Thus spoke Colonel Leoline, commanding the regiment in which young Carlton was serving as a cornet.

This news, so pleasing to the ear of the soldiers, was received with the utmost enthusiasm by every officer present.  They gave three cheers for their gallant leader, and another rouser for the service they belonged to, which made the walls of their mess room ring again, so delighted were they at the prospect of leaving their quiet, humdrum quarters for the dash and excitement of the battle field.

The panorama which opened to the view on the mornings of the—­was glorious in the extreme, and one well calculated to awaken feelings of emotion in the most obdurate breast.  The dark waters of the Sutlej glittering in the sun’s rays as they flowed onward, all unconscious of the bloody strife about to be enacted on its banks:  the frowning fortress, with its embattled walls bristling with cannon and swarming with men, whose dusky figures beamed with hate and defiance; around the outskirts of the town were the battalions of Seik soldiery, drawn up under the Dewan Moolraj, watching with savage anxiety the approach of the British force, whose regiments of cavalry that headed the advance opened their glittering ranks to the right and left and made apparent the serried battalions of infantry and the frowning batteries of cannon.

The scene was grandly magnificent.  The eye included the whole field and glanced approvingly from the steady order of one foe to the even array of the other.  All this spoke gladness of mind and strength of heart; but beneath the elate looks of the advancing warriors there lurked that fierce desire for the death of their fellow-men which must ever impel the valiant soldier.

With the general details during the progress of the siege our story has little to do,—­suffice it to say that it was a bloody and protracted affair.  The Mooltanees fought with their usual desperate valor, but they had to cope with men who never turned their backs upon a foe when the fiat of battle had gone forth, who scorned to yield even when greatly outnumbered, and regarded defeat, if not actually a crime, an imperishable disgrace; and so the strife waged fast and furious up to the closing hours of the conflict.

The siege and train heavy ordinance of the besieging force hurled their ponderous shot and shell against the masonry and buildings that defended the town and citadel, destroying, crushing, and burning with terrible effect, while the field artillery poured forth continuous discharges of lighter projectiles of every description then in use, sweeping with dreadful result every opposing force that appeared on the walls or other parts of the fortification.  Amid the dire confusion and heavy clouds of smoke caused by the incessant cannonading the Infantry effected an entrance among the advanced mounds and trenches of petty outworks, and animated by their partial success, formed themselves simultaneously into wedges and masses, and headed by their brave leaders rushed forward in gallant style.  With a shout they leaped the ditch and up swarming mounted the ramparts and stood victorious amid the captured cannon.