am, which lay beside its Cossack master dead, with its
tongue hanging from its mouth. The colt was already wounded in the
ears and fore-foot, and I was only just in time to prevent a French
corporal who, perhaps for pity's sake, was preparing to give it it's
_coup de grace_. I saved the poor thing by promising to give the
Frenchman ten shillings if he would bring it down to the British
Hotel, which he did that same evening. I attended to its hurts, and
succeeded in rearing it, and it became a great pet at Spring Hill, and
accompanied me to England.

I picked up some trophies from the battle-field, but not many, and
those of little value. I cannot bear the idea of plundering either the
living or the dead; but I picked up a Russian metal cross, and took
from the bodies of some of the poor fellows nothing of more value than
a few buttons, which I severed from their coarse grey coats.

So end my reminiscences of the battle of the Tchernaya, fought, as all
the world knows, on the 16th of August, 1855.

CHAPTER XVII.

INSIDE SEBASTOPOL--THE LAST BOMBARDMENT OF
SEBASTOPOL--ON CATHCART'S HILL--RUMOURS IN THE CAMP--THE
ATTACK ON THE MALAKHOFF--THE OLD WORK AGAIN--A SUNDAY
EXCURSION--INSIDE "OUR" CITY--I AM TAKEN FOR A SPY, AND
THEREAT LOSE MY TEMPER--I VISIT THE REDAN, ETC.--MY
SHARE OF THE "PLUNDER."

The three weeks following the battle of the Tchernaya were, I should
think, some of the busiest and most eventful the world has ever seen.
There was little doing at Spring Hill. Every one was either at his
post, or too anxiously awaiting the issue of the last great
bombardment to spend much time at the British Hotel. I think that I
lost more of my patients and customers during those few weeks than
during the whole previous progress of the siege. Scarce a night passed
that I was not lulled to sleep with the heavy continuous roar of the
artillery; scarce a morning dawned that the same sound did not usher
in my day's work. The ear grew so accustomed during those weeks to the
terrible roar, that when Sebastopol fell the sudden quiet seemed
unnatural, and made us dull. And during the whole of this time the
most perplexing rumours flew about, some having reference to the day
of assault, the majority relative to the last great effort which it
was supposed the Russians would make to drive us into the sea. I
confess these latter rumours now and then caused me temporary
uneasiness, Spring Hill being on