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 THE APRIL BOMBABDMENT. 183 by the favourite prank of extinguishing his own chap mirthful head beneath an inverted bucket. By ' these careful arrangements our seamen proved able to draw upon themselves much more than their due share of fire, and their losses were heavy ; but the spirit they kept alive was a treasure of untold worth. To appreciate the general tenor of the bom- bardment, to teach ourselves whether it opened, or whether it failed to open a hopeful path for assault, and withal, to learn something of the stress that it put on the enduring courage of the garrison, we must leave the Allies for a while, and pass over into Sehastopol. X. Those duties and pleasures of Easter which Thede had long been engrossing the enemy, and even sebastopoi. for some minutes luring him from his post in the front, were allowed, one may say, to com- mingle with the fighting maintained in his bat- teries. At a time when the Flagstaff Bastion lay Their Knstcr stricken, and torn, and bleeding beneath a lire of festivitiea ,i i ,i • • .i mingling great power then hotly raging against it, the with the work was visited by General Osten-Sacken (the batteries. brave officer in command at Sebastopol), who came to give each of the combatants his rital embrace, and inform every man of them separ- ately — inform him under round-shot and shell — of the rising of Christ from the dead. To