The attention of the troops in our advanced works having been by these transactions drawn to the right, the enemy took occasion to move upon and succeed in penetrating into the left front of our right attack, near a battery where two 10-inch mortars had been recently placed. They were led by an Albanian, whose picturesque national costume, studded with richly inlaid pistols and costly daggers, rendered him especially conspicuous, and who was easily recognised as having on more than one previous occasion led with the greatest daring sorties from the garrison. Leaping on to the parapet of the mortar battery, he discharged one of his pistols into the breast of Captain the Hon. Cavendish Browne, of the 7th Fusiliers, who instantly fell mortally wounded. He was the next instant shot himself, and is stated to have fired, as he lay on the ground, another pistol into the magazine of the battery, but fortunately without effect. Foiled in his deadly purpose, he was forthwith deprived of the power to meditate further mischief, by being bayoneted to death. The 7th and 34th regiments, who had been at work in the neighbourhood and had been brought up by Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden of the Royal Engineers, charged the Russians with the bayonet, almost without having fired a shot, and speedily ejected them from the battery and from this part of the parallel. A separate attack was at the same time made on the English advanced batteries on the extreme left, which were still unarmed, and which for a moment were in the hands of the Russians: who however here also were speedily driven out by the working parties, whom Captain Chapman, Royal Engineers, having collected and reformed, led with the utmost gallantry against them.
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Thus was this strong sortie of the garrison of Sebastopol repulsed at all points with severe less to the enemy, who were deeply discouraged at the failure of an enterprise planned on a scale calculated for the most important results, and exhibiting a combination at once profound and extensive. " The prisoners we have taken," writes General Canrobert, in his despatch of the 23rd of March, "declare that their losses were enormous, and we think in fact that this disorderly combat, as all night combats are, and where the firing lasted for many hours, must have cost the Russians, considering the masses they brought forward, 1000 to 1200 men at least hors de combat. The ground in front of our parallels was strewn with the slain."
The French loss was estimated by the same authority at above 300 killed and wounded, while our own number of killed, wounded, and missing amounted to about 90. Among the missing were LieutenantColonel Kelly of the 34th, who was also wounded, and Captain Montague, R.E. Both of these officers were prisoners in the hands of the Russians, the latter having been taken in the attack on our extreme left.
This desperate conflict was succeeded by one of the most curious and interesting episodes of the siege. On the 24th a suspension of hostilities was agreed upon for about three hours, to commence shortly after noon; and at the time appointed a white flag was hoisted at the summit of the Mamclon: the signal was repeated from the other Russian batteries, and answered in the same way from our own trenches. Colonel Hamley and the correspondents of the " Times " and " Morning Herald " have each devoted a considerable space in their respective works to a minute and detailed description of this armistice, and our readers will readily pardon us for reproducing from these sources a few of the most striking features and incidents of that event.
Colonel Hamley, to whom the world is indebted for a work no less remarkable for its manly simplicity of style, and scrupulous accuracy of detail, than for the comprehensive views which it enunciates, and the unflagging interest it excites, thus describes what he saw: —
" At noon the firing had almost ceased, and, at the appointed hour, a white flag was elevated over the Mamelon, while one appeared simultaneously on each of the French and English works, when those who had been watching for it at once streamed down the hill to the scene of contest. The spectacle that followed was one of the strangest that had occurred during the campaign.
" While we went down the slope to the ravine, the French burial parties advanced from their trenches, and hundreds of Russians came out from behind the Mamelon and approached our works, some of them bearing stretchers.