fore His people all.
He fired, and down fell a body dressed in a tight-fitting red jacket and
tight-fitting rose-coloured silk trousers; and the breast of the jacket
bursting open with the fall, showed that the wearer was a woman, She was
armed with a pair of heavy old-pattern cavalry pistols, one of which was
in her belt still loaded, and her pouch was still about half full of
ammunition, while from her perch in the tree, which had been carefully
prepared before the attack, she had killed more than half-a-dozen men.
When Wallace saw that the person whom he shot was a woman, he burst into
tears, exclaiming: "If I had known it was a woman, I would rather have
died a thousand deaths than have harmed her."
I cannot now recall, although he belonged to my company, what became of
Quaker Wallace, whether he lived to go through the rest of the Mutiny or
not. I have long since lost my pocket company-roll, but I think Wallace
took sick and was sent to Allahabad from Cawnpore, and was either
invalided to England or died in the country.
By this time all opposition had ceased, and over two thousand of the
enemy lay dead within the building and the centre court. The troops were
withdrawn, and the muster-roll of the Ninety-Third was called just
outside the gate, which is still standing, on the level spot between the
gate and the mound where the European dead are buried.
When the roll was called it was found that the Ninety-Third had nine
officers and ninety-nine men, in all one hundred and eight, killed and
wounded. The roll of the Fifty-Third was called alongside of us, and Sir
Colin Campbell rode up and addressing the men, spoke out in a clear
voice: "Fifty-Third and Ninety-Third, you have bravely done your share
of this morning's work, and Cawnpore is avenged!" Whereupon one of the
Fifty-Third sang out, "Three cheers for the Commander-in-Chief, boys,"
which was heartily responded to.
All this time there was perfect silence around us, the enemy evidently
not being aware of how the tide of victory had rolled inside the
Secundrabagh, for not a soul escaped from it to tell the tale. The
silence was so great that we could hear the pipers of the Seventy-Eighth
playing inside the Residency as a welcome to cheer us all. There were
lately, by the way, some writers who denied that the Seventy-Eighth had
their bagpipes and pipers with them at Lucknow. This is not true; they
had their pipes and played them too! But we had barely salut
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