he mysterious and mournful shaking of heads which passed among
them, by no means tended to enliven my spirits. I soon reached the place
where the doctors, with their understrappers, were busily employed among
the wounded, dying, and dead. I was immediately stripped and examined,
and then, for the first time, heard that the ball had passed through and
out of my body. I also now discovered that it had struck and gone
through my arm as well. Being very anxious, I begged Hunter, the doctor,
to let me know the worst. He shook his head, and told me "he thought it
a rather dangerous case, principally from my having spit so much blood."
He had not time, however, to waste many words with me, as he had plenty
of others to attend. Dickenson, also, I found here; having been wounded,
as I before told you. He did all he could to keep my spirits up, but, as
you may suppose, I felt still very far from being comfortable. Nor were
the various objects that met my eye of a consolatory nature: men lying,
some dead, others at their last gasp, while the agonizing groans of
those who were undergoing operations at the hands of the hospital
assistants, added to the horror of the scene. I may now say that I have
seen, on a small scale, every different feature of a fight.

In the meantime, there had been sharp fighting in the citadel. Our men,
after forcing their way through numerous dark passages, in sonic places
so narrow and low that they were forced to crawl singly on their hands
and knees, at length arrived there; but as there were a great number of
approaches to this their last place of refuge, our men got broken up
into small detached parties, and entered it at different places. One
party reached the place where Mehrab Khan, at the head of the chiefs who
had joined his standard, was sitting with his sword drawn, &c. The
others seemed inclined to surrender themselves, and raised the cry of
"Aman!" but the Khan, springing on his feel, cried, "Aman, nag!"
equivalent to "Mercy be d--d," and blew his match; but all in vain, as
he immediately received about three shots, which completely did his
business; the one that gave him the "_coup de grace_," and which went
through his breast, being fired by a man of our regiment, named Maxwell.
So fell Mehrab Khan, having fulfilled his promise to General Willshire,
and died game, with his sword in his hand, in his own citadel.

Other parties, however, were not so fortunate, as each being too weak,
the enem