Captain Moore thought it well to give the enemy an early and convincing proof that the spirit of our people was not broken by this great calamity. At the dead of the ensuing night he stole out from the intrenchment with fifty picked men at his heels in the direction of the chapel and the racket-court. Beginning from this point, the party hurried down the rebel lines under favour of the darkness, doing whatever rapid mischief was practicable. They surprised in untimely slumber some native gunners, who never waked again; spiked and rolled over several twenty-four pounders; gratified their feelings by blowing up a piece which had given them especial annoyance; and got back, carrying in their arms four of their number, and leaving another behind:--a service brilliant indeed, but barren of results: for the sepoys had only to resolve on the calibre that they preferred, and the number of canon which they could conveniently work, and then take at will from the arsenal so inconsiderately placed at their disposal. This chivalrous act, one among many such, at that time passed without reward or public approval. When in a water-logged vessel men are toiling for their lives, who observes whether his neighbour does more or less at the pumps than he, provided all do their utmost? And when they have betaken themselves to the boats, and are rowing against time and famine, who cares which of the crew feathers most neatly, and which reaches forward with the straightest back? This was no set duel of civilized nations: no stately tournament, wherein the champions fight beneath the eyes of a friendly people, ready with their praise and sympathy; where wounds are bandaged with a ribbon, and self-sacrifice entitles the hero to a corner in our modern Walhalla, the columns of the daily press. Rare were those who here had leisure or heart to take note, and they who survived to make report were rarer still. As during the ages before Atrides came on earth countless chieftains, unwept, unknown, sank into eternal oblivion because they lacked a sacred bard: so at Cawnpore many a soldier brave as Hodson of Hodson's Horse, nobly prodigal of himself as William Peel of the Shannon, dared, and fell, and was forgotten for want of a special correspondent. Correspondence there was, containing much earnest entreaty for a rescue and some unconscious eloquence; but too important matter had to be compressed into too small a compass to admit of panegyric or recommendation for honours and advancement. Several urgent missives found their way to Lucknow, rolled tightly into quills, sealed up, and hidden with mysterious art in and about the person of Hindoo messengers;--so curiously stowed away that in some cases it took almost as long to produce as to convey the note: though, if the rebels chanced to intercept the despatch, they generally abridged the operation by cutting in pieces the ill-starred courier. On the middle day of June