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Once she heard singing; a small company of cavalry-men straggled by, and, seeing their long lances and their Belgian forage caps, she leaned out and asked what regiment it might be. Somebody answered: "Escort Squad of Rankin's Lancers, 1st United States. Our regiment is in Detroit, Miss, and thank God we're going back there."
They were both natural cavalry-men and of most enterprising natures, ever desirous of pushing to the front and of taking the boldest course.
It was fought at so close quarters that our carbines were never out of range; for had this been otherwise, the long rifles of the enemy would have given them every advantage. With their horses within call, the cavalry-men, in line of battle, stood together like walls of stone, swelling onward like those gradually elevating ridges of which Lyell speaks.
Lying by the side of his dead horse, and surrounded by the bodies of five or six French cavalry-men, lay the sheik. His white dress was dabbled with blood, one side of his face was laid open by a sabre cut, and four or five patches of blood at various points of his dress pointed to the existence of other wounds. Edgar knelt beside him and placed his ear to his heart.
Soldiers of all arms, exasperated staff-officers, excited station officials, guns waiting for their horses and horses waiting for their guns, cavalry-men whose horses had been sent on the wrong train, freight-cars full of ammunition intended for no one knew whom, wagons loaded with camp equipment where food was wanted and with canned goods where forage was needed, long military trains blocking the line between stations, and engines being switched about aimlessly: perfect chaos reigned, and the shortness of the station platforms only added to the confusion and the waste of precious time.
He parried the blow of one of the Federal cavalry-men and the other fell from the saddle, throwing up his hands as he did so. Tom Herbert had placed his pistol on his breast, and shot him through the heart. But by this time the rest had reached us. A sabre flashed above Tom's head; fell, cutting him out of the saddle nearly; and he would have dropped from it, had I not passed my arm around him.
The grave-slabs in a fine old churchyard were strewn with weary cavalry-men, and they lay in some side yards, soundly sleeping.
"First, there come along some cavalry-men, and they burned the depot; then come along some infantry-men, and they tore up the track, and burned it;" and just before he left they had "sot fire to the well." It was a square pit about twenty-five feet deep, boarded up, with wooden steps leading to the bottom, wherein was a fine copper pump, to lift the water to a tank above.
He had conceived hopes of rescuing himself and his comrades, by means of an honourable capitulation, from the perilous position into which he could not but feel that his own obstinacy had brought them. Three of the enemy's officers now approached our camp, two of them Mexican cavalry-men, the third a German who had got into favour with Santa Anna, and had risen to be colonel of artillery.
Soon we saw troops appearing across the ravine, not very far from where we had seen the Spaniards whom we had thought might be Cubans. Again we dared not fire, and carefully studied the new-comers with our glasses; and this time we were right, for we recognized our own cavalry-men.