Slowly and wearily the time passed, and Haidee came not. From all parts of the city lurid flames from incendiary fires were reddening the sky, and sounds of musketry and drums reached him. The unequal fight was still being carried on somewhere. Could he, bird-like, have hovered o’er the city, he would have seen sights that would have appalled the stoutest heart. In one of the strongest houses the Europeans and Eurasians from the Daraogung, or English quarter, had barricaded themselves--a little band selling their lives as dearly as possible. But all was fruitless. The barricades were carried and the people slaughtered. In the Flag-Staff Tower, on the Delhi Ridge, the women and children were gathered for protection, while a few officers and men, from the cantonment, were trying to keep off the black demons, in the hope that succour would come from Meerut, but it never came. Later on these helpless women and children were to escape, but only to meet with subsequent massacre at the hands of the brutal mutineers. Again a little body of white people, women and children, a few soldiers, officers and men, were gathered at the main guard of the Palace, holding their ground for a little while, with the fierceness of lions at bay. The European troops stationed in the cantonment when the mutiny broke out in Delhi, could have been counted by dozens, and these few dozens were scattered on this awful night. There was an embrasure in the bastion that skirted the court-yard of the main guard. Through the embrasure egress was obtained. Beneath, at a distance of thirty feet, was a dry ditch. By dropping into this ditch, crossing over, and descending the opposite scarp, the slope and the glacis could be mounted. Beyond was some jungle that offered cover to the fugitives. When defence was no longer possible, these brave officers and men made ropes of their clothing and lowered the women and children into the ditch, dropping themselves afterwards--many falling never to rise again, killed and maimed by the tremendous drop. And those who did escape dragged the weak ones up the slopes, and into the jungle. But it was only a prolongation of the agony, for the murderers reached them ultimately. All these things, and others that pen can never write, nor tongue tell, would Harper have seen, had he been, as I say, suspended, bird-like, in the air. But though he could not see, every shot, every cry, told him, in language not to be misinterpreted, that an awful carnage was going on. And the nameless horror of such knowledge, such suspense, made him wish that he were dead. Slowly the weary night passed on,--still Haidee came not. Had she deserted him, or had she fallen? were questions he asked. To the first he soon framed an answer. He would not believe she had proved false.