Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/334

 304 THE CANNONADK OF CHAP, from between them; and those that had been XIII made of earth-sacks and plunks very often took fire, and fell. There was need of heroic stubborn- ness to be able to cling to the determination of sacrificing numbers of lives with the object of restoring defences so easily brought to ruin ; but the garrison had been taught that it was of great moment to them to have their embrasures in the best state that might be possible, and at whatever cost of life to those who were charged with the toil, they repaired them again and again. But the Paissians — and that every minute — had to hold themselves in readiness lor a yet harder trial. Expecting an assault, they ever kept stead- fastly in sight that last appeal to 'mitrail' which their great Engineer had designed ; and often, very often they imagined that the appointed mo- ment had come. Erom the irrepressible tendency of the seamen to deliver their fire in broadsides, it resulted — for no breath of wind was stirring — that the men, by these rapid discharges, piled up above and around them huge, steadfast, opaque banks of smoke, which so narrowed the field of every man's sight that he hardly could see the outline of a comrade's figure at a distance of two or three paces. Now a dim bank of smoke, admitting distorted and deadened rays, yet confining within straitened limits the scope of a man's real vision — this, we know, is a lens which gives infinite favour to the creatures of an imagination already excited by battle. The grey, iloating wreaths, though their