followed informed us that they had not run far. The prize agents now
turned us all out, supposing, with a good deal of reason, that we were
not to be trusted with gold mohurs and rupees, of which a few were found
in some of the banking-houses.

On the following day, after reconnoitring the fort and the ground in its
vicinity, spots were fixed upon for new breaching and shelling
batteries; and, in twenty-four hours afterwards, we commenced our work
of death on the fort and its obdurate inmates. Long ere the hour of the
sun's decline, it grew as dark as midnight. About ten o'clock, the
terrific shelling commenced, every whistling shell bearing on its
lighted wings messengers of death and desolation. I never saw these
implements of destruction so accurately thrown--some of them scarcely
five inches above the walls of the fort. In five minutes the screams of
the women in the fort were dreadful. In a place so confined, where
numberless houses were crowded together, every shell must have found its
way to some poor wretch's dwelling, and, perhaps, torn from mothers'
bosoms their clinging babes. No person can estimate the dreadful carnage
committed by shells, but those whose fate it has been to witness the
effects of these messengers of death. On this occasion our shells were
very numerous, and of enormous size, many of them thirteen and a half
inches in calibre. The system of shelling had been so improved in the
twelve years which had elapsed since the siege of Bhurtpore, that,
instead of about one shell in five minutes from a single battery, it was
by no means extraordinary to see twenty in one minute, from the numerous
batteries which were brought to bear upon this place. It was, at times,
truly awful to see ten of these soaring in the air together, seemingly
riding on the midnight breeze, and disturbing the slumbering clouds on
their pillows of rest--all transporting to a destined spot the
implements of havoc and desolation contained within their iron sides.
The moon hid herself, in seeming pensiveness, behind a dense black
cloud, as though reluctant to look on such a scene; and the feathered
tribe, that were wont, in those warm nights of summer, to melodize the
breeze, retired far into the distant woods, there to tune their notes of
sorrow. Mortal language cannot array such a scene in its garb of
blackest woe. Some carcasses were also thrown. These, when in the air,
are not unlike a fiery man soaring above. They are sent t