Sir Colin Campbell was unquestionably a deliberate man. This was not so in his original nature, which was quick and ardent; but in the course of his long military life he had seen much evil come of hurry. Fighting man as he was, there probably never was a greater economist of the lives of his soldiers. When absolute need was, he did not hesitate to avert failure at the cost of men's lives, as he showed in the long and bloody fight under the walls of the Shah Nujeef; but whenever and wherever there was the possibility, his most earnest anxiety was to spare his men to the utmost of his endeavour. The chief object he had now in view was to attain the possession of Lucknow with no more loss to his force than the ordinary risk of such a service would justify. All his instructions, all his measures, conduced to this end. He was a man to whom a "big butcher's bill" was an utter abomination. And thus it was that he moved with a systematic deliberation which rash and callous men have sneered at as slowness. There were men about him, for instance, who would have stormed Banks' house on the evening of the 9th. Since no heavy guns were up, that enterprise would have cost dear in infantry-men. But the cool, shrewd, steadfast old Chief waited till next morning, when Lugard had his instructions to knock a breach with heavy guns in the high wall surrounding the house; which done, the infantry entered and at noon the building was captured and presently converted into a military post. The preliminaries accomplished, there was no delay in the operations. Arrangements were at once made for prosecuting the advance on the Kaiserbagh. On the 10th Outram had placed his heavy guns in battery to play on that citadel and on the Mess House, on the former of which a battery of five mortars had already opened. Hope Grant with his cavalry scoured the ground between the Goomtee and the old cantonments. On the morning of the 11th some of the 68-pounders and heavy howitzers were brought up into position near Banks' house. A gradual approach was being made towards the Begum's palace, and the intervening gardens and suburbs were occupied by the troops designed for the assault--the Ninety-Third, Fourth Punjaub Rifles, and some Ghoorkas, under the command of Adrian Hope. It was Sir Colin's design to advance successively through the courts and palaces on either side of the Huzrut Gunj street, and profiting by the cover thus afforded, take in reverse the enemy's second and third line of works instead of sapping up to their front. During this progress on his part the rebels' position would be simultaneously enfiladed from the left bank by Outram's heavy cannon. About 4 P.M. the breach was pronounced practicable and the assault was promptly delivered. Sir Colin well termed it "the sternest struggle of the siege." Captain M'Donald of the Ninety-Third was shot down just after he had led his company through the breach in the outer rampart. About twenty paces