Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/364

330 strong body of cavalry, with Blunt's horse-artillery and a company of the 53d, forming the advance guard, marched from the right, crossed the canal, then dry, followed for about a mile the bank of the Gúmtí, then, turning sharply to the left, reached a road running parallel to the Sikandarábágh. Sir Colin had so completely deceived the enemy as to his line of advance that this movement, followed though the advance guard was by the main body of the infantry, was absolutely unopposed, until the advance, making the sharp turn mentioned, entered the parallel road. Then a tremendous fire from enclosures near the road, and from the Sikandarábágh, opened on their flank. Their position was very dangerous, for they were literally broadside to the enemy's fire. The danger was apparent to every man of the advance. It served, however, only to quicken the resolve to baffle the rebels. The first to utilise the impulse was the gallant Blunt. Noticing that there was a plateau whence he could assail the Sikandarábágh on the further side of the road, hemmed in by its banks, apparently impossible for artillery to mount, he turned his horses' faces to the right bank, galloped up it, gained the open space on the plateau, and, unlimbering, opened his guns on the Sikandarábágh. It was one of the smartest services ever rendered in war. It at once changed the position.

For, whilst Blunt was drawing on himself the fire of the rebels by his daring act, the infantry of Hope's brigade had come up with a rush and cleared the enclosures bordering the lane and a large building near them. There remained only the Sikandarábágh itself. Against the massive walls of this building the light guns of Blunt's battery, and the heavier metal of those of Travers, who had joined him, were doing their best to effect a breach. No sooner was this breach believed to