COLONEL YEA'S ATTACK. 187
those further east extending home to the Mala- chap.
■ «- V1L
koft.
These works, as already we know, had been re- The works
stored under cover of darkness to the giant strength fronted,
they could wield before the opening of the bom-
bardment, and were not only amply garrisoned by
artillerymen and bodies of infantry, but also put
on the alert by the French attacks further east.
So, the moment our men showed their heads The fire in-
curred by
above the two parapets, they were greeted by a this column
storm of mitrail that seemed more than searching
enough to prevent even Fortune herself from
cleaving a way for her favourites betwixt the
paths of the grape-shot. Yet, although many
fell, the men remaining unstricken did not cease
to advance — to advance, one may say, on Sebas-
topol, for what our people, this time, assailed (by
an onset they strove to maintain across an un-
sheltered zone of from four to five hundred yards
in breadth) was — not (as on the 7th of June)
a mere outwork, or counter-approach, but — the
glorious fortress itself, fully armed, fully manned,
and expectant. It chanced that Lord Eaglan — a
veteran in war, and accustomed to measure his
words — was all the while standing himself in the
line of that torrent of fire that greeted Colonel
Yea's column, and he wrote of it thus : ' I never
'had a conception before of such a shower of
■' grape as they poured upon us from the Eussian
' works. Some of them must have been thrown
1 from very heavy guns.' * But great as it seemed
- To Lord Pamnure, Private Letter, 19th June 1855. The
