Then around the gun seemed to open a volcano of flame. The Federal
infantry were right on it. A storm of bullets cut the air. The drivers
leaped from the horses drawing the piece, thinking its capture
inevitable, and ran down the hill.
In an instant they had disappeared. The piece seemed in the hands of
the enemy--indeed, they were almost touching it--a gun of the Stuart
horse artillery for the first time was to be captured!
That thought seemed to turn Breathed into a giant. As the drivers
disappeared, his own horse was shot under him, staggered, sunk, and
rolled upon his rider. Breathed dragged himself from beneath the
bleeding animal, rose to his feet, and rushing to the lead horses of
the gun, leaped upon one of them, and struck them violently with his
sabre to force them on.
As he did so, the horse upon which he was mounted fell, pierced by a
bullet through the body.
Breathed fell upon his feet, and, with the edge of his sabre, cut the
two leaders out of the traces. He then leaped upon one of the middle
horses--the gun being drawn by six--and started off.
He had not gone three paces, when the animal which he now rode fell
dead in turn. Breathed rolled upon the ground, but rising to his feet,
severed the dead animal and his companion from the piece, as he had
done the leaders.
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