“There is no time to lose, my lord,” interposed the quartermaster-general, who had been intently watching the redoubts with his field-glasses.  “I can see them bringing teams of horses into the redoubts.  They evidently mean to carry off our guns.”

The necessity for action was more than ever urgent and immediate.

“Lord Lucan must be made to move.  Here, Airey! send him a peremptory order in writing.”

The quartermaster-general produced pencil and paper from his sabretash, and wrote as follows:—­

“Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, and try to prevent the enemy from carrying away the guns.  Immediate.”

“That will do,” said Lord Raglan.  “Let your own aide-de-camp carry the order.  He is a cavalry officer, and can explain, if required.”

It was Nolan, the enthusiastic, ardent, devoted cavalry soldier, heart and soul, and overflowing now with joy at his mission, and the chances of distinction it offered the cavalry.  A fine, fearless horseman, he galloped at a breakneck pace down the steep and rocky sides of the plateau, and quickly reached Lord Lucan’s side.

The general read his orders, with lips compressed and lowering brow.

“You come straight from Lord Raglan?  But, surely, you are General Airey’s aide-de-camp?”

“Lord Raglan himself entrusted me with the message.”

“I can’t believe it.  It is utterly impracticable:  for any useful purpose.  Quite unequal, quite inadequate, to the risks and frightful loss it must entail.”

The impetuous aide-de-camp showed visible signs of impatience.  While the general debated and discussed his orders, instead of executing them with instant, unquestioning despatch, a great opportunity was flitting quickly by.

“Lord Raglan’s orders are”—­Nolan spoke with an irritation that was disrespectful, almost insubordinate—­“his lordship’s orders are that the cavalry should attack immediately.”

“Attack, sir!” replied Lord Lucan, petulantly; “attack what?  What guns?”

“There, my lord, is your enemy,” replied Nolan, with an excited wave of his arm; “there are your guns!”

The exact meaning of the gesture no man survived to tell, but its direction was unhappily towards a formidable Russian battery which closed the gorge of the north valley, and not to the heights crowned by the captured redoubts.

Lord Lucan, heated by the irritating language of his junior officer, must have lost his power of discrimination, for although his first instructions clearly indicated the guns in the redoubt, and his second, brought by Nolan, obviously referred to the same guns, the cavalry general was misled—­by his own rage, or Nolan’s sweeping gesture, who shall say?—­misled into a terrible error.

He conceived it to be his duty to send a portion of his cavalry against a formidable battery of Russian guns, well posted as they were, and already sweeping the valley with a well-directed, murderous fire.