It was completed about the 27th August, and was at once put into operation for the removal of stores from the dockyard and arsenal, which continued incessantly from this time up to the day of the final assault.
About this time the Allied Generals received positive information that a renewed attack on the lines of the Tchernaya had been determined on; but, even supposing that the Russians had not profited by their late bitter experience, their hands were now far too fuU to admit of the possibility of such an attempt; and the report was probably spread by the enemy in the futile hope of delaying the assault.
In the twenty days which elapsed from the 17th August to the fiih September, the Russian losses from the fire of the Allied batteries averaged daily, according to Prince GortschakoflP's own statement, nearly 700 men, and their works were so severely injured that, for the first time in the siege, it was found impossible to repair them with any approximation to the rapidity with which they were destroyed. The ramparts and batteries, mended at night under a heavy fire, crumbled down at last after a few shots in the morning; the parapets fell in large masses into the ditches, and moments sufficed to render vain the toil and the sacrifices of months.
On the other hand, the French approaches, both on the right and left, now almost touched the works on which they were directed.
On the side of the town their most advanced trench was within forty metres of the Central Bastion, and within thirty of the Bastion du Mat: and on the right they had approached within 25 metres of the Malakoff and of the Little Redan,
The English were still nearly 250 yards distant from the Great Redan, on which they could bring about 200 guns to bear, but the rocky nature of the intervening ground rendered it impossible to push their sap beyond this point.
Thus the defeat of the Russians on the Tchernaya, the enormous losses known to have been sustained by the garrison of Sebastopol, the irreparable damage done to their line of defences, and the close proximity of the approaches of the Allies, all combined to indicate that the moment of the final and decisive assault had at length arrived. This was fixed by the Commanders-in-Chief to take place at noon on the 8th September, after keeping up a heavy fire for the three preceding days.
Accordingly at daylight on the 5th, all the French and English batteries, from the Quarantine Bay to Inkermann, opened a steady and continuous fire against the Russian works, that on the French left being peculiarly distinguished by its weight and rapidity.
The morning was calm, and bright, and still, and through the transparent atmosphere the proud city was distinctly visible in scarcely diminished beauty — the last gleam of loveliness which precedes dissolution — too soon to be folded in the fatal smoke-wreath for a shroud, and reduced to ashes on the funeral pile prepared by her own children. Suddenly the stillness was broken, the brightness overcast: sheets of the most vivid flame, and thick clouds of sulphur-charged vapour, enwrapped the besieging lines from west to east, and the multitudinous roar of seven hundred pieces of the heaviest ordnance was borne sullenly on the wind, to rouse the fated city from its last deceitful slumber. From early morn until the hot September sun was, in its noontide glow, the deadly shower of iron hail fell thick and fast on battery and town, crashing through embrasure and parapet, shattering house, and church, and palace, and mixing with inanimate remains the toi'n and mangled ruins of humanity.
Through five successive movements this wild discordant music had risen to tones of fiercer vehemence and more terrific import, till now in the last they swelled into the awful diapason which marked its close. And now, for the first time, the echoes it aroused were faint, and fitful, and uncertain, and ere long died away in scarcely audible reverberations. The furthest limits of resistance had been reached — before the burning breath of this huge