English fighting men were ever straining to sustain the strenuous activity of constant battle against fearful odds; while delicate women and fragile children were suddenly called to endure discomforts and privations, with all the superadded miseries peculiar to the country and climate, which it would have been hard to battle with in strong health under their native skies. ... And never since war began—'never in the brave days of old' when women turned their hair into bow-strings—has the world seen nobler patience and fortitude than clothed the lives and shone forth in the deaths of the wives and daughters of the fighting men of Cawnpore. Some saw their children slowly die in their arms; some had them swept from their breasts by the desolating fire of the enemy. There was no misery which humanity could endure that did not fall heavily upon our Englishwomen. Day by day the little garrison diminished, struck down by the insurgents' shot or the fierce rays of the sun. Water was scarce, and could only be obtained from the well at the risk of life. The air was tainted by the foul gases from the carcases of horses or oxen; the bodies of the slain were thrown into a dry well to avoid contagion."
While the siege was in progress Nana Sahib captured several bands of English fugitives from other stations, who were making their way in the direction of Calcutta, among them one party of a hundred men, women, and children from Futtyghyr. The men were put to death with various kinds of torture, while the women and children were retained as prisoners. On the twenty-first day of the siege one of the prisoners was sent to General Wheeler bearing a letter from Nana Sahib, in which he offered safe conduct to Allahabad to all who would lay down their arms. At first General Wheeler refused the terms, but after some deliberation they were accepted, and it was arranged that sufficient boats were to be at the landing-place on the morning of the 27th June. On that morning a mournful procession of two hundred worn, emaciated sufferers filed out of the entrenchments and
