And so the stage had been selected whereon to enact the tragedy. Hoolas Sing had furnished the properties; Azimoolah had composed the plot; and there lacked only a skilful manager, who should distribute the parts, instruct the actors, and dispose the supernumeraries. The Nana could discover many a one among his pimps and parasites suited to such a job as far as moral constitution was concerned. In his familiar circle there was no dearth of fellows by the hand of nature marked, quoted, and signed to do a deed of shame. But in that degenerate circle there was only a single courtier who had retained something of the old Mahratta dash and martial craft. Tantia Topee was destined ere long to demonstrate that he could run away every whit as successfully as those chieftains who more than half a century before wearied out the hot pursuit of Lake and Wellesley; and on this particular occasion he evinced qualities which might have secured to him a share of fame in a cause less detestable to God and man. Laurels were not to be reaped in that contest. The due meed for such victors was a wreath of cypress and a necklace of hemp. But the bad deed was right cleverly done. Among all the feats of arms performed by the rebel forces during the eighteen months which succeeded the explosion at Meerut, no operation was so perfect in all its parts, so able in design, and so prosperous in execution, as the memorable treachery of Cawnpore. The Suttee Chowra Ghaut, or landing-place, lay a short mile to the north-west of our intrenchment. At this point a ravine runs into the Ganges, after crossing at a right angle the main road, which is distant three hundred yards from the river. During summer the bed of the stream is dry, and presents the appearance of a sandy lane of irregular width, uneven with frequent lumps of broken soil, and inclosed on either side within high banks crowned by decaying fences. Standing half way down this passage the tourist sees behind him a bridge which carries the highway across the defile, the rails of which, then as now coated with white paint, have little of an Oriental aspect, and remind him for an instant of a bit in a Surrey common. On reaching the shore he finds himself in an open space, some hundred and fifty yards long and a hundred deep, bounded in the rear by a precipitous rising ground surmounted with prickly pear, in front by the Ganges, and to the left by the ruins of what in 1857 was the village from which the Ghaut takes a name. On his right hand rises a picturesque temple, dedicated to the patron deity of fishermen, small but in good repair, resembling nothing so much as those summer-houses of a century back which at the corners of old gardens overhang Dutch canals and suburban English byways. Passing down the wall of this edifice a steep flight of steps terminates in the very water of the river, so that a man cannot round the corner without wading. This is the scene where the traveller