Forming instantaneously and in perfect silence,
but with the accuracy of a regiment on parade, they threw forward their
bayonets, and knelt down, sedately, calmly, immovably, to confront
destruction. The remaining troops of Bolivar were in their rear,
traversing slowly the defile; and until they reached its mouth, that
living wall of Anglo-Saxon valor neither stirred nor blenched. Volley
after volley enfiladed their ranks, and, after each discharge, the mass
of men was smaller. Still their cool and ceaseless firing rolled death
into the ranks of the enemy, until at length the troops whom they had
saved from destruction rallied once more. Then, what remained of the
legion, headed by the two or three officers whose lives had been
marvellously preserved, rushed fiercely forward like an avenging flame,
and swept before them the affrighted Spaniards, wildly scattering at
the onslaught which it was impossible to withstand. In another moment,
eighty or ninety of the lancers of Paez issued from the ravine, and,
hurling themselves upon the broken enemy, turned the defeat into an
utter rout. La Torre's troops, with the exception of one regiment, fled
in disgraceful confusion, or perished by hundreds under the lances
of the implacable pursuers; and on the evening of the 24th of June,
Bolivar, encamped upon the Plain of Carabobo, laid his hand upon the
shoulder of Jose Antonio Paez, thenceforward General-in-chief of the
Armies of the Republic of Colombia!
Carabobo decided the War of Independence throughout South America.
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