In company with a native, himself dyed and disguised as one of the desperadoes who swarmed about Lucknow, Kavanagh left our lines by swimming over the river, re-crossed it by a bridge, and walked through the chief street, meeting few people, none of whom recognized him for a European. Outside the city, the two companions lost their way, but were actually set right by a picket of the rebels, who here and there challenged them or let them pass without notice. Before daybreak they fell in with the British outposts, and at noon a flag on the Alum Bagh informed the garrison of their emissary's safe arrival. On November 12, Sir Colin reached the Alum Bagh, where he spent one more day in making final arrangements; then, on the 14th, he set out to begin the series of combats by which he must reach a hand to our beleaguered countrymen. His army, with reinforcements coming up at the last moment from Cawnpore, numbered some five thousand men and fifty guns, made up in great part of fragments of several regiments, the backbone of it the 93rd Highlanders, fresh from England, and steeled by the Crimean battles in which they had learned to trust their present leader. These precious lives had to be husbanded for further pressing work; and in any case he naturally sought a safer road than that on which Havelock had lost a third of his force. One looking at the map of Lucknow might be puzzled to explain the circuitous route taken by both generals from the Alum Bagh to the Residency, which stand directly opposite each other on either side of the city, some three or four miles apart. Running a gauntlet of street-fighting was the main peril to be avoided. Then, not only should the approach be made as far as possible through open suburbs, but while the Residency quarter is bounded by the windings of the Goomtee to the north, the south and east sides are defended by the Canal, a deep curved ravine, in the wet season filled with water. Instead of forcing his way, like Havelock, over its nearest bridge, Sir Colin meant to make a sweep half-round the city on the further side of this channel, taking the rebels by surprise at an unexpected point, as well as hoping to avoid the fire of the Kaiser Bagh, a huge royal palace, which was their head-quarters, and commanded the usual road to the Residency.