They and the grounds are sacred now, and will suffer no
neglect nor be profaned by any sordid or commercial use while the British
remain masters of India. Within the grounds are buried the dead who gave
up their lives there in the long siege.
After a fashion, I was able to imagine the fiery storm that raged night
and day over the place during so many months, and after a fashion I could
imagine the men moving through it, but I could not satisfactorily place
the 200 women, and I could do nothing at all with the 250 children. I
knew by Lady Inglis' diary that the children carried on their small
affairs very much as if blood and carnage and the crash and thunder of a
siege were natural and proper features of nursery life, and I tried to
realize it; but when her little Johnny came rushing, all excitement,
through the din and smoke, shouting, "Oh, mamma, the white hen has laid
an egg!" I saw that I could not do it. Johnny's place was under the
bed. I could imagine him there, because I could imagine myself there;
and I think I should not have been interested in a hen that was laying an
egg; my interest would have been with the parties that were laying the
bombshells.
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