."

Those of my readers who were in India at the time may remember that
something about this slave-girl was said in all the native evidence
collected at the time on the subject of the Cawnpore massacre.

I next asked Mahomed Ali Khan if he knew whether there was any truth in
the stories about General Wheeler's daughter having shot four or five
men with a revolver, and then leaped into the well at Cawnpore. "All
these stories," was his answer, "are pure inventions with no foundation
of truth. General Wheeler's daughter is still alive, and is now in
Lucknow; she has become a Mussulmanee, and has married according to
Mahommedan law the man who protected her; whether she may ever return to
her own people I know not."

In such conversation I passed the night with my prisoner, and towards
daybreak I permitted him to perform his ablutions and morning devotions,
after which he once more thanked me, and prayed that Allah might reward
me for my kindness to His oppressed servant. Once, and only once, did he
show any weakness, in alluding to his wife and two boys in their faraway
home in Rohilcund, when he remarked that they would never know the fate
of their unfortunate father. But he at once checked himself, saying, "I
have read French history as well as English; I must remember Danton, and
show no weakness." He then produced a gold ring which was concealed
among his hair, and asked me if I would accept it and keep it in
remembrance of him, in token of his gratitude. It was, he said, the only
thing he could give me, as everything of value had been taken from him
when he was arrested. He went on to say that the ring in question was
only a common one, not worth more than ten rupees, but that it had been
given to him by a holy man in Constantinople as a talisman, though the
charm had been broken when he had joined the unlucky man who was his
fellow-prisoner. I accepted the ring, which he placed on my finger with
a blessing and a prayer for my preservation, and he told me to look on
it and remember Mahomed Khan when I was in front of the fortifications
of Lucknow, and no evil would befall me. He had hardly finished speaking
when a guard from the provost-marshal came with an order to take over
the prisoners, and I handed this man over with a sincere feeling of pity
for his fate.

Immediately after, I received orders that the division would march at
sunrise for Lucknow, and that my party was to join the rear-guard, after
the ammuni