Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/135

 THE INKKK.MAN SPUR. 105 engaged in no serious fight, their losses being CHAP. caused by the error of 'trespassing,' if so one L_ may speak, on what had become a French realm, without any due warlike motive. The deserts of the Prince and of Khrouleff (the ordainer of Kraievsky's advance) were not unlike those of an officer who has wasted good troops in the pastime of molesting an enemy's piquets. Rejoicing in what he believed to have been his triumphant recapture of the Zabalkansky battery, and there, contentedly tarrying, whilst also per- haps somewhat flushed by his seizure of the small French ' perambulator,' Prince Ouroussoff har- boured a fancy strong enough to make him feel sure that he then had 'no more worlds to con- ' quer.' He not only fancied, but even — twice over — reported that the two White Eedoubts — then observed to be doggedly silent — had passed back into the bauds of his own fellow-country- men, and he even brought General Khrouleff to accept the same pleasant belief ; but under Todlo- ben's orders the valiant sea-captain Skariatine * dispelled it in a very plain way by moving up with some men to the verge of the Selinghinsk Redoubt, and approaching the work so closely — of course the darkness was favouring — as to be able to catch the voices of soldiers talking within it, and hear that they were talking in French. Both this and the Volhynia Redoubt were secure in the hands of their conquerors; but the site of the Zabalkansky battery remained in the
 * Respecting Skariatine, see Note iu the Appendix. (")