396 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP. Toussaint's six guns. Two of the guns were im- , ' limbered and planted in battery, but then sud- ith Period. (Jenly Fourgeot cried out saying, 'General, here ' are the liussians ! ' The exclamation was no false alarm ; for a num- ber of skirmishers thrown out in advance of the column had been quietly working up for some time under cover of the steep, wooded ground, and were now within fifteen yards of the two guns that had been just placed in battery. An order to limber up was instantly given, and Boussiniere's artillerymen obeyed it with excellent coolness and valour; but, the foremost driver of one of the guns being inopportunely shot down, it was suffered tb fall into the hands of the Russians. They took their prize down the ravine, and left it by the edge of the quarry.* At the moment when this gun was lost, General Bosquet, with his staff', with his escort, and even with his pennon-bearer, was %'ithin lifty yards of the Russians whi) had effected the capture, but, from some unexplained cause, those simple-minded soldiery rejected the opportunity of killing or tak- ing a Fiench general, and suffered him to ride off unmolested. f The whole of Toussaint's battery
- It was found there after the battle, and brouglit back of
course into the French cainj). + One explanation of the circumstance is that the Russians were so busied and excited by their capture of the French gun that they could think nf nothiuj,' else. —Fay, p. 140. Genera] Bosipiet says, T think, that tli' Russian .soldiery all but saluted bini. The poor fellows a])])arpntly had been strongly .sidiooled into the duty of never forgetting the respect due to a general
