The wretched fugitives had thrown down their arms and, crouching on the floor with their backs to the wall, begged with out-stretched hands for mercy, calling out in their language, “Dohai! dohai!” words I well knew the meaning of, and which I had often heard under similar circumstances.  I knew, however, that no quarter would be given, and in a short time every rebel lay in the agonies of death.

Most of the force, as I have related, had continued chasing the enemy, so that for some time we were alone and few in number in the serai.  It was nearly five o’clock, and we thought that, as far as we were concerned, the action was over.

It was not so, however.  Shouts and yells were heard outside, and, running to see, we found a fresh force of the mutineers assembled outside the gates.  There was nothing for it but to make a rush and fight our way through; so with fixed bayonets we charged through them, meeting soon afterwards the remainder of the force on its way back.  Joining with these, we drove the enemy again before us till we came within 700 yards of the city walls, there losing sight of our foes.  Their guns fired into us, but the insurgent infantry seemed now to have had sufficient fighting for one day, and not one man was to be seen.

Our work was accomplished, and the order was given to retire.  Slowly we wended our way back to camp, arriving there about sunset, having been continuously under fire for nearly seven hours.

The losses on this day exceeded that of any since the siege began.  Out of our small force engaged, 221 men were killed and wounded.  It was computed that of the enemy more than 500 were killed, and probably twice that number wounded, the dead bodies lying thick together at every stage of our advance, but the wounded men in almost every instance were carried off by their comrades.

The camp of our regiment on the extreme left of the line having become a mere swamp and mud hole from the long-continued rain, and also being at too great a distance from the main body of the army, we were directed to change to a position close to the banks of the canal, near the General’s headquarters, and on the left of the 8th Regiment.  The move was made, I think, on July 11; and here we remained till the end of the siege.

At about this period, too, I was most agreeably surprised by a visit from an old school-fellow named C——­ d.  He had entered the Bengal Civil Service a few years before, and, at the breaking out of the disturbances, was Assistant Collector at Goorgaon, seventeen miles from Delhi.  On the death of their mother in Ireland, an only sister, a young girl of eighteen years of age, came out to India to take up her residence with him.  C——­ d escorted his sister to Delhi on May 10, she having received an invitation to stay with the chaplain and his wife, who had quarters in the Palace.  He returned to Goorgaon, little thinking he would never see her again.