echo
of trampling hoofs in some of the stanzas,

• The trumpet, the gallop, the charge, and the might of the fight,

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