After Balaclava the Highland Brigade were employed in besieging Sevastopol, and on September 8, 1855, a scheme was nearly carried into effect that might have resulted in the fall of the Russian position by assault. Sir Colin Campbell drew out a plan in which the Black Watch were to advance to the attack, while the remainder of the division supported them. About midnight on the 8th, therefore, when the fire of the Russian troops had become almost silent, a little party went forward to the Redan to reconnoitre. To their astonishment there was no one to be seen, save the wounded and the dying. In the silence of the night the Russian forces had evacuated, leaving Sevastopol to fall into the hands of the Allies. There is little more to tell of the part that the Highland Brigade took in the Crimean campaign. After the fall of Sevastopol the Black Watch was stationed at Kamara until peace was declared, and in due course arrived in England, accompanied by the Camerons and the Sutherlands. They little knew what trials lay before them. Already in the far-distant land of India the clouds were beginning to gather upon the horizon. Already in many a silent street the whisper was passing from lip to lip that was destined, within a few short months, to reverberate down the passages of Time. CHAPTER XVI WITH HAVELOCK TO LUCKNOW I have been forty years in the Service, I have been engaged in actions seven-and-twenty times, but in the whole of my career I have never seen any regiment behave so well as the 78th (Seaforth) Highlanders. I am proud of you. I am not a Highlander, but I wish I was one. HAVELOCK. It was in the early months of 1857 that there were the first ominous signs of unrest in India. We have already seen how our power in India was founded upon the position held by the traders of the East India Company; we have also read of Dupleix, the French Governor; of Robert Clive, who held Arcot for fifty days against thousands of the enemy; of the battle of Plassey, and the ‘Black Hole’ at Calcutta; we have dealt very briefly with the victories of Wellesley, but between the early part of the nineteenth century and 1857 there had been little actual conflict, while the progress of the British Government had been well sustained. During these years the native army had been very largely increased in numbers, while the British forces had hardly altered. In Bengal there were twenty Sepoys for every English soldier, and naturally enough the Crimean War had not been a favourable time to increase our garrison. It is difficult to say whether the Russian campaign had any political effect upon the Indians, but it is probable that it gave an impetus to the general unrest. Railways, telegraph wires, with all the other new appliances that were being first introduced at this time, were regarded with the deepest hatred and suspicion.