Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/336

 30G THE CANNONADE OF CHAP. So long as the conflict should be one between ^^" ' covered batteries on one side and covered batteries on the other, there could not well be any approach to equality in point of losses between the besiegers and the besieged ; for the Eussians were not only forced to keep manned the 223 guns which they had prepared against the expected assaults, but also to have close at hand near the gorges of their bastions the bodies of infantry with which they designed to meet the same contingencies ; and, both the gunners and the foot soldiery being im- perfectly sheltered against the batteries of the Allies, it could not but result that the troops thus kept in expectation would be, many of them, killed or wounded ; whilst the besiegers, on the other hand, could keep out of fire the troops with which they meant to assault till the moment for their onset should come Admiral Tliougli Priuce Mentschikoff had come from the country of the Upper Belbec to the Severn ay a, or North Side, and although he indeed crossed the roadstead on the morning of this cannonade, and visited a part of the lines in the Karabel faubourg, he did not long stay, as we shall see, amid the scenes of the artillery conflict which raged on the south of Sebastopol ; and the virtual control of the wliole force of soldiers and sailors engaged in defending the place still remained in the hands of the seaman whom the popular voice had raised up to be chief and commander of all. If Korniloff had been in command of a militarj'