Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/98

 68 AiF.xTsciiiKOFF i;i:tuknlg fi:om the battle. CHAP, bcu tliiis met retreating, therc approached an " officer on horseback, not marching on duty with any particular regiment, nor yet having with him the staff which would denote the jjresence of a general. He was bowed forward, as though very Their meet- wcary. This horseman was Prince Mentschikoff, iwo'' the Commander-in-Chief of the defeated army, kotr.^'"'"' and of all the military and naval forces in the Crimea. Since the time when he sat by his tent on the slope of the Kourgane Hill, indulging a happy belief in the strength of liis ground on tlic Alma, some eight hours only were passed ; liufc these had come heavy upon him. Wiien Korni- loff and Todleben had come up and spoken with him, they turned their horses' heads, and tlic three, in company, rode down to tlio Katcha. It seems that the torment of mind which might well be sup- posed to be assailing the Prince was at all events masked, and even perhaps superseded, by his state of bodily weariness.* But if the Prince was thus bowed down by fatigue, and unwilling or hardly able to speak many words, he had formed a momentous re- solve, and could still wield that strength of will which was needed for giving effect to it. He of the foregoing night, had imposed upon himself any hibours which wouhl account for tins excessive fatigue. Including all Ills hapless untimely rides from the east to the west, and from the west to the east, of the battlefield, he had not tnaversed much ground in the course of the day. Mentschikoff was not a young man ; but I imagine that, in part at least, his prostra- tion of strength must be ascribed to the stress which care and grief L-iii put upon the bodily frame.
 * I do not know whether Piince Mentschikoff, in the couise