I struggled hard, but they fairly bore me to
the ground. The reader will well believe, that at this juncture I
expected nothing else than instant death; but at the moment when I fell,
a blow upon the head with the butt-end of a musket dashed out the brains
of the man who kept his hold upon my sword-arm, and it was freed. I saw
a bayonet pointed to my breast, and I intuitively made a thrust at the
man who wielded it. The thrust took effect, and he dropped dead beside
me. Delivered now from two of my enemies, I recovered my feet, and found
that the hand which dealt the blow to which my preservation was owing,
was that of Charlton. There were about ten men about him. The enemy in
our front were broken, and we dashed through. But we were again hemmed
in, and again it was fought hand to hand, with that degree of
determination, which the assurance that life and death were on the
issue, could alone produce. There cannot be a doubt that we should have
fallen to a man, had not the arrival of fresh troops at this critical
juncture turned the tide of affairs. As it was, little more than a third
part of our picquet survived, the remainder being either killed or
taken; and both Charlton and myself, though not dangerously, were
wounded. Charlton had received a heavy blow upon the shoulder, which
almost disabled him; whilst my neck bled freely from a thrust, which the
intervention of a stout leathern stock alone hindered from being fatal.
But the reinforcement gave us all, in spite of wounds and weariness,
fresh courage, and we renewed the battle with alacrity.
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