Havelock's march had been one
succession of victories won against enormous odds, and half
miraculous; but even he could work no miracle, and his troops might
merely have shared a tragic fate with the long-tried defenders of
Lucknow, but for the timely arrival of Sir Colin Campbell with five
thousand men more, to relieve in his turn the relieving force and
place all the Europeans in Lucknow in real safety. The news was
received in England with a delight that was mingled with mourning for
the heroic and saintly Havelock, who sank and died on November 24th.
A soldier whose military genius had passed unrecognised and almost
unemployed while men far his inferiors were high in command, he had
so more than profited by the opportunity for doing good service when
it came, that in a few months his name had become one of the dearest
in every English home, a glory and a joy for ever. It is rarely that
a career so obscured by adverse fortune through all its course blazes
into such sunset splendour just at the last hour of life's day.
[Illustration: Henry Havelock.]
Those months which made the fame of Havelock had been filled with
crime and horror.
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