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
Russians broke: we turn from the fifty describing pages,
breathless as though we had ridden in the melley; if the episode
has no historical parallel, the narrative is no less unique.
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