Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/196

166 HEROIC RESISTANCE OF SEBASTOPOL. CHAP, prepared for a conflict which promised this dismal • end with the spirit, the care, and the energy which men are accustomed to evince when they are abounding in strength and full of hope. The men of the garrison might well enough think they had been shamelessly abandoned by the evading army, but it seems they observed a brave silence in regard to the hardship of their fate, and only made themselves heard when they greeted their chosen Commander, or echoed his solemn engage- ment to hold out the place to the last. And that same love of country which filled the void left by the army was also sufficing to raise up a chief and ruler when the Czar's vicegerent was wanting. The emergency perhaps, in a sense, created the chief; but there was a generous, patriot spirit in that forbearance and suppression of selfish desires which inclined men high up in soldierly rank to submit themselves to Admiral Korniloff as their chosen dictator. Nor less was there wisdom and loyalty in bending to the counsels of a volunteer Colonel of Sappers, who owed the power he wielded to the sheer ascendant of genius.