The Sepoys next brought up three brass guns, and lashed temple and road alike with their fire. Webster, an officer of the 78th, famous for his swordsmanship and strength, called out, “Who’s for these infernal guns?” and ran out, sword in hand. His Highlanders followed him, but could not overtake Webster, who sprang upon the guns, and slew a gunner, just in the act of putting his linstock to the touch-hole, with a stroke so mighty that it clove the Sepoy through skull and jaws almost to the collar-bone! The guns were captured, dragged with a triumphant skirl of the pipes to the canal, and flung in, and the Highlanders set off to follow the column. They did not follow in its immediate track, but made a wide sweep to the right, and both sections of the column, with much stern fighting, reached what was called the Chutter Munzil Palace. “Here,” says Forbes, “were the chiefs of the little army. On his big ‘waler’ sat Outram, a splash of blood across his face, and one arm in a sling, the Malacca cane, which formed his sole weapon in battle, still grasped in the hand of the sound limb. Havelock, on foot, was walking up and down on Outram’s near side, with short steps. All around them, at a little distance, were officers, and outside of the circle so formed were soldiers, guns, wounded men, bullocks, camels”—all the tumult, in a word, of the battle. Outram and Havelock disagreed as to the next step to be taken. Outram—the cooler brain of the two—wished to halt for the night, and then to push their way in the morning through the successive courts of the palaces right up to the Residency. Havelock was eager to complete the day’s work, and reach the Residency with a final and desperate rush. A long, winding, and narrow street stretched before them up to the Bailey Guard Gate, the entrance to the Residency. It was true that every cross street that broke its length was swept by the fire of the enemy’s guns, that the houses were loopholed and crowded with Sepoys, and from the flat roofs of the houses above a tempest of fire would be poured upon the British. But Havelock was full of warlike impatience. “There is the street,” said he; “we see the worst. We shall be slated, but we can push through, and get it over.” Outram acknowledged afterwards that he ought to have said, “Havelock, we have virtually reached the Residency. I now take the command;” but he added to the confession, “My temper got a little the better of me, and I said, ‘In God’s name, then, let us go on.’” The Highlanders led, Havelock and Outram riding with their leading files. Brasyer’s Sikhs followed. It was, as Forbes says, “a true _via dolorosa_.” From house-roof, from door, from window, from every cross lane poured a tempest of shot, and through it the British could only push with dogged, all-enduring courage, seldom halting to fire back. And this experience stretched over more than three-quarters of a mile! Here is a little battle vignette taken from Forbes:—