She was sorely puzzled what to do, but yet resolved to save her lover somehow, even at the risk of her own life.

CHAPTER XXIV.

AT MOTHER CHARCOAL’S.

With the return of spring brighter days dawned for the British troops in the East.  The worst troubles were ended; supplies of all kinds were now flowing in in great profusion; the means of transport to the front were enormously increased and improved, not only by the opportune arrival of great drafts of baggage-animals, through the exertions of men like McKay, but by the construction of a railway for goods traffic.

The chief difficulty, however, still remained unsolved:  the siege still slowly dragged itself along.  Sebastopol refused to fall, and, with its gallant garrison under the indomitable Todleben, still obstinately kept the Allies at bay.

The besiegers’ lines were, however, slowly but surely tightening round the place.  Many miles of trenches were now open and innumerable batteries had been built and armed.  The struggle daily became closer and more strenuously maintained.  The opposing forces—­besiegers and besieged—­were in constant collision.  Sharpshooters interchanged shots all day long, and guns answered guns.  The Russians made frequent sorties by night; and every day there were hand-to-hand conflicts for the possession of rifle-pits and the more advanced posts.

It was a dreary, disappointing season.  This siege seemed interminable.  No one saw the end of it.  All alike—­from generals to common men—­were despondent and dispirited with the weariness of hope long deferred.

Why did we not attack the place?  This was the burden of every song.  The attack—­always imminent, always postponed—­was the one topic of conversation wherever soldiers met and talked together.

It was debated and discussed seriously, and from every point of view, in the council-chamber, where Lord Raglan met his colleagues and the great officers of the staff.  It was the gossip round the camp-fire, where men beguiled the weary hours of trench-duty.  It was tossed from mouth to mouth by thoughtless subalterns as they galloped on their Tartar ponies for a day’s outing to Kamiesch, when released from sterner toil.

The attack!  To-morrow—­next day—­some day—­never!  So it went on, with a wearisome, monotonous sameness that was perfectly exasperating.

“I give you Good-day, my friend.  Well, you see the summer is now close at hand, and still we are on the wrong side of the wall.”

The speaker was M. Anatole Belhomme, Hyde’s French friend.  They had met outside a drinking-booth in the hut-town of Kadikoi.  Hyde was riding a pony; the other was on foot.

“Ah! my gallant Gaul, is it you?” replied Hyde.  “Let’s go in and jingle glasses together, hey?”

“A little tear of cognac would not be amiss,” replied the Frenchman, whose excessive fondness for the fermented liquor of his country was the chief cause of his finding himself a sergeant in the Voltigeurs instead of chief cook to a Parisian restaurant or an English duke.