Residency, he also occupied an old fort called the “Muchee Bhawun,” about one third of a mile west of the Residency, and close to which are our mission premises. Dividing his force, he fondly hoped to be strong enough to hold both positions till re-enforcements should reach him, and enable him to restore law and order at the capital, and throughout the kingdom. How little he foreboded the fearful odds against which his feeble garrison would soon have to contend! Meanwhile the reports of the fiendish atrocities of Delhi, Meerut, Shahjehanpore, Bareilly, and other places reached Lucknow, and its few hundred anxious Christian people began to realize more fully how completely they were cut off from all human assistance, and how dark their own future was becoming.
The natives in the city had become so persuaded of the overthrow of the English power that the Government securities, which a few days before were selling at a premium, had fallen from over one hundred to thirty-seven. Fanatics paraded the city—some of them haranguing the crowds of people, and exhibiting pictures of Europeans maimed and mutilated by Sepoys; others had a show of dolls dressed as European children, which ended by striking off their heads, to the great delight of the mobs, who looked on and applauded; while the blasphemy of Mohammedan Fakirs became bold and frightful, as they exulted in the overthrow of Christianity, and demanded the blood of “the Kaffirs” in the Fort and Residency, as the consummation of their efforts. These wretched men imagined that the whole of Hindustan had fallen, that the few of our faith around Sir Henry Lawrence were all of the Christian life left in India; and for many long and weary months the Christians generally, like those at Nynee Tal, did not know but that this was the terrible truth.
While busy preparing the defenses with which they were surrounding the Residency and the other houses near it, so as to form intrenchments, and make the best of their position, Sir Henry was joined by the few Europeans who had escaped from the massacres at Secrora and other stations in Oude. The news they brought deepened the gloom of the situation. Reports of the dead bodies
