I was employed inside the enclosure, when all at once I heard a noise and commotion some little distance off.

Getting on to the roof, I looked over the plain, and saw our troops flying in every direction; there was no firing, no enemy in sight, but evidently something was wrong; so I mounted my horse and rode to the scene of confusion, where I found that the ignominious flight of our troops was caused by infuriated bees which had been disturbed by an officer of the 9th Lancers thoughtlessly thrusting a lance into their nest.

There were no serious consequences, but the Highlanders were heard to remark on the unsuitability of their dress for an encounter with an enemy of that description.
On the 9th November Sir Colin Campbell joined the column, accompanied by his Chief of the Staff, Brigadier-General Mansfield.[5] [Illustration: LORDS CLYDE AND SANDHURST.
(SIR COLIN CAMPBELL AND SIR WILLIAM MANSFIELD.) _From a photograph taken in India._] The following morning we were surprised to hear that a European from the Lucknow garrison had arrived in camp.

All were keen to see him, and to hear how it was faring with those who had been shut up in the Residency for so long; but the new-comer was the bearer of very important information from Sir James Outram, and to prevent any chance of its getting about, the Commander-in-Chief kept the messenger, Mr.
Kavanagh, a close prisoner in his own tent.
Outram, being anxious that the officer in command of the relieving force should not follow the same route taken by himself and Havelock, and wishing to communicate his ideas more at length than was possible in a note conveyed as usual by a spy, Kavanagh, a clerk in an office in Lucknow, pluckily volunteered to carry a letter.

It was an offer which appealed to the heart of the 'Bayard of the East,' as Outram has been appropriately called, and just such an errand as he himself, had he been in a less responsible position, would have delighted to undertake.