Flushed with his easy conquest over unarmed women and children, Náná Sáhib urged on his generals to push their attack on the intrenchment with vigour. For some time past his gunners had been firing shells in the hope of setting fire to the barracks. On the evening of the 13th their labours were to a certain extent crowned with success, for at five o'clock on that day they succeeded in kindling the roof of the hospital barrack. As this barrack sheltered not only the sick but the families of the English soldiers, the advantage to the Náná was considerable, for the fire spread so rapidly that some forty of the inmates were burned to death, and nearly all the medicines and surgical instruments were destroyed. The sipáhís took advantage of the evident confusion to advance, 4000 in number, to deliver an assault which should be final. But what were 4000 Asiatics against one-tenth of their number of Englishmen? Afraid to try the hand-to-hand encounter which the latter invited, and daunted by the fire of the six guns, they slunk back, without daring an assault, discomfited, to their lines.
Between the 13th and the 21st the rebels tried attacks or rather advances of the same character, and invariably with the same result. But on the 23d, the anniversary of Plassey, having received large reinforcements from Oudh and the districts, they made the most serious attack in force they had ever tried. They gained possession of three of the empty barracks, and attempted to dislodge Moore from the remainder, but that gallant officer was quite equal to the occasion. With twenty-five men he advanced, under cover of a discharge of grape, and after a desperate contest expelled the rebels from the barracks they had seized. Meanwhile, under cover of some bales of cotton which they had appropriated, the rebels advanced to within 150 yards of the intrenchment, which they then
