We sneaked out of our lines into a house. I had only a penknife, slow match, and port-fire in my hand, and was followed close by two Europeans, and supported by a dozen more. We expected to find the house empty, but George Hutchinson, who was first, suddenly startled us by firing his revolver and calling out “Here are twenty of them!” The two Europeans—indeed, all of them—fell back a pace or two; but I seized a musket from one, and ran forward. They followed, and I put them in position to guard doors, while I twitted the enemy with not showing their faces, as I did, in front of the door, but standing with only their firelocks showing. The chaff had the effect, for one dashed out and fired at me, but I shot him instanter. They then bolted as I gave the word “Charge!” and we blew up the house. Great fun and excitement in a small way! Fulton detected a mine the enemy had driven a certain distance; he ran a short countermine to meet it, and then sat patiently, revolver in hand, waiting for the unconscious enemy to break through. “Some one,” he relates, “looking for me, asked one of the Europeans if I was in the mine. ‘Yes, sir!’ said the sergeant, ‘there he has been for the last two hours, like a terrier at a rat-hole, and not likely to leave it either all day!’” It was to the energy, skill, and daring of this gallant officer that the complete defeat of the enemy’s mines was due. The last entry in his journal is dated September 11; on September 13 he was killed. Says Captain Birch, “The death of this brilliant officer was occasioned by one of the most curious of wounds. He had been inspecting a new battery in an earthwork opposite Mr. Gubbins’s house. He was lying at full length in one of the embrasures, with a telescope in his hand. He turned his face, with a smile on it, and said: ‘They are just going to fire,’ and sure enough they did! The shot took away the whole of the back of Captain Fulton’s head, leaving his face like a mask still on his neck. When he was laid out on his back on a bed, we could not see how he had been killed. His was the most important loss we had sustained after that of Sir Henry Lawrence.” [Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL SIR HENRY HAVELOCK, K.C.B. _From an engraving_] CHAPTER VII LUCKNOW AND HAVELOCK Lucknow is only forty-five miles from Cawnpore. On July 25, Havelock, at the head of his tiny but gallant force, by this time tempered in the flame of battle to the quality of mere steel, crossed the Ganges in a tempest of rain, and started to rescue the beleaguered garrison of Lucknow from the fate of Cawnpore. But it was not until September 25 that Outram and Havelock clambered through the shot-battered gun embrasure in the low wall beside the Bailey Guard at Lucknow, and brought relief to the hard-pressed garrison. And the story of those nine weeks is scribbled over with records of daring and of achievement unsurpassed in the history of war.