THE 17TII UF OCTOiiEIl. 325 in the French lines full an hour before ; but there CH a r, is no indication of his having even then got to _J 1. know the magnitude of the disaster, and he failed to infer the discouragement of his foe IVom the slackening of the tire on ]Mount Eodolph. In the bastion, Korniloff and his companion were joined by the officer acting under General Moller, as Chief of the Staff; and the three, after mounting by the barracks to the top of the hill, and inspecting the two shell-batteries there manned by the crew of the Jason, descended by the alley of the upper boulevard, and returned to the Theatre Square. On the way, Korniloff indi- cated the arrangements which were to be made for repelling any assault against the llagstaff Bastion ; and from the unquestioned authority with which he seems to have given his instruc- tions to the Chief of the Staff, it is made evident that the Admiral's virtual command of the land forces in Sebastopol, no less than of the seamen, was still unimpaired.* At the gates of the boulevard Captain Gendre tried to dissuade Korniloff from undertaking his
- I have thought it worth wliile to make tliis remark, lest it
shouhl be supposed that the ap{iointment of another officer as Chief of the (army) Staff, had abridged Koriuloif's power. At the time of his acquiring a kind of dictatorship by acclamation, KornilofT himself, as we saw (mite, chap. vi. sec. iv.), was made Chief of the (army) Staff, in order that his authority over the land forces might be undisputed ; and Mentschikolf did not openly denounce the arrangement, but he afterwards varied it by appointing as Cliicf of the (army) Staff an officer of the land service much devoted to Korniloff, and quite understanding (apparently) that he was virtually under the Admiral's ordei-a.
