The contest therefore was recommenced on the seventeenth of August with new fury. Then for four successive days Akhulgo was a scene of heroism equalled only by its horror. The Russian soldiers evinced that ferocious bravery of which the serf nature is capable when its blood is up, while the Circassians, driven to despair, sought to avenge beforehand the lives they so gallantly laid down. High on the battlements, as at intervals the smoke of the two hostile fires cleared away, could be seen female forms, shaska or rifle in the little hand, encouraging the warriors by their side, pressing on with them wherever the danger was most imminent, and displaying a heroism greater even than that of their own amazons of old, inasmuch as they fought for their lords as well as for liberty. But fortune finally favored the besiegers. Their sappers having carried a covered way up to the foot of a portion of the fortress which had newly been constructed, and the Circassians becoming anxious to learn the cause of the strange noises constantly heard beneath their feet, a party of the latter imprudently went out to reconnoitre, when the chief of a battalion who lay in wait with his men on the second terrace, seizing upon the advantage offered, not only drove the exploring party back into the fortress, but also went in with them. The Circassians within, however, seeing that the Russians were mixed up with their own comrades refrained from firing. This gave the other battalions time to hasten to the support of the party which they saw had gained the summit, when a hand to hand conflict ensued in which both sides fought, the one with the bravery of despair, the other with that of victory. But superior numbers prevailed; and four times stormed the fortress fell. Of the mountaineers that lay dead on the top of the rock the Russians counted, according to some of their accounts, fifteen hundred, according to others, more likely to be true, seven hundred; of the wounded, from nine hundred to five hundred; while their own loss was set down as considerably less than one half these numbers. Several hundred prisoners also were taken, consisting of women and children; for of men there were none left. With the blood of these the Koissu was already red, and their bodies were thrown in afterwards. But Schamyl, who had often been seen during the final conflict surrounded by his white turbaned murids, was nowhere to be found. The fortress, all the approaches to which were strictly guarded, was ransacked; every nook and corner explored; but the Imam was nowhere to be found. Alas! for General Grabbe, that but one man should escape from Akhulgo, and he Schamyl. His single head would have made up for the loss of the three thousand Russian heads laid low in the siege; but without it the victory was barren, all its spoils a mere rock in the mountains!