Page:In times of peril.djvu/312

 With a cheer the sailors moved across the bridge, following the Horse Artillery, which dashed ahead, unlimbered, and opened fire with great rapidity. It took somewhat longer to bring the ponderous sixty-eight-pounders of the naval brigade into action; but their deep roar when once at work astonished the enemy, who had never before heard guns of such heavy metal.

The rebels fought obstinately, however, but Brigadier-General Hope led his troops gallantly forward, and after a brief, stern fight, the enemy gave way and fled to tho Secunderbagh.

The guns were now brought forward, and their fire directed at the strong wall. The heavy cannon soon made a breach, and the assault was ordered. The Fourth Sikhs had been directed to lead the attack, while the Ninety-third Highlanders and detachments from the Fifty-third and other regiments were to cover their advance, by their musketry fire at the loopholes and other points from which the enemy were firing.

The white troops were, however, too impatient to be at the enemy to perform the patient role assigned to them, and so joined the Sikhs in their charge. The rush was so fierce and rapid that a number of men pushed through the little breach before the enemy had mustered in force to repel them. The entrance was, however, too small for the impatient troops, and a number of them rushed to the grated windows which commanded the gates. Putting their caps on the ends of the muskets, they raised them to the level of the windows, and every Sepoy at the post discharged his musket at once. Before they could load again, the troops leaped up, tore down the iron bars, and burst a way here also into the garden.

Then ensued a frightful struggle; two thousand Sepoys held the garden, and these, caught like rats in a trap,