and worn by the miscreants in the fort. However, we
still lived in the fond hope that our next effort would prove more
successful.

I could again go abroad, although my wound was by no means healed. It
was now truly distressing to enter our men's tents, where, but a month
before, the merry joke went round, and mirth and hilarity prevailed.
Naught but gloomy faces, and even them but few, were to be seen: some
had lost brothers; others, dear comrades; Captain Lindsay had lost his
leg; Lieutenant Creswell had been cut to pieces; and every other officer
was wounded. Our loss in killed and wounded in the two assaults, in our
two companies alone, was nearly the one half of the total number.

After the storm, our breaching-guns were again sent to the park to be
re-bushed. This was a seasonable pause to enable us to recruit our
shattered frames and spirits; but it also gave the enemy an opportunity
of repairing and reinforcing every point of attack.

On the 18th of February things began to wear a more enlivening
appearance. The breached bastion seemed to bow its haughty head to our
roaring guns, and the 20th was talked of as the day for storming it. Our
last disastrous repulse was scarcely eradicated from our minds; the
massacre of our brave comrades was still alive in our memories; but the
fond hope of retaliation--I do not mean in cutting up a poor defenceless
creature, not a single instance of which can, in the long course of our
wars, be brought against the Company's army--spirited us up, and we
looked forward to the time when we might drag the garments of our
murdered comrades from the backs of the vaunting foe. They were now
daily and hourly exhibiting to our view the number of muskets they had
taken; our ammunition which had fallen into their hands was now turned
against ourselves; as also our cannon-shot, which they had picked out of
the two old breaches. We again possessed our wonted spirits and
cheerfulness, and made preparation to retrieve the British character.
The patient conduct and intrepid gallantry of our officers and soldiers
when in the hour of their utmost distress, from repeated defeats, did
not pass unnoticed by the enemy; and it is not improbable that the
resolution and heroism then displayed by the troops were the means of
facilitating that long friendship which afterwards subsisted between the
rajah of Bhurtpore and the Company.

The day appointed (20th of February) arrived, and was ushered in with