[Illustration: BATTYE ROSE IN HIS STIRRUPS AND THUNDERED FORTH THE ORDER TO CHARGE]
A great victory had been won! The temper of the men had been tested and found true as steel; the only loyal dark-faced battalion had been tried and found worthy to rank side by side with the steadiest of English or Highland regiments. The praises of the Gurkhas were in every mouth.
Besides these tests two great material advantages had been gained. This was the first. Less than a mile from the walls the Aravelli range of hills ended, and underneath this ridge lay the place where the troops had dwelt before the mutiny. Had the enemy not been driven from the Ridge, the old cantonments and parade-ground could not have been occupied, as they would have been swept by the fire from above.
Now that the Ridge had been won, however, the army could safely rest below, protected by the high ground from the fire of the heavy guns on the Delhi bastions.
In the second place, the rebels had not only been disheartened by their first defeat, but the tidings would quickly spread all over India that the English were still strong enough to defeat thrice their number. This news would be worth a thousand men, for people were saying that Allah had deprived the Feringhis of their strength, that they were _lachar_ (helpless), and could no longer fight.
The rebel stronghold lay before the victors, vast, powerful, and filled with myriads of brave and warlike men. Well might they be defiant, for what could that tiny army achieve against their great strength. For you must know that by all the rules of warfare an army attacking a strongly-fortified place should be much more numerous than the defending host, and have more powerful or quite as powerful artillery. The assailants should be able to surround the place to prevent the entrance of food or reinforcements. But the walls of Delhi measured seven miles in circumference; the army investing it could with difficulty guard its own quarters, and rebel reinforcements entered as they pleased. Though we were supposed to be engaged in an assault on Delhi, yet in reality, during that summer of 1857, we were on our defence--the defenders of the Ridge against countless rebel attacks.