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Rh center of the contest, the walls of the houses giving shelter to the Sepoys as they awaited the onslaught of the Commander-in-chief's forces.

The rebels were headed by the Nana Sahib of Cawnpore, Prince Feroze Shah of Delhi, and Khan Bahadur of Bareilly, and with them was the Begum of Oude and her troops. So here, as it happened, were concentrated for the final effort the living representatives of the four great centers of the Sepoy Rebellion. Their resolve and fighting on that dreadful day were worthy of the desperate cause and the desperate men, who well knew that this was to be their final chance; that here, at last, it was to be for them either death or victory. The 42d and 79th Highlanders bore the brunt of the struggle, which was short and sharp. A body of Ghazees (Mohammedan fanatics of the most desperate character) led the Sepoys. These men, sword in hand, with their bossed bucklers on their left arms, and their characteristic green waistbands, rushed out of their concealment to the attack, brandishing their tulwars over their heads, and shrieking out their favorite cry, “Bismillah Allah! deen! deen!” (“Glory to Allah! the faith! the faith!”) In the confusion they were not recognized as distinguished from the Sikhs, who were fighting with the British, till they came close on the side of the 42d Highlanders. The Commander-in-chief had just time to cry out, “Steady, men, steady! close up; bayonet them;” when the struggle ensued. Russell, the “special correspondent” of the London Times, who was present, gives a vivid picture of this fearful moment. He himself was wounded, as were General Walpole, Colonel Cameron, and others, for the Ghazees seem to have made straight for the officers; but the quick bayonets of the 42d closed around them, and in ten minutes the dead bodies of the devoted band (as their name implies) were lying in the circle. Not a man of the one hundred and thirty-three turned back. They all believed, according to the tenets of their creed, that they were martyrs, and were sure of paradise if they fell.

Nearly twenty of the Highlanders were wounded in the struggle,