TIIK 17TII OF OCTOBER. 317 themselves to entertain when they looked to a chap. XIII panic in Sebastopol as the not unlikely result of their mere cannonade ; and it would not l)e ti'avel- Brief period ot weakness ling beyond the rnw^v. of tilings probable to ima- gine that, if the Allied navies at this time, and in accordance with the original plan, had been thnndering at the mouth of the roadstead, the failing heart of those combatants who were less resolute than the rest might have led to confu- sion and flight. But whatever may be imagined in regard to the probable effect of putting that further stress upon the composure of the garrison at a time when the land cannonade was most dis- turbing its courage, the Eussians were secured from any such superadded trial of their fortitude by Admiral Hamelin's determination to postpone the naval attack ;* and the moment was now close at hand when the evil, nay, the danger, that there is in the grievous discouragement of troops would be shifted away from Sebastopol by the turning fortune of Avar, and made all at once to pass over into the midst of the French batteries. As matched against the opposing Works, that Effector string of French batteries on the crest of Mount aisiiosiiions Rodolph had so narrow, so protruding a front, works ou that it has been likened to a solitary and isolated uoiph. bastion dispending its strength from a centre against the concave of an arc ; whilst the long, bending line of great guns with which Todleben sought to embrace it threw back a converging
- See 2wst, p. 336.
