194 THE APRIL BOMBARDMENT. CHAP. VI. on the ninth day ; on the tenth day. Desperate slant of Bastion. Cessation of the general bombard- ment. disorder; whilst also its embrasures and its mer- lons were demolished and swept away.* On the 17th of April, the Flagstaff Bastion with its auxiliary the Kostomaroif Battery sus- tained heavy injuries, having five guns dis- mounted, and six gun-carriages broken; whilst those of its embrasures which confronted the advanced works of the French were, most of them, demolished. On the 18th of April, the Flagstaff Bastion was the main object of the besieger's fire; and at the close of this the last day of the general bombardment, the Work was in so ill a plight as to be judged no longer sustainable by even augmented exertions ; since apart from that out- ward, that instantly visible havoc which the labour of each night had made good, the con- tinued fire by degrees had been acting against the strength of the Work with a cumulative effect, and had caused at last injuries of the deeper sort that could hardly be met by any common ' repairing.' The salient of the Bastion had fallen in, and its ruin seemed to be immi- nent ; t but, like all the preceding temptations to assault the Work, this last one, great as it seems, was successfully resisted by Canrobert. On the 19th, the general bombardment ceased, and under a flag of truce agreed to for the burial of the dead, French and liussian officers met at
- The ' merlons ' arc those parts of the parapet which stand
bel ween the embrasures, i Todleben, p. 156.
