“And now commenced a movement of the most perfect arrangement and successful generalship—­the withdrawal of the whole of the various forces, a combined movement requiring the greatest care and skill.  First, the garrison in immediate contact with the enemy at the furthest extremity of the Residency position was marched out.  Every other garrison in turn fell in behind it, and so passed out through the Bailie Guard gate, till the whole of our position was evacuated.  Then Havelock’s force was similarly withdrawn, post by post, marching in rear of our garrison.  After them in turn came the forces of the Commander-in-Chief, which joined on in the rear of Havelock’s force.  Regiment by regiment was withdrawn with—­the utmost order and regularity.  The whole operation resembled the movement of a telescope.  Stern silence was kept, and the enemy took no alarm.”

Lady Inglis, referring to her husband and to General Sir James Outram, sets down the closing detail of this impressive midnight retreat, in darkness and by stealth, of this shadowy host through the gate which it had defended so long and so well: 

“At twelve precisely they marched out, John and Sir James Outram remaining till all had passed, and then they took off their hats to the Bailie Guard, the scene of as noble a defense as I think history will ever have to relate.”

CHAPTER LIX.

Don’t part with your illusions.  When they are gone you may still exist but you have ceased to live. 
—­Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.

Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth. 
—­Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.

We were driven over Sir Colin Campbell’s route by a British officer, and when I arrived at the Residency I was so familiar with the road that I could have led a retreat over it myself; but the compass in my head has been out of order from my birth, and so, as soon as I was within the battered Bailie Guard and turned about to review the march and imagine the relieving forces storming their way along it, everything was upside down and wrong end first in a moment, and I was never able to get straightened out again.  And now, when I look at the battle-plan, the confusion remains.  In me the east was born west, the battle-plans which have the east on the right-hand side are of no use to me.

The Residency ruins are draped with flowering vines, and are impressive and beautiful.  They and the grounds are sacred now, and will suffer no neglect nor be profaned by any sordid or commercial use while the British remain masters of India.  Within the grounds are buried the dead who gave up their lives there in the long siege.