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gallant use of the cherished revolver in the last grim energies of death. There was nothing strange, perhaps, in the fact that the foremost heroes of the defense were the last even now to yield up their lives to the fury of the enemy. One boat held Moore and Vibart, Whiting and Mowbray-Thomson, Ashe, Delafosse, Bolton, and others, who had been conspicuous in the annals of that heroic defense. By some accident or oversight the thatch had escaped ignition. Lighter, too, than the rest, or perhaps more vigorously propelled by the shoulders of these strong men, it drifted down the stream; but Moore was shot through the heart in the act of propulsion, and Ashe and Bolton perished while engaged in the same work. The grape and round-shot from the Oude bank of the river ere long began to complete the massacre. The dying and the dead lay thickly together entangled in the bottom of the boat, and for the living there was not a mouthful of food.

As the day waned it was clear that the activity of the enemy had not abated. That one drifting boat, on the dark waters of the Ganges, without boatman, without oars, without a rudder, was not to be left alone with such sorry chance of escape; so a blazing budgerow was sent down the river after it, and burning arrows were discharged at its roof. Still, however, the boat was true to its occupants; and with the new day, now grounding on sand-banks, now pushed off again into the stream, it made weary progress between the two hostile banks, every hour lighter, for every hour brought more messengers of death. At sunset a pursuing boat from Cawnpore, with fifty or sixty armed natives on board, came after our people, with orders to board and destroy them. But the pursuers also grounded on a sand-bank; and then there was one of those last grand spasms of courage even in death which are seldom absent from the story of English heroism. Exhausted, famishing, sick and wounded, as they were, they would not wait to be attacked. A little party of

officers and soldiers armed themselves to the teeth, and fell heavily upon the people who had come down to destroy them. Very few of the pursuers returned to tell the story of their pursuit. This was the last victory of the hero-martyrs of Cawnpore. They took the enemy's boat, and found in it good stores of ammunition. They would rather have found a little food. Victors as they were, they returned to the cover of the boat only to wrestle with a more formidable enemy. For starvation was staring them in the face.

Sleep fell upon the survivors; and when they woke the wind had risen, and the boat was drifting down the stream— in the darkness they knew not whither; and some even then had waking dreams of a coming deliverance. But with the first glimmer of the morning despair came upon them. The boat had been carried out of the main channel of the river into a creek or siding, where the enemy soon discerned it, and poured a shower of musket balls upon its miserable inmates. Then Vibart, who lay helpless, with both arms shot through, issued his last orders. It was a forlorn hope. But while there was a sound arm among them, that could load and fire, or thrust with a bayonet, still the great game of the English was to go to the front and smite the enemy, as a race that seldom waited to be smitten. So MowbrayThomson and Delafosse, with a little band of European soldiers of the Thirty-second and the Eighty-fourth, landed to attack their assailants. The fierce energy of desperation drove them forward. Sepoys and villagers, armed and unarmed, surged around them, but they charged through the astonished multitude, and made their way back again through the crowd of blacks to the point from which they had started. Then they saw that the boat was gone. The fourteen were left upon the pitiless land, while their doomed companions. floated down the pitiless water.

There was one more stand to be made by Mowbray-Thomson and his comrades. As they returned along the bank of

the river, seeing after a while no chance of overtaking the boat, they made for a Hindu temple, which had caught the eye of their leader, and defended the door-way with fixed bayonets. After a little time they stood behind a rampart of black and bloody corpses, and fired, with comparative security, over this bulwark of human flesh. A little putrid water found in the temple gave our people new strength, and they held the door-way so gallantly, and so destructively to the enemy, that there seemed to be no hope of expelling them by force of arms. So while word went back to Nana Sahib, that the remnant of the English army was not to be conquered, the assailants, huddling round the temple, brought leaves and fagots, which they piled up beneath the walls, and strove to burn out the little garrison. Then Providence came to their help in their sorest need. The wind blew smoke and fire away from the temple. But the malice of the enemy had a new device in store. They threw bags of powder on the burning embers. There was now nothing left for our people but flight. Precipitating themselves into the midst of the raging multitude, they fired a volley and then charged with the bayonet. Seven of the fourteen carried their lives with them, and little else, to the bank of the river. There they took to the stream; but presently two of the swimmers were shot through the head, while a third, well-nigh exhausted, making for a sand-bank, had his skull battered in as soon as he landed. But the surviving four, being strong swimmers, and with heroic power in doing and in suffering, struck down the stream, and aided by the current, evaded their pursuers. Mowbray-Thomson and Delafosse, with privates Murphy and Sullivan, reached alive the territory of a friendly Oude rajah, and survived to tell the story of Cawnpore.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF ENGLISH SOVEREIGNS

FROM ECGBERHT TO VICTORIA.

802-839.

SAXON PERIOD.-802-1066.

Ecgberht-first king of all Englishmen in Britain.

839-857. Æthelwulf, son of Ecgberht.

857-860. Æthelbald,

[blocks in formation]

1042-1066.

sons of Eadgar.

Swein (Swegen), the first Danish king.
Ethelred II., the Unready. (Restored.)
Eadmund II., Ironsides, son of Æthelred II.
Cnut, son of Swein.

Harold I., Harefoot,

Harthacnut,

}

sons of Cnut.

Eadward III., the Confessor, son of Æthelred II., the

Unready.

Jan.-Oct., 1066. Harold II., son of Godwine, brother-in-law of Ead

ward III.

NORMAN PERIOD.-1066-1154.

1066-1087. William the Conqueror, duke of Normandy.
1087-1100. William II., Rufus, second son of the Conqueror.
1100-1135. Henry I., Beauclerc, youngest son of the Conqueror.
1135-1154. Stephen, count of Blois, son of Adela, fourth daughter
of the Conqueror. Matilda, daughter of Henry I.,
disputes with him the crown.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF ENGLISH SOVEREIGNS.

371

PLANTAGENETS.

1154-1189. Henry II., son of Matilda, daughter of Henry I., and Geoffrey, count of Anjou.

1189-1199. Richard I., Cœur de Lion, son of Henry II.

1199-1216. John, youngest son of Henry II.

1216-1272. Henry III., son of John.

1272-1307. Edward I., son of Henry III.

1307-1327. Edward II., son of Edward I. (Deposed.)
1327-1377. Edward III., son of Edward II.

1377-1399. Richard II., son of Edward the Black Prince, grand-
son of Edward III. (Deposed.)

PLANTAGENETS.-HOUSE OF LANCASTER ("RED ROSE").— 1399-1461.

1399-1413. Henry IV., son of John, duke of Lancaster, who was the third son of Edward III.

1413-1422. Henry V., son of Henry IV.

1422-1461. Henry VI., son of Henry V. (Deposed.)

PLANTAGENETS.-HOUSE OF York ("WHITE Rose").—1461–1485. 1461-1483. Edward IV., great-grandson of Edmund, duke of York, fourth son of Edward III.; and also greatgreat-great grandson of Lionel, duke of Clarence, second son of Edward III.

April-June, 1483.

1483-1485.

Edward V., son of Edward IV. (Deposed and murdered.)

Richard III., brother of Edward IV. (Defeated and slain in battle.)

HOUSE OF TUDOR.-1485-1603.

1485-1509. Henry VII., son of Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond,
and Margaret Beaufort, an illegitimate descendant
of John, duke of Lancaster, third son of Edward III.
1509-1547. Henry VIII., second son of Henry VII.
1547-1553. Edward VI., son of Henry VIII. and his third queen,
Jane Seymour.

1553-1558. Mary I., daughter of Henry VIII. and his first queen,
Catherine of Aragon.

1558-1603. Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII. and his second queen, Anne Boleyn.

HOUSE OF STUART-FIRST PERIOD.-1603-1649.

1603-1625. James I., great-grandson of Margaret, elder daughter of Henry VII., and James IV. Stuart, king of Scotland. 1625-1649. Charles I., son of James I. (Deposed and beheaded.)

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