Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/356

346 justice to that march of fire and death. “Broad, deep trenches had been cut across the road, fitted with every kind of obstruction. Each inch of the way was covered point-blank by unseen marksmen; at every turn heavy artillery belched forth its fiery breath of grape and canister. Above, below, on all sides, crowds of human tigers glared from housetop and loop-holed casement upon the intrepid band, while, as they turned the corners which open upon the squares of the palace, surrounded by high walls, they had to encounter from many thousand rifles an iron hurricane of destruction and death.” A bullet here strikes General Neill, and he falls to rise no more. But the brave men and their gallant leaders move steadily on, capturing guns and positions, till they reach the Kaiser Bagh—the King's Palace Garden—which they also capture. And here they try to collect and secure their wounded, and rest for the night, for they can go no farther. Alas! many of their wounded, about whom they are so anxious, fell into the hands of the cruel enemy, the fate of some of whom was dreadful. They were collected early in the night by these barbarians into one of the squares, and were there actually burned to death in the doolies, or hospital litters, in which they lay.

Early the next day the troops resumed their terrible task. A long reach of the city still separated them from the Residency. Strong positions and lengthy streets must be won ere they are heard or seen by their anxious friends there. The distance has often been walked over in twenty minutes by the writer, but it took these brave men more than twelve hours of the fiercest fighting to accomplish it that day. This was the 25th of September. One of the staff thus describes what followed: “About eleven o'clock A. M. the people in the Residency could distinctly perceive an increased agitation in the center of the city, with the sound of musketry and the smoke of guns. All the garrison was upon the alert, and the excitement among many of the officers and soldiers was quite painful to witness. About half past one P. M. they could see many of the people of the city leaving it on the north side across the bridges, with bundles of clothes, etc., on their heads.