a discharge of musketry were immediately begun by the besiegers amid loud cheers; and the Turks, believing a general attack would be made, manned their walls at once.
On the following day the commander of the fortress, Mohammed Pasha, was ordered by General Krassowski to surrender. He refused to do so, stating that "the law enjoined him to make a defence to the last." On the 16th, the first sap had been brought to the crest of the glacis; the Russians crowned the works, and the engineers ordered shafts to be sunk for four double mines. It had been determined to destroy the counterscarp fronting them at that spot, without waiting for the other saps against bastion six to be finished. As the Russians approached the Turkish positions, the defenders retired slowly. The last saps reached the glacis on the 20th of June. Mines were laid and shafts sunk at a distance of thirteen feet from the revetement of the wall, and eight feet below the bed of the trench. The mines were charged with one ton of powder for every one hundred and forty cubic feet of earth. When fired, they tore up the Turkish countermines and filled the ditch. The earth thrown up by the explosion of the mines nearly reached the edge of the revetement, and gave two easy routes for storming.
But the Russians were not ready for an assault, owing to their small numbers; and after the explosion of the mines they made no attempt to profit by the confusion of the Turks. A sharp fusillade was maintained on both sides. When the Turks saw the result of the explosion, they directed their mines as a counter against the piles of earth thrown up. The Russians fired two other mines, the effect and the result being the same as before. At one time the two parties of miners met in the works below the ground, and entered into a hand-to-hand struggle, which ended by the Turks retreating and stopping up the gallery.
One of the Turkish countermines, by some accident,
