On reaching the river at the point they had crossed it on the previous day, Burnham and his two companions found it in flood, and had to follow the bank for a considerable distance before they came to a place where they could swim across.

There was now nothing left to Major Forbes but to save the remnant of his force, and retreat on Inyati and Buluwayo. The river was still up, and might remain so for days. It was absolutely impossible to transport Maxims across it, and to have sent men over the river without Maxims would have been to condemn them to certain slaughter. Major Forbes remained where he was for one day, in the hope of hearing some news of Wilson’s party; but none came. He then commenced his retreat along the left bank of the Shangani river, having first despatched two troopers to find their way to Buluwayo and ask Dr. Jameson to send reinforcements, food, and ammunition to meet him.

The hazardous retreat to Inyati occupied eleven days. The column suffered great privations, and was perpetually harassed by the Matabele, who hovered round it, creeping along through the bush on either side of the line of march, watching for an opportunity to rush the white men, but having a due respect for the Maxims. They occasionally opened a hot fire on the troopers and their horses, they attempted surprises, and were not repulsed without further loss to the already weakened column. In these skirmishes, the enemy succeeded in shooting a number of the horses, while many other horses died, or became so feeble that they had to be abandoned on the way: in all, about 130 horses were lost. The wounded men rode, but the troopers who were not ill and Major Forbes himself were now without mounts, and had to march over such rough ground that their boots soon wore out, and many of the men were walking in their wallets. At last there were no horses left sufficiently strong to carry the Maxims, so the gun-carriages were abandoned, and the Maxims were carried by men on foot. All baggage also was thrown away, the men retaining but a blanket each.

The men were worn out by the hard marching and constant anxiety, but displayed an admirable spirit. All supplies had run out, and they lived on the tough flesh of their exhausted horses. On one occasion they captured some of Lobengula’s cattle; but the enemy then fell on the column, and, during the progress of a smart skirmish, recovered the cattle and drove them all off again.

At last, when they were within a day’s march of Inyati, the troopers met the relief column that had been sent from Buluwayo with a good supply of food: they had now done with their privations and alarms, and reached Buluwayo without further difficulties.

At the end of January another patrol of 180 troopers of the Bechuanaland Border Police, under Colonel Gould Adams, with two Maxims, set out for the scene of the Shangani disaster, with the object of recovering the remains of Major Wilson’s party and the abandoned gun-carriages. It was also the aim of this expedition to follow up the Matabele amajakas—who were still holding out in force on the Shangani, and were preventing others from coming in—and to bring the King to terms if possible. This patrol, which I accompanied, did not get farther than Inyati. Very heavy rains made it impossible to push beyond that point for some weeks, and then, as the rainy season had set in in earnest, and the men, bivouacking night after night on the muddy ground, would have suffered much from the lowland fever, the Imperial authorities countermanded the patrol.

Dr. Jameson was still very anxious to enter into communication with Lobengula, whose whereabouts was unknown. There could be no secured peace until he had come to terms. Several natives whom the Administrator had sent with messages to the King failed to reach him; they came back and confessed that when they had fallen in with raiding parties of young warriors from the King’s force they had been afraid to go further, lest they should be put to death as spies of the white men.

As native messengers, not unnaturally, shirked the duty, it became apparent that Lobengula could only be approached by some white man who happened to be a persona grata to the King, and who was willing to undertake the perilous adventure. Mr. James Dawson—a Scotchman, who had for some years been residing in Buluwayo as a trader, respected by both white and black, a man possessed of the tact so necessary to one negotiating with suspicious savages, and whose relations with the King had always been most friendly—now pluckily volunteered to go to the King himself and deliver Dr. Jameson’s message. He accordingly set out with a Scotch cart on February the 4th, 1894, accompanied by one other brave white man, Mr. Patrick Riley, also an old resident in Matabeleland and a friend of Lobengula’s.

We waited anxiously until March the 7th, on which day Messrs. Dawson and Riley, having successfully accomplished the objects of their hazardous mission, returned to Inyati. As it came in there were signs to show that the party had had a very rough journey. The Scotch cart, dilapidated, its tent-cover torn by the thorny bush, was slowly drawn towards the camp by weary oxen; while the natives, who had set out from here thirty-two days before, active, well-nourished, and cheerful, now painfully crawled along with a miserable air, lean, haggard, their wasted limbs aching with the fever of the pestilential region they had traversed.

Mr. Dawson told me the story of his journey. The heaviest rains of the season fell while he and his companions were away, and their progress was very slow. Four days after their departure they came to an uninhabited country, where they travelled with difficulty among rocky kopjies or across deep morasses, often having to cut a way through the dense bush. Here wild beasts abounded, and each night numbers of lions roared around their camp. On reaching the banks of the Shangani they fell in with small parties of Matabele, who had decided to “come in,” and were on their way to Buluwayo. From these Dawson first learnt that the King was dead, and that his message would, therefore, have to be delivered to the chief indunas. On February 13th the mission arrived at the Shangani drift, and there found a number of natives suffering terribly from disease and lack of proper food: they had no grain of any sort, and had been subsisting on flesh alone. They were all anxious to “come in,” but had been afraid to do so, thinking that the white men would kill them in revenge for the cutting off of Major Wilson’s party. They were delighted to see Dawson and to hear his reassuring promises.

On the further side of the river was stationed a large force of Matabele, the amajakas of the Royal Regiment and others. These young warriors, suspecting that the two white men were the scouts of some patrol that was advancing to attack them, at first made hostile demonstrations; and it was, possibly, fortunate for Dawson and Riley that the Shangani was full at the time and quite impassable. The river did not subside until February 22nd; but in the meanwhile Dawson and the indunas of the regiments opposite communicated with each other by shouting across the swollen stream. Dawson thus succeeded in delivering his message of peace, allayed the apprehension of the Matabele, and established friendly relations with them. On the 22nd some men swam across the river to Dawson, and he was enabled to more fully explain to them the treatment they would receive if they “came in.”

On February 23rd the two white men crossed the river. This district must be excessively pestilential, for out of the thousands of Matabele whom Dawson found on the further bank of the Shangani, there was scarcely a man who was not down with fever, while numbers had perished. Their condition was most pitiable: many looked more like skeletons than men. Dawson found that even the young amajakas, weakened and dispirited by the sufferings they had undergone, had no heart for further fighting, but were anxious to “come in.” Dawson succeeded in convincing them that the white men, far from wishing to kill those who had fought in the war, respected these men most, and would treat them honourably. Umjan, who conducted the negotiations, was rejoiced to hear this, and said he knew the white indunas meant the Matabele well, for had they not sent to them as envoys the old friends of their people, Dawson and Riley, whom they trusted, and not strangers? So all agreed to go in and lay down their arms. The object of the mission was thus effected, and the rapid pacification of the country was insured.

Dawson found at this deadly spot not only Umjan, the old commander-in-chief, but several others of the leading indunas. He learnt that a number of people of note had died of disease or had committed suicide, and on Lobengula’s death several of his wives had hung themselves. Umjan told Dawson the story of the King’s decease and obsequies. Lobengula was suffering from fever and smallpox, but his heart was broken because the amajakas of his own—his favourite regiment, the Imbezu—had deserted him after the last fight: he contemplated suicide. Buzungwan, the head dance-doctor, or master of the ceremonies at the great festival of the first fruits, was the only man of note with the dying King. Umjan was sent for, but arrived too late to see Lobengula alive. “It is now time for your work—to bury the King,” said Buzungwan to him, pointing to the corpse. Umjan performed this honourable duty according to the traditional custom. He carried the body to a hollow under a precipice, and placed it on a stone so that it sat upright with the face turned towards the rising sun. He put upon it the richest royal raiment and ornaments, and placed the King’s war assegais in the dead hands. After piercing the body with an assegai, Umjan built a chamber of stones around it, with one great flat stone at the top, and then went away leaving Lobengula, the Calf of the Great Elephant, sitting in state, just as he was wont to do when alive.

All the people now prepared to leave the deadly banks of the Shangani and “come in.” Numbers were too weak to travel, so Dawson promised that food and medicine should be sent to them without delay. Some of the indunas accompanied him back to Inyati to represent the others. I was present when they were brought before Dr. Jameson. The Administrator explained to them that there would be no more king, and the white men would govern the country, but the indunas who behaved well would still rule their people, being answerable to the white magistrates; and there must be no more killing or witchcraft. He promised them full protection, and told them to return to the cultivation of the lands they had occupied before the war. He assured them that the white men bore no grudge against those of the Matabele who had taken up arms against them and killed their soldiers. White men knew they must lose some of their number when they went to war. The man he respected most in the whole country was old Urnjan, who had fought hardest against us, and had stood by his King to the very end. Dr. Jameson then asked the indunas if they had anything to say. They replied that, having no other road to go, they had come to lay down their heads before the great white chief, who could kill them or not. They were pleased with the treatment they had received at the hands of the white man. “And now we can sleep,” they concluded by saying—the usual Zulu method of expressing relief from anxiety. Often when men came in to surrender at Buluwayo, and Dr. Jameson asked them what they wanted, they would reply: “We have come to learn if we may sleep.”

When Dawson and Riley were on the Shangani, the natives took them to the spot where Wilson’s party had fallen—about four miles from the river-bank. They found the bones of the thirty-four troopers lying close together where the men had stood at bay and died fighting. Dawson buried these remains temporarily under a mopani tree, on which he cut the simple inscription: “To brave men.” He described the trees and bushes all round this spot as being cut about by what must have been a tremendous fire. It is estimated that the thirty-four white men killed ten times their number of the enemy, at least, on that day before they were slaughtered.

The fine old warrior, Umjan, whom I met at Buluwayo when he “came in” to surrender to the Administrator, gave a graphic and clear account of all that occurred. Umjan said that the King was not with his waggons when Major Wilson’s party attacked them: he had fled the day before with several of his indunas. Umjan had been sent by Lobengula on December 2nd with a strong impi to fall on Forbes’ column in the dense bush. Finding the column encamped in the open near the river, Umjan had to alter his plans. He left a portion of his force to lie in ambush on either side of the drift, and returned with the remainder to guard the King.

On the night of the 3rd, Umjan returned to the King’s waggons and learnt that the King had gone, and he was informed that Major Wilson’s patrol was encamped not far off in the bush. Umjan decided to do nothing that night, and await dawn. Wilson’s party was thus caught in a trap: behind it was the force ambushed at the drift, which had allowed the white men to ride by; in front was the force with Umjan.

In the morning Major Wilson attacked the waggons, and was repulsed in the manner described by Burnham. Umjan said that the white men retreated towards the river for about three miles, fighting gallantly all the while; and it was then that their further retreat was cut off by the other Matabele force which had crossed the river in the night, and which, hearing the heavy firing, had left the drift and was hurrying along the King’s spoor to take part in the fight.

Umjan and those with him saw Burnham and the other two troopers ride off just before the white men were completely hemmed in by overwhelming numbers. The Matabele did not understand that these three men had been despatched to obtain reinforcements, and marvelled that those others of the white men who had horses did not also “take refuge in flight instead of fighting by the side of their comrades until all were dead together.” We have only the Matabele account of what took place subsequent to the riding off of Burnham. Umjan said that the white men made several desperate attempts to break through the encircling swarms of Matabele, who were continually being reinforced by fresh arrivals.

At last, having lost several horses and having some men wounded, the troopers determined to sell their lives dearly. They formed into a close ring and, under cover of their fallen horses, opened a deadly fire on the Matabele whenever a rush was attempted. Umjan spoke with keen enthusiasm of the grand standing at bay of his white foemen. As they repelled each fresh attack with rifles and revolvers, and added to the heaps of Matabele dead that surrounded them, the troopers, said Umjan, “cheered and jeered at us as cowards, challenging us to come nearer.” The Matabele perpetually raised their guttural war-cry, “Shzee! shzee!” while, from under cover of the bush, they poured a constant fire into the thick of the white men. There was no crying for quarter on the part of the latter. They fought on grimly: when a man was wounded he laid down and continued to fire, or, if he was unable to fight, handed up his ammunition to his companions. “The white men are indeed the right men to meet in battle, even when they have no Maxims!” exclaimed old Umjan with flashing eyes.

And so they fought on, until at last all were either killed or wounded so severely that they could not fight longer, with the exception of one big man “who would not die.” “We could not kill him, often though we wounded him,” declared Umjan, “and we thought that he must have been a wizard.” This man, who was never identified, stood on the top of a large ant-heap, which was in the centre of an open space. He had collected round him the revolvers and the rifles, and ammunition of several of his dead comrades, and he killed a number of his assailants. The Matabele could not muster courage to approach him, for, according to their description, “he picked up weapon after weapon and fired rapidly, and with wonderful accuracy in all directions—in front of him, to the side of him, and over his shoulders—whenever Matabele ventured to come out of the bush into the open.” After killing many of them, he was at last shot in the hip, and had to fight sitting down. He sold his life dearly, and it was not till he sank exhausted from loss of blood from many wounds, that the Matabele made a rush on him, and stabbed him to death with their assegais. Even then it was not all over, for some of the dying troopers summoned sufficient strength to fire their revolvers at the approaching Matabele; and by this time the indomitable resistance they had met with, and the extent of their losses, had so awed and scared the enemy that they fled precipitately into the bush from that narrow circle of dead and dying Englishmen, and did not come back until some hours later when they found all was quiet: not one of their brave foemen was left alive.

Umjan, himself a gallant leader, far superior to his degenerate Zulu warriors, who often refused to follow him, thoroughly appreciated the dogged valour displayed by Wilson and his men. These were men after his own heart. Speaking to some of his amajakas in Dawson’s hearing, he said: “We were fighting then with men of men, whose fathers were men of men before them. They fought and died together: those who could have saved themselves chose to remain and die with their brothers. Do not forget this. You did not think that white men were as brave as Matabele; but now you must see that they are men indeed, to whom you are as but timid girls.”

Our men, it appears, did not exhaust their ammunition before they were slaughtered, as was at first reported, and Dawson found cartridges in the pouches and in the revolvers of the dead troopers; so it is more than probable that Wilson and his comrades gave a very good account of themselves, and sold their lives dearly as they fell, man after man, to the very last; and it is certain that they did not die before they had killed some four hundred of the enemy.

Dawson made a second journey to the banks of the Shangani, to carry supplies of food and medicine to the suffering Matabele, and brought back with him several leading natives and the surviving queens of Lobengula. The appearance of these people fully bore out his description of their condition. Though he had selected the strongest and most fit to travel, they were frightfully emaciated, some being reduced by famine and fever to the nearest approach to skeletons possible for a living creature: despite all his care, twenty-five people perished on the journey. On this occasion, Dawson disinterred the remains of Wilson’s party, and brought back with him the thirty-four skulls, most of which, we observed, had been pierced by bullets. These skulls are to be buried in consecrated ground near those grand remains of an unknown civilisation and religion—the ruins of the Zimbabwe temple. Here Mr. Cecil Rhodes proposes to raise a granite monolith to the memory of these brave men. I have seen the site, than which none more suitable could have been selected—a bare rocky mound rising above a wilderness of dense tropical bush and flowering trees, halfway between the pagan temple on the plain and the rugged Zimbabwe kopjie, crowned with massive fortifications of immense antiquity. A monument of simple dignity, standing amid these mysterious ruins, and surrounded by this wild and lonely scenery, will produce a most impressive effect.

Delhi, the ancient and magnificent capital of the Grand Moguls, or Mahomedan rulers of India, became the focus of the great and ever-memorable mutiny which made our Indian Empire run with blood during the year 1857. Of this mutiny among the native Indian troops, or sepoys, in British pay, some ugly signs had already been observed early in the year; but it was only on the 10th of May that military revolt openly raised its terrible head at Meerut—a place about forty miles north-east of Delhi. There were several causes of this rebellion, but perhaps the chief one was the fact that the native troops had been forced to use greased cartridges, which their religious principles or prejudices forbade them even to touch, as being encased with the fat of so unclean an animal as a pig. Out of respect for their scruples on this head, new rules had been made allowing the sepoys to tear, instead of bite, off the ends of the cartridges; but even this concession did not satisfy them, and, for positively refusing to touch the cartridges that were offered them, about a squadron of native cavalry at Meerut were sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude. In presence of the whole garrison, they were stripped of their uniforms, fitted with fetters, and marched off to prison, yelling out curses at their colonel as they went. Next evening the storm of evil and long-pent-up passions broke loose. The sepoy regiments at Meerut rose in open revolt, rushed to the gaol and released their comrades, murdered some of their English officers and their wives, plundered and slew like demons, and, leaving the place running with blood and wrapt in flames, fled to Delhi, the great stronghold of the Mahomedan dynasty and faith. So sudden and sanguinary had been this outburst against the British rule and name that the English commanders—all but a few whose energetic counsel was rejected—lost their heads completely for the time being, as if paralysed with astonishment and unbelief; and by the time they had recovered their senses the fugitive mutineers were safe within the walls of Delhi.

Standing on the right, or western, bank of the Jumna, which is here about a quarter of a mile broad, Delhi had a circumference of about seven miles and a population of nearly 200,000. In its palmiest days the city was said to have covered an area of twenty square miles. At the time of the mutiny it formed a magnificent collection of temples, mosques, and palaces. Of the mosques the chief was that of the Jumma Musjid, or great Mahomedan cathedral—a truly noble structure, towering above the rest of the city. Again, there was the mosque of Roushan-ud-Daulah, where, in 1739, Nadir Shar sat and witnessed the massacre of the unfortunate inhabitants. But that was nothing to what the present king of Delhi, Bahadoor Shah, was now about to look upon. Under the English, this descendant of Timour the Tartar had become the mere shadow of a king, and the thought that he was no longer a potentate, but a mere puppet in the hands of the real masters of India, had inflamed his heart against them with a passion which only needed a spark of fire to set it in a blaze. That spark was supplied by the sudden advent of the mutineers from Meerut on the 11th of May.

Crossing the Jumna by the bridge of boats they swarmed into the courtyard of the palace, where they were eagerly joined by the royal guards. Captain Douglas, the commander of these guards, rushed down from the presence of the King to quiet the turmoil, but his presence only made it worse. He was joined by Mr. Fraser, the Commissioner, and Mr. Hutchinson, the Collector; but the surging, roaring crowd closed in upon them with murder in their eyes The Englishmen attempted flight, Captain Douglas flinging himself into the moat; but he was badly hurt by his fall, while Mr. Hutchinson was also wounded. As these two were being carried to the apartments over the palace gateway, Mr. Fraser made one last effort to appease the multitude; but while in the act of speaking he was cut down and hewn to pieces. The whole ferocious crew then rushed to the upper rooms, where Mr. Jennings, the Chaplain, his daughter, and a young lady friend were tending the wounds of Captain Douglas and Mr. Hutchinson. Bursting open the doors, the dark, demoniacal throng poured in and hacked them to pieces. Then the sepoys, maddened with blood, streamed forth from the palace, and, accompanied by the scum of the city—the very vilest of mankind—flew to the European quarters, where they slew, burned, ravished, and raged without mercy—tossing English babies up on the points of their bayonets, and committing the most inhuman barbarities on their mothers, of which the very description would still bring burning tears to the eyes. An English telegraph clerk heard the awful uproar, but even when the flood of murder came surging towards him he went on with his work—click, click, click—flashing his warning message up to the authorities at the various military stations in the Punjab. “The sepoys,” he wired, “have come in from Meerut and are burning everything. Mr. Todd is dead, and, we hear, several Europeans. We must shut up.” The last click died away. The red-handed rebels burst in, and the staunch, cool-headed signaller died at his post, as most of his English countrymen did, and all were prepared to do, on that awful day of blood.

Among these Englishmen in Delhi none acted with greater heroism than Lieutenant Willoughby—a “shy, refined, boyish-looking subaltern,” scarce capable of saying “Bo!” to a goose in piping times of peace, though his friends well knew what his spirit could be in the hour of danger. On this terrible day Willoughby chanced to be in charge of the magazine, containing vast stores of ammunition which he knew would be coveted by the mutineers. At once taking in the situation, he sent for help to Brigadier Graves, who was in command of the native garrison outside the city in its cantonments; but no help came, and for the simple reason that at this very time the English officers of this garrison were being massacred by their mutinous men. Willoughby could not trust his own native troops, but he had eight of his own countrymen, whom he knew to be as staunch as steel—Lieutenants Forrest and Raynor, Conductors (i.e. warrant-officers of the Ordnance Department) Buckley, Shaw, and Scully; Sub-Conductor Crow; and Sergeants Edwards and Stewart. Barricading the outer gates of the magazine, Willoughby placed guns there, double-charged with grape, which made the mutineers pause: but not for long.

Encouraged by the reports of their scouts, who had been sent out to see whether there was yet any prospect of English succour arriving from Meerut, they at last sent to demand the surrender of the magazine, “in the name of the King of Delhi,” who had meanwhile assumed the title of Sovereign of all Hindostan. To this insulting request only one answer was possible—none at all. Then the red-handed hordes of murderers came on against the magazine with ladders to scale the walls, and were mown down by the grape-shot of Willoughby’s guns. But the gaps made in their ranks were swiftly filled by fresh men swarming up the ladders, and within fifty yards they poured upon the “noble nine” Englishmen below a deadly shower of bullets. Two of them fell mortally wounded, but Forrest and Buckley, heedless of the leaden hail, continued to work their guns with a coolness as if on parade. At last they were struck—one in the hand and another in the head, and the guns could now be worked no longer. A loud shout of triumph rose from the mutineers, but this was shouting before they were out of the wood.

Willoughby saw that his case was now indeed desperate. He had kept the rebels at bay for about three hours, during which time he had repeatedly run to the bastion to strain his eyes and see whether he could discern the coming of any English help from Meerut. But neither from Meerut nor from the cantonments outside the city walls did any help make its appearance; and now the rebels were bursting in upon him in a roaring, bloodthirsty crowd. His countrymen at Meerut had not been true to him; but he would be true to himself. Foreseeing the possibility of his defences being forced, he had taken other measures of precaution. A train had been laid from the powder store to a tree standing in the magazine yard, and by this tree stood Conductor Scully, who had heroically volunteered to fire the train at a given signal from his chief. For this signal the time had come when the guns of Willoughby could no longer be worked. Then he quietly gave the order to Buckley, who raised his hat to Scully, who in turn fired the train; and in a moment more the city of Delhi was shaken to its foundations as with the shock of an earthquake, accompanied by a terrific roar of thunder and the flames and smoke of a volcano.

Scully fell an immortal martyr to the cause of his country, but with himself he blew into the air more than a thousand rebels, and, above all things, baulked the mutineers of their inestimable prey—the magazine. Four of the “noble nine,” wounded, shattered, and bruised, made good their retreat from the ruins; but the heroic Willoughby only survived to be murdered on his way to Meerut. Never has the Victoria Cross been given for a more heroic deed than the defence and blowing up of the Delhi magazine; and it was well said that the 300 Spartans, who in the summer morning sat “combing their long hair for death” in the passes of Thermopylæ, have not earned a loftier estimate for themselves than these nine modern Englishmen.

While the fight for the magazine had been going on, a tragedy of equal horror was taking place at the Cashmere Gate, and in the cantonments beyond the city walls. At both these places the sepoys had shot down or bayoneted their English officers, and when the magazine blew up, the natives of the 38th Regiment, throwing off the mask, suddenly fired a volley at their officers, three of whom fell dead. “Two of the survivors,” writes an historian of that awful time, “rushed up to the bastion of the main guard and jumped down thirty feet into the ditch below. The rest were following, when, hearing the shrieks of the women in the guard-room, they ran back under a storm of bullets to rescue them. The women were shuddering as they looked down the steep bank, and asking each other whether it would be possible to descend, when a round shot whizzing over their heads warned them not to hesitate. Fastening their belts and handkerchiefs together, the officers let themselves down, and then, having helped the women to follow, carried them with desperate struggles, up the opposite side,” whence the fugitives could reach the jungle. At the cantonments the fate of the English—women, children, and a few surviving officers—was something similar, and then began that piteous flight, with all its frightful sufferings, which hardened the hearts of the British to inflict a terrible revenge.

Meanwhile, in the city of Delhi itself rebellion was triumphant and merciless. All the Europeans that could be found were massacred and tortured in the most barbarous manner. Some fifty of them at the first sound of alarm had barricaded themselves—men and women—in one of the strongest houses of the English quarter. But they were ill-armed and without supplies, and what could they do against the furious rabble or ruffians who besieged them? They were dragged to the palace and lodged in a dungeon without windows, and with only one door. After five days these were all taken out into a courtyard and butchered in cold blood, their mangled bodies being piled on carts and thrown into the Jumna. That was on the 16th May—five days after the arrival of the mutineers from Meerut; and now Delhi had been cleansed of its last Christian. Murder and rapine, arson and outrages which cannot even be named, had done their fell work, and the English Raj, or rule, had been trampled underfoot no less at Delhi than at Cawnpore, Lucknow, and other centres of revolt. The climax of the rebellion had now been reached, but there still had to come the inevitable anti-climax. The blood of hundreds of English men, and women, and children, wantonly slaughtered, was crying aloud for vengeance, and a terrible vengeance it would be.

The mill-wheels of God, it has been said, grind slowly if surely; but rarely had they turned round so slowly as they now seemed to be doing after the terrible news from Delhi reached Meerut and the chief places in the Punjab. The mutiny had broken out so suddenly that the authorities were at first quite unable to cope with it, and precious time had to elapse before the army of retribution could be got to take the road. But meanwhile a cheerful and plucky spirit prevailed both amongst officers and men, notwithstanding all their fatigues, privation, and sickness; and if there was one man more than another, as his brother afterwards wrote of him, who helped to inspire and keep up this spirit—if there was one more than another who merited that which a Roman would have considered the highest praise, that he never despaired of his country—it was Lieutenant Hodson, of the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, formerly of the Guides. “I can but rejoice,” he wrote, “that I am employed again; certain, too, as I am, that the star of Old England will shine brighter in the end, and we shall hold a prouder position than ever. The crisis is an awful one, but with God and our Saxon arms to aid us, I have firm faith in the result.”

“Hodson is at Umballa, I know,” wrote an officer at Meerut; “and I’ll bet he will force his way through, and open up communication between the Commander-in-Chief and ourselves. At about 3 o’clock that night I heard my advanced sentries firing. I rode off to see what was the matter, and they told me that a part of the enemy’s cavalry was approaching their post. When day broke in galloped Hodson! He had left Kurnal (seventy-five miles off) at 9 o’clock the night before, with one led horse and an escort of Sikh cavalry, and, as I anticipated, here he was with despatches for Wilson! How I quizzed him for approaching an armed post at night without knowing the parole! Hodson rode straight to Wilson, had his interview, a bath, breakfast, and two hours’ sleep, and then rode back the seventy-five miles, having to fight his way for about thirty miles of the distance.” It was no wonder that another officer, writing to his wife at this time, said: “Hodson’s gallant deeds more resemble a chapter from the life of Bayard or Amadis de Gaul than the doings of a subaltern of the nineteenth century. The only feeling mixed with admiration for him is envy.” “The pace pleased him” (the Commander-in-Chief, General Anson), wrote Hodson himself, “for he ordered me to raise a Corps of Irregular Horse, and appointed me its commandant.”

At last, after a delay which nearly fretted to death the hearts of men like Hodson, the bulk of the army of vengeance started from Umballa under General Anson, who was presently, however, stricken down with cholera and carried off. He was succeeded by General Sir Henry Barnard in the chief command of the Delhi field force, consisting of only three Brigades, totalling about 3,000 Europeans, 1,000 native troops, and twenty-two guns—a poor enough army, surely, to be sent to recapture Delhi, with its hordes of highly-disciplined and well-armed sepoys behind its cannon-bristling walls. The plan of operations was that the two Umballa Brigades should advance to Baghput, where they would be joined by the Meerut Brigade, under Archdale Wilson, and then sweep on to the work of vengeance at Delhi. As it was the hottest season of the year, with its burning suns and blistering airs, the men rested in their tents during the day, and marched by night. “The nights were delicious,” wrote one who took part in the campaign; “the stars bright in the deep dark sky, the fireflies flashing from bush to bush, and the air, which in Europe would have been called warm and close, was cool and refreshing to cheeks that had felt the hot wind during the day. Along the road came the heavy roll of the guns, mixed with the jingling of bits, and the clanking of the steel scabbards of the cavalry. The infantry marched on behind with a dull, deep tread; long lines of baggage-camels and bullock-carts, with the innumerable sutlers and camp-servants, toiled along for miles in the rear, while the gigantic elephants stalked over bush and stone by the side of the road.”

The Meerut Brigade, being much nearer Delhi, set out on its march some days later than the Umballa force, and it had to fight its desperate way to the point of junction. After three nights’ marching the Meerut column, at dawn on May 30th, reached the village of Ghazi-ud-din-Nagar, near the river Hindun, about ten miles from Delhi; and here the bugler had barely time to call to arms when the rebels opened fire with heavy guns placed on a ridge. “The first few rounds from the insurgent guns,” wrote an eye-witness, “were admirably aimed, plunging through our camp; but they were ably replied to by our two eighteen-pounders in position, under Lieutenant Light, and Major Tombs’ troop, most admirably led by Lieutenant-Colonel Murray-Mackenzie, who, raking them in flank with his six-pounders, first made their fire unsteady, and in a short time silenced the heavy guns.” At the same time the 60th Rifles went for the rebels in a most spirited manner, and captured several of their heavy guns. But in doing so Captain Andrews and four of his men were blown up by the explosion of an ammunition waggon fired by one of the mutineers. The 6th Dragoon Guards, or Carabineers, then charged and completed the rout of the rebels, who left in the hands of their victors all their ordnance, ammunition, and stores. That night the officers drank in solemn silence to the memory of their brave departed comrades, who were buried at dawn beside a babool tree.

Next day, which was Whit-Sunday, the rebels again returned to the attack, for they had been taunted with cowardice on presenting themselves at Delhi, and reinforced in order that they might redeem their reputation by hurling back the advancing force of Feringhees, or hated Franks—the name by which the English were known in India. But again the hurling back was all on the side of the sepoys, and once again they were sent scampering home to Delhi, though the English, at death’s door almost with the scorching heat and their parching thirst, were unable to follow up this second victory of theirs by pursuit. Twenty-three of the enemy lay together in one ditch, and for three miles the road to Delhi was strewn with dead bodies. The English had to mourn the loss of four officers and fifty men—among the former being Napier, an ensign of the Rifles, so active, so full of life, so brave, that he won the love and admiration of all. A bullet struck his leg, and the moment he was brought into camp it had to be amputated. During the operation never a sigh betrayed any sensation of pain. “I shall never lead the Rifles again,” he plaintively murmured; “I shall never lead the Rifles again.” A few weeks later the brave and generous lad was laid in his grave.

Next day the Meerut Brigade, which had done all the fighting hitherto, was reinforced by a battalion of Goorkhas, who were so overjoyed at the prospect of another fight that they threw somersaults and cut capers like so many mountebanks. But, much to their disappointment, the enemy did not return. Six days later the whole Meerut force crossed the Jumna and joined General Barnard’s Umballa Brigade at Alipur, being loudly cheered as they marched into headquarters camp with the captured guns and other trophies of their victories.

A day or two previously the intrepid Hodson had again been on the war-path. It was impossible for Barnard to move forward on Delhi without knowing something of the positions of the rebels in front of the city, and who but Hodson should volunteer to ride on and discover all that his commander wished to know! Taking with him a few troopers, he rode, as he wrote, “right up to the Delhi parade-ground, and the few Sowars (or native horsemen) whom I met galloped away like mad at the sight of one white face. Had I had a hundred Guides with me I would have gone up to the very walls.” A day or two later (8th July) he wrote:—“Here we are, safe and sound, after having driven the enemy out of their position in the cantonments up to and into the walls of Delhi. I write a line in pencil on the top of a drum to say that I am mercifully untouched, and none the worse for a very hard morning’s work. Our loss has been considerable, the rebels having been driven from their guns at the point of the bayonet.”

This was a reference to the battle of Badli-Ki-Serai, where the 75th (Stirlingshire) Regiment and the 60th Rifles again carried the day by a magnificent bayonet charge, though at a cost of 53 killed and 130 wounded, while the rebel loss amounted to about 1,000. The British loss had been severe; but the victory was worth the price, for the enemy had now been forced to surrender to their conqueror a commanding position, from which he could attack them with the greatest advantage, and the rebels had been driven ignominiously by a force far inferior to their own to take refuge within the walls of the city from which they had but lately expelled every Christian whom they had not slaughtered.

So here then, at last, on the 8th of June, our tiny British force had established itself in front of walled and embattled Delhi. Had anything so audacious, not to say impudent, ever been heard of before in the annals of warfare? Troy, surely, was mere child’s play to this, and Sebastopol a game of battledore. But weakness of numbers can sometimes be made up for by strength of inspiration; and every British soldier felt his heart swell to the size of that of twenty men when he looked around the cantonments before Delhi and beheld the still extant traces of the late massacre of his countrymen—the marks of blood, the broken furniture, the blackened walls, the shreds of ladies’ dresses, and even the locks of their hair, and, more maddening than all, the tiny boots of English babies who had been barbarously slaughtered and tossed up on the bayonets of the rebels. What the British soldiers, heroically strong in their numerical weakness, now longed with a fierce and overmastering desire to do was to cross bayonets with those incarnate fiends whom they had already swept back behind the walls of Delhi.

These walls, with a circumference of about seven miles, were made of large blocks of grey freestone, crowned by a good loopholed parapet. At intervals along the circumference they were provided with bastions, each armed with ten, twelve, or fourteen guns, a hundred and fourteen in all, in addition to sixty field-guns. The city had ten gates, strong, and aptly named after the cities or provinces towards which they opened—Cashmere, Cabul, Lahore, etc. The walls were about twenty-four feet in height, while in front ran a dry ditch, twenty-five feet wide and about twenty feet deep. The counter-scarp—i.e. the outer side of the ditch—and the glacis, or smooth open slope leading away from the edge of the ditch, were such as to move the admiration of the English engineers. One side of the city, the eastern, was washed by the broad and deep Jumna, and could not be thought of. On the other hand, with his tiny force, it was equally impossible for Barnard to invest the whole place. So he selected the northern front of the city as the object of his attack when he should be in possession of heavy enough siege-artillery to breach the wall and let in the avenging flood.

Meanwhile his position was the famous “Ridge”—a rocky elevation of about sixty feet above the general level of the city, extending along a line, obliquely to the front of attack, of a little over two miles, its left resting upon the Jumna some three miles above Delhi, and its right approaching the Cabul gate at a distance of about a thousand yards. Prominent points on this “Ridge” were the Flagstaff Tower, a ruined mosque, an ancient observatory, Hindoo Rao’s House, and Swami House, which, in the mouth of Tommy Atkins, speedily became “Sammy” House. These were all good points in favour of the British. But, on the other hand, the rebels, sallying out of the city, could profit by the cover afforded them by the suburban villages (Subzee Mundee, or “vegetable market,” the chief of them), gardens, groves, house-clusters, and walled enclosures, to indulge in a perpetual series of attacks on the British position. For though the English had come to besiege, the fewness of their numbers and the temporary want of heavy guns reduced them at first to the position of besieged; and for a long time—more than three months, in fact—their energies were consumed in fending off the ferocious sorties of the Delhi garrison. These sorties they began on the very day after the sitting down of the British on the “Ridge,” but were sent packing back again with serious loss. The repulse of their first sally was mainly due to the bravery of the famous Corps of Guides, composed of stalwart frontier men of all races, arrayed in their own loose, dusky shirts, and sun-proof, sword-proof turbans, who had marched into camp with a swinging stride that very morning, after moving for twenty-seven miles a day for three weeks, at the hottest time of the year—one of the greatest feats of the war. Three hours after their arrival they were launched against the rebels, whom they pursued up to the city walls, but at the cost of their dearly-loved commander, Lieutenant Quintin Battye. “Now I have a chance of seeing service,” he had joyfully exclaimed on setting out with his regiment, for he was a keen soldier, a good swordsman, and a splendid rider. But he fell in his very first fight, saying gaily to a comrade as he breathed his last: “Well, old fellow, dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori; you see it’s my case.”