The storm of indignation in camp at the failure of this bold design was frightful. But, as Colonel Norman justly remarked, “It was one of those happy interpositions in our behalf of which we had such numbers to be thankful for.” For, even if the rebels should have been driven out of Delhi, what if they rallied and returned in force? Our poor 3,000 men would have been swallowed up in the immensity of the city. The postponement of the assault gave the rebels full scope: it bred anarchy, confusion, and disorder, and the native trading population soon felt the difference between the violence and robbery of the sepoy domination and the peace and security they had enjoyed under us. But in camp the abandonment of the assault was followed by a period of despondency and gloom. In a few days cheering news came from the Punjab. The Chief Commissioner, John Lawrence, aided by worthy officers, had made all safe at the chief points of danger. All through the Punjab the Hindoo cavalry and sepoys were being disarmed; the magazines had been secured; the Sikhs and Punjabees, men who had no sympathy with the mutineers, were being enrolled and formed into corps and re-armed. With bold and daring hand, that “out of this nettle, danger, plucks the flower safety,” Lawrence was gathering as volunteers from the warlike frontier tribes all the restless, turbulent spirits who might have been bitter foes in extremity. He took them into pay, and made them eager to march on Delhi, to assist in its capture and share in its plunder. There were several sorties to repulse, and these small successes kept up the men’s spirits. In the first six weeks of the siege, or until the reinforcements began to flow in, night or day no man undressed, except for a few minutes for the necessary ablutions and changes of clothes, and this was not always possible. They lay down and slept in their clothes, with arms and ammunition either on or by their sides, ready to slip on the moment the alarm should be sounded. The heat was fearful, yet day after day they had to stand for hours in the sun and hot wind, or, worst of all, to endure the torture of lying down on the burning rocks on the Ridge--baked by them on one side, whilst the sun was “doing” the other. Many an officer and man, struck by the sun and unable to rise, was carried off to hospital delirious and raving. The flies were in myriads, and added to their torments; they clung to hands and faces, they covered the food until it was uneatable, and they worried all incessantly until dusk. Many men had sunstroke twice; some who were wounded suffered from it also, and the great heat and fatigue began to tell on the soldiers, and sent them into hospital, from whence many were never to return. Fortunately, food in camp was both abundant and good; the troops got their meals and their dram of grog with great regularity.