The capture of Lucknow, in a space of time so brief, and at a cost so slight, was due in part, of course, to the splendid leadership of the officers and the daring of the men. But it was due, in even greater measure, to the skill of the engineers. It was an engineer’s plan that sent Outram, with his heavy guns, across the Goomtee, round the “toe” of the boot, and so took the lines of the Sepoys in reverse. It was clever engineering, again, which broke a way for the advance of the British left wing through the houses to the left of the great road. The Sepoys had taken it for granted that the advance of the British would be up that road, and they had turned it into a Valley of Death. Every parapeted housetop that looked down on the road was crowded with muskets. The road itself was merely a double line of crenellated walls, inaccessible to scaling ladders, swept by grape and case-shot from every cross street, pelted by musketry from every mosque roof and palace gable, and raked from end to end with the fire of great guns. But all these elaborate and terrible defences were made useless by the fact that the British engineers tore a road for their advance through the houses to the left of the great road, until the Kaisarbagh itself was reached and seized. The whole siege, indeed, is a lesson in the value of science in war. Brains count for more, in such a struggle, than even bullets. The Residency itself fell with almost ludicrous tameness. Outram, on the 16th, forced his way across the Iron Bridge, and the Residency, though crowded with Sepoys, was yielded with scarcely a musket shot being fired in defence. The position which the Sepoys tried, in vain, for more than eighty days to carry, was taken by the British in less than as many minutes! [Illustration: Map of NORTHERN INDIA showing distribution of troops on 1st. May 1857. By permission, from Captain Trotter’s Life of John Nicholson, John Murray 1898. Walker & Cockerell sc.] Lucknow did not fall, however, without one eccentric and highly illogical flash of valour being shown by the Sepoys. The Moulvie of Fyzabad was the most obstinate and daring of the leaders thrown up by the great Mutiny. He was a soldier, indeed, who, on the Sepoys’ side, rivals Tantia Topee himself for generalship; while, for personal daring, he leaves the Nana’s general hopelessly behind. The Moulvie had made his escape from Lucknow, but in a mood of sudden wrath, turned his face towards the city again. He returned, and occupied a strong building, from which he was only expelled with much hard fighting by the 93rd and the 4th Punjaub Infantry. The fight was hopeless from the outset; the city had fallen, further resistance was a mere idle waste of life. Yet the Sepoys showed a more desperate courage in this combat than at any other point throughout the siege. For so much does the influence of one brave man count! INDEX Abbott, Major, 37 _et seq._ Adye, 247 Agra, 176 Aikman, Lieutenant, 331, 332