n the road to Cawnpore he halted
again, and fresh troops streamed out from the gates to his help. It was
his last chance; but he knew that the little British army was wearied
out, and he counted on his reinforcements from the city. But Havelock
noted the first sign of flagging as his men were marching across the
ploughed fields heavy with wet, and knew that they needed the spur of
excitement. 'Come, who is to take that village, the Highlanders or the
Sixty-fourth?' cried he, and before the words were out of his mouth
there was a rush forwards, and the village was taken.

Still, even now the battle of Cawnpore was not ended. Once more the
sepoys re-formed, but always nearer the city, and their deadly fire was
directed full upon us. The general would have waited till our guns came
up to answer theirs, but saw that the men were getting restless. So
turning his pony till he faced his troops, while the enemy's guns were
thundering behind him, he said lightly:

'The longer you look at it the less you will like it. The brigade will
advance, the left battalion leading.'

The enemy's rout was complete, even before our guns had reached the
field of battle. Next morning the news was brought in that while the
battle for the deliverance was being fought the women and children
inside the walls had been shot by order of the Nana. And, as a final
blow, when, the day after, the victor rode through the gate of Cawnpore,
a messenger came to tell him that his old friend sir Henry Lawrence, the
defender of Lucknow, had been struck by a shell a fortnight previously,
and had died two days later in great agony.

'Put on my tombstone,' he gasped in an interval of pain, 'here lies
Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty, and may God have mercy on
him.'

* * * * *

For a while it seemed to Havelock that his whole mission had been a
failure; and indeed he is said never to have recovered the two shocks
that followed so close on each other, though there was no time to think
about his feelings or indulge regret. Like Lawrence, he must 'try to do
his duty,' and the first thing was to put the town in a state of defence
lest the Nana should return, and sternly to check with the penalty of
death the plundering and drunkenness and other crimes of his victorious
army. Then, leaving Neill with three hundred men in Cawnpore, he
prepared to cross the Ganges, now terribly swollen by the late rains,
into the kingdom of Oud