Meanwhile, events elsewhere had moved too fast for the British commander-in-chief. Brasyer’s Sikhs, with some companies of the 10th Foot, had stormed the Imambarah. The flying Sepoys took refuge in the next and strongest of all the Sepoy works, the citadel of the whole defence, the Kaisarbagh, a blaze of gilded spires, cupolas and domes, all turned into a vast fortification. The Sikhs and the 10th followed vehemently and closely, while some of the men of the 90th, led by young Havelock, carried a palace close to the Kaisarbagh, from which they commanded three of its bastions. They opened on them a fire so deadly that the Sepoys fled from their guns. The engineers wished to stay any further attack; the programme for the day was exhausted, and, in Colin Campbell’s leisurely tactics, nothing further was meant to be done that day. But the stormers were eager; Sikhs and Highlanders alike had the fire of victory in their blood. They clambered through an embrasure, and forced their way into the Kaisarbagh, Havelock running back and bringing up some companies of the 10th Foot. Brasyer pushed out beyond the Kaisarbagh, indeed, to the Mess-house. Franks and Napier brought up new troops, and the Kaisarbagh itself was swept from end to end. All the wealth of India seemed to have been gathered within that great mass of gilded walls, and all this was now given up to mad and wasteful plunder. The men, to use Russell’s phrase, were “drunk with plunder.” They literally waded through court after court, piled high with embroidered cloths, gold and silver brocade, arms rough with jewels, shawls heavy with gold, banners, cloaks, pictures, vases. The men had the wealth of kings under their feet! It was a day of great deeds. Two successive lines of defensive works, vast as railway embankments, garrisoned by an army, and backed by a great citadel, had been carried in succession. And yet the chief military gain of this great feat was lost, owing to Colin Campbell’s absurd order, which held Outram back from carrying the iron bridge, and enabled the flying Sepoys to escape in thousands, to relight the flame of war throughout the whole of Oude. It is amusing to know that Colin Campbell was at first disgusted, rather than delighted, with the daring rush which, with such indecent and unscientific haste, carried the Kaisarbagh. He is said, indeed, to have sent orders to Franks to evacuate the great post. Franks, however, was both a fine soldier and a hot-blooded Irishman, and he declined, in the bluntest form of speech, to give up the great stronghold his men had carried with a dash so brilliant.