But, through the kind care of our Heavenly
Father, we were preserved alive, and nothing of importance occurred
until the morning of Thursday, a little before daybreak, when a party of
five hundred advanced upon us from the town, and set fire to several
houses and vessels near the warf. But God interposed in our behalf, and
sent a heavy shower of rain, which extinguished the fire, while the
Sepoys repelled the assailants."
Mrs. Boardman's biographer says: "What could be more appalling to the
stoutest heart than the situation of Mrs. Boardman and her helpless
family? Forced to flee from her frail hut, by bullets actually whizzing
through it, and to pass through the town amid the yells of an infuriated
rabble, her path sometimes impeded by the dead bodies of men who had
fallen in the conflict; driven from the shelter of the Government-house,
again to fly through the streets to the warf-house, and there, with
three or four hundred fugitives crowded together, to await death, which
threatened them in every form; hearing over their heads the rush of
cannon balls, and seeing from burning buildings showers of sparks
falling, one of which, if it reached the magazines under their roof, was
sufficient to tear the building from its foundations, and whelm them all
in one common ruin; or, if they escaped this danger, to know that
hundreds of merciless barbarians, with knives and cutlasses, might, at
any moment, rush into the building and destroy them,--can the female
heart, we are ready to ask, endure such fearful trial? Yes: her mind was
stayed by a 'courage not her own;' .
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