Page:The Seven Cities of Delhi.djvu/323

Delhi under "John Company" a letter from the commander-in-chief, ordering the troops to defend the palace only until he could collect an army to relieve the place. Colonel Burn, however, took the responsibility of refusing to listen to orders which had not been sent to himself, and turned a deaf ear to the instructions of the resident, who was junior to himself in the army. He decided to defend the outer walls to the last.

The enemy's artillery being placed in batteries soon made numerous breaches in the shaky old walls; his point of attack was the tower at the south-east angle, then called the "Nila Burj," now improved into the Wellesley Bastion. The rotten wall came down in large masses, and a breach was formed nearly a hundred yards long, but an earthwork was made in rear, and was repaired as fast as it was damaged by the heavy fire. An attempt to storm was repulsed, and gradually the defences at this point were made so strong as to relieve anxiety. A successful sortie against the enemy's batteries, on the night of the 10th of October, made him turn his eyes to another point of attack. The Ajmere Gate, and the curtain between that gate and the Turkmān Gate, were now bombarded, but similar measures of defence resisted all attempts to enter the city; after a final assault on the 14th, the 257