on the city.
Nothing but the worst news came to us from every side,--which is not to
be wondered at, for if you look at the map you will see that we were
right in the heart of it. Lucknow is rather better than a hundred
miles to the east, and Cawnpore about as far to the south. From every
point on the compass there was nothing but torture and murder and
outrage.

"The city of Agra is a great place, swarming with fanatics and fierce
devil-worshippers of all sorts. Our handful of men were lost among the
narrow, winding streets. Our leader moved across the river, therefore,
and took up his position in the old fort at Agra. I don't know if any
of you gentlemen have ever read or heard anything of that old fort. It
is a very queer place,--the queerest that ever I was in, and I have
been in some rum corners, too. First of all, it is enormous in size.
I should think that the enclosure must be acres and acres. There is a
modern part, which took all our garrison, women, children, stores, and
everything else, with plenty of room over. But the modern part is
nothing like the size of the old quarter, where nobody goes, and which
is given over to the scorpions and the centipedes. It is all full of
great deserted halls, and winding passages, and long corridors twisting
in and out, so that it is easy enough for folk to get lost in it. For
this reason it was seldom that any one went into it, though now and
again a party with torches might go exploring.

"The river washes along the front of the old fort, and so protects it,
but on the sides and behind there are many doors, and these had to be
guarded, of course, in the old quarter as well as in that which was
actually held by our troops. We were short-handed, with hardly men
enough to man the angles of the building and to serve the guns. It was
impossible for us, therefore, to station a strong guard at every one of
the innumerable gates. What we did was to organize a central
guard-house in the middle of the fort, and to leave each gate under the
charge of one white man and two or three natives. I was selected to
take charge during certain hours of the night of a small isolated door
upon the southwest side of the building. Two Sikh troopers were placed
under my command, and I was instructed if anything went wrong to fire
my musket, when I might rely upon help coming at once from the central
guard. As the guard was a good two hundred paces away, however, and as
the space