drenched in perspiration, and with bleeding flanks. A fresh access of terror soon dismissed him again on his way to Bithoor, sore and weary, his head swimming and his chest heaving.” The battle of Cawnpore was won, but the loss had been considerable, and the massacre of the hapless garrison was to take from the victory all its joy. There are few episodes in our history that have been conducted under more trying circumstances. There have been terrible marches undertaken, but few can be compared to the advance on Cawnpore. As Havelock said in issuing a report to the soldiers: “Between the 7th and 16th you have, under the Indian sun of July, marched one hundred and twenty-six miles, and fought four actions, but your comrades at Lucknow are in peril. Agra is besieged, Delhi is still the focus of mutiny and rebellion.” During the night following the action a thunderous report reached the ears of the British force, to be followed by a dense cloud of smoke. It split the silence of the Indian night and died away. The rebels, before their retreat from the city, had blown up the magazine. The next day the Highlanders marched into Cawnpore, a deserted city, with all the traces of the horrible thing that had taken place there. “Was it any wonder,” says one of the soldiers, “that when men carried back with them to camp a long heavy tress of golden hair, clean cut through as if by the slash of a sharp sword, and showed this token to comrades, who had been fighting and marching, and striving and straining that this thing might not be, was it any wonder that our soldiers swore to exact a merciless retribution as they stood around the dead, but eloquent witness of this oath.” The task that lay before Havelock was one that might have made any man give way to despair. Well might he have said, in the heroic words of Scott: “I see before me a long tedious and dark path but it leads to stainless reputation. If I die in harness as is very likely, I shall die with honour. If I achieve my task I shall have the thanks of all concerned and the approval of my conscience.” Death and disease had reduced the numbers of his force to a bare 1500. They were still faced by some fifty miles swarming with the enemy, at the end of which they hoped to rescue the garrison of Lucknow. “The chances of relieving Lucknow,” said Havelock, “are daily multiplying against us; the difficulties of an advance are excessive.” Footnote 8: _John Nicholson_, by Tinsley Pratt. CHAPTER XVII WITH SIR COLIN CAMPBELL AND THE SUTHERLANDS TO LUCKNOW