Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/272

230 ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1853 CHAP, was locked up. The decorated followers, who had XIV . L_ been impersonating the Imperial Staff, underwent the same fate as their chief. Before judging the Prince for his conduct during these moments, it would be fair to assume that the Colonel having once been suffered to enter the yard, and to exert the ascendancy of his superior firmness, the danger of attempting resistance to him would have been great — would have been greater than any which the common herd of men are at all inclined to encounter. Besides, the mere fact that the Prince had wilfully brought himself into such a predicament shows that, although it might fail him in very trying moments, he had extra- ordinary daring of a particular hind. It would be unjust to say flatly that a man so willing as he was to make approaches to dangers was timid; it would be fairer to say that his characteristic was a faltering boldness. He could not alter his nature, and his nature was to be venturesome before- hand, but to be so violently awakened and shocked by the actual contact of danger as to be left without the spirit, and seemingly without the wish or the motives, for going on any farther with the part of a desperado. The truth is, that the sources of his boldness were his vanity and his theatric bent ; and these passions, though they had power to bring him to the verge of danger, were not robust enough to hold good against man's natural shrinking from the risk of being killed — being killed within the next minute. Conscious that in point of hat and coat and boots he was