This protocol, unique for brevity and impudence, was laid before a council, consisting of General Wheeler, and Captains Moore and Whiting. The debate was prolonged and earnest. Poor Sir Hugh could not bear to abandon the position that he had chosen so ill, and in the defence of which he had been so little able to participate. It seemed a miserable conclusion of a long and not discreditable career to stipulate with his own sepoys for the liberty of slinking away after the loss of all his men and half his officers. Such was indeed an exorbitant price to pay for the sad remnants of a broken life. Better to lie within that well not far above his brave boy than to bargain for the privilege of being interred a few months later beneath one of the unsightly masses of brickwork which encumber the European graveyards of India. But the scruples of the old man at length yielded to the arguments produced by Moore and Whiting:--and they were no drawing-room soldiers: for the one throughout those three weeks had never left a corner on which converged the fire of two powerful batteries, and the other had so borne himself that it might well be doubted whether he knew what fear was. They represented that, if the garrison had consisted exclusively of fighting people, no one would ever dream of surrender as long as they had swords wherewith to cut their way to Allahabad. But what could be done with a mixed multitude, in which there was a woman and a child to each man, while every other man was incapacitated by wounds and disease? The setting in of the wet weather, (so they urged,) long dreaded as an overwhelming calamity, and delayed hitherto by what resembled the special mercy of Providence, could not now be distant. When the heavens were once opened, when the rain of the East descended in all its first violence, their fortification would straightway cease to be habitable and secure. The walls of the barracks, shakened and riddled by the cannonade, would sink and crumble beneath the fury of a tropical tempest. The holes in which our ladies sought refuge from the glare and the shot would be filled ere many inches had fallen. The marksmen who, provided with weapons worthy of their skill, could hardly guarantee those paltry bulwarks, would be helpless when damp powder and dirty gun-barrels had reduced them to their bayonets and hog-spears. In another week they must expect to be washed out of their defences; but, before that week had elapsed, the state of the barometer would concern them little; for the provisions were fast coming to an end. Their stores had dwindled to less than a quart per head of almost uneatable native food. The choice lay between death and capitulation: and, if the latter were resolved on, it was well that the offer came from the enemy. Loth and late Sir Hugh gave way. In order to avoid the appearance of a suspicious eagerness to accept the advances of the Nana, Mrs. Jacobi was dismissed with an announcement that our commander