rush of shot and shell, and the merciless summer sun, were rapidly thinning the remnant of English fighters. Water was to be had only at the cost of precious lives. Provisions began to fail. The end had come. The Náná's offer of a safe conduct gave the only chance of escape. On June 27th the fatal move began, and, a few hours later, the blackest perfidy of modern times was enacted.
The survivors of that afternoon's fusillade were dragged back for the further torture of imprisonment. Eighteen days later, on July 15th, as Havelock's avenging force drew near, the despot of the hour decreed a last revel of ferocity, and when the English columns entered Cawnpur, they found — so far as their own countrymen were concerned — a city of the dead. No one of English birth — man, woman, or child — remained to tell the dreadful tale. Was the same tragedy, the baffled rescuers asked themselves, to be re-enacted at Lucknow?
A deep gloom fell on leader and men. Havelock's spirits sank. 'If the worst came to the worst,' he said to his son that evening, 'we can but die with our swords in our hands.' Lucknow was to be relieved, but was relief achievable? The task was a serious one. His march lay for fifty miles through a country swarming with enemies. Several large armies threatened his line of advance. He was leaving an ill-defended base, a great river in his rear, the bridge over which might easily be destroyed, and his retreat thus be cut off. At the end there was the Lucknow garrison, penned
