Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/338

 308 THE CANNONADE OF CHAP, be sharing iu the risks of the day with the gun- ^"^' ners who stood at the ramparts, and, in short, to cause himself to be seen at all the chief posts of danger. hiamove- Men belonging to Korniloffs Staft" have com- mtiDts * memorated the acts and the words of their hero, in this the last day of his life, with an almost pious exactness ; and, although it be plain that, amongst our people at home, the uneventful ride of a Eussian Admiral from bastion to bastion will never evoke that kind of interest which it wrought in the minds of his own fellow-country- men, I yet imagine that some portion of the material derived from those loving records may help to give true impressions of the nature of the business which engaged the chiefs in Sebastopol on the day of the first cannonade, and may even, in an incidental and passing way, afford better insight into the condition of things within the fortress than could well be imparted by fornuil words of siege narrative saying when, where, and how the men were struck down and replaced, when and where a gun was dismounted, or an embrasure spoilt and restored. The instant he heard the opening of the can- nonade, Korniloff hastened to spring into his sad- dle ; and then — at so eager a pace that his Staff could hardly keep up with him — he galloped off to the Flagstaff Bastion. By the time that he had gained the esplanade by the left face of the bastion, the fh-ing had grown to its full height and power. Already the smoke of the salvoes