Meanwhile, some other formidable buildings—the Secundrabagh, the Shah Nujeef, &c.—had fallen, almost without resistance, into the hands of the British. Outram was steadily pushing on along the northern bank, and scourging with his flank fire each position the Sepoys held. The 12th and the 13th were employed by the engineers in pushing on a line of advance through the houses, to the left of the main road, thus avoiding the fire of the Sepoys. On the morning of the 14th the Imambarah, a mass of minarets, flat roofs, and long, ornamental frontage, was stormed by Brasyer’s Sikhs. Outram, by this time, had seized the iron bridge to the west of the Residency. He was in a position to cork the neck of the bottle, that is, and to make flight impossible for the great mass of the Sepoys. But this splendid position was thrown away by the first of the two great blunders which mar Colin Campbell’s conduct of the siege. Outram asked permission to force the bridge, and take the Sepoys, still holding the Kaisarbagh and the Residency, in the rear. Campbell consented, but forbade him crossing, if, in the process, he would lose a single man. Now, the bridge was held in force by the Sepoys, and guarded by a battery, and to force it would necessarily risk many lives. But war is a business of risks, and the gain beyond was enormous. A soldier like Nicholson, or Neill, or Hodson, would have interpreted Campbell’s order generously; or they would have stormed the bridge without orders, and would have trusted to the justification which success always gives. But Outram was of a less audacious type. An order, to him, was _sacro-sanct_. He made no attempt to cross the bridge, but looked on, while the defeated Sepoys streamed past in thousands, escaping to the open country, there to kindle the fires of a costly guerilla warfare. The preparations to pass the bridge, it may be added, were marked by fine valour on the part of one of Outram’s engineers. Outram himself had, at the beginning of the operations, thrown a barricade across the bridge, to prevent the Sepoys crossing. When, in turn, he himself had to force his way across, it was necessary to remove this barricade, and to do it in broad daylight, and under a fierce and sustained fire from the Sepoys. Wynne, of the Engineers, and a sergeant named Paul, undertook the perilous task. They crept forward, crouching under the parapet of the bridge; then, kneeling down, they removed one sand-bag after another from the barricade, passing each bag back along the line of men, from hand to hand. But, as the level of the barricade sank, the two gallant engineers were exposed more fully to the Sepoy muskets. The fire was furious. Yet Wynne and his companion coolly pulled down the barricade, bag by bag, till the lowest tier was reached, and then ran back unharmed.