“How far are we from the Residency now?
I can hear the cannon very clearly;” and indeed
for the last two hours of their walk the booming of
guns had been distinctly audible.
“It is about five miles in a straight line,
but it will be double by the route we must take.”
Turning to the right after passing the dark mass of
the Alumbagh, the little party kept away through a
wooded country until another great building appeared
in sight.
“That is the Dilkouska,” the guide said.
“Now we will go half a mile further and then
sleep; we cannot get in to-night.”
In the afternoon they were awake again, and took their
seats on a bank at a short distance from any road,
and looked at the city.
“What an extraordinary view!” Ned said.
“What fantastic buildings! What an immense
variety of palaces and mosques! What is that strange
building nearest to us?” he asked the guide.
“That is the Martiniere. It was built many
years ago by a Frenchman in the service of the king
of Oude. Now it is a training college. All
the pupils are in the Residency, and are fighting
like men. Beyond, between us and the Residency,
are several palaces and mosques. That is the Residency;
do you not see an English house with a tower, and
a flag flying over it, standing alone on that rising
ground by the river?”
“And that is the Residency!” the boys
exclaimed, looking at the building in which, and the
surrounding houses, a handful of Englishmen were keeping
at bay an army.
“That is the Residency,” their guide said;
“do you not see the circle of smoke which rises
around it? Listen; I can hear the rattle of musketry
quite distinctly.”
“And how are we to get there?” the boys
asked, impatient to be at work taking part in the
defense.
“We will keep on here to the right; the river
is close by. We will swim across after it gets
dark, make a wide sweep round, and then come down to
the river again opposite the Residency, swim across,
and then we are safe.”
LUCKNOW.
Lucknow, although the capital of Oude, the center
of a warlike people smarting under recent annexation,
had for a long time remained tranquil after insurrection
and massacre were raging unchecked in the northwest.
Sir Henry Lawrence, a man of great decision and firmness
united to pleasant and conciliating manners, had,
when the Sepoys began to hold nightly meetings and
to exhibit signs of recklessness, toward the end of
April, telegraphed to government for full power to
act; and having obtained the required authorization,
he awaited with calmness the first sign of insubordination.
This was exhibited by the men of the Seventh Oude
Irregular Infantry, who on the 3d of May endeavored
to seduce the men of the Forty-eighth Native Regiment
from its allegiance, and broke out into acts of open
mutiny. Sir Henry Lawrence the same evening marched
