Page:Clyde and Strathnairn.djvu/84

74 wounded; and many of the mounted officers had their horses shot under them. Indeed at one time the enemy clearly had the advantage. But Captain Peel, commanding the Naval Brigade, brought up his heavy guns 'as if he had been laying the Shannon alongside an enemy's frigate;' while Adrian Hope with a party of fifty men crept through the surrounding jungle and brushwood, and entering the enclosure one by one through a fissure in the wall, found the rebels in full retreat. The enemy had lost heart, and abruptly abandoned a position in which the wearied troops were only too glad to rest during the night.

There was now no doubt but that Sir Colin Campbell's operations had so far been crowned with success. On the morning of November 17th the struggle re-opened with a heavy cannonade on the Mess House, which, after some six hours firing, was carried with a rush by a company of the 90th, led by Captain Wolseley, and a detachment of the 53rd. Only one building (the Moti Mahal) now intervened before Outram's position was reached. The enemy offered but slight resistance so that Hope Grant was able to meet Outram, Havelock, his son (now Sir Henry Havelock), Colonel Robert Napier, Major Eyre