THE EXPIATION
Two hours after midnight--that is a time of rest and peace in most
lands. Men have either ceased or not yet begun their toil. Even
warfare, the deadliest task of all, slackens its energy, and the ghostly
reaper leans on his scythe while wearied soldiers sleep. Wellington
knew this when he said that the bravest man was he who possessed
"two-o'clock-in-the-morning" courage, for shadows then become real,
and dangers anticipated but unseen are magnified tenfold.
Yet, soon after two o'clock in the morning of September 14, 1857, four
thousand five hundred soldiers assembled behind the Ridge for the
greatest achievement that the Mutiny had demanded during the four months
of its wonderful history. They were divided into five columns, one being
a reserve, and the task before them was to carry by assault a strongly
fortified city, surrounded by seven miles of wall and ditch, held by
forty thousand trained soldiers and equipped with ample store of guns
and ammunition. Success meant the certain loss of one man among
four--failure would carry with it a rout and massacre unexampled in
modern war.
Men had fallen in greater numbers in the Crimea, it is true--a British
army had been swallowed alive in the wild Khyber Pass--but these were
only incidents in prolonged campaigns, whereas the collapse of the
assailants of Delhi would set free a torrent of murder, rapine and
pillage, such as the utmost triumph of the rebels had not yet produced.
The Punjab, the whole of the Northwest, Central India and Rajputana, all
northern Bengal and Bombay, must have been submerged in the flood if the
gates of Delhi were unbarred. It is not to be marveled at, therefore,
that General Wilson, the Commander-in-Chief, "looked nervous and
anxious" as he rode slowly along the front of the gathering columns, nor
that many of the British officers and men received the Holy Communion at
the hands of their chaplains, ere they mustered for what might prove to
be their last parade.
In some tents, of their own accord, the soldiers read the Old Testament
lesson of the day. With that extraordinary aptness which the chronicles
of the prophets often display in their relation to current events, the
chapter foretold the doom of Nineveh: "Woe to the bloody city! It is
full of lies and robbery ... draw the waters for the siege, fortify thy
strongholds ... then shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut
thee off; it shall eat thee up like the canker-worm."
How thrilling, how intensely personal and human, these words must have
sounded in their ears, for it should ever be borne in mind that the
Britons who recovered India in '57 were not only determined to avenge
the barbarities inflicted on unoffending women and children, but were
inspired by a religious enthusiasm that showed itself in almost every
diary kept and letter sent home during the war.
And now, while the brilliant stars were dimmed by bursting shells and
rockets hissing in glowing curves across the sky, the columns moved
forward.
English, Scotch, Irish and Welsh--swarthy Pathans, bearded Sikhs, dapper
little Ghoorkahs--marched side by side, from the first column on the
left, commanded by Nicholson, to the fourth, on the extreme right, led
by Reid.
The plan of attack was daring and soldier-like. John Nicholson, ever
claiming the post of utmost danger, elected to hurl his men across the
breach made by the big guns in the Cashmere Bastion, the strongest of
the many strong positions held by the enemy. The second column, under
Brigadier Jones, was to storm the second breach in the walls at the
Water Bastion. The third, headed by Colonel Campbell, was to pass
through the Cashmere Gate when the gallant six who had promised to blow
open the gate itself had accomplished their task, while the fourth
column, under Major Reid, undertook to clear the suburbs of Kishengunge
and Pahadunpore and force its way into the city by way of the Lahore
Gate.
Brigadier Longfield, commanding the reserve, had to follow and support
Nicholson. Generally speaking, if each separate attack made good its
objective, the different columns were to line up along the walls,
form posts, and combine for the bombardment and escalade of the
fortress-palace. Nicholson, who directed the assault, had not forgotten
the half-implied bargain made between Malcolm and the Princess
Roshinara. Strict orders were given that the King and members of the
royal family were to be taken prisoners if possible. As for Akhab Khan
and other leaders of rebel brigades, it was impossible to distinguish
them among so many. Not even Nicholson could ask his men to be generous
in giving quarter, when nine out of every ten mutineers they encountered
were less soldiers than slayers of women and children.
At last, in the darkness, the columns reached their allotted stations
and halted. The engineers, carrying ladders, crept to the front.
Nicholson placed a hand on Jones's shoulder.
"Are you ready?" he asked, with the quiet confidence in the success of
his self-imposed mission that caused all men to trust in him implicitly.
"Yes," answered Jones.
Nicholson turned to Malcolm and two others of his aides.
"Tell the gunners to cease fire," he said.
Left and right they hurried, stumbling over the broken ground to reach
the batteries, which were thundering at short range against the fast
crumbling walls. In No. 2, which Malcolm entered, he found a young
lieutenant of artillery, Frederick Sleigh Roberts, working a heavy gun
almost single-handed, so terribly had the Royal Regiment suffered in
the contest waged with the rebel gunners during seven days and nights.
Almost simultaneously the three batteries became silent. With a
heart-stirring cheer the Rifles dashed forward and fired a volley to
cover the advance of the ladder-men, and the first step was taken in the
actual capture of Delhi.
The loud yell of the Rifles served as a signal to the other columns.
The second, gallantly led by Jones, rushed up to the Water Bastion and
entered it, but not until twenty-nine out of thirty-nine men carrying
ladders were killed or wounded. On Jones's right, Nicholson, ever in the
van, seemed to lift his column by sheer strength of will through an
avalanche of musketry, heavy stones, grape-shot and bayonet thrusts,
while the rebels, swarming like wasps to the breach, inspired each other
by hurling threats and curses at the Nazarenes. But to stop Nicholson
and his host they must kill every man, and be killed themselves in the
killing, and, not having the stomach for that sort of fight, they ran.
Thus far a magnificent success had been achieved. It was carried
further, almost perfected, by the splendid self-sacrifice displayed
by the six who had promised to blow open the Cashmere Gate. To
this day their names are blazoned on a tablet between its two
arches--"Lieutenants Home and Salkeld of the Engineers, Bugler Hawthorne
of the 52d and Sergeants Carmichael, Smith and Burgess of the Bengal
Sappers." Smith and Hawthorne lived to wear the Victoria Crosses
awarded for their feat. The others, while death glazed their eyes and
dimmed their ears, may have known by the rush of men past where they lay
that their sacrifice had not been in vain. The stout timbers and iron
bands were rent by the powder-bags, and the third column fought a
passage through the double gateway into the tiny square in front of St.
James's Church.
Then, as if the story of Delhi were to serve as a microcosm of fortune's
smiles and frowns in human affairs, the victorious career of the British
columns received a serious, almost a mortal check. The mutineers were
in full retreat, terror-stricken and dismayed. Thousands were already
crossing the bridge of boats when the word went round that the Feringhis
were beaten.
They were not, but the over-caution against which Nicholson had railed
for months again betrayed itself in the failure of the second column
to capture the Lahore Gate when that vital position lay at its mercy.
Audacity, ever excellent in war, is sound as a proposition of Euclid in
operations against Asiatics.
Brigadier and men had done what they were asked to do--they ought to
have done more. Having penetrated beyond the Mori Bastion they fell
back and fortified themselves against counter assault, thus displaying
unimpeachable tactics, but bad generalship in view of the enemy's
demoralization. Instantly Akhab Khan, who commanded in that quarter of
the city, claimed a victory. The mutineers flocked back to their
deserted posts. While one section pressed Jones hard, another fell on
Reid's Ghoorkahs and the cavalry brigade. They actually pushed the
counter attack as far as Hindu Rao's house on the Ridge, until Hope
Grant's cavalry and Tomb's magnificent horse artillery tackled them. A
terrific _melee_ ensued. Twenty-five out of fifty gunners were killed or
wounded, the 9th Lancers suffered with equal severity, but the rebels
were held, punished, and defeated, after two hours of desperate
conflict.
The mischance at the Lahore Gate cost England a life she could ill
spare. When he heard what had happened, Nicholson ran to the Mori
Bastion, gathered men from both columns and tried to storm the Lahore
Bastion at all hazards. It was asking too much, but those gallant hearts
did not falter. They followed their beloved leader into a narrow lane,
the only way from the one point to the other. They fell in scores, but
Nicholson's giant figure still towered in front. With sword raised he
shouted to the survivors to come on. Then a bullet struck him in the
chest and he fell.
With him, for a time, drooped the flag of Britain. The utter confusion
which followed is shown by Lord Robert's statement in his Memoirs that
he found Nicholson lying in a dhooly near the Cashmere Gate, the native
carriers having fled. Although Baird Smith, a skilled engineer and
artillerist, had secured against a _coup de main_ that small portion
of the city occupied by the besiegers, General Wilson was minded to
withdraw the troops. Even now he considered the task of subduing Delhi
to be beyond their powers. Baird Smith insisted that he should hold on.
Nicholson sent a typical message from his deathbed on the Ridge that he
still had strength enough left to struggle to his feet and pistol the
first man who counseled retreat, and the harassed commander-in-chief
consented to the continuance of the fighting.
Although his judgment was mistaken he had good reasons for it. Akhab
Khan, on whom the real leadership devolved when it became known that the
King and his sons had fled from the palace, tried a ruse that might well
have proved fatal to his adversaries. Counting on the exhaustion of the
British and the privations they had endured during the long months on
the Ridge, he caused the deserted streets, between the Cashmere and Mori
Gates, to be strewed with bottles of wine, beer and spirits. To men
enfeebled by heat and want of food the liquor was more deadly than lead
or steel. Were it not that Akhab Khan himself was shot through the
forehead while trying to repel the advance of Taylor's engineers along
the main road to the palace from the Cashmere Gate, it was well within
the bounds of possibility that the afternoon of the 14th might have
witnessed a British _debacle_.
In one respect the sepoy commander's death was as serious to his cause
as the loss of Nicholson to the English. The rebels, fighting fiercely
enough in small detachments, but no longer controlled by a man who knew
how to use their vastly superior numbers, allowed themselves to be
dealt with in detail. Soon the British attack was properly organized,
and a six days' orgy of destruction began.
Although no Briton was seen to injure a woman or child in the streets or
houses of Delhi, the avenging army spared no man. Unhappily thousands of
harmless citizens were slaughtered side by side with the mutineers. The
British had received a great provocation and they exacted a terrible
payment. On the 20th the gates of the palace were battered in and the
British flag was hoisted from its topmost turret. Then, and not till
then, did Delhi fall. The last of the Moguls was driven from the halls
which had witnessed the grandeur and pomp of his imperial predecessors,
and the great city passed into the hands of the new race that had come
to leaven the decaying East. It was a dearly-bought triumph. On
September 14 the conquering army lost sixty-six officers and eleven
hundred and four men. Between May 30 and September 20 the total British
casualties were nearly four thousand.
Malcolm soon learnt that the Princess Roshinara had fled with her father
and brothers. Probably the death of Akhab Khan had unnerved her, and she
dared not trust to the mercy of the victors. Frank was among the first
to enter the palace. After a few fanatical ghazees were made an end of,
he hurried towards the zenana. It was empty. He searched its glittering
apartments with feverish anxiety, but he met no human being until some
men of the 75th entered and began to prise open boxes and cupboards in
the search for loot.
After that his duties took him to the Ridge, and it was not until all
was over that he heard how Hodson had captured the King and shot the
royal princes with his own hand. This tragedy took place on the road
from Humayun's Tomb, whither the wretched monarch retreated when it was
seen that Delhi must yield. Hodson claimed to be an executioner, not a
murderer. He held that he acted under the pressure of a mob, intent on
rescuing Mirza Moghul, the heir apparent, and his brother and son. That
all three were cowardly ruffians and merciless in their treatment of
the English captured in Delhi on May 11, cannot be denied, but Hodson's
action was condemned by many, and it was perhaps as well that he found a
soldier's grave during Colin Campbell's advance on Lucknow.
It was there that the fortune of war next brought Malcolm. Delhi had
scarce quieted down after the storm and fury of the week's street
fighting when Havelock, re-enforced by Outram, drove the relief force
through the insurgent ring around the Residency like some stout ship
forcing her way to port through a raging sea.
No sooner had he entered the entrenchment on the 25th of September than
the rebel waves surged together again in his rear, and on the 27th the
Residency was again invested almost as closely as ever. But the new
column infused vigor and hope in the hearts of a garrison that had
ceased even to despair. Apathy, a quiet waiting for death, was the
prevalent attitude in Lucknow until the Highland bonnets were seen
tossing above the last line of mutineers that tried to bar their passage
through the streets. At once the besieged took up the offensive. The
lines were greatly extended, the enemy's advanced posts were carried
with the bayonet, troublesome guns were seized and spiked and the rebel
mining operations summarily stopped.
Two days before Havelock's little army cut its way into Lucknow, Ungud,
the pensioner, crept in to the retrenchment and announced the coming
relief. He was not believed. Twice already had he brought that cheering
message and events had falsified his news.
Winifred, a worn and pallid Winifred by this time, sought him and asked
for tidings of Malcolm. He had none. There was a rumor that Delhi had
fallen, and an officer had told him that there was a Major Malcolm on
Nicholson's staff. That was all. Not a letter, not a sign, came to
reassure the heart-broken girl, so the joy of Havelock's arrival was
dimmed for her by the uncertainty that obtained in regard to her lover's
fate.
Then the dreadful waiting began again. After having endured a plague
of heat in the hot weather, the remnant of the original garrison was
subjected to the torment of cold in the months that followed. In Upper
India the change of temperature is so remarkably sudden that it is
incomprehensible to those who live in more favored climes. Early in
October the thermometer falls by many degrees each day. The reason is,
of course, that the diminishing power of the sun permits the earth to
throw off by night the heat, always intense, stored during the day.
Something in the nature of an atmospheric vacuum is thus created, and
the resultant cold continues until the opposite effect brings about the
lasting heat of the summer months, which begin about March 15 in that
part of India.
But scientific explanations of unpleasant phenomena are poor substitutes
for scanty clothing. In some respects the last position of the
beleaguered garrison was worse than the first, and the days wore on in
seemingly endless misery, until absolutely authentic intelligence
arrived on November 9, that Sir Colin Campbell was at Bunnee and would
march forthwith to relieve the Residency.
Then Outram, who had succeeded to the chief command as soon as Havelock
joined hands with Inglis, called for a volunteer who would act as Sir
Colin's guide through the network of canals, roads, and scattered
suburbs that added to the dangers of Lucknow's narrow streets, and a
man named Kavanagh, an uncovenanted civilian, offered his services.
It is not hard to picture Kavanagh's lot if he were captured by the
mutineers. His own views were definite on the point. Beneath his native
disguise he carried a pistol, not for use against an enemy, but to take
his own life if he failed to creep through the investing lines. But he
succeeded, and lived to be the only civilian hero ever awarded the
Victoria Cross.
Another incident of the march should be noted. Malcolm saw preparations
being made to hang a Mohammedan who was suspected of having ill-treated
Europeans. The man protested his innocence, but he was not listened to.
Then Frank, thinking he remembered his face, questioned him and found he
was the zemindar who helped Winifred, her uncle and himself during the
flight from Cawnpore.
Such testimony from an officer more than sufficed to outweigh the slight
evidence against the prisoner, who was set at liberty forthwith. During
the remainder of his life he had ample leisure to reflect on the good
fortune that led him to help the people who sought his assistance on
that June night. Were it not for Malcolm's interference he would have
been hanged without mercy, and possibly not without good cause.
On the afternoon of November 11, Sir Colin Campbell reviewed his little
army. It was drawn up in parade order, on a plain a few miles south
of the Dilkusha. Three thousand four hundred men faced him, and the
smallness of the number is eloquent of the magnitude of their task.
Indeed, that is one of the salient features of each main episode of
the Mutiny. Nicholson at Delhi, Havelock at Cawnpore and on the way to
Lucknow, Colin Campbell in the pending action, and Sir Hugh Rose in many
a hard fought battle in Central India, one and all were called on to
attack and defeat ten times the number of sepoys.
But what fine troops they were who met the commander-in-chief's gaze
as they stood marshaled there, on that dusty Indian _maidan_. Peel's
sailors, with eight heavy guns, artillerymen standing by the cannon that
had sounded the knell of Delhi from below the Ridge, the 9th Lancers,
who held the right flank when the capture of Hindu Rao's house would
have meant the collapse of the assault, the 8th and 75th Foot, the 2d
and 4th Punjabis--all these had followed the Lion of the Punjab when
he stormed the Cashmere Bastion. Sikh Cavalry, too, and Hodson's wild
horsemen, and many another gallant soldier, fresh from the immortal
siege, returned the General's quiet scrutiny, as he rode past, and
doubtless wondered how he would compare as a leader with the man whom
they had left in the little cemetery at the foot of the Ridge.
It is on record that from the end of the line came a yell of welcome and
recognition. The 93d Highlanders remembered what Campbell had done in
the Crimea, and their joyful slogan brought a flush to the bronzed face
of the old war dog when he learnt the significance of their greeting.
Next morning began a three day's battle. Perhaps there was never an
action so spectacular, so thrilling, so amazingly in earnest, as the
continuous fight which brought about the Second Relief of Lucknow. At
the Alumbagh, at the Dilkusha and La Martiniere school, at the Secunder
Bagh and the Shah Nujeef, were fought fiercely-contested combats that in
other campaigns would have figured as independent battles, each highly
important in the history of the time.
The taking of the Shah Nujeef alone was worthy of Homeric praise. It was
a mosque that stood in a garden, bounded by a high and stout wall and
protected by jungle and mud hovels. Its peculiar position, joined to the
number of guns mounted on its walls and the thousands of sepoys who held
it, made it impossible for a devoted artillery to create an effective
breach. Yet, if the relieving force failed here, they failed altogether.
So Sir Colin asked his men for a supreme effort. Riding forward himself,
accompanied by his staff and Sir Adrian Hope, Colonel of the 93d, he
cheered on his loved Highlanders. Cannot one hear the skirl of the pipes
amid that din of cannon and musketry? Cannot one see the shot-torn
colors fluttering in the breeze, the plaids of the gallant Highland
gentlemen who led the 93d, vanishing in the smoke and dust? Middleton's
battery of the Royal Artillery came dashing up, "the drivers waving
their whips, the gunners their caps," unlimbered within forty yards of
the wall, and opened fire with grape. Men and horses fell in scores, but
somehow, anyhow, an entrance was gained and the Shah Nujeef was taken.
Feeble must be the pulse that does not beat faster, dim the eye that
does not kindle, as one hears how those Britons fought and died, but did
not die in vain.
Next day Captain Garnet Wolseley led a storming party against the Motee
Mahal, and the self-sacrificing heroism of the Shah Nujeef was displayed
again here and with the same result.
And so the wild fight went on, till Outram and Havelock, Napier, Eyre,
Havelock's son and four other officers ran from the Residency through a
tempest of lead showered on them from the Kaiser Bagh, and Hope Grant,
dashing forward from the van of Colin Campbell's force, shook hands with
the hero of the First Relief.
Half an hour later Malcolm entered the Residency. At first sight it was
an abode of sorrow. Death and ruin seemed to have combined there to
wreak their spite on mankind and his belongings. Even the men and women
whom he met were tear-laden, and it was not till he heard their happy
voices that he knew they were weeping because of the overwhelming joy in
their souls.
He hurried on, scanning each excited group for one face that he thought
he would recognize were it fifty years instead of five months since
their last meeting. He, of course, was even a finer-looking and better
set-up soldier now than when he galloped along the flame-lit roads of
Meerut on that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday night in May, and it is not
to be wondered at if he failed to allow for the effect on Winifred of
the ordeal she had gone through.
Perhaps his keen eyes were covered with a mist, perhaps the growing fear
in his heart forbade his tongue to ask a question, because he dreaded
the answer. Perhaps sheer agitation may have rendered him incapable of
distinguishing one among so many. Howsoever that may be, he knew
nothing, saw no one, until a wan, slim-figured woman, a woman clothed in
tattered rags, down whose pallid cheeks streamed the divine tears of
happiness, touched his arm and sobbed:
"Are you looking for me--dear?"
* * * * *
The Mutiny was by no means ended with the fall of Delhi and the Second
Relief of Lucknow. North and south and east and west the rebels were
hunted with untiring zeal. Sometimes in scattered bands, less often in
formidable armies, they were pursued, encountered and annihilated.
Quickly degenerating into mere robber hordes, they became a pest to the
unhappy villagers in the remoter parts of the different provinces, and
it was long ere the last embers of the fire that had raged so fiercely
were stamped out. Nana Sahib perished miserably under the claws of a
tiger in the Nepaul jungle, the Moulvie of Fyzabad and the Ranei of
Jhansi fell in action, while Tantia Topi was hanged. But the end came,
and on November 1, 1858, amid salvoes of artillery and to the
accompaniment of festivities innumerable, Queen Victoria proclaimed the
abolition of the East India Company, and assumed the sovereignty of the
country. Her Majesty took no territory, confirmed all treaties, promised
religious toleration and civil equality to all her Indian subjects, and
gave full and complete pardon to every rebel who was not a murderer.
The Queen's gracious and peace-bringing words supplied a fitting close
to India's Red Year. Europeans and natives alike tried to forget both
the crime and its punishment. And that was a good thing in itself.
The great land of Hindustan has doubled its teeming population and
increased its prosperity out of all comparable reckoning during the
fifty years that have passed since the Mutiny. Many of the descendants
of men who fought against the British Raj are now its trusted servants,
and there is not in India to-day a native gentleman of any importance
who would not assist the Government with his life and fortune to save
his country from the lawless horrors of any similar outbreak.
But these are matters for the politician and the statesman. It is more
fitting that this story of the lives and fortunes of a few of the actors
in a great human drama should conclude with such particulars of their
subsequent history as have filtered through time's close-woven meshes of
half a century.
One day in February, not so long ago, a young officer of the Guides, who
had come to Lucknow for "Cup" week, was standing in the porch of the
Mohamed Bagh Club when he heard a young lady bewailing fate in the shape
of a tikka-gharry which had brought her there. Her "people" were at the
Chutter Munzil Club, miles away, for Lucknow is a big place, and she was
already late for tea.
Being a nice young man, the said officer of the Guides could not bear to
see a nice young woman in distress.
"My dog-cart is just coming up," he said, "and I am going to the Chutter
Munzil. Won't you let me drive you there?"
She blushed and hesitated and of course agreed.
On the way, to maintain a polite conversation, he pointed out several
historic buildings.
"You are stationed here, I suppose?" she said.
"No, indeed. My regiment is at Quetta, but I was reared on the records
of Lucknow. My grandmother went through the whole of the siege, and my
grandfather was with the Second Relief. It must have agreed with their
health, for they were both out here two years since, and I went over the
Mutiny ground with them."
"How interesting! Was that how they met?"
"No. They were engaged just before the Residency was invested. It is an
awfully interesting yarn, and I should like some day to have a chance of
telling it to you. There is a native princess in it, and a pearl
necklace, which is worth quite a lot of money, and is believed to have
been stolen by a sepoy before my grandfather obtained it, quite by
accident. And the old chap--he was quite a young chap then, you
know--had a remarkable native servant who did so well at the Mutiny that
he became a nawab or something of the sort. Really, the whole thing is
more like a book than a chapter of real life."
"I had a grandmother in the Mutiny," said the girl, "but she had such a
sad experience that she seldom mentioned it. Her maiden name was Keene,
and her father was killed at Fattehpore--"
"Keene! Did she ever speak of a man named Malcolm, who saved her and her
sister?"
"Oh, yes! You don't mean to say--"
"Yes, really, I'm his grandson. Now, isn't that the queerest thing? Just
imagine the odds against my meeting you here under such conditions?
Please tell me your name, and you'll let me call, won't you?"
The girl was somewhat breathless. Young Malcolm was looking at her as
though he felt that a special dispensation of Providence had brought
them together.
"I am sure my mother will be glad to meet you and hear all about those
old days at Lucknow," she said shyly.
So it may be that the gray ruins of the Residency, over which the flag
flies ever that was kept there so resolutely by the men and women in
'57, saw the beginning of another love idyll, destined to end as happily
as that which had its being amidst the terrors and fury of the Mutiny.
THE END
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go to London, travelling as brother and sister. Their difficulties
commence in New York and become greatly exaggerated when they are
shipwrecked in mid-ocean. The hero finds himself stranded on the island
of Nedra with another girl, whom he has rescued by mistake. The story
gives an account of their finding some of the other passengers, and the
circumstances which resulted from the strange mix-up.
POWER LOT, by Sarah P. McLean Greene. Illustrated.
The story of the reformation of a man and his restoration to
self-respect through the power of honest labor, the exercise of honest
independence, and the aid of clean, healthy, out of door life and
surroundings. The characters take hold of the heart and win sympathy.
The dear old story has never been more lovingly and artistically told.
MY MAMIE ROSE. The History of My Regeneration, by Owen Kildare.
Illustrated.
This _autobiography_ is a powerful book of love and sociology. Reads
like the strangest fiction. Is the strongest truth and deals with the
story of a man's redemption through a woman's love and devotion.
JOHN BURT, by Frederick Upham Adams, with illustrations.
John Burt, a New England lad, goes West to seek his fortune and finds it
in gold mining. He becomes one of the financial factors and pitilessly
crushes his enemies. The story of the Stock Exchange manipulations was
never more vividly and engrossingly told. A love story runs through the
book, and is handled with infinite skill.
THE HEART LINE, by Gelett Burgess, with halftone illustrations
by Lester Ralph, and inlay cover in colors.
A great dramatic story of the city that was. A story of Bohemian life in
San Francisco, before the disaster, presented with mirror-like accuracy.
Compressed into it are all the sparkle, all the gayety, all the wild,
whirling life of the glad, mad, bad, and most delightful city of the
Golden Gate.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, . . New York
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise,
every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and
intent.