Meanwhile the Russian army had quitted its position at an early hour. There was considerable disorder in some parts of the field, where battalions falling back came under the fire of the Allied guns; but there were others untouched and unsubdued, and these, with the Hussars and artillery, had made that show of covering the retreat. The Russians did not halt. Night overtook them among the hills; still they plodded along. They left behind them the steep banks of the Katcha, the steeper banks and rougher ridges of the Belbek, and moving to the head of the harbour of Sebastopol, crossed the bridge of Inkermann on the morning of the 21st, and encamped to the south-west of the town. Some battalions were left on the north side, destined to be the garrison of the largest work on the plateau, called the Star Fort. There, we are told, all was confusion and dismay; but this may be doubted. Two or three very firm men were at that time in Sebastopol--the Admirals Korniloff and Nachimoff, and the German engineer Todleben. This remarkable soldier had been sent to the Crimea in the month of August, at a time when the Czar was just beginning to believe in the probability of a descent. He arrived there at the end of the month, a few days after the Malakoff, or White Tower, on the south side had been completed. Prince Menschikoff requested the engineer to report upon the defences, and it is recorded that the substance of his report was that with two divisions of infantry, say 24,000 men, and field artillery, he would undertake to be master of the town in three hours. This was not a pleasant report, nor does it appear that much was done to supply the deficiency of defence until the Allies were almost before the place. On the 21st Prince Menschikoff held a council. It was then that the sturdy admirals and the great engineer showed their metal. They resolved to extemporise earthen defences on the south side, and sink a part of the fleet across the mouth of the harbour--a task which they executed with promptitude and skill. But Prince Menschikoff seems to have been uncertain what part his army should play; and had the Allies appeared on the Belbek on the evening of the 21st they would have found the extra defences not begun, the army still under the influence of the staggering blow delivered at the Alma, and its chief perplexed and vacillating. Even at the moment when they crowned the heights of the Belbek, and could see from the loftier elevations the white forts on the margin of the water, the works on the northern side had only just received their garrisons, and were in a most weak condition. This the Allies knew not, nor did they know that when they were discussing the propriety of the flank march to the south, Prince Menschikoff had just begun a flank march from the south, so as to gain the main road leading to Russia. Had the Allies been quicker, they would have caught the Russians in their moment of weakness and doubt, and Sebastopol would have been theirs.