received intelligence that a British army, by forced marches, would bear upon Savendroog in a few days.

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spised and derided the temerity of the British commander, who was said to menace a siege of their inaccessible heights. The rock towered more Tippoo Saib minutely surveyed than half a mile in perpendicular the fortifications and reviewed his elevation above its base, in two cliffs troops; then commanding them to almost perpendicular; and on the wheel into a circle in files, twelve summits, all the resources of art had men deep, around a temporary platbeen employed in continuing the lines form covered with embroidered silk, of fortification which commenced at he ascended the steps of this stage, the base, a circumference of eight followed by the French officers in miles, encompassed by morasses and full uniform, and with their unsheathforests nearly impervious, excepted swords in warlike attitude. Siwhere a road to the capital had been lence deep and awful prevailed, and conducted with laborious ingenuity after a pause of some minutes, the under shelter of the trees by wind-sultan dropped a dark cloak, and ings and passes, rendering an ap- stood before his soldiery on a gilded proach to the rock extremely diffi- pedestal, seven feet in height, blazcult without a guide. ing in all the insignia of royalty and The three horsemen we may sup-military command. Drawing his jewpose to have been well acquainted elled scimitar, he flourished the weawith this route, as they advanced, pon as he spoke : and two returned, with such expedition: the third, by arduous effort, reached the first out-post of the lower fortifications, called for the officer commanding that guard, spoke a few words to him, and sunk down exhausted, to rise no more. All was now in motion along the ascending line of posts; messengers were seen to strain every nerve in hastening to the highest peaks of the rock; and squadrons of infantry marched at quick pace to the redoubts that terminated the road from Seringapatam. They had hardly time to draw up en bataillon, when twenty-five horsemen dismounted in front of the array, and after a hasty refreshment, were borne in palanquins to the upper stations of the fortress. By the earliest dawn, the troops had a confirmation of the rumour, that Tippoo Sultan, attended by French officers, had come to inspect the works and the discipline of the garrison, having

Unconquered soldiers of Mysore! the pale-faced men of Europe are marching to their graves at the base of our Rock of Death. Every leaf on the lofty and numberless trees of our far-extending forests is armed for their destruction! Every stagnant pool in our morasses sends forth vapours more fatal than the fire and smoke which impel our cannon-balls to sweep away their ranks! Yet, officers and soldiers of the mightiest empire on the face of the earth, be it your glory, by valorous vigilance, discipline, subordination, and intrepidity, to prepare for them a discomfiture from your own arms! The sultan will distinguish and reward the brave. The sultan will also punish every neglect or deficiency in the discharge of duty. Return to your respective stations, and when the climate and your prowess have annihilated the pale-faced Britons, and the wild ravagers of the forest

have devoured their carcases, the sultan will distribute abundant rewards to all that are found to deserve his favour."

Tippoo retired amidst the acclamations of his soldiery, and assuming a new disguise, took the road to Seringapatam, attended by the trusty cavalcade he led to Savendroog. His spirit-stirring harangue had full effect upon the garrison; the vigilance of the officers and men had no remission; and on the 10th of December, their scouts gave notice, that a British army, preceded by indefatigable bands of pioneers, were making terrible progress in cutting their way through a part of the forest which hitherto had been considered impenetrable, as the enormous trunks of the sylvan giants were closely interwoven by prickly climbing plants. || Next morning, before sunrise, Colonel Stewart and his undaunted brigades had scaled the rock, and carried by assault all the compartments of the fortress, without the loss of a single man.

The attack was so unexpected, that the Mysoreans, who looked only for a regular siege, were occupied in preparations to resist to the last; and they exulted in the certainty, that the climate would prove an auxiliary, before whose empoisoned shafts the Britons must fall, long ere the stores of ammunition and food in the fortress of Savendroog could be expended. Colonel Stewart was aware that the climate would operate as the only unconquerable foe; and he accordingly abridged the process of his warfare. When he summoned the garrison to surrender, they were panic-struck by finding they had to cope with an enemy capable of achievVol. III. No. XIII.

ing supposed impossibilities; but they attempted to accomplish by treachery the destruction of the victors, though they also must be involved in the same fate. A British soldier observed a Mysorean skulking towards the powder-magazine of the grand parade, with a concealed bulk under his cloak. The soldier rushed forward, and tearing open the envelope, found two lighted matches, which he extinguished under his feet. In a moment he was furiously assaulted by several of Tippoo's soldiers, and must have been killed, if his wife, who never separated from him,, had not called for help. The soldier defended himself till a sufficient force disarmed the Mysoreans. Their of ficers denied any participation in this enterprize, and gave them up to punishment for violating the terms of capitulation.

many

We leave them in the hands of British justice and clemency, and return to the soldier, whose conduct and bravery prevented the tremendous explosion. A sentiment of deep interest in his recovery pervaded the British army. He was the only man who had been wounded; his blood was shed to avert the loss of lives; on former occasions his courage and presence of mind were conspicuous, and all his behaviour merited not only approbation but respect. He was lodged in a lofty apartment, detached from the noise of military movements, and every accommodation was provided for him and his wife.

They had arrived with recruits for the - regiment of foot, a short time previous to the opening of the campaign: the commanding officer of these new levies, who alone knew any

F

thing of them, died on his passage to || his advice on this head. The worthy

India, and they were strictly reserved concerning their own private history. Henry Rutledge was, however, soon distinguished for the most exact performance of duty, and in more than one engagement had displayed the most admirable qualities of a soldier. He was offered a halbert; but with expressions of due acknowledgment he declined that promotion, requesting leave to remain as a volunteer, until he should earn by his services the honour of being ranked with commissioned officers. He and his wife had all the appearance of habits acquired and confirmed in a superior station: yet, when persons of that description come among strangers, without vouchers for their character, they are liable to unfavourable conjectures, and time only can acquit them of suspicion.

With the most civil and obliging deportment to the soldiers and their wives, Henry Rutledge and his spouse scrupulously avoided all tendency to familiar intercourse. Mrs. Rutledge worked with her needle, or wove bobbin lace; and in every interval between the calls of duty, her husband sketched patterns or wound thread for her elegant manufacture, or amused her by reading aloud, and playing on the flute or clarionet. They conversed in a foreign language, which some of the soldiers who had served abroad imagined to have the German accent; and in the camp or the field of danger, Mrs. Rutledge endeavoured to keep sight of her better self.

When the regiment was first ordered on service, Rutledge entreated his wife to remain at Madras, and the only favour he ever asked of his captain was, that he would vouchsafe

veteran accompanied him to Mrs. Rutledge's lodging, and represented to her the untried evils she must encounter if she attended the march of the regiment. She implored him not to oppose her humble but fixed resolution. She would give no trouble, and might be useful. Hardship or peril she was prepared to meet, and could endure any suffering, except being torn from her husband. Rutledge assured her, that to carry away with him the certainty of her comfort and health being secure would give him spirits to act with greater energy. She turned upon him a look of affectionate reproof, saying, " Henry Rutledge! when I || became yours, you swore never to insist that I would separate from you even in the field of battle. I claim the performance of that solemn engagement. If you leave me, I shall lose my reason or my life. I can but die if I go with you, but I shall die happy; and, O Captain Baygrove, if you hope, by the blessing of God, to be restored to your lady and daughters, have pity on a friendless stranger, and let me live or die undivided from my only protectormy husband!"

This appeal to his conjugal and paternal tenderness could not be resisted. Captain Baygrove nominated Mrs. Rutledge among the soldiers' wives who were to follow his company; and this ladylike adventuress was seen on foot, shading herself from the sun with a parasol, or on a baggage-waggon, screened by an umbrella; but always when the division to which Rutledge belonged made a halt, she was by his side. She kept pace with him in ascending the rock of Savendroog, and, as she had

prognosticated, was useful, for her tlemen wished to draw his wife into cries brought succours to her hus-conversation, but she answered only band in time to intercept the My-in monosyllables, and without any soreans who ran to kindle other breach of respect, shewed them she matches, when Rutledge extinguish-was determined to maintain a strict ed those first intended to explode reserve. The patient was informed the powder-magazine.

that his services being represented to the commander-in-chief of the army by Colonel Stewart, he was immediately appointed ensign, and a few days afterwards promoted to the rank of lieutenant. Mr. and Mrs. Rutledge expressed their grateful feelings in terms that proved how highly they were qualified to support the place in society to which they were

Thus every circumstance that related to the heroic pair became a subject of discussion at the mess-tables; and the surgeons never visited Rutledge unaccompanied by officers of the different regiments, who were desirous of seeing him and his wife. They always found Mrs. Rutledge in attendance. She courtesied to them with involuntary grace, and her coun-deservedly raised. The officers retenance, the index of sorrowful anxiety, evinced a total abstraction from self-a disregard to every consideration except the danger and distress of her husband. When he was declared to be convalescent, the gen

tired, leaving the happy pair to indulge in mutual gratulations; but in the evening it appeared that joyful emotion had caused some access of fever to the patient.

(To be concluded in our next.)

A CHRISTMAS PARTY.

THE DINNER.

Casino my eyes first beheld her beautiful form, and received from her looks the silent assurance of favour. Like Luna and her terrestrial companion in the firmament, we whirled swiftly and gracefully in amatory loveliness round the splendid saloon, the admiration of strangers and envy of friends. Frederika was the beau idéal of waltzing. Would she had been less partial to that bewitching pastime!!

"CAPTAIN VON PFITTERSHAUSEN, || of her sex. It was at a ball at the as I'm alive!" exclaimed, with goggle eyes and nut-cracker jaws, my old acquaintance, Mr. Walter Waffle, the ship-broker, as I turned the corner of the Post-Office archway in Lombard-street, whither I had sped my steps from Panton-square in the Haymarket, to insure the safe conveyance of three pages of foolscap to my dear Frederika at Wolfenbuttel, circumstantially detailing the wound at the battle of Toulouse, and the consequent amputation above the Alas! my three pages of foolscap, knee-joint; but consoling her grief for the safe conveyance of which to by the news of the liberal pension Wolfenbuttel I had sped my steps which, with half-pay and Spanish || from Panton-square in the Haymarprize-money, would in six weeks' time ket to Lombard-street, remained a enable me to fly to her arms, to be dead letter, until Schwartz, the invafor ever united to the most graceful lid corporal of von Detholm's com

" will be delighted to see an old friend of mine; you must come and dine."

"What, married?"

pany, shewed some bowels for my corporal and mental anguish, by informing me, with corporal-like naïveté, that I must give up all thoughts of Miss Frederika, by rea- Aye, and to the best of women, son of my incapacitation from future a young widow of forty-five or so; participation in the sports of salta-six thousand down, an annuity of two tion: "for," said he unanswerably, hundred, three children well providyour honour will allow that waltz-ed for, and two of our own for the ing on three legs is inconvenient and present. We have got a little rum unsightly; and so Miss Frederika, I in urby at Bethnal Green, with a understand, has determined to waltz spare sofy-bed; you must come and to the temple of Hymns in as perfect see us. By the by, where do you a way as Counsellor Ninihoffer's heal- spend your Christmas-day, captain?" thy pedestals will let her."

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O woman! woman!!

Fortunately for me, these deadly tidings were yet hidden under the veil of futurity, when at the corner of the archway in Lombard-street my old acquaintance, Mr. Walter Waffle, the ship-broker, exclaimed, with goggle eyes and nut-cracket jaws, "Captain von Pfittershausen, as I am alive! Dear me, a leg the worse for valour! Well, well, better a leg than a head; great saving in stockings and shoes, washing, and Day and Martin's. One ball goes as far as two."

O the broker-feeling! What a sympathizing soul!

I

am

Nay, peace to the manes of the broker! Mrs. Waffle's iron rule, after breaking his head once or twice a week during a term of years, sure broke the heart of invoices and charterparties; for Mr. Walter Waffle has freighted his last cargo in the church-yard of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, where the bill of lading of pure marble, endorsed by his disconsolate spouse, enumerates all the parcels of virtues and mental endowments that are to be entered free of duty on t'other side the Styx.

"Mrs. Waffle," said the good man,

." At home.”—" Nonsense! We shall expect you to dinner, four o'clock; don't make it later, that we may have time for a little music and a rubber we always have cards on Christmas-day. Perhaps there may be a little of the footing it too-(dear me, I did not think of your casualty! I ask a thousand pardons): never mind, we shall kill the time, I warrant you. You German gentlemen like cards, and Mrs. W. knows how to entertain her friends: her first husband, the sugar-baker, kept the best of company. Excuse me, I must run upon 'Change: so then, Christmas-day at four o'clock, or as much sooner as you like. Here's my card, though every body knows Walter Waffle's in Wilmott Grove, Bethnal Green, God bless you, captain! A propos, if you like to come in your richmentals, so much the better. Mrs. W. delights in the military. Good bye, don't forget, four's the hour!"

It was not till after inquiries and laborious turnings and oaths innumerable, that the soaked charioteer of hacks discovered the domicile of Mr. W. Waffle, "whom every body knows," by a brass plate indicating name, surname, and profession, peeping from under the shade of a portal