Page:The story of the Indian mutiny; (IA storyofindianmut00monciala).pdf/221

 of the adjacent palaces, and pushed their lines down to the river-bank. Like men risen from a long sickness, they stretched their legs on the ground that for weeks had been raining death into their enclosure. There must have been a strange satisfaction in strolling out from their own half-ruined abodes, to examine the damage they had wrought among the enemy's works, at the risk of an occasional shot from his new posts, as the Martinière boys found when they let curiosity get the better of caution.

Some of these youngsters soon managed to run into mischief. A few days after the relief, being sent out to pick up firewood among the débris, they stole a look where still lay the mutilated corpses of Havelock's wounded men murdered so basely, then rambled into one of the royal palaces—a labyrinth of courts, gardens, gateways, passages, pavilions, verandahs, halls, and so forth, all in the bewildering style of Eastern magnificence, where it was difficult not to lose one's way. Here a general plunder was going on, and our people, even gleaning after the Sepoys, could help themselves freely to silks, satins, velvets, cloth of gold, embroideries, costly brocade, swords, books, pictures, and all sorts of valuables. In some rooms were nothing but boxes full of gorgeous china, ransacked so eagerly that the