The Russian defeat was complete. The remains of the army came sullenly back, companies that had gone down hundreds strong returning by tens and twenties. For three hours there had been a steady current of wounded men up from out of the battle to the reverse slope of the Radischevo ridge, to which Schahofskoy still held on grimly. All round, the air was heavy with the moaning of the wounded who had cast themselves down by the fountain at the foot of the slope, craving with a pitiful longing for a few drops of the scanty water. In this awful hour Schahofskoy’s attitude was admirable: now that the day was lost beyond remedy, he was cool and collected. To protect his wounded, and rally what remained of his force, he was determined to hold the ridge to the last extremity. He ordered his bugle to sound the “Assembly.” They gathered to the sound, singly and by twos and threes, many bleeding from flesh-wounds, yet willing still to fight on. But it appeared scarcely a company that came together; it seemed as if the rest of the army was quite dispersed. Schahofrkoy was loth to fall back, for he still hoped that belated troops would come back out of the valley of the shadow of death down below him; but he was disappointed. Meanwhile, as the ambulance work was going on apace, and the wounded withdrawn into the comparative safety of the village in the valley behind, the Turks continued to pour on the ridge a heavy fire of shells and bullets. At length, near midnight, Schahofskoy and his staff quitted the front, now protected, after a fashion, by a cordon of cavalry. As the forlorn _cortège_ rode slowly away in the moonlight, an aide-de-camp remarked in an undertone to his neighbour: “We are following a general who has lost his army going in search of an army which has lost its general, who now, to make the day’s loss complete, has lost his way.” It was a miserable business.