reaching-battery in a ravine on the south-east side of the town: its
effect was tremendous. At the fifth volley the battlements and parapets
were overthrown, the guns laid bare and beaten down. The balls, striking
against the stone facing, flashed like lightning; and then, in a black
cloud of dust, flew up fragments of shattered stone. The wall crumbled
and fell to pieces; but the fortress, by the thickness of its walls,
resisted long the shattering force of the iron; and the precipitous
steepness of the ruins offered no opportunity for storming. For the
heated guns, and for the weary artillerymen, worn out by incessant
firing, repose was absolutely necessary. By degrees the firing from the
batteries by land and sea began to slacken; thick clouds of smoke,
floating from the shore, expanded over the waves, sometimes concealing,
sometimes discovering, the flotilla. From time to time a ball of smoke
flew up from the guns of the fortress, and after the rolling of the
cannon-thunder, far echoing among the hills, a ball would whistle by at
random. And now all was silent--all was still both in the interior of
Anapa and in the trenches. Not one turban was seen between the
battlements, not one carabineer's bayonet in the intrenchment. Only the
Turkish banners on the towers, and the Russian ensign on board the
ships, waved proudly in the air, now undimmed by a single stream of
smoke--only the harmonious voices of the muezzins resounded from afar,
calling the Mussulmans to their mid-day prayer. At this moment, from the
breach opposite the battery on the plain, descended, or rather rolled
down, supported by ropes, a horseman on a white horse, who immediately
leaped over the half-filled ditch, dashed to the left between the
batteries, flew over the intrenchments, over the soldiers dozing behind
them, who neither expected nor guessed any thing like this, and,
followed by their hasty shouts, plunged into the woods. None of the
cavalry had time to glance at, much less to pursue him: all remained
thunderstruck with astonishment and vexation; and soon forgot all about
the brave cavalier, in the alarm of the renewed firing from the
fortress, which was recommenced in order to give the bold messenger time
to escape to the mountains. Towards evening the breaching battery, which
had thundered almost incessantly, had accomplished its work of
demolition. The prostrate wall formed a kind of bridge for the
besiegers, who, with the impatience of bra