On the 21st of July, General Simpson reported that his trenches were within two hundred yards of the Redan, which had been greatly strengthened since the last assault, and that they could not be pushed farther. The loss of life in the trenches was so enormous, that the assault could not be long delayed--and yet, till Pélissier took the Malakoff, it was madness to attack the Redan. On the other hand, overwhelming reinforcements were being poured in from Russia, and, on the 16th of August, Prince Gortschakoff made a bold attempt to raise the siege. He crossed the Tchernaya river, and attacked the French and Sardinians, but was hurled back with great loss. This came as glad tidings to the Queen, who had heard with apprehension that the French were beginning to cry out against the war, and that they were complaining that France was simply a tool in the hands of England. The victory of the Tchernaya and the Queen’s visit to Paris silenced these murmurs for a time. Prince Albert, however, was still despondent, for no progress was made after this battle; and his letters from the Crimea warned him that another winter campaign would yet have to be undertaken. The months of July and August produced in England a fresh crop of censures in the newspapers. It was even suggested that, by way of counteracting divided counsels among the allies, the siege should be entirely left to the French, while the English, Sardinians, and Turks should sally forth and attack the Russian army of observation in the field. In September, the beginnings of a bridge of rafts between the north and south sides of Sebastopol were seen, and, on the 5th of September, the grand bombardment, preliminary to the assault on the Malakoff and Redan, commenced--the French opening four miles of cannonade at a given signal. A terrific hail of shot and shell was almost continuously poured upon the hapless city till the 8th, when the moment for the assault arrived. Pélissier was to hoist the tricolour on the Malakoff when it was taken, and that was to be the signal for the British attack on the Redan. For many hours a savage contest raged round and on the Malakoff, but in the end the French captured the stronghold. The British storming force of 1,000 men, with small covering and ladder parties, then rushed forward to the outworks of the Redan. In crossing the space of two hundred yards that intervened between their trenches and the fortress, they were swept by a terrific fire, under which they fell like swathes of corn before the reaper. The troops--for the most part weedy young recruits--soon became demoralised, and many of them had actually to be kicked into action by their sergeants. Somehow they forced their way over the ramparts--a confused undisciplined mob in a pitiful state of disorganisation. One figure alone stands out in this scene of murky strife in heroic grandeur--that of Colonel Windham. He strove with furious energy to rally the scattered remnants of regiments