soldier, "a chap's just had his head taken off there!" It is a grim joke that reply which tickles the Fusiliers into laughter: "And what the devil are we here for but to get our heads taken off?" Young Havelock is bent on the perpetration of what, under the circumstances, may be called a pious fraud. His father, who commands the operations, is behind with the Reserve, and he disappears round the bend on the make-belief of getting instructions from the chief. The General is far in the rear but his son comes back at the gallop, rides up to Neill, and saluting with his sword, says, "You are to carry the bridge at once, sir." Neill, acquiescing in the superior order, replies, "Get the regiment together then, and see it formed up." At the word and without waiting for the regiment to rise and form the gallant and eager Arnold springs up from his advanced position and dashes on to the bridge, followed by about a dozen of his nearest skirmishers. Tytler and Havelock, as eager as Arnold, set spurs to their horses and are by his side in a moment. The brave and ardent 84th, commanded by Willis, dashes to the front. Then the hurricane opens. The big gun crammed to the muzzle with grape, sweeps its iron sleet across the bridge in the face of the gallant band, and the Sepoy sharpshooters converge their fire on it. Arnold drops shot through both thighs, Tytler's horse goes down with a crash, the bridge is swept clear save for young Havelock erect and unwounded, waving his sword and shouting for the Fusiliers to come on, and a Fusilier corporal, Jakes by name, who, as he rams a bullet home into his Enfield, says cheerily to Havelock, "We'll soon have the ---- out of that, sir!" And corporal Jakes is a true prophet. Before the big gun can be loaded again the stormers are on the bridge in a rushing mass. They are across it, they clear the barricade, they storm the battery, they are bayoneting the Sepoy gunners as they stand. The Charbagh bridge is won, but with severe loss which continues more or less all the way to the Residency; and when one comes to know the ground it becomes more and more obvious that the strategy of Havelock, overruled by Outram, was wise and prescient, when he counselled a wide turning movement by the Dilkoosha, over the Goomtee near the Martinière, and so along its northern bank to the Badshah-bagh, almost opposite to the Residency and commanding the iron bridge.