The next shot might have wounded him, for the screen was accurately in range, but no consideration was so paramount as the execution at all hazards of a necessary restoration. Warily, and by degrees, he filled up the gap while the fire was upon him, and before day-break finished his fatiguing task. It was arranged among the generals to make another assault preceded by an uninterrupted cannonade of some hours’ duration. Accordingly at three o’clock on the afternoon of the 6th began the third bombardment. The French opened with a crashing array of ordnance, and the British had 158 pieces of artillery in vigorous play, to which the Russians replied from more powerful armaments in the Mamelon, Redan, the barrack and upper garden batteries, and those also from the town and creek. Admirably was the fire maintained. Projectiles of every weight crossed in showers, but so dense was the smoke—resting like storm-clouds on the terrible scene—that neither side could take better aim than what the flashes of the guns afforded. At dusk the cannonading waned on both sides, at which time the enemy confined his demonstration to a few guns only. All the Russian works were much injured, the batteries broken up, and parapets and embrasures, in part, demolished. Those of the British, on the contrary, presented effects so disproportionate as to make the contrast between them and those of the besieged almost marvellous. Nos. 9 and 14, two contiguous batteries, seated on the swell of the second parallel on the right attack, however, fared less fortunately than the rest: they were knocked into strange shapes and three of their guns were disabled. Shot and shell flew into them so accurately that the revetments fell as if shaken by an earthquake into hopeless ruins. All else stood nobly up, escaping with only trivial injuries, which a little sagacity and expertness in the sappers soon made sound and efficient.