‘Comrades,’ he said, ‘we are abandoned to our fate. Meerut has not sent, perhaps could not send, us help. But though we are defeated we are not conquered. We have as soldiers done our duty, and defended to the last the stores committed to our care. Further defence is impossible, and there is but one more thing to do, and that is to die.’ He raised his sword as the prearranged sign, word was then passed by one of his lieutenants to Scully, who stood ready. Scully lit his match and fired the train. There was an awful pause. The minarets and domes of the wonderful city glittered in the sunlight, and the face of heaven was without a cloud. Nature was peaceful and at rest; but men were striving to tear their fellow men to pieces, and there was a Babel of fierce, discordant cries. The walls of the fort were black with hundreds of soldiers and civilians who were struggling with each other as to who should be first to cut down the Englishmen. Between the sweltering crowds on the walls and the thousands below the scaling ladders formed a connecting link, and they were black, too, with the writhing masses of men trying to work their way up. Beyond the closely-wedged crowd that extended from the walls outwards for something like fifty yards was a fringe of rabble; the scouring of the gaols and the contributions of the places of infamy with which the city abounded. And in this fringe was a large percentage of women and young people of both sexes; though there wasn’t one there but was athirst for the Feringhees’ blood. And when it was seen that the rebel Sepoys had gained the summit of the surrounding walls of the fort there arose from thousands of lips an exultant roar, for it seemed that the Englishmen were at last in the power of the mob. But suddenly that roar ceased with a quick and paralysing accession of fear that struck the human mass dumb, for something had happened--a convulsion of nature, as it seemed. The sun was darkened; the firm earth rocked, and shook, and rose and fell, and concurrent with these things was a compact, sullen, solid boom, that expanded and stretched out as it were until it became a mighty and stupendous volume of sound. Where a few seconds before the walls had stood black with hundreds of fierce men on murder intent was a heap of ruins; and all around not hundreds but thousands of human beings were hurled to the ground maimed, shattered, and slain. And of those who had presence of mind to turn and flee, some were overtaken and stricken senseless with flying masonry, masses of iron, or baulks of timbers; while others fell dead from fright, and others again went raving mad; and some rushed to the river and threw themselves in, desperate with despair, for it seemed as if their own god Shiva had turned upon his votaries and was bent on wiping them off the face of the earth. The effects of this great explosion were remarkable. The whole city was shaken. Ponderous houses