We were within the walls of Delhi at last. After wearisome months of hard fighting — replying to the almost ceaseless fire of the city batteries, and every now and then repelling desperate sorties from the gates — of harassing toil in the trenches and outposts, of semi-starvation and sickness, the long talked-of and hoped-for assault had at last that day been successfully made, and the British flag once again planted on the walls. But the city was not yet ours. Notwithstanding the concentration before it, from the Provinces and Punjaub, of every available fighting man, the attacking forces had not been numerous enough to allow of a general assault at all points being made; and all that we had so far succeeded in wresting from the enemy was that part of the city in the immediate vicinity of the Cashmere and Lahore gates. Still, considering the many and great difficulties in our way, we had accomplished wonders — the first serious blow at the Rebellion had been dealt, and the newly resuscitated Empire of the great Mogul was already beginning to totter. It looked as though we had a tough job before us ere the city were cleared of rebels. They were evidently determined to contest the ground foot by foot, or rather house by house. Though they had but poor stomachs for fighting in the open, they were devils be hind the barricaded windows, balconies and roof parapets of the tall houses that lined the narrow and tortuous streets. Many a fine soldier that had escaped all the perils of the siege and storm was fated, alas! to bite the dust within the walls without having had a chance of getting a sight, much more a shot, at his cunningly concealed foe.

       At twilight I found myself before St. Paul's, the Anglican Church, with a body of men who had been relieved from duty for a brief rest. The bulk of the troops were actively engaged in maintaining the position that we had secured. Barricades, with embrasures, behind which field-pieces were planted, had been thrown across streets, batteries had been placed at every commanding point, and the upper stories and flat roofs of the outmost houses of our position were lined with sharp-shooters; every preparation for defending ourselves during the night and extending the base of our operations on the following day had been made. Although it was nearly dark, an incessant fire was kept up on both sides.

       As the soldiers about me piled arms nothing was to be heard on all sides but cries of exultation and congratulation; no thought was given to the loss of comrades and friends. That would follow presently, when the heated blood had had time to cool a bit. There was nothing of the "pomp and glorious circumstance of war" in the appearance of the unshaved, sunburnt, grimy, and not uncommonly ragged men, and even officers, around me. I must confess that I was one of the most disreputable looking of the latter in point of attire; and this was but natural, seeing that I dated from the commencement of the siege. An experienced eye could tell almost with precision the time when a man had joined the besieging force simply by the shade to which his uniform had advanced in the process of bleaching. That the earliest arrivals wore such tatterdemalions was nothing wonderful; but what was really a marvel to me was the fact that so many of them had survived to take part in the assault. Not only had our ranks been more than decimated by shot and shell, but cholera, fever, and dysentery had committed still greater ravages amongst us. Could this have been otherwise, exposed as we were all day to the almost vertical rave of a summer sun, now scorched until the skin peeled from our arms and necks, now drenched by sudden downpours such as only tropical clouds can discharge, and anon parboiled in the thick and fetid exaltations that arose from the reeking earth?

       Thus meditating, I spread my cloak on a flat tombstone in St. Paul's churchyard, and placing a fragment of marble that some black Vandal had knocked off the headstone of another tomb under my head by way of pillow, I lay down to have a little rest. The monuments around me had more or less all been mutilated and the inscriptions defaced by the town gamins and the more fanatical of the populace. The church, too, had been dismantled, desecrated with unspeakable abominations, and almost every pane of glass in its windows smashed; and the large ball sustaining the cross at the summit of the dome had been riddled with bullets, having evidently afforded many an evening's enjoyable target practice to the sepoys stationed in the neighborhood.

       I had not lain more than a few minutes, when I heard a well-known voice (that of my greatest chum and brother in arms, Tom Chester) inquiring for me; and a moment later, we were shaking hands heartily and congratulating one another on our luck in having got through the day scathless. Chester and I had arrived before Delhi at the same time, after a fortnight's wandering, from Sibpore, where a squadron of our regiment, the —th Bengal Cavalry, had mutinied. The rest of our brother officers had been foully murdered one morning at parade, and we two had managed to escape solely through the superior speed and bottom of our chargers.

       Chester was my beau ideal of a light cavalry officer, as handsome and dashing as he was brave and chivalrous. There were few among us that had suffered such cruel suspense and anxiety as he during the last few months, and am sure, none that had borne his burden with greater fortitude.

       His story was a very sad one: Some fifteen months previously he had, while on leave at Landour — a sanatorium in the Himalayas — made the acquaintance of a Miss Lewis, the daughter of a Colonel in the Ordnance Department, stationed at Delhi. When Chester's holiday came to an end, he returned to the regiment an engaged man — as over head and ears in love as a man could well be. Knowing his impassioned and imaginative nature, I was quite prepared for his rapturous description of his betrothed's beauties of mind and person; for where Chester was once thoroughly in love, he evinced in its highest development the faculty of seeing "Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt." In this instance, however, his descriptive powers were unequal to the task of doing justice to her rare loveliness. He had brought with him and showed me a miniature, copied from a daguerrotype of her, done in colors from life on ivory, by one of the most celebrated native artists in Delhi. This man made this sort of work a specialty; and having seen previous samples of the fidelity to nature with which he executed his portraits, I felt sure than he had not flattered her.

       In short, the face was one of the most beautiful I had ever set eyes on — a beauty of the dark brilliant order — raven hair, lustrous black eyes, shaded by long lashes; clear olive complexion, delicate cut features, and the very perfection of a mouth. The expression was full of intelligence and kindliness, but there was a look of determination about the lines of the mouth and chin and the finely pencilled brows that was indicative of a high and independent, if not proud, spirit.

       Their marriage was fixed to take place on the following summer — some time in June, '57 — and Chester was full of plans for the future and of delightful anticipations of married life. As the time for that happy event approached he grew more and more unsettled and impatient. Early in May he sent in his application for three months' leave on urgent private affairs. He had just received intimation of its sanction, and was busy with his preparations for setting off for the Hills (I was to follow later on to act as best man at the wedding) when the storm burst.

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CHAPTER II.

       News came of the outbreak at Meerat on the 11th May, and of the capture on the following day of Delhi by the mutineers. As the days went by we heard of revolt after revolt in every direction, accompanied by the treacherous murder of British officers and their helpless families. Chester's agonised feelings, when he first heard of the butchery of the residents within the walls of Delhi, was something never to be forgotten by me. We could get no definite information as to who had been killed. It was reported that a few had managed to escape; and like a drowning man at a straw, my poor friend clutched this slender support and kept his head above the dark waters of despair. There was a repetition in our station of the scenes that had been enacted in nearly every other in the North Western Provinces. Our men apparently behaved in the most exemplary manner; there was not the slightest sign of disaffection among them; the native officers were bitter in their denunciation and execration of their revolted brethren, protesting their loyalty to the Government and their devotion to us, their officers; our Colonel, a week, credulous old man, was flattered and cajoled by them into a sense of security; and then, one fine morning in June on parade, the infernal scoundrels turned on us. The poor Colonel was the first to fall. His favorite native officer — a man that he looked upon almost as a brother — sabred him from behind his back. The adjutant fell almost at the same instant. Then there was a general rush and confusion. Chester and I were some distance from the spot where the terrible tragedy took place; this saved us. We turned our horses' heads, and then for the first time noticed that by a rapid movement a considerable body of horsemen had extended itself so as to out off our retreat. All this happened in less time than it takes to pen these lines; and drawing our swords we dashed straight at them. It was a desperate thing to do; but we were good swordsmen, and, to cut our way through was our only chance, and then to trust to our horses, both of which were superior to any in the squadron. I believe the suddenness and boldness of our charge had more to do with our getting away than either our horsemanship or skill with the sword. Some of the men in front actually opened out; others let us pass without a blow; Chester cut down two men in brilliant fashion; I passed my sword through the neck of another; and then we were out at the other side, riding for dear life, with fully one hundred troopers shouting and yelling like fiends in full pursuit. But this did not continue for very many miles. By degrees either their horses gave out or the men voluntarily turned back to plunder — as we learnt from their exhortations to one another — the cantonment and treasury. We were presently left to ourselves, and slackening our pace continued cross-country, making a detour whenever we approached a village. We came across natives, mostly agriculturists and laborers, every now and then; but beyond scowls and threatening gestures occasionally, no attempt was made to molest us. It was evident that the country was not up as yet. We knew full well when this occurred it would be madness to ride openly along; for village after village would continue pouring out its inhabitants, most of whom had swords or spears and some matchlocks in their possession, and we should very soon be shot down or overpowered by numbers and barbarously done to death — not improbably after being subjected to all manner of indignity and torture. No doubt there were many humane and friendly villagers about who would gladly have succoured us, but we resolved to give all black flesh as wide a berth as possible rather than run any risks of capture. We, accordingly, after much anxious deliberation, determined on riding as far as we could that day until dark, then abandoning our horses, and, after a few hours' rest, proceeding on foot under cover of darkness thereafter continuing our journey at night only, and resting in concealment during the day.

       It was in this manner, living principally on what we could pick up in the fields or in the gardens surrounding the villages, and often on nothing better than wild plums, that we slowly and painfully made our way to Meerut, whence after recuperating we proceeded under orders to join the force before Delhi. It was only on our arrival there that all doubts as to the fate of Captain Lewis and family were set at rest. We heard a very circumstantial and reliable account of their death within the walls of the city at the hands of the King's chief adviser.

       Chester after this became moody and reckless, fighting in one or two skirmishes we had with the enemy with the fierceness of a tiger, and exposing himself on these occasions, as also commonly in the trenches, to the heavy storm of shot and shell with a glaring disregard of the most ordinary precautions for safety. I was greatly concerned at this; and it was only after repeated remonstrances and urgent appeals to his sense of duty to his country in its hour of need that I checked his mad rashness.

       It was about a month before the assault of the city, that an event occurred that gave my friend a fresh lease of life, as it were. A little native lad, who had crept up to one of the outlying pickets near Hindoo Rao's house, carrying in his hand a stick with a dirty white rag at the end as a flag of truce, was found to be the bearer of a letter addressed to the general in command. When that officer had read it he immediately sent his orderly for Lieut. Chester and handed it to him. To Chester's boundless joy the communication was from his long-mourned-for betrothed, Miss Lewis. The writer informed the general that on the day of the outbreak, while her father was away at the magazine, their house had been entered by a band of sepoys and others, and her mother and herself carried away to the palace, where they had been confined in a room with some other ladies and their children; that after a few hours she had been forcibly separated from her mother and conveyed in a covered litter to the private residence of Nawab Azim Khan — an official high in authority and favor at Court — in whose zenanah (harem) she had been ever since; and that from that day she had never received any intelligence as to the fate of her parents. She stated that though deprived of her liberty, she had been treated by the Nawab and his household with the most studious respect and civility, but that a few days previously to her writing, he had made her a formal proposal of marriage, assuring her that there was no chance of her ever regaining her freedom, and had pestered her with his importunities ever since. She said that though he seemed to have some gentlemanlike instincts, he was an odious wretch, of whom she was in mortal terror, and that she had resolved to kill herself rather than consent to his wishes. She prayed day and night, she said, for the speedy success of the British arms and her deliverance from the terrible fate that menaced her. She begged the general to give her any news he could of her parents, and to convey to them, if possible, the contents of her letter; and, if this were out of his power, to communicate the same to Lieut. T. Chester of the —th Bengal Cavalry, Sibpore. She added that she had bribed an old woman, her attendant, with the promise of a valuable diamond ring, to have her letter conveyed to the British lines, and expressed a wish that the messenger should be strictly questioned as to the precise locality in the city of the house she was confined in.

       Chester's state of mind was now pitiable: from the height of joy on first learning that Miss Lewis was alive, the perusal of her letter had plunged him into to depths of grief and apprehension ant her perilous position. He did not know anything of Azim Khan, but he was sufficiently well acquainted with the character of the natives in general and of so-called native gentlemen in particular, and trembled.

       The lad was subjected to a close interrogation, but whether from his doggedness or stupidity little information could be got out of him beyond a description of Azim Khan's house and its position. He was liberally rewarded, and after receiving a long letter from Chester for Miss Lewis, was conducted at night to the extremity of our lines and allowed to depart. That nothing more could be done for the present was very plain — nothing more until the storming of the city, the preparations for which were being vigorously pushed forward. All that was left to poor Chester until then was to hope.

       And now, having acquainted the reader with the principal characters in my tale, and explained the position of affairs on the day of the storming of the city, I will revert to the meeting of Chester and myself in the churchyard of St. Paul's.

       "Here, take a pull at this," he said, handing me a flask, "it is very fair amontilado, and will do you good; and here are some Havannas to follow. But I have something better for you, if you will come over to that archway next the bastion — champagne, my boy — two bottles of Perrier Jouet — think of that. Heavens! when was it we tasted some last, eh Hayes?"

       "You're in luck, old man," I replied, knowing, as I did, that our troops had not yet advanced as far as the quarter that contained the shops, where European merchandise was stored, and having witnessed, moreover, the wholesale destruction a few hours before by the order of the general commanding of immense quantities of wines and spirits that the thoughtful sepoys, with an accurate knowledge of the irresistible attraction those liquids had for Tommy Atkins, had laid out on tables, just within the gates, for his refreshment and demoralisation.

       "Luck indeed. That boy of mine managed to get hold of these luxuries somewhere. He is an invaluable servant for a campaign — just the sort of knave that Falstaff longed for before Shrewsbury:— 'Where shall I find one that can steal well? Oh, for a fine thief of two and twenty or thereabouts?' But come along; you'll be more comfortable yonder, and less liable to get a stray shot into you."

       We had moved away about twenty or thirty yards when we heard the sound of approaching footsteps, crunching the gravel of the path leading from the gate in the opposite direction. We turned round to look and saw the figure of a man come up to the tomb I had just risen from, and begin to examine it closely.

       "It's fortunate we cleared when we did," remarked Chester. "Do you know who that is?" "No," I answered. " That's young Metcalfe, the assistant magistrate and collector of Delhi." "Ah," he added, as the figure raised his clenched fist and shook it, and then uncovering his head, knelt down beside the tomb. "It is old Sir Theophilus, his father's grave. (I recollect the general telling me that he was buried here.) There will be heavy reckoning for its desecration 'some day.'"

       "I was introduced," he went on to say. as we walked on, "to young Metcalfe by the general the other day, as a man likely to be most useful to me in my search for Miss Lewis, and he has promised me his best assistance: I am told that few Europeans have so thorough an insight into native character and customs as he, and none so accurate a knowledge of the topography of the city and its environs. He is a good hearted, straightforward chap, too. He has done his best to strengthen my hopes, but I can see that he is not very hopeful him self and considers Miss Lewis's situation a very critical one."

       On this Chester lapsed into a gloomy desponding mood, as was his wont whenever he touched on this subject with me and not all my efforts, aided by the champagne, could rouse him that evening.

       We sat smoking for a time over our wine, discussing the plan for the next day's attack and the best means for effecting the capture of Azim Khan's house with the rescue of his hapless prisoner; for we expected to penetrate as far as that spot during the course of the day. It was, according to the description given by the boy messenger, a large two storied havaili (private mansion) situated at the western corner of the intersection of Abdullah Khan's lane with the Kashmeri Bazaar. Though I always strove as a dear friend of Chester's, to cheer him up by putting as bright and hopeful a complexion on the state of affairs as I could, yet I was haunted by the fear that we were some how doomed to disappointment on the morrow. Many things might happen. It was reported that a great many rich and influential natives, with their families and valuables, were already escaping from the city by the gates fronting the river, which our troops were totally inadequate to cover. Miss Lewis might be carried away into the country and hidden by her captor, or, if he were unable to effect this, perhaps murdered by him, or even worse, before we could come to the rescue. Thoughts such as these, I knew, were often passing through my companion's mind, though he did not give them utterance.

       As we had only a few hours before us in which to snatch a little of the rest we so much needed — we were required on duty again at the front that night — we did not stop long over our wine, but, spreading our cloaks on some straw, were soon sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)