The lads, however, evaded all questions by stating that they belonged to the fleet, and were only on duty on the heights above Balaklava, and were in entire ignorance of the force of the army and the intentions of its general.  As to the fleet, they could tell nothing which the Russians did not already know.

The examination over, they were conducted to one of the casemates of Fort St. Nicholas.  Here for a fortnight they remained, seeing no one except the soldier who brought them their food.  The casemate was some thirty feet long by eighteen wide, and a sixty-eight-pounder stood looking out seaward.  There the boys could occasionally see the ships of war of the allies as they cruised to and fro.

It was very cold, for the opening was of course unglazed.  They had each a heap of straw and two blankets, and these in the daytime they used as shawls, for they had no fire, and it was freezing sharply.

Dick’s leg had been examined and dressed by a surgeon upon his first arrival; but as the wound was not serious, and the surgeons were worked night and day with the enormous number of wounded at Inkerman, and in the various sorties, with which the town was crowded, he did not again come near his patient.  The wound, however, healed rapidly.

As Jack remarked, the scanty rations of black bread and tough meat—­the latter the produce of some of the innumerable bullocks which arrived at Sebastopol with convoys, too exhausted and broken down for further service—­were not calculated to cause any feverish excitement to the blood, nor, had it been so, would the temperature have permitted the fever to rise to any undue height.

Their guards were kind to them so far as was in their power, and upon their using the word “tobacco,” and making signs that they wanted to smoke, furnished them with pipes and with tobacco, which, although much lighter and very different in quality from that supplied on board ship, was yet very smokable, and much mitigated the dulness from which the boys suffered.  A few days after their captivity the boys heard the church bells of Sebastopol ringing merrily.

“I wonder what all this is about?” Dick said; “not for a victory, I’ll be bound.”

“Why, bless me,” Jack exclaimed, “if it isn’t Christmas day, and we had forgotten all about it!  Now, that is hard, monstrously hard.  The fellows on the heights will just be enjoying themselves to-day.  I know they were talking about getting some currants and raisins from on board ship, and there will be plum-duff and all sorts of things.  I wonder how they’re all getting on at home?  They’re sure to be thinking often enough of us, but it will never enter their minds that here we are cooped up in this beastly hole.”