Captain Wilson, who was standing alongside the bed with one knee on it, reading a memorandum to Sir Henry, was knocked down by falling bricks. Mr. Lawrence, Sir Henry’s nephew, had an equally narrow escape, but was not hurt. The fourth person in the room, a native servant, lost one of his feet by a fragment of the shell. The ceiling and the punkah all came down, and the dust and smoke prevented anyone seeing what had happened. Neither Sir Henry nor his nephew uttered a sound, and Captain Wilson, as soon as he recovered from the concussion, called out in alarm: “Sir Henry, are you hurt?” Twice he thus called out and got no reply. After the third time Sir Henry said in a low tone: “I am killed.” His bed was being soaked with blood. Some soldiers of the 32nd soon came in and placed Sir Henry in a chair. When the surgeon came he saw that human aid was useless. Lucknow and England had lost what could never be replaced. For all who ever came in contact with Sir Henry Lawrence recognized in him a man of unstained honour, a lover of justice, pure, unselfish and noble. His successor, Brigadier Inglis, wrote of him: “Few men have ever possessed to the same extent the power which he enjoyed of winning the hearts of all those with whom he came in contact.” He gained also by his frankness the trust of the natives, who said of him: “When Sir Henry looks twice up to heaven and once down to earth, and then strokes his beard, he knows what to do.” His dying wish was that, if any epitaph were placed on his tomb, it should be this: “Here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty.” He had indeed tried to do his duty towards the defence of Lucknow. Three weeks before anyone else thought of a siege he began to collect supplies, and even paid for them much over their market value. He collected and buried much treasure in the grounds of the Residency; he stored up in underground cellars guns and mortars, shot and shell and grain; strengthened the outworks, and cleared the ground of small buildings around. Even then the assailants and the besieged were quite close to each other, and no man on either side dared expose himself to fire his musket: they fired through loopholes in the walls. This placed a never-ending strain on the besieged, for they never knew when to expect an assault. On the one side of a narrow lane were myriads of swarthy foemen, on the other side a few hundreds, who were bound always to be ready, day and night, to meet a storming party. All through the siege officers and men alike stood sentry; all bore an equal burden of toil and fighting. The stench, too, from dead animals was dreadful: they had so few servants, and the fighting men were so harassed, that they were helpless to bury them. Heavy showers night and day kept the garrison drenched to the skin, and they had no change of clothes. The sick and wounded were much crowded, as they could not use the upper story of the hospital because it was under fire of round shot.