BY V. GRIBAYEDOFF.
he death last spring, at Astrakhan, in southeastern Russia, of Captain Nicholas Novikoff, a retired naval officer, recalls some of the principal events of the Crimean war. Novikoff was the last survivor of a famous quartet of heroes. They were cabin-boys on board ships of the Russian Black Sea fleet at the outbreak of the war against Turkey, in 1853, and their ages ranged at the time from twelve to fourteen years. The other three were Vasili Rinitzik, Ivan Robert, and Sergius Farasiouk.
The day after the Russian defeat at the Alma, on September 20, 1854, Menschikoff, Commander-in-chief, sent peremptory orders to Admiral Korniloff in Sebastopol, the great Crimean port of war, to sink in the passage, at the entry of the "Roads," his five oldest line-of-battle ships and two frigates, in order to prevent the Anglo-French fleet from forcing an entrance. These orders were carried out on the night of September 22d. The doomed vessels, pierced with holes, sank in the roadstead in the presence of their crews, drawn up in parade formation alongshore. Scarcely a dry eye watched the mournful event. The sailors and marines who had humbled the Turk but a few months before in the harbor of Sinope now bent their energies to the defense of Russia's great stronghold. The men who had navigated and fought the Czar's proudest men-of-war were assigned to the duty of throwing up intrenchments, constructing subterranean mines, handling heavy siege ordnance, and of performing numerous other tasks incident to warfare ashore.
THE FOUR CABIN BOYS.
Among those brave defenders of the great fortress, our four young heroes soon distinguished themselves by their splendid courage and devotion. Their share in the defense of Sebastopol was a modest one, but it consisted, nevertheless, of eleven months' arduous service in the casemates of the Malakhoff and the Redan, during which time two of their number were seriously disabled. Novikoff made the finest record of all by creeping, unperceived during a fog, close to the advance ranks of the British, opposite the Redan fort, late in June of 1855, and discovering the pickets asleep. He promptly returned with the information, and this enabled the besieged to make a successful sally, resulting in the capture of forty Englishmen.
Farasiouk and Rinitzik were engaged in the Malakhoff fort in the transport of munitions, but during the great bombardment in June 18th they were suddenly called to help man a fifty-pound gun, and performed this duty with such pluck and fortitude that Admiral Nakhimoff personally complimented them, and promised them the Cross of Merit. The final assault on the fortress, which culminated in its capture, saw the boys on the ramparts one night, almost in the front ranks of the defenders. Two of them, Robert and Farasiouk, had just recovered from wounds received three weeks earlier. They had been sent to the Redan fort to aid in the establishment of a lazeretto, and, when the English rather unexpectedly appeared on the parapets in great force, every available man among the defenders, including even the hospital assistants, rushed to the front. The overwhelming defeat of Colonel Wyndham's columns was due to the desperate bravery of the Redan's defenders, who, though greatly outnumbered, fought like demons. The four cabin-boys were in the thick of the fight, Novikoff especially distinguishing himself by deftly tripping up an English lieutenant, and forcing him at the pistol's point to surrender his sword.
At the conclusion of peace, among the first to benefit from the imperial good-will and gratitude were the four sailor lads. The Emperor pinned a gold medal on each boy's breast, and took them under his special protection. Although they were of humble birth, he placed them in the School of Naval Cadets at St. Petersburg, and launched them on an honorable career in the service of their country. Three of them lived to attain the rank of Captain in the Russian navy. The fourth, Farasiouk, was drowned shortly after his promotion to lieutenant in the very harbor of Sebastopol, which he had helped so bravely to defend.