CHAP.

XVII.

I6!M.

206 • HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

of the reserve. But he had been strictly enjoined by Saint Ituthnot to stir without orders; and no orders came. Maekay andltuvigny with their horse charged the Irish in hank. Talmashand his foot returned to the attack in front with dogged determi-nation. The breastwork was carried. The Irish, still fighting,retreated from inclosure to inclosure. But, as inclosure afterinclosure was forced, their efforts became fainter and fainter.At length they broke and fled. Then followed^a horriblecarnage. The conquerors were in a savage mood. For a reporthad been spread among them that, during the early part of thebattle, some English captives who had been admitted to quarterhad been put to the sword. Only four hundred prisoners weretaken. The number of the slain was, in proportion to thenumber engaged, greater than in any other battle of that age.But for the coming on of a moonless night, made darker by amisty rain, scarcely a man would have escaped. The obscurityenabled Sarsfield, with a few squadrons which still remainedunbroken, to cover the retreat. Of the conquerors six hundredwere killed, and about a thousand wounded.

The English slept that night on the field of battle. On thefollowing day they buried their companions in arms, and thenmarched westward. The vanquished were left unburied, astrange and ghastly spectacle. Four thousand Irish corpseswere counted on the field of battle. A hundred and fifty lay inone small inclosure, a hundred and twenty in another. But theslaughter had not been confined to the field of battle. One w howas there tells us that, from the top of the hill on which theCeltic camp had been pitched, he saw the country, to the dis-tance of near four miles, w'hite with the naked bodies of theslain. The plain looked, he said, like an immense pasturecovered by flocks of sheep. As usual, different estimates wereformed even by eyewitnesses. But it seems probable that thenumber of the Irish who fell was not less than seven thousand.