CHAPTER VII
THE DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW
The focus of the insurrection was now at
Lucknow, where ever since the end of June
the Residency defences had been besieged by
the rebels of Oudh, and thus most serviceably
kept engaged a host of fighters, who might
else have marched to turn the wavering scale
at Delhi. Apart from its practical result, the
gallantry displayed, both by the much-tried
garrison and by two armies which successfully
broke through to their aid, has marked this
defence as one of the principal scenes of the
Indian Mutiny and one of the most stirring
episodes in modern history. Some of the closing
scenes of the war, also, long after the
Residency had been gloriously abandoned, came
to be enacted round the same spot, for ever
sacred to English valour.
There is no Englishman's heart but must thrill to behold those patches of blackened and riddled ruin, half-hidden among gorgeous Eastern
