320 THE CANNONADE OP C H A P. XIII. Second oxplosiou in the French lines. Mount Hodolph silenced. Messngea from Can- iobert to Lord Raj;- tuii. once disorganised. Its five ceased ; and, the Eus- sians then bending their care to the batteries which remained imextiiiguished, there occurred, before long, a second explosion in the French lines. Tliis last mishap — the explosion of an ammunition-caisson — was not in itself of much moment ; but coming soon after the great explo- sion, it naturally increased the discouragement prevailing in the French batteries ; and General Canrobert — tortured, apparently, by grief and by doubt — left it to the officer commanding his artillery to determine and say whether the fire of the French batteries should, or not, be sus- pended. The decision was exactly the one which might have been expected from the tenor of such an appeal; and at half- past ten o'clock in the morning the Attack from Mount Rodolph was silenced.* Not long after the silencing of the French batteries, General Rose brought a message from General Canrobert to Lord Raglan, and not only intimated that the silence of the French batteries would continue for the rest of the day, but said that the misfortune had produced great dis- couragement. After an interval, General Rose again came to Lord Raglan with another message from Canrobert, and this his second report was even more gloomy than the first.-f*
- After mentioning the last explosion, Niel, the official nar-
rator saya : — ' Ce nouvcl accident determine la cessation du feu ' vers dix heures et deniic.' — Siege de Sebastopol,' p. 62. t General Kose was Engli.sh Commissioner accredited to the French Headquarters. It happens that Lord Strathnairn
