assisted in blowing up the Cashmere Gate at Delhi, had accompanied me; and next day, pursuant to orders, we spent in blowing up the bastions of the fort and otherwise dismantling it. Alas, poor Home! Such a good fellow and such a gallant officer, his fate was sealed at this miserable little fort. As I was marching out with my detachment in the evening on relief, he was about to blow up one more mine. He begged me to stay and see it, but I could not leave my men. I had scarcely marched off with my detachment, when in the distance I saw and heard the explosion. With it was blown up poor Home himself, the best and cheeriest of good fellows, and one whose gallant deeds. would have won him even a greater name than he had already made.

I

was greatly distressed, for in our short acquaintance at Delhi we had become great friends. And all that day at Malaghur we had been together in what we looked upon as quite a lark, blowing up the old fort, so that I felt almost guilty in not having remained to see the last of the explosions, as he so pressed me; but who can foretell the inevitable, or who could foresee such a result? It seemed an especially hard fate that the gallant Home, who had so justly gained the coveted Victoria Cross in blowing in the Cashmere Gate under such a murderous fire, from which he was one of few survivors, should have met his death in a similar act, but under such very dissimilar circum

stances.

It was on my return to camp that I

heard of the death of another very great friend-Lieutenant Lisle Phillips, of the 11th Native Infantry, killed by a bullet in his forehead, almost one of the last shots fired at Delhi. My first acquaintance with Phillips was formed a little before the Mutiny, when I rode a then well-known chestnut Waler horse of his, "Tearaway," in a steeplechase at Lucknow. I had a very severe fall, which nearly ended my existence. His regiment came to Meerut, and after the Mutiny Phillips was attached to the 60th Rifles and went with that battalion to Delhi, where his gallantry and bonhomie made him so popular in the regiment that the colonel recommended him for a permanent commission in the 60th. When his death occurred the orders were actually out posting him

to the first battalion 60th Rifles. Poor fellow, he had a presentiment he would not survive the siege, for on saying good-bye to me at Meerut, he told me he had made his will, leaving me his steeplechaser "Tearaway," who had given me so bad a fall, but which had been the foundation of our friendship. I received intimation of the will from Dr Innes, the well-known medico of the 60th, and a day or two afterwards "Tearaway" overtook me, and right well he carried me through many a long day's work and many a roughand-tumble fight, till at last, good old horse, he was shot under me at Lucknow.

123

III.

A

FTER the action of Bolundshuhur,

Greathed's column (as our force was called) continued its march down country. In all directions there were manifest tokens of the anarchy that had prevailed during the previous four or five months. Everything belonging to or bearing any trace of British rule had been ruthlessly destroyed. At Bolundshuhur the Government buildings and bungalows had been burned, there was no traffic on the public roads, the telegraph posts and wire had been taken away, and even the milestones had been