come in from Meerut and are burning everything. Mr. Todd is dead, and, we hear, several Europeans. We must shut up.” The last click died away. The red-handed rebels burst in, and the staunch, cool-headed signaller died at his post, as most of his English countrymen did, and all were prepared to do, on that awful day of blood. [Illustration: “THE COOL-HEADED SIGNALLER DIED AT HIS POST.”] Among these Englishmen in Delhi none acted with greater heroism than Lieutenant Willoughby--a “shy, refined, boyish-looking subaltern,” scarce capable of saying “Bo!” to a goose in piping times of peace, though his friends well knew what his spirit could be in the hour of danger. On this terrible day Willoughby chanced to be in charge of the magazine, containing vast stores of ammunition which he knew would be coveted by the mutineers. At once taking in the situation, he sent for help to Brigadier Graves, who was in command of the native garrison outside the city in its cantonments; but no help came, and for the simple reason that at this very time the English officers of this garrison were being massacred by their mutinous men. Willoughby could not trust his own native troops, but he had eight of his own countrymen, whom he knew to be as staunch as steel--Lieutenants Forrest and Raynor, Conductors (_i.e._ warrant-officers of the Ordnance Department) Buckley, Shaw, and Scully; Sub-Conductor Crow; and Sergeants Edwards and Stewart. Barricading the outer gates of the magazine, Willoughby placed guns there, double-charged with grape, which made the mutineers pause: but not for long. Encouraged by the reports of their scouts, who had been sent out to see whether there was yet any prospect of English succour arriving from Meerut, they at last sent to demand the surrender of the magazine, “in the name of the King of Delhi,” who had meanwhile assumed the title of Sovereign of all Hindostan. To this insulting request only one answer was possible--none at all. Then the red-handed hordes of murderers came on against the magazine with ladders to scale the walls, and were mown down by the grape-shot of Willoughby’s guns. But the gaps made in their ranks were swiftly filled by fresh men swarming up the ladders, and within fifty yards they poured upon the “noble nine” Englishmen below a deadly shower of bullets. Two of them fell mortally wounded, but Forrest and Buckley, heedless of the leaden hail, continued to work their guns with a coolness as if on parade. At last they were struck--one in the hand and another in the head, and the guns could now be worked no longer. A loud shout of triumph rose from the mutineers, but this was shouting before they were out of the wood.