Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/466

 422 THE BATTLK OF INKEKMAN. CHAP. VI. 6th Period. The shot thrown to St George's Brow. Prince Mentschi- koff and tilt l.wo young Grand- Dukes. When Colonel Collingwood Dickson had so fai over-mastered the opposite batteries that he could welcome the sight of some new object to strike at, an officer, using his field-glass, and looking to- wards the north-west, discovered a clump in the distance, which on further examination proved to be a small gathering of horsemen a mile and three quarters off. A shot aimed at this dark little target from one of the eighteen-pouuder guns dismounted one, if not two, of the distant horsemen, and caused the rest to withdraw from the sight of our artillerymen by dropping back under the fold of the hill.* The group thus disturbed (as our people afterwards learnt) was the one we saw formed on St George's Brow by Prince Mentschikoff with the Headquarter Staff and the two young Grand - Dukes. To those princes the shot brought salvation. Prince Ment- schikoff had formed so poor a conception of the duty devolving upon him as to imagine that, whilst making believe to take the young men into action, he ought to keep them quite out of fire. He has even imputed to himself a belief that it was his duty to watch over their safety in person, and indeed has caused men to under- stand that, for that absurd purpose, he deliber- ately abstained from taking his natural place in the battle. I myself disbelieve that last part of and in that way to have caused — not wounds but — contusions resulting from falls to two of the riders — viz., MentschikofT the younger and Greg.
 * The shot seems to have struck one if not two of the horses,