enemy,
taking heart at seeing but a small number of opponents, made a stand.
They brought up a gun, and, occupying all the buildings on the south
side of the rampart with Infantry, they poured forth such a heavy fire
that a retirement to the Kabul gate had to be effected.

It was at this point that Nicholson rejoined his own column. His
haughty spirit could not brook the idea of a retirement; however
slight the check might be, he knew that it would restore to the rebels
the confidence of which our hitherto successful advance had deprived
them, and, believing that there was nothing that brave men could not
achieve, he determined to make a fresh attempt to seize the Burn
bastion.

The lane which was again to be traversed was about 200 yards long,
with the city wall and rampart on the right, and on the left
flat-roofed houses with parapets, affording convenient shelter for the
enemy's sharp-shooters.

As the troops advanced up this lane the mutineers opened upon them a
heavy and destructive fire. Again and again they were checked, and
again and again they reformed and advanced. It was in this lane that
Major Jacob, the gallant Commander of the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, fell,
mortally wounded. His men wanted to carry him to the rear, but he
would not allow them to remain behind for him, and refused their help,
urging them to press forward against the foe. The officers, leading
far ahead of their men, were shot down one after the other, and the
men, seeing them fall, began to waver. Nicholson, on this, sprang
forward, and called upon the soldiers to follow him. He was instantly
shot through the chest.

A second retirement to the Kabul gate was now inevitable, and there
all that was left of the first and second columns remained for the
night.

Campbell's column, guided by Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, who from his
intimate acquaintance with the city as Magistrate and Collector of
Delhi was able to conduct it by the route least exposed to the enemy's
fire, forced its way to the vicinity of the Jama Masjid, where it
remained for half an hour, hoping that the other columns would come to
its assistance. They, however, as has been shown, had more than enough
to do elsewhere, and Campbell (who was wounded), seeing no chance of
being reinforced, and having no Artillery or powder-bags with which to
blow in the gates of the Jama Masjid, fell back leisurely and in order
on the church, where he touched what was left of the Reserve column,