Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/452

 422 THE CANNONADK OF CHAP, way under the power of the English arLillery. Even _ ^^^^" from the Allied lines it was easy to see that, inde- pendently of the effect produced by explosions, the shell or the round-shot alighting upon a parapet which was no more, after all, than a heap of loose particles without coherence, Avroiight cliangcs in its bulk and its form, whirling up into the air at every blow a dark column of dust and small eaith. ]5e- fore the d:vy was half spent, the frail ramparts most battered by our artillery had degenerated into shapeless mounds ; and after the first nine hours of the cannonade, there was more than one spot where they seemed to be nearly effaced. In the midst of the earthworks thus almost dis- solving into dust under blows of round-shot and shell, the stone-built tower of the IMalakofF re- mained yet upstanding ; but the work had under- gone a fire so powerful that it no longer carried an effective armament. Of its few guns — all ranged, as we know, in open-air battery, at the top of the work — some had been, not merely dis- mounted, but even hurled over the parapet ; and there was one — the English remember it — which had been so tilted round by the blov of a shot as to be made to stand up on end, a staring sample of havoc which people could see from afar. But also the stone parapet of the tower was so shat- tered, and its splinters flew so destructively, that without incurring an unwarrantable sacrifice, the men at the top of the work could no longer be kept to their guns. They were withdrawn. There still poured a well-sustained fire from the guna