Page:The story of the Indian mutiny; (IA storyofindianmut00monciala).pdf/132

 be laid. Children fell dead at play, their mothers in nursing them. One shot struck down husband, wife and child at once. Another carried off the head of General Wheeler's sick son, before the eyes of his horrified family. Two men and seven women were the victims of a single shell. An important out-work was the unfinished barrack, garrisoned by less than a score of men, few of whom ever left that post unhurt. Yet all did their duty as manfully as if not robbed by continual alarms of their nightly rest, with brave hearts tormented night and day by fear for their patient dear ones.

Foremost among so many heroes was Captain Moore of the 32nd, who seems to have been looked on as the soul of the defence, ever present at the sorest need, and never seen but to leave "men something more courageous, and women something less unhappy." We recognize another Greatheart of a different order in Mr. Moncrieff, the chaplain, unsparing of himself to cheer the living and soothe the dying with words to which none now could listen in careless ease. Few and short, indeed, were the prayers which that Christian flock could make over their dead, stealthily buried by night in an empty well without the rampart. Another well within proved more perilous than that of