m
the palace. Other parties of sipahees ascended at the same time over
ladders collected at the suggestion of Doctor Stevenson, and placed
on the southern front of the baraduree; and the halls were soon
cleared of the insurgents, who left from forty to fifty men killed
and wounded on the floors of the four halls.* In this assault Mostufa
Khan, Kundaharee, was killed. Moonna Jan was found concealed in a
small recess under the throne, and the Begum in a small adjoining
room, to which she had been carried as soon as the guns opened. They
were taken into custody, and sent to the Residency, with Imam Buksh,
a bihishtee, or water-carrier, a notorious villain, who had been her
chief instigator in all this affair, and appointed Commander-in-Chief
to the young King. Many who had been wounded got out of the halls,
and some even reached their homes, but the killed and wounded are
supposed to have amounted altogether to about one hundred and twenty.
The Begum and the boy were accommodated in the Residency, and their
_Commander-in-Chief_ was made over to the King's Courts for trial. He
is still in prison at Lucknow. No one was killed on our side, but
three or four of our sipahees were wounded in the assault.

[* As they entered the hall at the end opposite the throne, they saw
their own figures reflected in the large mirror, which stands behind
the throne; and, taking them to be their enemy preparing to charge,
they poured their first volley into the mirror, by which many lives
were saved at the expense of the glass.]

The Delhi princess, the chief consort of the deceased King, a modest,
beautiful, and amiable young woman, who had been forced to join the
Begum, in order to give some countenance to the daring enterprise,
was, as soon as the guns opened, carried by her two female attendants
in her litter to a small side-room, facing the palace at the east end
of the throne-room. One of these females had her arm shattered by
grape shot, but the other tied some clothes together, and let the
princess and her wounded attendant down from a height of about
twenty-four feet into a court-yard, whence they were conveyed to her
palace by some of her attendants, and all three escaped. The sipahees
occupied both of the flights of steps in the northern face of the
baraduree. She was afraid, to trust herself to them, and saw no other
way of escape than that described.

It was nine o'clock before the palace could be cleared of the
insurgents; an