Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/31

Rh , leaving the space above open for circulation of air. The bath was supplied with water from a well adjacent to it on the south, worked ordinarily by bullocks and a Persian wheel. The platform of the bath-house was four feet above the ground, and was approached by a flight of steps on its north side, opposite the billiard-room veranda.

Such was the building which was now to be defended. Large, airy, and massive, and standing in its own grounds at a distance from other houses, one better adapted for defence could not have been found in India; and although the additional works improvised in the emergency were of a very simple kind, consisting mainly of the sandbag wall, which, as already described, had been erected round the outer edge of the verandas, the building presented a formidable obstacle against the attack of any enemy unprovided with guns. This sandbag parapet had been made seven feet high, with loopholes at a height of six feet from the ground. The portico had been enclosed in the same way, and gave a partial flanking defence to the north side of the building, while on the south side a similar advantage was more effectually given by the detached bath-house. Here no sandbag parapet was needed, the building being surrounded externally by a bullet-proof wall to the height of seven feet, in which loopholes had now been driven, while a sandbag parapet, erected on the circular rim of the well attached to the bath, brought this all-important element of the supplies within the line of defence. A trench of communication had been dug between the two buildings, the earth from which had been thrown up as a parapet on either side, but progress had been slow in the hard soil, and the trench was but a shallow one, forming imperfect cover. An opening left in the rampart of the south veranda gave access to this trench, a lane of sandbags leading to it down the steps. The landing at the top of the north flight of steps was also protected by a parapet, so as to cover the entrance to the guard and store rooms, an opening being left to give access to the portico. This completed the defenders' works, save that such of the numerous massive folding-doors as were not needed for communication about the building, and which usually stood open (privacy being secured by light hanging screens and curtains), were closed for the occasion. The strength of the building as thus set out was evidenced by the cautious manner in which the assailants had begun their attack.

The persons who had taken refuge in the building, and composed its garrison, were as follows: —

1°. Falkland, Sparrow, and two East-Indian clerks belonging to the residency office. To these must be added the American missionary, Mr. Jabez P. Hodder. This gentleman had been deaf to all the entreaties made him on the outbreak to leave the mission-house, which was in the heart of the city, and his wife had refused to leave her husband; and they had held their ground at the mission until the émeute in the city of the day before, when some of his native catechists had carried him and his wife away, almost by force, till they fell in with Falkland's party returning from their fruitless errand, and committed the steadfast pair to his charge.

2°. Brigadier Polwheedle, Captain Buxey, and Major Peart from the cantonment staff, and a Mr. Layton, who kept a general store in cantonments.

3°. Major Dumble and eight officers 76th N.I.

4°. Seven officers 80th N.I.

5°. Two officers 82d N.I., the survivors from the massacre of that regiment.

6°. Drs. Maxwell, residency surgeon, and Grumbull of the 76th N.I.

Total, thirty Europeans, of whom, however, the brigadier was not effective for work.

Of native combatants there were — the commissioner's jemadar. Ameer Khan, and four orderlies, and the seventeen faithful sepoys of the 76th, or twenty-two in all. Thus there were fifty-one effective combatants altogether.

Six of the commissioner's servants, including his old butler, were still present of those who had promised to stay, and one native groom had been retained in charge of the horses picketed under the portico.

The women were — Mrs. Falkland, Justine, Mrs. Polwheedle, Mrs. and Miss Peart, Mrs. Hodder, Mrs. O'Halloran, the newly-made widow of the unfortunate bazaar-sergeant, and Mrs. De Souza, the wife of one of Falkland's clerks. There were also Mrs. O'Halloran's two children. The only native female of the party was Olivia's ayah.

Altogether seventy souls were collected within the building.

Hitherto there had seemed to many of the European members of the community thus strangely collected together, a sort of