The charge of the French column was made close to where we were standing,--the inspiriting cheers of the officers, the loud _vivas_ of the men, were plainly heard by us as they rushed to the assault; but the space between us was intersected by walls and brushwood, which totally prevented the movements of cavalry.
Fearlessly their dark column moved up the heights, fixing the bayonets as they went.

No tirailleurs preceded them, but the tall shako of the Grenadier of the Guard was seen in the first rank.

Long before the end of the column had passed us, the leading files were in action.

A deafening peal of musketry--so loud, so dense, it seemed like artillery--burst forth.
A volume of black smoke rolled heavily down from the heights and hid all from our view, except when the vivid lightning of the platoon firing rent the veil asunder, and showed us the troops almost in hand to hand conflict.
"It's Picton's Division, I'm certain," cried Merivale; "I hear the bagpipes of the Highlanders." "You are right, sir," said Hampden, "the Seventy-first are in the same brigade, and I know their bugles well.

There they go again!" "Fourteenth! Fourteenth!" cried a voice from behind, and at the same moment, a staff officer, without his hat, and his horse bleeding from a recent sabre-cut, came up.