Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/400

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364
Storming of the Kaisarbágh.

gateway of the Chíní bazaar, and thus cut off the Sikhs and the 90th. But Havelock, with great presence of mind, advanced with some Sikhs to the support of Brasyer, and seizing two adjoining bastions, turned the six guns found upon them with so much effect against the rebels that their attempt was checked, and they abandoned it. By this time the fourth note sent by young Havelock[1] had reached Franks, and that gallant officer pushed forward every available man in support of the advance. The results already achieved far surpassed in importance those which had been contemplated for the day, and the question arose whether the advantage should be pursued. After a brief consultation Franks and Napier decided in favour of pushing on. Some necessary rearrangement of troops followed. Then, whilst those on the right advanced and occupied in succession, with but little resistance, the Motí Mahall, the Chatar Manzil, and the Tárá Kothí, Franks sent his men through the court of Saadat Ali's Mosque into the Kaisarbágh itself. The resistance there was fierce, but of short duration. The stormers were wound to a pitch which made them irresistible. They stormed, one after another, the courts and the summer-houses which made up the interior of the palace, and drove the rebels headlong into the garden. There those who failed to escape — and they were the majority — soon found the rest from which there is no awakening.

I will not attempt to describe the plundering which followed the capture of this newest of the palaces of the Kings of Oudh. Rather would I dwell on the great military result thereby obtained. In the morning of that 14th of March the British line had stretched from the Sháh Najaf to Hazratganj. That evening it ran from the

  1. The 'young Havelock' alluded to in the text is the present Sir Henry Havelock-Allan, son of the general who first relieved the Residency.