John felt rather than saw Carstairs and Wharton on either side of him, and the three of them were firing cartridge after cartridge into the light whitish smoke that hung between them and the charging horsemen.

He was devoutly thankful that the Paris regiment was immediately on their right, and that it was led by such a man as Bougainville.

General Vaugirard, he knew, was farther to their left, and now he began to hear the rapid firers, pouring a rain of death upon the cavalry.
"We win! we win!" cried Carstairs.

"If they couldn't beat us down in the first rush they can't beat us down at all!" Carstairs was right.

The French had broken into no panic, and, when, infantry standing firm, pour forth the incessant and deadly stream of death, that modern arms make possible, no cavalry can live before them.
Yet the Germans charged again and again into the hurricane of fire and steel.