Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/130

 prisoner. 98 THE enemy's great night attack. chap, of his own regiment— the 34th. So, going close IV- up to them, he directed these men to 'fall in' with the other men under Jordan. He was met by an uproar of outlandish cries, and found that but he had been accosting the enemy. He brought rndiaken out his revolver, and pointing it at the head of his nearest foe, pulled hard, though in vain, at a trigger held fast by the 'safety catch.' Whilst lowering his weapon in order to push back the bolt, he was felled — felled by numbers of blows laid upon him with the butt-ends of muskets, and when on the ground was bayoneted in the right shoulder, in the left hand, and in the right leg, whilst also his assailants — not Russians but Albanian Christians, engaged in the enemy's service — were so emulous in the truculent work of pounding and battering at him with the stocks of their tin 'arms that many of the blows they were levelling intercepted each other, and the victim had not succumbed, nor even indeed lost his consciousness, when a young Russian officer no less generous than brave interposed. Stand- ing over the prostrate Colonel, and so courage- ously shielding him as himself to become the recipient of some of the fiercely aimed blows, this chivalrous noble at last proved able to make good the rescue, and caused the wounded Colonel — of course as a prisoner of war — to be safely brought into the fortress.* General Osteu-Sacken, by Admiral Pamphiloff, he was treated with the most generous and thoughtful kindness. It was from
 * Where by all, let me say, by Prince Gortchakoff, by