Instantly a squadron of the Lancers trampled forward, facing to the west; but down on their unprotected flank thundered the Confederate cavalry, and from the beginning it had been too late for a counter-charge.

A whirlwind of lancers and gray riders drove madly down the slope, inextricably mixed, shooting, sabering, stabbing with tip and ferrule.

A sabre stroke severed Berkley’s cheek-strap, sheering through visor and button; and he swung his lance and drove it backward into a man’s face.

In the terrible confusion and tangle of men and horses he could scarcely use his lance at all, or avoid the twirling lances of his comrades, or understand what his officers were shouting.  It was all a nightmare—­a horror of snorting horses, panting, sweating riders, the swift downward glitter of sabre strokes, thickening like sheeted rain.

His horse’s feet were now entangled in brush heaps; a crowding, cursing mass of cavalrymen floundered into a half demolished snake fence, which fell outward, rolling mounts and riders into a wet gully, where they continued fighting like wild cats in a pit.

Yelling exultantly, the bulk of Confederate riders passed through the Lancers, leaving them to the infantry to finish, and rode at the flying Federal infantry.  Everywhere bayonets began to glimmer through the smoke and dust, as the disorganised squadrons rallied and galloped eastward, seeking vainly for shelter to reform.

Down in the hollow an entire troop of Lancers, fairly intact, had become entangled among the brush and young saplings, and the Confederate infantry, springing over the fence, began to bayonet them and pull them from their horses, while the half-stunned cavalrymen scattered through the bushes, riding hither and thither looking vainly for some road to lead them out of the bushy trap.  They could not go back; the fence was too solid to ride down, too high to leap; the carbineers faced about, trying to make a stand, firing from their saddles; Colonel Arran, confused but cool, turned his brier-torn horse and rode forward, swinging his heavy sabre, just as Hallam and Berkley galloped up through the bushes, followed by forty or more bewildered troopers, and halted fo’r orders.  But there was no way out.

Then Berkley leaned from his saddle, touched the visor of his cap, and, looking Arran straight in the eyes, said quietly: 

“With your permission, sir, I think I can tear down enough of that fence to let you and the others through!  May I try?”

Colonel Arran said, quietly:  “No man can ride to that fence and live.  Their infantry hold it.”

“Two men may get there.”  He turned and looked at Hallam.  “We’re not going to surrender; we’ll all die here anyway.  Shall we try the fence together?”

For a second the silence resounded with the racket of the Confederate rifles; three men dropped from their saddles; then Hallam turned ghastly white, opened his jaws to speak; but no sound came.  Suddenly he swung his horse, and spurred straight toward the open brush in the rear, whipping out his handkerchief and holding it fluttering above his head.