sore at heart, women and children dwelt in this chamber for five months and five days. One morning, in spite of all precaution, a shot found its way through one of the blockedup windows, and a deep hole low down on the opposite wall shows where it landed. No one was hurt, but one lady died of fright.

Food and water were brought to the prisoners through a secret underground passage communicating with the Tykhana. Like the house of Dr. Frayrer, this carries proof of the fury of the mutineers when they leaped over the mud walls of the entrenchment and entered the silent and deserted Residency. Having no English men and women to slash and hack, they turned with impotent fury upon the very stone staircases of the Tykhana and broke them down.

Here is the guard-room, next door to the fatal breakfast-room, where six soldiers were buried alive in the ruins created by a shell. Here is the tower, honeycombed with cannonshot, on the top of which day after day some gallant officer volunteered to stand, telescope in hand, and report the movements of the mutineers. Shot and shell flying around the Residency constantly struck here and there; but this tall tower, on which the British flag defiantly floated, was a mark always being

struck, and the marvel is that so much stands. Here is the flagstaff, cut in twain by a cannon-ball in the early days of the siege, patched together with iron hoops, and once more carrying the flag before the exultant shouts of the mutineers had gone the full round of their camp.

The flag, riddled with shots, is still preserved, and on Christmas days and Sundays floats from the patched-up flagstaff on the old tower, looking out on a scene in strange contrast with that it witnessed in 1857. Except the Tykhana, which is really a cellar, there is not a roof to any chamber in the Residency. Very early in the siege the upper rooms were rendered untenable, and the work of destruction was finished when the mutineers broke in.

Throughout the grounds dwarf brick pillars mark the places where the various batteries stood. One place not marked, though it is worthy of a tablet, is the drain through which Mr. Kavanagh made his way into the city, and so on to the Alambagh, with a letter to Sir Henry Havelock, who had established himself there with the relief column. Mr. Kavanagh had dressed himself as a native; but a man cannot creep through a mile or so of drain pipe without obtaining a suspicious.

appearance.

As he emerged at the other end of the drain he was arrested and taken before the rebel leaders, but succeeded in getting off and placed his missive safely in the hands of Sir Henry Havelock.

The churchyard behind the Residency is full of interesting memorials of the siege. Of the little church itself the mutineers scarcely left one stone standing upon another. Near its ruins is a plain marble slab bearing the legend: "Here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty." This is the full inscription as usually quoted, and it would seem difficult to spoil its touching simplicity. This has, however, been done by the curious rider, so familiar in the death sentences of the judges in the Old Bailey, "May the Lord have mercy on his soul."

There is an odd monument over the grave of a lady burnt by the explosion of a shell. The slab on the top is carved into curious convolutions, designed, it is said, to simulate the blisters which broke out over the unfortunate lady's body. There is a monument over the grave of the lady killed in the Tykhana by a shot that never touched her. "Sacred," so the inscription runs, "to the memory of the young wife of Captain Lancelot, who died of fright, 16th July, 1857." In one corner

of the churchyard is a little cluster of graves where lie the children who did not survive their baptism of fire.

As we stood by the pillar marking the position of one of the hottest batteries, served only by volunteers, two jackals trotted into the compound outside the graveyard, and, lifting up their voices, piteously howled. But this was the only note of discord in a place where the peace of a summer day reigned, and where under the shade of the sacred peepul tree and the tower-like tamarind, the sorely tried sojourners in the Residency take their rest.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHRISTMAS AT CAWNPORE.

WITH the thermometer at eighty in the shade, with roses blooming in the gardens by the wayside, and violets scenting the air in the Memorial Gardens, it is hard to believe that this is Christmas Day. The imagination is not greatly helped by the scene around. It is impossible, with whatever goodwill, to imagine Trotty Veck, with his red comforter twisted round his head by way of turban, a pair of trousers made out of a cotton duster, and, for all other clothing, a bright yellow cloth hung about his shoulders. Nor is Tiny Tim to be recognized among the heap of half-clad children that swarm in the streets, though heaven knows some of them are sickly enough.

When night falls the condition of affairs grows more homely. It is cold enough for the most "seasonable" Christmas weather. Unfortunately for comfort, domestic arrangements