sun soared over the gulf, where the water, covered with ships at anchor, and with sail- and row-boats in motion, played merrily in its warm and luminous rays. A light breeze, which scarcely shook the leaves of the stunted oak bushes that grew beside the signal station, filled the sails of the boats, and made the waves ripple softly. On the other side of the gulf Sebastopol was visible, unchanged, with its unfinished church, its column, its quay, the boulevard which cut the hill with a green band, the elegant library building, its little lakes of azure blue, with their forests of masts, its picturesque aqueducts, and, above all that, clouds of a bluish tint, formed by powder smoke, lighted up from time to time by the red flame of the firing. It was the same proud and beautiful Sebastopol, with its festal air, surrounded on one side by the yellow smoke-crowned hills, on the other by the sea, deep blue in color and 144 sparkling brilliantly in the sun. At the horizon, where the smoke of a steamer traced a black line, white, narrow clouds were rising, precursors of a wind. Along the whole line of the fortifications, along the heights, especially on the left side, spurted out suddenly, torn by a visible flash, although it was broad daylight, plumes of thick white smoke, which, assuming various forms, extended, rose, and colored the sky with sombre tints. These jets of smoke came out on all sides—from the hills, from the hostile batteries, from the city—and flew toward the sky. The noise of the explosions shook the air with a continuous roar. Toward noon these smoke puffs became rarer and rarer, and the vibrations of the air strata became less frequent.

"'Do you know that the second bastion is no longer replying?' said the hussar officer on horseback, 'it is entirely demolished. It is terrible!'

"'Yes, and the Malakoff replies twice out of three times,' answered the one who was looking through the field-glass. 'This silence is driving me mad! They are firing straight on the Korniloff battery and that is not replying.'

"'There is a movement in the trenches; they are marching in close columns.'

"'Yes, I see it well,' said one of the sailors; 'they are advancing by columns. We must set the signal.'

"'But see, there—see! They are coming out of the trenches!'

They could see, in fact, with the naked eye black spots going down from the hill into the ravine, and proceeding from the French batteries toward our bastions. In the foreground, in front of the former, black spots could be seen very near our lines. Suddenly, from different points of the bastion at the same time, spurted out the white plumes of the discharges, and, thanks to the ,vind, the noise of a lively fusillade could be heard, like the patter of a heavy rain against the windows. The black lines advanced, wrapped in a curtain of smoke, and came nearer. The fusillade increased in violence. The smoke burst out at shorter and shorter intervals, extended rapidly along the line in a single light, lilac-colored cloud, unrolling and enlarging itself by turns, furrowed here and there by flashes or rent by black points. All the noises mingled together in the tumult of one continued roar.

"'It is an assault,' said the officer, pale with emotion, handing his glass to the sailor.

"Cossacks and officers on horseback went along the road, preceding the commander-in-chief in his carriage, accompanied by his suite. Their faces expressed the painful emotion of expectation.

"'It is impossible that it is taken!' said the officer on horseback.

"'God in heaven-the flag! Look now!' cried the other, choked by emotion, turning away from the glass. 'The French flag is in the Malakoff mamelon!'"


It is thus that Tolstoi, the great Russian writer, describes the fall of Sebastopol, as he saw it. At the same moment that the French were taking the Malakoff redoubt, the British were storming the Redan, from which they had been so disastrously repulsed three months before. The flags of the allied armies floated over both forts, and in the night that followed the Russians marched silently out of the fallen city, leaving flames and desolation behind them.

The war was over. The good news sped to England, and the great guns of the Tower of London thundered out "Victory!"

"Victory!" answered every arsenal the country over. "Victory!" rang the bells in every village steeple. "Victory!" cried man, woman, and child throughout the length and breadth of the land. But mingled with the shouts of rejoicing was a deeper note, one of thankfulness that the cruel war was done, and peace come at last.

In these happy days Miss Nightingale's name was on all lips. What did not England owe to her, the heroic woman who had offered her life, and had all but lost it, for the soldiers of her country? What should England do to show her gratitude? People were on fire to do something, make some return to Florence Nightingale for her devoted services. From the Queen to the cottager, all were asking: "What shall we do for her?"

It was decided to consult her friends, the Sidney Herberts, as to the shape that a testimonial of the country's love and gratitude should take in order to be acceptable to Miss Nightingale. Mrs. Herbert, being asked, replied: "There is but one testimonial which would be accepted by Miss Night ingale. The one wish of her heart has long been to found a hospital in London and to work it on her own system of unpaid nursing, and I have suggested to all who have asked my advice in this matter to pay any sums that they may feel disposed to give, or that they may be able to collect, into Messrs. Coutts' Bank, where a subscription list for the purpose is about to be opened, to be called the 'Nightingale Hospital Fund,' the sum subscribed to be presented to her on her return home, which will enable her to carry out her object regarding the reform of the nursing system in England."

Here was something definite indeed. A committee was instantly formed-a wonderful committee, with "three dukes, nine other noblemen, the Lord Mayor, two judges, five right honorables, foremost naval and military officers, physicians, lawyers, London aldermen, dignitaries of the Church, dignitaries of nonconformist churches, twenty members of Parliament, and several eminent men of letters"; and the subscription was opened. How the money came pouring in! You would think no one had ever spent money before. The rich gave their thousands, the poor their pennies. There were fairs and concerts and entertainments of every description, to swell the Nightingale fund; but the offering that must have touched Miss Nightingale's heart most deeply was that of the soldiers and sailors of England. "The officers and men of nearly every regiment and many of the vessels contributed a day's pay." That meant more to her, I warrant, than any rich man's thousands.

Before a year had passed, the fund amounted to over forty thousand pounds; and there is no knowing how much higher it might have gone had not Miss Nightingale herself come home and stopped it.

That was enough, she said; if they wanted to give more money, they might give it to the sufferers from the floods in France.

But she did not come home at once; no indeed! The war might be over, but her work was not, and she would never leave it while anything remained undone. The war was over, but the hospitals, especially those of the Crimea itself, were still filled with sick and wounded soldiers, and until the formal peace was signed an "army of occupation" must still remain in the Crimea. Miss Nightingale knew well that idleness is the worst possible thing for soldiers (as for everyone); and while she cared for the sick and wounded, she took as much pains to provide employment and amusement for the rest. As soon as she had fully regained her strength, she returned to the Crimea as she had promised to do, set up two new camp hospitals, and established a staff of nurses, taking the charge of the whole nursing department upon herself. These new hospitals were on the heights above Balaklava, not far from where she had passed the days of her own desperate illness. She established herself in a but close by the hospitals and the Sanatorium, and here she spent a second winter of hard work and exposure. It was bitter cold up there on the mountainside. The but was not weather-proof, and they sometimes found their beds covered with snow in the morning; but they did not mind trifles like this.

"The sisters are all quite well and cheerful," writes Miss Nightingale; "thank God for it! They have made their but look quite tidy, and put up with the cold and inconveniences with the utmost self-abnegation. Everything, even the ink, freezes in our hut every night."