The mischance at the Lahore Gate cost England a life she could ill spare. When he heard what had happened, Nicholson ran to the Mori Bastion, gathered men from both columns and tried to storm the Lahore Bastion at all hazards. It was asking too much, but those gallant hearts did not falter. They followed their beloved leader into a narrow lane, the only way from the one point to the other. They fell in scores, but Nicholson's giant figure still towered in front. With sword raised he shouted to the survivors to come on. Then a bullet struck him in the chest and he fell. With him, for a time, drooped the flag of Britain. The utter confusion which followed is shown by Lord Robert's statement in his Memoirs that he found Nicholson lying in a dhooly near the Cashmere Gate, the native carriers having fled. Although Baird Smith, a skilled engineer and artillerist, had secured against a _coup de main_ that small portion of the city occupied by the besiegers, General Wilson was minded to withdraw the troops. Even now he considered the task of subduing Delhi to be beyond their powers. Baird Smith insisted that he should hold on. Nicholson sent a typical message from his deathbed on the Ridge that he still had strength enough left to struggle to his feet and pistol the first man who counseled retreat, and the harassed commander-in-chief consented to the continuance of the fighting. Although his judgment was mistaken he had good reasons for it. Akhab Khan, on whom the real leadership devolved when it became known that the King and his sons had fled from the palace, tried a ruse that might well have proved fatal to his adversaries. Counting on the exhaustion of the British and the privations they had endured during the long months on the Ridge, he caused the deserted streets, between the Cashmere and Mori Gates, to be strewed with bottles of wine, beer and spirits. To men enfeebled by heat and want of food the liquor was more deadly than lead or steel. Were it not that Akhab Khan himself was shot through the forehead while trying to repel the advance of Taylor's engineers along the main road to the palace from the Cashmere Gate, it was well within the bounds of possibility that the afternoon of the 14th might have witnessed a British _debacle_. In one respect the sepoy commander's death was as serious to his cause as the loss of Nicholson to the English. The rebels, fighting fiercely enough in small detachments, but no longer controlled by a man who knew how to use their vastly superior numbers, allowed themselves to be dealt with in detail. Soon the British attack was properly organized, and a six days' orgy of destruction began.