Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/425

THE 17XH OF OGTOBEK. 395 not iuterrupted by any endeavour to get the chap. ship off. ^^^^- All the power that Fort Constantine as well nreconccn- . , T trated upoi) as the clin batteries had been hitherto exerting her: against numbers of vessels could now be con- centrated upon the Eodney, with her satellite steamer the Spiteful ; and besides, for some time, the grounded ship sustained a raking though distant fire from the batteries on the south of the roadstead; but, after a while, the chief of those last forts ceased firing, and the midshipmen of the ship indulged their minds with a theory that the guns at the stern of the Eodney, and especially the 68-pouuders, had humbled and silenced Fort Alexander. The ship herself suffered a good deal, especially its effect in her rigging, and she was set fire to both in her orlop deck and in her foremast under the fore- yard ; but her crew enjoyed a singular impunity. One cause of this was that scantiness of the numbers remaining on board, which determined Captain Graham to abstain from fighting his upper deck ; but it is also certain that the fire from Fort Constantine was slack and ill directed. As we saw, the open-air batteries of the fort had been long before silenced ; and in regard to the guns in the casemates, it is imagined that the smoke may have been so blinding as to liinder the gunners from giving due effect to their ord- nance. At all events, they fired ill, and with little constancy. Oftentimes the men of the Eodney were heard to declare — and in gruff tones