Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/92

 G2 SKBASTOl'OL BKFOKK 'JlIK BATTLE CHAP. III. MeasiuTS tlifrcuiiiin taken. riince Meutschikoff^ lost no time in giving the orders which were to assemble his army on the lieights of the Alma. He stopped all the works at the port of Sebasto])ol which were unconnected with the strengthening of the place, giving orders that the men should be employed at the defences. lie directed that the men should be mustered at the batteries, that they should he [)ractised at the guns, and that all should be hehl ready for action. It was ordered that the ileet should prepare to uiake sail ; but on this day it blew from N. to N.h> in the bay, and apparently N.W. in the offing, and those winds were adverse to any pro- ject for sailing out to attack the armada. From time to time the increasing numbers of the approaching ships were announced ; and at half-past eight in the evening the telegra})h said, and said truly, ' The enemy's fleet is casting ' anchor.' The next day was calm; and Sebastopol knew that, without encountering hindrance, the Allies I4th Sept. Sebastopol apprised lamiing'^was wcrc huidiug their troops. The Russians were goui^ on. men so constituted as to l)e able to derive a faint ])leasure from the mere date of the event, and even, it would seem, to found ujton the coinci- dence a ha])})y augury ; for they ever had thought M'ith pride of the war which they are accustomed to call ' the war of the twenty nations,' and the 14th of September was the anniversary of Napo- leon's entry into .TNIoscow. In the roadstead of Sebastopol, and at the. mouth of the jNIan-of-war Harbour, the two sqiuidrons of the Black Sea