promising, as the writer fondly hoped, relief in a few days; but it was not till the 29th of August that they understood the reasons of his delay, and now, nearly a month later still, he was at length to inform them in person what he had endured in order to reach them, and why he could not do so at an earlier day.
On the 20th of September Havelock again crossed the Ganges with 3,179 men, composed of the 78th and 91st Highlanders, the 64th and 84th, and the 1st and 5th Fusileers, a regiment of Sikhs, and 168 volunteer cavalry. No greater work was ever accomplished by military skill and daring than the relief of the Lucknow garrison by this handful of men.
The faithful native messenger, Ungud, again reached his camp, and was at once dispatched to give the final assurance to the garrison that he was at last really coming, and that, God helping him, they should be relieved within three or four days. This glad news reached them on the 22d of September, and raised the drooping spirits of all. How fervently they prayed, and how anxiously they watched, during the three following days, trembling to think how many precious lives of their approaching friends would have to be sacrificed in order to rescue them!
General Havelock had to fight two battles more between Cawnpore and Lucknow, but these he fought and won. Within five miles of the city they could hear the artillery booming around the Residency of Lucknow, and the General ordered a royal salute to be fired from his heaviest guns, in the hope that his beleaguered friends might hear the report and understand its import—that deliverance was drawing nigh.
Their beaten foes fell back on their strong city, about two miles of which Havelock's men must fight their way through, ere they could reach the Residency. Every inch of ground was disputed; palisades and barricades had to be taken at the point of the bayonet. The flat-roofed houses had been furnished with mud-walls on the top, on the street side, pierced for musketry, where the Sepoys could fire on the men in the narrow streets without exposing their own persons, thus doing dreadful execution. No words can do
