At the prescribed time, Tantia Topee found his power assembled on the bank, and straightway proceeded to make his dispositions. One gun, under the charge of a detachment, was placed among the ruins of Mr. Christie's house, which, from a considerable height above the stream, commanded the whole line of boats. A strong body of sepoys took cover behind the village of Suttee Chowra. A squadron of troopers concealed themselves to the south of the Fisherman's Temple. A couple of sections were secreted in and about some timber, which lay ready to be shipped away; while a mixed party of horse and foot were told off to follow our garrison, with directions to form up on the wooden bridge as soon as the English rear-guard had entered the ravine, and thus cut off the single avenue of escape. A fieldpiece, protected by a company of infantry, was posted a quarter of a mile down the river: and at a somewhat wider interval was stationed a third gun and another company. On the opposite shore, directly facing the mouth of the lane, stood two cannon, guarded by an entire battalion of infantry and a regiment of cavalry, who had recently attached themselves to the insurrection. The boats, some few excepted, had been hauled into the shallows, and were literally resting on the sand. They were of the ordinary country build, thirty feet from stem to stern, and twelve feet in the beam. They were covered in by a heavy roof of straw, with a space at either end left open for the steersman and the rowers. At a distance they had the air of floating haystacks, rather than of vessels; and, indeed, were not unlike the Noah's ark of our nurseries, both in their outlines and in the number of their crew. Tantia called the boatmen together, and bade them hold themselves prepared, at a given signal, to fire the thatch, and make for the shore; and then, secure of the issue, mounted the stairs of the little temple, there to await, amidst a crowd of armed retainers, the outcome of his able combinations. The men in ambush chattered, and shivered, and munched their cold rice, and shared the alternate pipe: and the Mussulmans in the various groups performed a leisurely obeisance towards the rising sun, not sorry when his rays broke through the chill mist of the morning; and the bargemen gathered round fires heaped with a larger supply of charcoal than the economic Hindoo is wont to expend upon the preparation of his frugal breakfast.