This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
354
THE LAND OF THE VEDA.

respective staffs around them, met opposite the king's palace gate, about four hundred yards in front of the battered Residency, and there stood, hand grasped in hand, amid the roar of the cannon and the loud, glad cheers of their troops! Mansfield was there, and Hope Grant, and gallant Peel, with Norman, Ewart, Greathed, Sir David Baird, Adrian Hope, Gough, the Allisons, and scores of others, who had fought and suffered bravely to see that hour. All were in a tumult of joyous excitement. England has tried to do justice to that great meeting by a magnificent picture of the scene. But how significant of their toils and dangers is the reflection that of the names I have mentioned all but about two of this group of Christian knights are in their graves to-day! Campbell and Outram rest in Westminster Abbey, Havelock lies in the lonely Alumbagh, (he ought to sleep with his illustrious comrades,) and half the others repose beneath India's soil, on subsequent battle-fields, which had to be fought ere complete peace was conquered.

The relief of the Residency was at once followed by its evacuation. The women and children required to be promptly removed from danger to a place of safety; and, as this must be accomplished without risk to any of them, the intention had to be entirely disguised from the enemy, fifty thousand strong around them. The Commander-in-chief considerately intrusted the arrangement of this honorable duty to General Havelock; it was the last service he would ever render, and most efficiently was it performed. The whole force was admirably handled, the fire of the Residency being sustained, and even their lights left burning till sunrise. At midnight of the 22d all was ready, and along a narrow, tortuous lane, (the only possible path,) protected on both sides by the outposts, which, as the last of the column passed, were quietly withdrawn, “the pickets fell back through the supports; the supports glided away through the intervals of the reserve; the reserve, including the Commander-in-chief, silently defiled into the lane; while the enemy, seeing the lights and fires burning, thought the Residency still occupied, and kept up on the south and west sides