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Rh at once nominated Commander-in-Chief of the rebel forces in the city, marched in. Meanwhile, the arrival of reinforcements within the camp had revived the question of assault. Once more the plans had been arranged, the regiments told off, the date, the 3d of July, had been fixed, when, suddenly, the information that the rebels contemplated a serious attack on the weakest part of the British position that very day caused its postponement.

To partake in the contemplated assault on the city, the rumour of which had reached him, there had hurried on, from the small detachment he was leading from Rúrkí, a man destined to take a leading part in the eventual storming of the place. This was Baird-Smith of the engineers. Summoned from Rúrkí to take his place as senior officer of his scientific regiment, he arrived, by hard riding, at three o'clock on the morning of the 3d, to find that the assault had been postponed.

Baird-Smith found that, as far as ordnance was concerned, the British force was in a very unenviable position. The heavy guns consisted of two twenty-four-pounders, nine eighteen-pounders, six eight-inch mortars, and three eight-inch howitzers. The rebels, on the other hand, could bring to bear on any point thirty guns and twelve mortars. What was still worse, the English had in store only sufficient shot for heavy guns for one day, whilst the rebels had the almost inexhaustible supplies of the Dehlí magazine in their midst. To add to the gravity of the position, the day after his arrival in camp, Barnard was seized with cholera. The fell disease carried him off on the 5th. He was a conscientious man and a brave soldier, and his death was universally lamented. General Reed, who had remained in camp since we last saw him there, succeeded to the command.

Before Barnard had been attacked by cholera,