Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/76

50 BATTLE OF THE ALJIA. UHAP. of his conversation; so, at length growing ear- L nest, they opened fire upon the group from a great number of guns — but in vain, for none of the Staff at this time were struck. Failing with round-shot, the enemy tried shells — shells with the fuses so cut as to burst them in the air a lit- tle above the white plumes. This method was tried so industriously and with so much skill, that a few feet over the heads of Lord Eaglan and those around him there was kept up for a long time an almost constant bursting of shells. Sometimes the missiles came singly, and some- times in so thick a flight that several would be exploding nearly at the same moment, or briskly one after the other, right and left, and all around. The fragments of the shells, when they burst, tore their shrill way down from above, harshly sawing the air ; and when the novice heard the rush of the shattered missile along his right ear, and then along his left, and imagined that he felt the wind of another fragment of shell come rasping the cloth on his shoulders almost at the same mo- ment, it seemed to him hardly possible that the iron shower would leave one man of the group untouched. But the truth is, that a fragment of shell rending the air with its jagged edges may sound much nearer than it is. None of the Staff were wounded at this time. Some of the suite were half vexed and half angry ; for they knew the value of their chief's life, and they conceived that he was affronting great risk without due motive, and from mere