Page:The story of the Indian mutiny; (IA storyofindianmut00monciala).pdf/244

 called by comparison, in favour of English soldiers, and laid his plans for thoroughly reconquering the country, step by step. We need not track all his careful movements, which lasted through the winter, and indeed beyond the end of next year; it would be a too tedious repetition of hopeless combats and flights on the part of the enemy, hiding and running before our forces, who eagerly sought every chance of bringing them to bay. The dramatic interest of the story is largely gone, now that its end becomes a foregone conclusion. So leaving Sir Colin and his lieutenants to sweep the Doab, we return next spring to see him make an end of Lucknow, which all along figures so prominently in these troubles. It was here that the rebellion died hardest, since in Oudh it had more the character of a popular rising, and not of a mere military mutiny.

The Commander-in-Chief would have preferred to go on with a slow and sure conquest of Rohilcund, letting Lucknow blaze itself out for the meanwhile; but the Governor-General urged him to a speedy conquest of that city, for the sake of the prestige its mastership gave, so much value being attached to the superficial impressions of power we could make on the native mind. As it was, Sir Colin thought well