I was furious, and led a final charge myself.

Their muskets, foul with continual firing, would not go off, but the men had drawn up, six deep, with their bayonets pointed at the noses of our horses; you might have taken them for a wall.

I was shouting, urging on my dragoons, and spurring my horse forward, when the officer I have mentioned, at length throwing away his cigar, pointed me out to one of his men, and I heard him say something like _'Al capello bianco!'_--I wore a white plume.

Then I did not hear any more, for a bullet passed through my chest.

That was a splendid battalion, M.della Rebbia, that first battalion of the Eighteenth--all of them Corsicans, as I was afterward told!" "Yes," said Orso, whose eyes had shone as he listened to the story.
"They covered the retreat, and brought back their eagle.