Kavanagh was an Irishman, a clerk in one of the civil offices, and apparently possessed a hundred disqualifications for the business of making his way, disguised as a native, through the dark-faced hordes that kept sleepless watch round the Residency, and through the busy streets of Lucknow beyond. He was a big-limbed, fair man, with aggressively red hair, and uncompromisingly blue eyes! By what histrionic art could he be “translated,” in Shakespeare’s sense, into a spindle-shanked, narrow-shouldered, dusky-skinned Oude peasant? But Kavanagh was a man of quenchless courage, with a more than Irish delight in deeds of daring, and he had a perfect knowledge of native dialect and character. He has left a narrative of his adventure. A spy had come in from Campbell, and was to return that night, and Kavanagh conceived the idea of going out with him, and acting as guide to the relieving force. Outram hesitated to permit the attempt to be made, declaring it to be too dangerous; but Kavanagh’s eagerness for the adventure prevailed. He hid the whole scheme from his wife, and, at half-past seven o’clock that evening, when he entered Outram’s headquarters, he was so perfectly disguised that nobody recognised him. He had blackened his face, neck, and arms with lamp-black, mixed with a little oil. His red hair, which even lamp-black and oil could hardly subdue to a colder tint, was concealed beneath a huge turban. His dress was that of a budmash, or irregular native soldier, with sword and shield, tight trousers, a yellow-coloured chintz sheet thrown over the shoulders, and a white cummerbund. A little after eight o’clock Kavanagh, with his native guide, crept to the bank of the Goomtee, which ran to the north of the Residency entrenchment. The river was a hundred yards wide, and between four feet and five feet deep. Both men stripped, crept down the bank, and slipped, as silently as otters, into the stream. Here for a moment, as Kavanagh in his narrative confesses, his courage failed him. The shadowy bank beyond the black river was held by some 60,000 merciless enemies. He had to pass through their camps and guards, and through miles of city streets beyond. If detected, he would certainly perish by torture. “If my guide had been within my reach,” he says, “I should perhaps have pulled him back and abandoned the enterprise.” But the guide was already vanishing, a sort of crouching shadow, into the blackness of the further bank; and, hardening his heart, Kavanagh stole on through the sliding gloom of the river.