१८५७ का स्वातन्त्र्य समर (वीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर - अंग्रेजों द्वारा छपने से पूर्व प्रतिबन्धित महाग्रन्थ)

LUCKNOW
must make use of this opportunity. In a moment, a Sepoy
who was lying in wait on the arch took aim and lodged
a bullet straight into the very neck of General Neill and
he dropped down dead ! In the whole English army, it
was very difficult to find another man so brave and so
cruel, so insolent and so undaunted, so patient and so
heartless, by the good luck and ill-luck of humanity.
But it is the peculiarity of the English army that the con-
tinuance of its work does not depend upon an individual
—even an uncommon general like Neill. Neill’s death
did not create the slightest confusion ; the English army
continued its march to the Residency all the same. In
that Khas Bazaar where Neill fell with his neck broken,
even if there had flowed an ocean of English blood, the
English army would have marched in the same manner.
When they went through the bazaars, they heard the
joyous hurrahs from the Residency. They also shouted
“ Hurrah ” in reply. Havelock had relieved his com-
patriots from the very jaws of Death ! That scene can
best be described in the pen of Captain Wilson who was
present there. “ In spite of deaths that were diminishing
their ranks at every step, the white army approached the
Residency, and at their sight all fear and doubt vanished
away from the besieged garrison. They showered their con-
gratulations and blessings on the advancing deliverers, the
sick and the wounded crept out of the hospitals, and con-
tinuous cheers and welcomes pealed forth in succession.
Very soon the deliverers met the delivered. The occasion
defies description. Those who had heard of the death
of their husbands found themselves in the arms of their
living husbands, to the unbounded joy of both. And those
who were looking forward to the cherished embrace of
their beloved ones learned for the first time that death
had left no hope of seeing them any longer ! ”
In the Residency of Lucknow, fighting without intermis-
sion for eighty-seven days, seven hundred men had fallen.
365