Time ran his course, and the publication of an order one day, in which volunteers from the cavalry were invited to share with their dismounted comrades the honour of the assault, informed us for the first time that a breach had been effected, and that it either was, or was expected soon to be, practicable. As there is never any backwardness among British troops to occupy the post of danger, when it is pointed out to them, so the publication of the order just alluded to was hailed with loud acclamations. Every man upon parade, indeed, hastened to give in his name, nor was it without occasioning much mortification to those whom he determined to keep with their standards, that the colonel finally made choice of ten men per troop for performing this novel service. But the joy of the favoured few, and the envy of the rejected many, proved in the end to have been equally misplaced. After we had paraded several times on foot by ourselves, and were now looking for the route from hour to hour, the arrival of a fresh European regiment in camp caused us to return to our horses. With three British regiments the general conceived that he was strong enough to storm a town, of which the garrison was understood not to fall short of fifteen thousand men; and with three British regiments, supported by a considerable body of sepoys, the assault was finally delivered.

I can give no account from my own personal observation of any thing that went on in the trenches, either during the process of digging and laying the mine by which it was proposed to enlarge the main breach, or just before the mine was sprung. It was reported in the camp, indeed, that a serious accident occurred: that the troops being formed for the assault edged too near to the loaded chamber of the mine, and that the explosion, though it tore the enemy's defences to pieces, was scarcely less fatal to us, by blowing up the leading company of the 14th regiment, and killing a good many men in the company that followed. These things may or may not have happened. All that I know on the subject is, that having been moved up on the day of the assault to the edge of the wood, we sat on horseback from an early hour in the morning, watching with breathless anxiety for the report which we were given to understand would at once open out the way for the advance of our comrades, and act as the signal for the rush.

It. is marvellous with what a slow and heavy step the moments pass by when men are thus circumstanced. I thought that the clocks would never strike nine, and yet the hands were moving that day as they usually do, neither faster nor slower. We spoke to one another, too, in whispers, as if there had been risk of creating an alarm, which there was not; and vainly and eagerly we strove to catch so much as a glimpse of the scene of action, through the thick branches that interposed between us and the town. At last one of our officers, who had repeatedly consulted his watch, said aloud, as if speaking to himself, "We'll have it soon, for it is close upon the hour." He had scarcely uttered the words, when a far-off cheer was heard. A boom of cannon and a rattle of musketry, and then, and not till then, we heard the roar of an ignited mine, and we knew that the struggle was begun in earnest. I never looked upon an object with deeper and more breathless interest than upon the wreath of smoke, which like a vapour rose above the branches. It was the canopy beneath which brave men fought and died; it was the shroud in which not a few of them had been enwrapped ere to our eyes it became visible.

If I except the untimely explosion of the mine, of which, however, I can speak only on the authority of vague rumour, no arrangements could have been more judiciously entered into, or more skilfully carried out, than those which led the way to the storming of Bhurtpore, and aided in its capture. While the troops were moved over night into the trenches, and stood ready to spring forward at the appointed signal, all the drummers and musicians remained in camp; where, beating the reveillie, and executing the signals that were usual on days of perfect quiet, they did their best to prevent a suspicion from entering into the minds of the garrison, that the crisis of their fate was come. How far the device succeeded I cannot pretend to say. The heavy firing which followed the explosion of the mine showed, that never for an instant had the breaches been left unguarded; and the tenacity with which the defenders held them good, was vouched for by its long continuance.

We were deeply interested in a scene, of which we would have given worlds to become spectators, when the adjutant, who was employed to look out, suddenly reported that the British ensign waved upon the top of the ramparts. In a moment all was excitation and bustle. A loud long cheer, so soon as we felt ourselves firmly in the saddle, caused the glades and deeper recesses of the forest to ring, and away we went at full gallop, in order to intercept a body of horsemen, whom the adjutant had observed to emerge from one of the more distant gates of the fortress, almost as soon as the British standard began to wave from the summit of the breach. Not unobserved, however, by the garrison, albeit, sharply engaged with our infantry on their own ground, was this our forward movement. They turned upon us instantly some six or eight guns, the balls from which passed over, or in front, or on either side of us; yet, with two exceptions, all proved harmless, and we held our onward course unchecked. One man was cut in two close by my side. The other shot struck a horse, and sorely wounded his hinder-quarters; but these were the only instances in which the enemy's fire told, though it was both well-directed, and warmly sustained.

Being now within two or three hundred yards of the fort, our riflemen, of whom I was one, were sent out to skirmish. Away we dashed, ten of us keeping well together; and disregarding the shower of balls that fell round us, we succeeded in gaining the edge of a large pond or tank, the high banks of which, together with those of some salt-pans adjoining to it, rendered us tolerably safe from the artillery practice of the enemy. Here we extended our files, which we had scarcely done, ere I found myself opposite to some twenty or thirty horsemen, whom, judging from their long robes and magnificent turbans, I put down in my own mind as nothing less than the Rajah himself, and some of his immediate attendants, endeavouring to effect their escape. I tried to pull up and get a shot at them; but ere I could do so, one of their body took deliberate aim at me, and his ball struck the ground just under the nose of my charger. I returned his fire, and saw him bend over his saddle-bow, at the instant that a ball from somebody else splashed into my cloak and lodged there. But the party, of whatever class of men it might consist, did not linger long where they first confronted us. The 59th having by this time won the ramparts in their rear, opened upon them a heavy fire of musketry. Whereupon they gave the spur to their steeds, and without so much as pausing to observe what might be in front, they galloped off towards the point where egress into the open country was most immediate.

The salt-pan lying between us and the fugitives, we could not dash in upon them; but away we flew, as fast as our horses would carry us, rounding that obstruction, and striving if possible to head them. At last we arrived, one by one, at a road which led directly to one of the gates of the city; and the scene of confusion which there opened on me I shall never forget. Forth from the gateway and over the drawbridge rushed multitudes of fugitives, whom our victorious infantry closely pursued; and the slaughter which was effected by the bayonet, by musketry, and by the crushing of man upon man, I have no language sufficiently frightful to describe. Neither were we without our incidents; the excitement attending which at the moment was very great. For example, the first objects that arrested my attention on rounding a corner of the road, were Serjeant Waldron, of our regiment, and a ferocious-looking Rajpoot, savagely confronting one another. The Serjeant having discharged his pistol, had his horse drawn up to a position wellnigh rampant, while the Rajpoot, who stood within six yards of him, was taking deliberate aim at him with his carabine. I saw that there was not a moment to be lost. I thrust both spurs into my horse's flanks, and, while in the act of advancing, I took aim, fired, and brought the Rajpoot dead to the ground.

Serjeant Waldron sprang forward to meet me, gave me his hand, and thanked me for his life; after which we drew our swords, and dashed into the midst of the fugitives. Numbers were cut down, some with arms, others without, till by-and-by the survivors lost all heart, and intreated us to spare them. We had no mind to kill men who offered no resistance; so, desiring them to throw down their arms one by one as they approached, we saw them gallop or scamper off, and never once troubled our heads to inquire whither they were going. Yet there was one little group in that miscellaneous crowd which I must claim credit for having saved from insult, and guarded to a place of safety. I saw two fine-looking women, whom a band, apparently of servants, followed, make one or two efforts to pass, yet continually shrink back again. Upon this I rode forward, and making myself understood by signs, rather than by words I volunteered to be their protector; they gratefully gave themselves up to my guidance, and I had the satisfaction to carry them uninjured through the throng, and to see them ride off in a direction where all was clear, after I had received from them the most gratifying acknowledgments.

Having seen them safe, I returned to my former station, time enough to witness the barbarity with which a corps of Sepoys cut down the fugitives by whole sections. Not having any particular delight in scenes like these, I rode aside, and going up to my Rajpoot, who lay where my ball had dropped him, I observed, to my surprise, that his carabine was of English manufacture, and that it bore, besides the common Tower mark, the number 1800. Meanwhile, however, my comrades had moved off in a different direction, so conceiving that I was bound to follow, I gave my horse the rein, and tried to trace them. In this effort I crossed several fields, in the far corner of one of which I came upon a single Rajpoot, who seemed to have posted himself there over a heap of loose armour, and who, on my calling to him to surrender, instantly placed himself in an attitude of defence. I rode at him, delivered a heavy blow on the top of his head, felt that the sword had made no impression, yet saw him fall. The fact is, that the weight of my blow stunned him, even while the solidity of his turban hindered the edge from penetrating. I did not stop to repeat the blow, which was clearly not mortal, inasmuch as he turned himself round as I passed, and spat at me; but I was too anxious to rejoin my regiment to think of avenging the insult, and therefore left him with a whole skin in the mud.

In prosecuting my search after my missing comrades I passed several spots of ground, which cumbered with dead men and horses, as well Europeans as native, besides broken arms, torn garments, caps, turbans, and so forth, exhibited manifold signs of a battle stoutly maintained. By and by I plunged into the wood; and there too, as I afterwards learned, a warm skirmish had occurred, many of the Bhurtporeans climbing up into the trees, and shooting our men from their perches. Of these almost all were put to death; yet in the heat of that wild affray a little incident occurred, of which, because of the merit due to Major Smith, the chief actor in the scene, and because of the evidence which it affords of the absence from modern warfare of all feelings that brutalize and degrade, I am bound to make mention. A poor native child, of singularly interesting appearance, had fled with his father from the fort. The party to which the father belonged, fell in with our people in the wood, and a warm struggle ensued. In the course of this skirmish the unfortunate man was killed; whereupon the child, throwing himself down beside the dead body of his father, wept bitterly in apparent regardlessness of the thousand deaths by which he was surrounded. Major Smith, of the 11th, being greatly touched at the scene, rode forward, and causing his native servant to interpret for him, promised to be a protector to the child. He faithfully redeemed the pledge. The child was removed from the field of slaughter to the major's tent, and was finally, at the major's expense, established in life.

The town was now our own, and the pursuit of the fugitives having been carried far enough, the trumpets and bugles sounded the recall, and we formed up in obedience to it. I shall never forget the shocking spectacles that greeted me, as I rode towards the ill-fated city, and still more after I had passed beneath the gateway. In every direction, along the road, beneath the arched gateway, strewed over the old city, under the ramparts and above them, the dead lay in hundreds; the mangled bodies of women, ay and of children too, being intermingled with the carcasses of slaughtered warriors. Of the wounded, moreover, not a few exhibited towards us the most malignant feelings. One man had been cut down as he was in the act of scattering over a narrow causeway, handfuls of crows-feet-a vile implement, which has three long sharp spikes, one of which always turns uppermost, inflicting painful and desperate wounds, both on men and horses. He was not dead when I passed him, and though his arm had lost its power to throw his horrid implement to any distance, he nevertheless strove to shove one under me, and spat at me in impotent fury. Others I beheld, whose garments had taken fire from the explosion of their own pouches. These not only rejected our assistance, but covered us with execrations when we advanced to proffer it. In a word, the spirit with which the garrison was embued, seemed to have been one of the wildest fanaticism; which needed but the guidance of some mind of higher order than that of the rajah, to render it irresistible.

The booty taken in Bhurtpore was, I have reason to believe, immense: a large portion of which went, I suspect, in indiscriminate pillage among the assailants and the followers; yet enough was secured to give to the commander-in-chief a very handsome donative, and to each private soldier, native as well as European, between 40 and 50 rupees. In the citadel, which held out one day after the town, little was found of value. Three deserters were, however, recovered; one of whom was tried, and the next day shot; while the remaining two were condemned to transportation for life, and an existence whether long or short in chains, hard labour, and close imprisonment.