more stirring quarters. Subsequent events, however, following as they did one after another in quick succession, amply justified the peremptory orders that detained us at Amorah. For to have left the position we now held, would undoubtedly have resulted in again abandoning the surrounding country to the rebels ; for notwithstanding they had been attacked and driven out of the district, they were still in the neighbourhood, and the sullen booming of their morning, noon, and evening guns afforded the means of ascertaining the direction of their whereabouts — a few miles away at Belwa, and tête-à-tête, as it were, with ourselves.
Our position now, with its overpowering sense of loneliness, was not an enviable one; for here we were thrown out on the confines of Oudh, isolated and beyond the support of any force, menaced from Belwa in front by the usurper's insurgents, and from Nugger in rear by a body of mutineers, having to turn out daily for some real or threatened attack, watchworn and jaded with incessant duty, and the apparent impossibility of succour reaching us in time to overawe the rebels — who would have envied such a position? It was an anxious time; but there was no falling off — in the confidence of the “B.Y.C.” — to use the initials of the Corps’ designation, as invariably used amongst ourselves. And so from day to day, with bull-dog pertinacity and clenched teeth, we held on to the position, and bore up against the perils that beset us; never thinking we could do so, but we never
