During the terrible night--a night full of hope for the starving, miserable people in the Cawnpore entrenchments--the little garrison were busy making preparation for their departure on the morrow. That is, such preparations as they could make, which, for the most part, consisted of gathering together the trifling remnants of their treasures. Here, a treasured portrait was carefully stowed away; there, a lock of hair cut by loving hands from the head of some dear one, whose earthly troubles were ended, was wrapped up and placed between the leaves of a well-worn Bible, so that it might serve in future time as a sorrowful memento of that awful siege. Through those dreary hours of darkness there was one who sat apart from his companions; he was weary and jaded, but sleep refused to visit him. This was Walter Gordon. As he sat there, with his head bowed on his hands, it would have been almost impossible to have detected the European in the guise of the native, for he still wore the costume in which he had left Meerut. And the disguise was rendered more perfect by long exposure of the sun, and by smoke and grime from the powder which seemed to have literally been burnt into the skin. An unutterable grief appeared to be pressing him down; for his thoughts wandered to one whom he dare not hope could be alive and well. The plan arranged by Zeemit Mehal for Miss Meredith’s rescue had, so far as he was able to judge, resulted in nothing, because however successful she might have been, the investing enemy had prevented any news reaching him from the outside world; and even if Zeemit had been able to get Flora free from Delhi, he knew that, without assistance, speedy recapture must result. During the long weeks that he had been shut up in the entrenchments, the excitement of the siege had prevented his thoughts from dwelling too closely upon his troubles. But now that that excitement was over, and the reaction set in, he felt an anguish of mind and body that almost threatened to upset his reason. The promise of the coming release gave him no pleasurable feeling. His business was ruined; the fate of the woman who was to have been his wife unknown; nearly all his friends killed; and he, lonely and broken-hearted, a wreck compared to what he was a few bright happy weeks ago. As the memory of that night in Meerut, when Flora Meredith had warned him of the coming danger, rose up before him, he felt that it would be a relief if any one of the enemy’s shot would but come and cut his thread of life. He had allowed her warning to pass unheeded; nay, had absolutely laughed it to scorn, as the emanation of one who was morbid and out of sorts. He might have saved her then, have saved his possessions, and all belonging to him and her. But he remained inactive. He allowed the precious moments to glide by, until the storm burst in all its fury, and escape from its consequences was impossible.