Lawrence had taken all human precautions, and was familiar with such warnings as that now brought to him, and he sat down with his staff to dinner with iron composure. At nine o’clock there rolled through the sultry darkness the sound of a gun, and silence fell for a moment on the dinner party. Nothing followed the roar of the gun. Lawrence leaned forward with a smile on his face, and said to the officer who brought the news, “Your friends are not punctual.” At that moment there rose in sharp succession on the still night air the crack of a dozen muskets. Then came the sound of running feet, the confused shouts of a crowd. The Mutiny had come! Lawrence, without a change of countenance, ordered the horses, waiting ready saddled, to be brought round, and, followed by his staff, went out on to the Residency steps to wait for them. As they stood there red flames were breaking out at a score of points in the black mass of houses on which they looked. The air was full of tumult. An English bungalow only a hundred and fifty yards distant broke into flame, showing how near the mutineers were. At that moment, with the tramp of disciplined feet, a body of Sepoys came running up at the double out of the darkness, and swung into line facing the Residency steps. It was the native officer bringing up the Residency guard; and, saluting Captain Wilson, Lawrence’s aide-de-camp, he asked “if the men should load.” These men were known to be disloyal; before the morning dawned, as a matter of fact, they were in open mutiny. Ought they to be treated as loyal, and permitted to load with the entire British staff of the city at the muzzles of their muskets? Wilson reported the native officer’s question to Lawrence. “Yes,” said he quietly, “let them load,” and the group on the Residency steps quietly watched while ramrods rang sharply in the musket barrels, and the gun-nipples were capped. The sound of ramrods falling on the leaden bullets was perfectly audible in the hush; and, says Colonel Wilson, “I believe Sir Henry was the only man of all that group whose heart did not beat the quicker for it.” Then there came a thrilling pause. These men had the entire British staff at Lucknow before them at point-blank distance! A single gesture, a shout, and that line of muskets would have poured its deadly fire upon the group on the Residency steps, and with the sound of that one volley Lucknow must have fallen, and perhaps the course of history been changed.