these two swords in your cause.' Coke acceded to the old
man's wish, and throughout the siege of Delhi he displayed the most
splendid courage. At the great attack on the 'Sammy House' on the 1st
and 2nd August, when Lieutenant Travers of his regiment was killed,
Ruttun Sing, amidst a shower of bullets, jumped on to the parapet and
shouted to the enemy, who were storming the piquet: 'If any man wants
to fight, let him come here, and not stand firing like a coward! I
am Ruttun Sing, of Patiala.' He then sprang down among the enemy,
followed by the men of his company, and drove them off with heavy
loss.

On the morning of the assault the regiment had marched down to the
rendezvous at Ludlow Castle, 'left in front.' While waiting for the
Artillery to fire a few final rounds at the breaches, the men sat
down, and, falling in again, were doing so 'right in front.' Ruttun
Sing came up to Lieutenant Charles Nicholson, who was commanding the
regiment, and said: 'We ought to fall in "left in front," thereby
making his own company the leading one in the assault. In a few
minutes more Ruttun Sing was mortally wounded, and Dal Sing, the
Jemadar of his company, a man of as great courage as Ruttun Sing, but
not of the same excitable nature, was killed outright.]

* * * * *

CHAPTER XX.
1857

Necessity for further action--Departure from Delhi
--Action at Bulandshahr--Lieutenant Home's death--Knights-errant
--Fight at Aligarh--Appeals from Agra
--Collapse of the administration--Taken by surprise
--The fight at Agra--An exciting chase--The Taj Mahal

The fall of Delhi was loudly proclaimed, and the glad tidings spread
like wildfire throughout the length and breadth of India, bringing
intense relief to Europeans everywhere, but more especially to those
in the Punjab, who felt that far too great a strain was being put upon
the loyalty of the people, and that failure at Delhi would probably
mean a rising of the Sikhs and Punjabis. Salutes were fired in
honour of the victory at all the principal stations, but the Native
population of the Punjab could not at first be made to believe that
the Moghul capital, with its hordes of defenders, could have been
captured by the small English army they saw marching through their
province a few months before. Even at that time it seemed all too
small for the task before it, and since then they knew it had dwindled
down to less than half its numbers