Our friends at Delhi learned that Havelock and Neill were leading a small column to the rescue of Lucknow, fighting every inch of the way. Neill had been hastily summoned from Madras with his gallant regiment, and had already done splendid work. Lord Canning, the viceroy, had risen to the occasion. Without hesitating he had brought back Outram's Persia Expeditionary Force, and had courageously taken upon himself to stop at Colombo the ships which were taking troops to China, and divert them to Calcutta. China might wait, India could not. In the Punjab the poorbeahs had shot their bolt and had missed. First Chamberlain and then Nicholson, with the movable column, were giving the rebels no rest, harrying them from one province to another, and punishing them severely. It was not at the Flagstaff Tower, but at their own post that they heard the news that made each man feel as if he had lost a dear friend. Henry Lawrence was dead. Yes, one of the pillars of the empire had fallen, and even the roughest soldiers felt the shock. "Ah, he was a man, he was!" murmured a rifleman. "We sha'n't see another like him." A sergeant of the 60th gazed thoughtfully over the city. "My two kids are in that asylum he built up at Sanawar," said he. "He was the sojer's friend. The kiddies 'ud have bin dead by now if it hadn't bin for 'im." "You're right there," said another non-commissioned officer, shaking his head. "He's done more for us than any man. Who cared what became of the poor little beggars, whether they died like flies or not, till he raised the money for the asylums?" "What asylums are them?" asked a young private. "Have ye no' heard o' the Lawrence Asylums?" demanded a man from Lanark. "They're built on the hills, whaur the air is as guid as at Rothesay, an' they're for the soldiers' bairns." "Aye!" said the sergeant; "and though he was only a poor man for one in his position, they said he spent nearly all his salary in charity." "Lucknow won't be long now he's dead," muttered another. "They can't hold out for ever, and the rebels are swarming round Havelock. He's had to fall back." But Lucknow was not destined to fall. "Well, I'm not a cruel man," muttered the young private, "but I could kill a few o' them sepoys with pleasure, the black-'earted villains!"