The rebel position presented an aspect animated and picturesque in a high degree. To the north of our fortification, between the Racket-court and the Chapel of Ease, was planted a battery well armed with mortars and twenty-four pounder cannon. In this region the command was taken by the Nunhey Nawab, the Mahomedan grandee, who, with Bakur Ali, and others, had been plundered and imprisoned by the Brahmins during their first outbreak of religious spite. The high-spirited Moslem soldiery at once refused to brook this outrage, and began to talk of setting up the Nawab's claim to royalty against that of the Maharaja: upon which the latter released his prisoners, and thenceforward behaved towards them rather as an equal than as a master. The Nana's rival showed both judgment and vigour. He beat up all the pensioned veterans of the neighbourhood who had formerly served in the artillery, and employed work-people of both sexes in keeping him supplied with red-hot shot. On one occasion an apprentice to the trade took it into his head to try the experiment of heating a loaded shell, and succeeded in blowing up a woman and five men, including, we may presume, himself. The Nawab passed most of his time in the gallery of the Racket-court, where, in the late afternoon of more quiet days, had lolled a cluster of chatty Englishmen; opening bottles of soda-water; chaffing the players with the threadbare raillery that suffices for the simple taste of a limited community; descending in parties of four, cheroot in mouth, when the cry of "game-ball all" warned them that their turn was come. Occasionally he would issue forth to see how his gunners were getting on, and to watch the effect of their practice through a telescope. A half-caste Christian, who had disguised himself as a Mahomedan with admirable skill, gives an interesting account of what passed in this quarter. He says, "I saw Nunhey Nawab coming to the batteries accompanied by a number of troopers, and sepoys, and his own attendants also; and I was told by the people that the Nawab had received a post of great dignity, and was in command of a battery. About one o'clock I came close to Major-General Wheeler's bungalow, and, finding a piece of mat in the compound, lay down on it, and saw several troopers going about, forcing people to carry water to the batteries. Hearing an uproar I rose from the place where I was, when a trooper, seeing me, told me that it was a great shame for a young Mussulman like me to be thus idling away my time, and that I should assist at the batteries. He also told me that a young man, the son of Kurrum Ali, the one-eyed, a pensioned soubahdar, was sent for by the Nawab, and had laid a gun so precisely that the shot carried away a portion of one of the barracks within the intrenchment, for which he received a reward of ninety rupees, and a shawl. I replied to this that I possessed no arms, and had never been a soldier." It was no