286 THE OAKEISON rvEINFORCED cn A p. saw their foe clearly foregoing the kind of conflict ^"- in wLicli, from the power of his victorious armies, ho was likely to have the ascendant, and under- taking, instead, a species of strife in which they well knew they could match him. Thought is swift ; and from the moment when Todlebcn, on the morning of the lOtli of October, descried the brown line then appearing along the crest of Tmiuiicn's Mount liodolph, it cost him brief time to infer coiijunctire: the wholc plan of the enemy, and determine, too, how he would meet it. His accounts of what he designed and what ho did are long and elaborate, but I gather that tho pith of his deliberations was of this kind : ' Our labours are rewarded ! ' Our attitude of resistance has induced the Allies
- to break ground ! This work which the Frencli
' have thrown up must be meant to give cover to ' a system of batteries containing some forty guns. 'In other words, the Allies — though without ' being able to invest the place — are really be-
- ginning a siege. For such an undertaking they
- needs must have workmen, and gunners, spades,
' pickaxes, gabions, heavy guns, gun-carriages, ' platforms, great store of fit ammunition. But ' of all such people and all such things we can ' command more than they — more workmen, more ' gunners, more tools, more and heavier guns, 'more platforms, more powder, more — twenty 'times more — shot and shell. The species of ' conflict in which, as it happens, we thus enjoy ' an ascendant is the very one which, thanlcs bo
- to Heaven ! the enemy has advised liimsclf to
