EX LIBRIS 
 
 Sumtyme my booke is vnto me A God^ 
 Sumtyme I throwe it from me A rodd. 
 All kynde of bookes^ good, and baddy . 
 Sayntish and Diuelish, that ar to be hadd. 
 Owlde, andyunge, 
 For matter and tunge, 
 Wheresoeuer they dwell. 
 In Heauen, or in Hell. f < 
 
 DOUGLAS BUSH .t:^ 
 

 GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN 
 
OAWNPOEB 
 
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON . BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK . BOSTON • CHICAGO 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
CAWNPOEE 
 
 BY 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. 
 
 SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN, Bart. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 ST. MAETIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 1910 
 
First Edition 1865 ; Second Edition 1866 ; Third Edition 1866 ; 
 
 Fourth Edition 1894 ; Reprinted 1899, 1907. 
 
 Shilling Edition 1910. 
 

 The Author of this work has made it his aim 
 to preserve a scrupulous fidelity to the original 
 sources of his information. The most trivial allu- 
 sions, the slightest touches, are equally authentic 
 with the main outlines of the story. The autho- 
 rities most frequently consulted are : 
 
 1. The Depositions of sixty-three witnesses, 
 Natives and Half-castes, taken under the direc- 
 tions of Colonel Williams, Commissioner of Police 
 in the North- West Provinces. 
 
 2. A Narrative of Events at Cawnpore, com- 
 posed by Nanukchund, a local lawyer. 
 
 3. Captain Thomson's Story of Cawnpore. 
 
 4. The Government Narratives of the Mutiny, 
 drawn up for the most part by the civil officers 
 in charge of the several districts. The Author 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 returns his most hearty thanks to Sir John 
 Lawrence and the authorities of the Calcutta 
 Home Office, who, at the cost of great trouble to 
 themselves, supplied him with the copies of these 
 invaluable documents reserved for the use of the 
 Indian Government. 
 
 8, Grosvenor Crescent, 
 March, 1865. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Station , 1 
 
 The Outbreak 53 
 
 The Siege 97 
 
 The Treachery 162 
 
 The Massacre 225 
 
CAWNPOEE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE STATION 
 
 THE city of Cawnpore lies on the south bank of 
 the Ganges, which at that spot is about a 
 quarter of a mile in breadth, and this too in the dry 
 season; for, when the rains have filled the bed, the 
 stream measures two thousand yards from shore to 
 shore. And yet the river has still a thousand miles 
 of his course to run before, by many channels and 
 under many names, he loses himself in the waters 
 of the Bay of Bengal. In old times an officer 
 appointed to Cawnpore thought himself fortunate 
 if he could reach his station within three months 
 from the day he left Fort William. But tow-ropes 
 and punt-poles are now things of the past, and the 
 traveller from Calcutta arrives at the end of his 
 journey in little more than thirty hours. 
 
 By the treaty of Fyzabad, in 1775, the East Indian 
 Company engaged to maintain a brigade for the 
 defence of Oude. The revenues of a rich and 
 
 B 
 
2 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 extensive tract of country were appointed for the 
 maintenance of this force, which was quartered at 
 Cawnpore, the principal town of the district. In 
 1801, Lord Wellesley, who loved to carry matters 
 with a masterful hand, closed the mortgage, and the 
 territory lapsed to the Company, who accepted this 
 new charge with some diffidence. And thus it hap- 
 pened that, ever since the beginning of the last 
 quarter of the eighteenth century, Cawnpore had 
 been a first-class military station. In the spring of 
 1857 it had attained an importance to which the 
 events of the following summer gave a fatal shock. 
 The recent annexation of Oude was an additional 
 motive for keeping a strong hold on Cawnpore ; for 
 that city commanded the bridge over which passed 
 the high-road to Lucknow, the capital of our newly- 
 acquired province. At that time the station was 
 occupied by three regiments of sepoys, the First, the 
 Fifty-third, and the Fifty-sixth Bengal Infantry. The 
 Second Cavalry, and a company of artillerjrmen, 
 brought up the strength of the native force to three 
 thousand men. Of Europeans and persons of Euro- 
 pean extraction, there were resident at Cawnpore 
 more than a thousand. There were the officers 
 attached to the sepoy battalions ; sixty men of the 
 Eighty-fourth regiment of the British Line ; seventy- 
 eight invalids belonging to the Thirty-second regi- 
 ment, which was then quartered at Lucknow, and 
 was destined to pass through the most fearful trial 
 from which ever men emerged alive ; fifteen of the 
 Madras Fusiliers ; and fifty-nine of the Company's 
 artillerynaen : in all, some three hundred soldiers 
 of English birth. Then there were the covenanted 
 
I THE STATION 3 
 
 civilians, the aristocracy of Indian society; the lesser 
 officials attached to the Post-office, the PubHc 
 Works, and the Opium Departments ; . the Railway 
 people ; the merchants and shopkeepers, — Euro- 
 peans some, others half-castes, or, as they would 
 fain be called, Eurasians. There, too, were the 
 wives and little ones of the men of all these classes 
 and grades, and in no slender proportion ; for among 
 our countr^Tnen in India the marriage state is in 
 special honour. There likewise were a great number 
 of half-caste children belonging to the Cawnpore 
 school, who were soon to buy at a very dear price 
 the privilege of being the offspring of a European 
 sire. 
 
 The military quarter was entirely distinct from the 
 native city. And here let the reader divest himself 
 at once of all European ideas, and keep clear of 
 them during the whole course of this narrative. Let 
 him put aside all preconceived notions of a barrack, 
 — of a yard paved with rough stones, and darkened 
 by buildings four stories high, at the windows of 
 which lounge stalwart warriors in various stages 
 of undress. Let him try to form to himself a 
 picture of a military station in Northern India, for 
 it was within the precincts of such a station that 
 was played out the most terrible tragedy of our 
 age. 
 
 The cantonments lay along the bank of the river, 
 over a tract extending six miles from north-west to 
 south-east : for, wheresoever in Hindostan Englishmen 
 make their homes, no regard is had to economy of 
 space. Each residence stands in a separate "com- 
 pound," or paddock, of some three or four acres, 
 
4 CAWNPOEE CHAP. 
 
 surrounded by an uneven, crumbling mound and 
 ditch, with here and there a ragged hedge of prickly- 
 pear. For all over India fences appear to exist rather 
 for the purpose of marking boundaries than for any 
 protection they afford against intruders. The house, 
 like all houses outside the Calcutta Ditch, consists 
 of a single story, built of brick, coated with white 
 plaster; the whole premises, if the owner be a 
 bachelor or a subaltern, in a most shabby and 
 tumble-down condition. A flight of half a dozen 
 steps leads up to a verandah which runs round three 
 sides of the building. The noticeable objects here 
 will probably be a native tailor, working in the 
 attitude adopted by tailors in all lands where men 
 wear clothes; a wretched being, squatted on his 
 haunches, lazily pulling the string of a punkah that 
 passes through a hole in the brickwork into the 
 Sahib's bedroom; a Madras valet, spreading butter 
 on the Sahib's morning toast with the greasy wing 
 of a fowl ; and, against the windward wall, a row of 
 jars of porous red clay, in which water is cooling 
 for the Sahib's morning bath. 
 
 The principal door leads at once into the sitting- 
 room, a spacious, ill-kept, comfortless apartment; 
 the most conspicuous article being a huge, oblong 
 frame of wood and canvas suspended across the 
 ceiling, and the prevailing impression a sense of 
 the presence of cobwebs. The furniture, which is 
 scattered about in most unadmired disorder, is in 
 the last stage of dilapidation. Every article in an 
 Anglo-Indian household bears witness to the fact 
 that Englishmen regard themselves but as sojourners 
 in the locahty where fate and the quartermaster- 
 
I THE STATION 5 
 
 general may have placed them. A large, rickety table 
 in the centre of the room is strewn with three or four 
 empty soda-water bottles, a half-emptied bottle of 
 brandy, a corkscrew, glasses, playing-cards, chessmen, 
 a Hindostanee dictionary, an inkstand, a revolver, a 
 bundle of letters, a box of cigars, the supplement of 
 BelVs Life, and a few odd volumes from the regi- 
 mental book-club. Then there are eight or ten 
 chairs, a good half of which might well claim to be 
 invahded on the score of wounds and long service ; 
 a couch with broken springs ; a Japanese cabinet, 
 bought as a bargain when the old major was sold 
 up; and an easy cane chair of colossal dimensions, 
 the arms of which are prolonged and flattened, so as 
 to accommodate the occupant with a resting-place 
 for his feet. In one comer stands a couple of hog- 
 spears, supple, tough, and duly weighted with lead 
 and barbed with steel of proof; a regulation sword ; 
 a buggy- whip; a hunting-crop; a double-barrelled 
 rifle and a shot-gun — weapons which the owner de- 
 preciates as archaic. On nails driven into the plaster 
 hang a list of the men in the company to which the 
 young fellow is attached; a caricature of the pay- 
 master; a framed photograph of the cricket eleven 
 of the public school where he was educated ; and, if 
 he be of a humorous turn, the last " wigging," or 
 letter of admonition and reproof, received from the 
 colonel of his regiment. 
 
 In such a scene, and amidst such associations, 
 does the English subaltern wear out the weary hours 
 of the interminable Indian day; smoking; dozing; 
 playing with his terrier; longing for the evening, 
 or for a call from a brother-officer, with whom he 
 
6 CAWNPOEE CHAP. 
 
 may discuss the Army List, and partake of the 
 ever-recurring refreshment of brandy and soda- 
 water ; lazily endeavouring to get some little insight 
 into the languages of the hateful East by the help 
 of a fat, fawning native tutor, and a stupid and 
 indecent Oordoo work on mythology; pondering 
 sadly on home landscapes and home recollections, 
 as he gazes across the sharply-defined line of 
 shadow, thrown by the roof of the verandah, into 
 the out-door heat and glare; with no pleasanter 
 object of contemplation than the Patna sheep 
 belonging to the Station Mutton Club, and his own 
 modest stud, consisting of a raw-boned Australian 
 horse and an old Cabul pony picketed under a 
 group of mango-trees near the gate of the 
 compound. 
 
 The centre apartment is flanked on either side by 
 a smaller chamber ; both of which are employed as 
 bedrooms, if, for the sake of company or economy, 
 our young friend is keeping house with some Addis- 
 combe chum. Otherwise, the least desirable is set 
 apart as a lumber-room ; though, to judge from the 
 condition of the articles in use, it is hard to imagine 
 what degree of shabbiness would qualify furniture 
 to become lumber in Bengal. The door into the 
 Sahib's bedroom stands open, like every other door 
 in British India; the multitude of servants, and 
 the necessity for coolness, forbidding the very idea 
 of privacy. There stands a bedstead of wood, worm- 
 eaten, unplaned, unpolished; inclosed on all sides 
 with musquito-curtains of white gauze, the edges 
 carefully tucked in beneath the mattress, through 
 which is dimly seen the recumbent form of the 
 
I THE STATION 7 
 
 Sahib, clad in a silk shirt and linen drawers, the 
 universal night-dress of the East. The poor boy is 
 doing his best to recover, during the cooler morning 
 hours, the arrears of the sleepless night, which he 
 has passed in a state of feverish irritation — panting, 
 perspiring, tossing from side to side in desire of 
 a momentary relief from the tortures of Prickly 
 Heat, the curse of young blood ; anon, sallying into 
 the verandah to rouse the nodding punkah-puller, 
 more happy than his wakeful master. Little of 
 ornament or convenience is to be seen around, save 
 a capacious brass basin on an iron stand, and half 
 a dozen trunks, of shape adapted to be slung in 
 pairs on the hump of a bullock. An inner door 
 affords a view into a bath-room, paved with rough 
 bricks; the bath consisting of a space surrounded 
 by a parapet some six inches high, in which the 
 bather stands while his servant sluices him with cold 
 water from a succession of jars. It may be that 
 on a shelf at the bed's head are treasured some 
 objects, trifling indeed in value, but made very dear 
 by association ; a few school prizes and leaving- 
 books; a few sheets of flimsy pink paper, closely 
 written, soiled, and frayed at every fold ; one or two 
 portraits in morocco cases, too sacred for the photo- 
 graphic album, and the inspection and criticism of 
 a stranger. There is something touching in these 
 repositories, for they tell that, however much the 
 lad may appear to be absorbed in the pursuits and 
 pleasures of the mess-room, the parade-ground, the 
 snipe-marsh, and the race-course, his highest thoughts 
 and dearest hopes are far away in that land where 
 he is never again to abide, until those hopes and 
 
8 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 thoughts have long been tamed and deadened by 
 years and troubles. 
 
 Such are the quarters of a British subaltern. The 
 home of a married pair may be somewhat more 
 comfortable, and the residence of a man in high 
 office considerably more magnificent ; but the same 
 characteristics prevail everywhere. A spirit of scru- 
 pulous order, and a snug domestic air, are not to 
 be attained in an Indian household. At best a 
 semi-barbarous profusion, an untidy splendour, and 
 the absence of sordid cares, form the compensation 
 for the loss of English comfort. Still, the lady must 
 have her drawing-room, where she can display her 
 wedding presents, and the purchases which she 
 made at the Calcutta auctions during the cold 
 season before last. The Commissioner must have 
 his sanctum, where he can wallow in papers, and 
 write letters of censure to his collectors, letters of 
 explanation to the Revenue Board, and letters of 
 remonstrance to the local military authorities. The 
 epicure cannot do without a roofed passage leading 
 from his kitchen to his parlour; nor the sporting 
 man without a loose box for the mare which he has 
 entered for the Planters' Plate at Sonepore. Then, 
 too, gentlemen of horticultural tastes like to devote 
 a spare hour to superintending the labours of their 
 gardeners : and the soil at Cawnpore well repays 
 attention. Most kinds of European vegetables can 
 be produced with success, while peaches and melons, 
 shaddocks and limes, grow in native abundance: 
 together with those fruits which an old Qui-hye loves 
 so dearly, but which to a fresh English palate are a 
 poor substitute indeed for hautbovs and ribstone 
 
I THE STATION 9 
 
 pippins ; — the mango, with a flavour like turpentine, 
 and the banana, with a flavour like an over-ripe 
 pear; the guava, which has a taste of strawberries, 
 and the custard-apple, which has no perceptible 
 taste at all. 
 
 None of those institutions which render the 
 ordinary life of the English officer in India some- 
 what less monotonous and objectless were wanting 
 at Cawnpore. There was a church, whose fair white 
 tower, rising among a group of lofty trees, for more 
 than one dull and dusty mile greets the eyes of the 
 traveller on the road from Lucknow. That church, 
 which has stood scathless through such strange 
 vicissitudes, will soon be superseded by a more 
 imposing temple, built to commemorate the great 
 disaster of our race. There were meeting-houses 
 of divers Protestant persuasions, a Roman Catholic 
 chapel, and a mission of the Society for the Propa- 
 gation of the Gospel. There was a race-course, as 
 there is in every spot throughout the East where a 
 handful of our countrymen have got together; a 
 theatre, where the ladies of the garrison with good- 
 natured amusement witnessed comets and junior 
 magistrates attempting to represent female whims 
 and graces; a Freemasons' lodge, where the work 
 of initiation and instruction went merrily on in 
 a temperature of 100° in the shade. There was 
 a racket-court, and a hbrary, and news-rooms, and 
 billiard-rooms. There were the assembly-rooms, 
 where dinners were given to passing Governors- 
 General, and balls to high official dames, where 
 questions of precedence were raised, and matches 
 made and brolcen. There was a breakfast club. 
 
10 CAWNPOKE CHAP. 
 
 whither men repaired after their ride to discuss the 
 powers that be over their morning toast, at that 
 meal so dear to Britons from the Himalayas to 
 Point de Galle, and from the Sutlej to Hong-Kong, 
 whether, as throughout Bengal, it be termed "Kttle 
 breakfast," or, as at Madras, it be known by the title 
 of " early tea." There was the band-stand, the very 
 heart and centre of up-country fashion, where the 
 wit and beauty and gallantry of the station were 
 nightly wont to congregate. There was the ice-club, 
 for the manufacture and supply of that luxury which 
 becomes a necessity under the tropic of Cancer ; — 
 which more favoured Calcutta obtains straight from 
 the Canadian lakes, with Newfoundland codfish and 
 Pennsylvanian apples embedded in the crystal mass. 
 The markets were well supplied with fish, flesh, and 
 fowl, at a cost that would gladden the heart of an 
 English housewife, though Anglo-Indians complain 
 loudly of the rise in prices, and grumble at being 
 forced to pay sixpence a pound for mutton, and 
 three shillings for a fat turkey. In the game season, 
 quails, wild ducks, snipe, and black partridges were 
 cheap and abundant; and a dish of ortolans, a 
 treat which in Europe is confined to Italian tourists 
 and Parisian millionaires, was a common adjunct to 
 the second course at Cawnpore dinner-tables. 
 
 The quarters of the native troops presented a very 
 different appearance from the English bungalows. 
 Sepoy lines, generally speaking, consist of long rows 
 of huts built of mud on a framework of bamboos, 
 and thatched with straw. Every soldier has his own 
 cabin, in which he keeps an inconceivable quantity 
 of female relations, from his grandmother down- 
 
I THE STATION 11 
 
 wards. There he rules supreme, for no Sahib, be 
 he ever so enthusiastic on the subject of sanita- 
 tion and drainage, would care to intrude upon the 
 mysteries of a sepoy household. At the ends of 
 each row stand the habitations of the native officers 
 attached to the company : two or three cabins roimd 
 a tiny court-yard, fenced in with a mud wall a few 
 feet in height. The sepoy, unhke a European 
 soldier, never becomes wholly military in his tastes- 
 and habits. The dearest ambition of a villager i& 
 to increase the number of huts on his little premises, 
 and that ambition is not to be quenched even by 
 drill and pipe-clay. 
 
 Each of the regiments had a bazaar peculiar to- 
 itself, crowded with people employed in supplying 
 the wants, and ministering to the pleasures of the 
 battalion which honoured them with its patronage. 
 Sutlers, corn-merchants, rice-merchants, sellers of 
 cotton fabrics, of silver ornaments, of tobacco and 
 stupefying drugs, jugglers, thieves, swarms of pros« 
 titutes, fakeers, and Thugs retired from business, 
 made up a motley and most unruly population, which 
 was with difficulty kept in some show of order by 
 the energy of Sir George Parker, the cantonment- 
 magistrate. The united crew of these dens of 
 iniquity and sedition did not fall short of forty 
 thousand in number. 
 
 The sepoys were tall men, the average height in 
 a regiment being five feet eight inches, and, seen 
 from a distance, in their scarlet coats and black 
 trousers, they presented a sufficiently military ap- 
 pearance. But, on nearer inspection, there was 
 something in the general effect displeasing to an eye 
 
12 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 accustomed to the men of Aldershot and Chalons. 
 No Oriental seems at ease in European costume, — 
 least of all in the English uniform then so dear to 
 the heart of the old tailor colonels. The native sol- 
 dier in full dress wore a ludicrous and almost pathetic 
 air of uneasiness and rigidity. His clothes hung on 
 him as though he were a very angular wooden frame. 
 Whether from consciousness of the figure which he 
 cut in his red tunic, or from an instinctive fear of 
 the contamination contained in Christian cloth, the 
 sepoy was no sooner dismissed from parade or re- 
 lieved from guard than he hastened to doff every 
 shred of the dress provided by Government. Clad 
 in the unprofessional but more congenial costume 
 of a very scanty pair of linen drawers, he might be 
 seen now seated over a pile of rice or a huge ban- 
 nock, cooked for him by the women of his family ; 
 now, performing the copious ablutions, the obliga- 
 tion to which constitutes the single virtue of his 
 national religion ; now, submitting the crown of his 
 head to the barber for a periodical shave; now, 
 perchance, discussing with a circle of comrades the 
 probabiHty of the Emperor of the Russians joining 
 with Brigadier Napoleon and the King of Roum in 
 a scheme for destroying the power of the East Indian 
 Company. 
 
 His pay was seven rupees, or fourteen shillings, a 
 month. Small as this sum may appear to us, it 
 was amply sufficient to endow the sepoy with far 
 higher social consideration than is enjoyed by a 
 private soldier in European countries. The purest of 
 pure Brahmins, his faith forbade him from spending 
 much money on the gratification of his appetite. 
 
I THE STATION 13 
 
 The most confirmed gourmand in the battalion could 
 never dream of a better dinner than some coarse 
 fish from a neighbouring tank, flavoured by a hand- 
 ful of spices ground between two fragments of a 
 gravestone abstracted from the last English ceme- 
 tery on the line of march. Such luxuries as these 
 could be procured at a rate that left even the 
 private soldier a large margin whence to provide 
 for any other calls that might be made upon his 
 purse. He accordingly was regarded as a very 
 considerable personage by the native populace. A 
 peasant-proprietor or small shopkeeper thought it 
 no small honour to receive an offer of marriage for 
 his daughter from a gentleman serving in the ranks 
 of the Company's army, and the sepoy was not slow 
 to make use of his matrimonial advantages. A 
 column of native troops on the march was accom- 
 panied from station to station by an endless string 
 of small carts, each containing one or two veiled 
 ladies, presumably young and pretty; one or two 
 without veils, very indubitably old and ugly; to- 
 gether with a swarm of dusky brats with enormous 
 stomachs, stark naked, with the almost nominal ex- 
 ception of a piece of tape fastened round the loins. 
 
 In spite of his excellent pay, the native soldier 
 was almost invariably deep in debt. A strong sense 
 of family ties, an extreme generosity towards poor 
 connections, is a marked trait in the Hindoo cha- 
 racter. Whenever an Indian official steps into an 
 income, relations of every degree flock from all parts 
 of the continent to prey upon his facile affection, and 
 the prospect of sharing the comer of a sepoy's hut 
 and the parings of his pay proved sufficiently attrac- 
 
14 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 tive to bring into cantonments herds of country 
 cousins from Rohilcund and Shahabad. Neither 
 would seven rupees a month adequately defray the 
 occasional extravagances enjoined by "dustoor" or 
 custom : dustoor, the breath of a Hindoo's nostrils, 
 the motive of his actions, the staple of his conversa- 
 tion, the t3rranb of his life. It has frequently happened 
 that a private soldier has celebrated a maniage feast 
 at a cost of three hundred rupees, to obtain which he 
 must sell himself body and soul to one of those 
 griping, ruthless usurers who are the bugbears of 
 Oriental society. 
 
 At the commencement of 1857, the condition of 
 »the native army was unsatisfactory in the highest 
 degree. An impartial observer could not fail at every 
 turn to note symptoms which proved beyond the 
 possibility of a doubt that a bad spirit was abroad. 
 But, unfortunately, those who had the best oppor- 
 tunity for observing these S3rmptoms were not im- 
 partial. The officers of the old Bengal army regarded 
 their soldiers with a fond credulity that was above 
 •suspicion and deaf to evidence : and no wonder : for 
 on the fidelity of that army was staked all that they 
 held most dear — professional reputation, social stand- 
 ing, the means of life, and, finally, life itself. It was 
 in deference to their pardonable but most fatal pre- 
 judices that on this ominous subject silence was 
 enforced during the years which preceded the out- 
 break. It was to please their pride of class that the 
 tongues of more discerning men were tied, and their 
 pens blunted. It was in vain that General Jacob, 
 the stout Lord Warden of the Scinde Marches, wrote 
 and expostulated with all his native energy and fire. 
 
I THE STATION 15 
 
 Threatened and frowned on by his employers, sneered 
 at by his fellow-officers as an agitator and a busy- 
 body, he was at length brought to acknowledge that 
 the tone of the Bengal army was a matter on which 
 a wise man did well to hold his peace. Sir Charles 
 Napier, whose excellent military judgment, matured 
 in European camps, revolted at a state of things so 
 fraught with peril and scandal, learned too late that 
 not even the glory of Meeanee could protect him from 
 the consequences of having presumed to call in 
 question the faith of the sepoy. As the only apparent 
 eflfect of his admonitions the turbulent and warlike 
 province of Oude was annexed to our territory, and 
 the ranks of our army were swelled by the addition 
 of thousands of disaffected native mercenaries. 
 
 That disciplme was lax, that insubordination was 
 afoot had long been known by many who dared not 
 speak out the truth. As far back as the year 1845 
 there occurred a case in which a regiment broke into 
 •open mutiny, and pelted its officers through canton- 
 ments with the material employed in road-mending, 
 3. customary missile in Bengalee riots. A party of 
 native infantry on a night march presented an 
 appearance, absurd indeed, but to a thoughtful 
 spectator not without serious significance. The men 
 struggled along, carrying in their hands some beloved 
 pipe, their most treasured possession, while their 
 muskets were carelessly flung into the bullock-carts, 
 in which not a few sepoys were snoring comfortably 
 ■amidst the baggage. Even those on foot dozed as 
 ■they walked, with that unaccountable capacity, com- 
 mon to all Hindoos, of going to sleep under the most 
 -adverse circumstances ; the collar of their great-coat 
 
16 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 turned up and kept in its place by a strip of calico ; 
 their ears protected by folds of cloth passed under- 
 neath the chin and fastened over the top of the head, 
 with a regimental forage-cap perched on the summit 
 of this unsightly and unmartial head-gear. In some 
 corps men had so little respect for military rule and 
 custom as to strip off their uniforms even when on 
 guard. There were those who in great part attri- 
 buted these irregularities to the abolition of corporal 
 punishment effected by Lord William Bentinck, that 
 wise and true friend of the native population of 
 India. It is to be hoped, for the cause of humanity 
 and enlightenment, that men who so think are mis- 
 taken in their opinion. It cannot, however, be 
 denied that, whatever be the reason, there was truth 
 in the words spoken to a civilian by an old pensioned 
 native officer : — " Ah, Sahib ! " said the veteran, 
 "the army has ceased to fear." 
 
 At the siege of Mooltan, where native troops from 
 all parts of India were collected into one army, the 
 vile temper of the Bengal sepoys and the extraor- 
 dinary indulgence displayed towards them by their 
 officers became painfully apparent. These insolent 
 high-caste mercenaries positively refused to labour in 
 the trenches, and endeavoured to induce or force 
 the modest and trusty Bombay soldiers to follow 
 their example. On one occasion a mob of these 
 rascals, being unable to persuade a fatigue-party of 
 Bombay men to strike work, proceeded to revile 
 and at length to stone their worthier comrades. A 
 captain in a rifle regiment marked the ringleaders, 
 but the Bengal officers flatly declined to take any 
 steps in the matter, and the story was hushed up 
 
I THE STATION 17 
 
 in order that their feelings might be spared. And 
 even in 1857, at the time when mutiny and murder 
 were rife from Peshawur to Dacca, each particular 
 colonel was firmly impressed with the idea that his 
 battalion would be the Abdiel of the army, faith- 
 ful only to its oath and salt, to the recollections of 
 bounty-money and the hopes of pension. "Pity," 
 writes an officer of the Sixty-fifth regiment, "that 
 "Europeans abusing a corps cannot be strung up." 
 On the 22nd of May a letter appeared in the Eng- 
 lishman newspaper from Colonel Simpson, who com- 
 manded the Sixth Bengal Infantry at the all-important 
 station of Allahabad. He was very indignant at the 
 suspicions which had been expressed concerning the 
 intentions of the men under his charge, who, accord- 
 ing to him, " evinced the utmost loyalty. So far 
 " from being mistrusted, they are our main protec- 
 " tion." Not many days after he was glad to escape 
 into the fort with a ball through his arm, while his 
 officers were being butchered by the men on whom 
 he had placed so unbounded a reliance. The 
 "staunchness" of the sepoys was at that time so 
 common a topic with their chiefs that the expression 
 became a by- word among Calcutta people; for at 
 whatever station the colonel most loudly, per- 
 tinaciously, and angrily declared his regiment to be 
 "staunch," it was to that quarter that men looked 
 for the next tidings of massacre and outrage. It 
 was not tin he saw his own house in flames, and the 
 rupees from the Government treasury scattered 
 broad-cast over the parade-ground — it was not till 
 he looked down the barrels of sepoy muskets, and 
 heard sepoy bullets whizzing round his ears, that an 
 
 c 
 
18 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 old Bengal officer could begin to believe that bis men 
 were not as staunch as they should be ; and yet, 
 as will be seen in the course of this narrative, there 
 might exist a degree of confidence and attachment 
 which was proof even against that ordeal. 
 
 Respect for the obligations of blood-relationship 
 is so strong in the Hindoo mind, that jobbery and 
 nepotism flourish in Oriental society to an extent 
 which would seem inconceivably audacious to the 
 colder imagination of a Western public servant. 
 The system of family patronage runs through all 
 ranks and classes. The Indian judge loves to sur- 
 round himself with clerks of the court and ushers 
 from the ranks of his own kindred. The Indian 
 superintendent of police prefers to have about him 
 inspectors and sergeants, bound to his interest by 
 nearer ties than those of official dependence. The 
 head bearer fills his master's house with young 
 barbarians from his native viUage ; and, in like 
 manner, the veteran sepoys took measures to keep 
 the regiment suppHed with recruits from the neigh- 
 bourhood in which they themselves had been bom 
 and bred. No strapping young Tewarry, or Pandy, 
 who had a mind to shoulder a Company's musket 
 and touch the Company's rupees, had long to wait 
 for a place in the section of which the sergeant was 
 his uncle and the corporal his brother-in-law. On 
 the other hand, a stranger was soon driven from the 
 regiment by that untiring and organized social op- 
 pression, in which military men nearer home have 
 sometimes proved themselves adepts. And so it 
 came to pass in the cours e of tim e, that th e com- 
 pany partook of the nature of a family, and the 
 
I THE STATION 19 
 
 battalion of the nat ure of a clan. Tlie consequence 
 was, that there existed a S3rmpathy and freemasonry 
 throughout the ranks of quite another tendency from 
 that tone of regimental patriotism and martial 
 brotherhood, known in European armies by the title 
 of esprit de corps. Such a state of things afforded 
 peculiar facilities for conspiring. A disaffected body 
 of sepoys possessed the power of a host, and the 
 discretion of a clique. The most extensive and 
 perilous designs could be matured in perfect secrecy, 
 and carried into effect by the weight of a vast and 
 unanimous multitude. 
 
 The real motive of the mutiny was the ambitio n 
 of the soldiery. Spoilt, flattered, and idle, in the 
 insolence of its presumed strength that pampered 
 army thought nothing too good for itself, and 
 nothing too formidable. High-caste Brahmins all, 
 proud as Lucifer, they deemed that to them of right 
 belonged the treasures and the empire of India. 
 Hampered with debt, they looked for the day of a 
 general spoliation. Chafing under restraint, they 
 panted to indulge themselves in unbridled rapine 
 and licence. They were bent upon the foundation 
 of a gigantic military despotism. They looked for- 
 ward to the time when Soubahdars and Jemmadars 
 should be Maharajas and Nawabs ; when the taxes 
 should be collected by sepoy receivers-general, and 
 paid into sepoy treasuries ; when every private 
 should have his zenana full of the loveliest daughters 
 of Lahore and Rohilcund; when great landholders 
 from Bundelcund and Orissa should come with cases 
 of diamonds to beg a favourable decision from 
 Mungul Pandy; when great merchants from Liver- 
 
20 CAWNPORE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 pool and Marseilles should come with bags of sove- 
 reigns to ask leave of Peer Bux to establish a fac- 
 tory at Mutlah or Chandemagore. They evinced 
 an equal contempt for all the other classes of 
 the inhabitants of India. They despised the ex- 
 cellent armies of Bombay and Madras, and their 
 insolence was requited with bitter aversion. They 
 looked down on the Ghoorkas as savages, and pre- 
 sumed to regard the heroes of Chillianwallah and 
 Ferozeshah as a conquered race ; as if it was 
 sepoy prowess which, after more than one series of 
 fierce and dubious battles, had prevailed over the 
 brave and haughty warriors of the Punjaub ! And 
 at length, in the plenitude of their pride and folly, 
 they began to call in question the efficacy of the 
 English name. 
 
 We had, indeed, been negligent. We had been 
 improvident even to madness. Some twenty thou- 
 sand European troops were scattered over the con- 
 tinent of India, for the security of which seventy 
 thousand are now held to be barely sufficient. In 
 the May of 1857, from Meerut in the North-west, 
 to Dinapore in the South-east, two weak British 
 regiments only were to be found. In these days, 
 a battalion of English infantry may be placed at 
 any important city in our dominions within the 
 twenty-four hours. Then, all the field-batteries 
 throughout the entire region of Oude, with a single 
 exception, were manned by native gunners and 
 drivers. Now, in every station on the plains, the 
 artillerymen, the trained workmen of warfare, with- 
 out whom in modem times an armed force is helpless, 
 are one and all our own countrymen. Then, our 
 
I THE STATION 21 
 
 only communication was along roads which the first 
 rains turned into strips of bog, and up rivers trea- 
 cherous with crossing current and changing sand- 
 banks. Now, through the heart of every province, 
 there runs, or soon will run, those lines of rail 
 and lines of wire, which defy alike season and 
 distance. 
 
 The natives of India possess a sharp insight into 
 matters that come within the limits of their own 
 sphere, but are strangely ignorant of all that passes 
 beyond those hmits. The sepoy ringleaders knew to 
 a man the strength, or rather the weakness, of Euro- 
 pean forces in the North of India. But, incredible 
 as it may appear, they were firmly impressed with 
 the idea that they saw with their eyes the whole 
 extent of our resources. PubKc opinion in Hin- 
 dostan placed the population of the British Isles at 
 something over a hundred thousand souls. This error 
 was so universal that a native who did not share in 
 the hallucination was sure to be a man of superior 
 discernment and rare strength of mind. Hyder AH 
 and Runjeet Sing, the Hannibal and the Mithridates 
 of India, had often in their mouths the same phrase 
 concerning the power of the Company. They feared, 
 they would say, not what they saw, but what they 
 did not see. Jung Bahadour, the far-famed Mayor 
 of the Palace of Nepaul, when the first dull rumour 
 of the coming crisis began to be bruited, paid a visit 
 to England on purpose to learn for himself what the 
 state of the case really was ; and returned firmly re- 
 solved not to take part against a power which could 
 raise at a pinch hundreds of millions of money, and 
 hundreds of thousands of men. On one occasion 
 
22 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 during the troubles, a party of sepoys attacked some 
 guns worked by Sikh artillerymen, only to be beaten 
 off with heavy loss. The officer in charge of the 
 battery was much amused at hearing one of the men 
 say to his comrades, " If those fools of pandies had 
 " ever been at Battses' Hotel, Vere Street, Oxford 
 " Street, they would not have come on so boldly." 
 On inquiry, it appeared that this judicious Punjabee 
 had gone to London in the service of some Anglo- 
 Indian, where, as he stood at the mouth of Vere 
 Street, he might see passing to and from Hyde Park 
 in a single day as many Sahibs as would stock two 
 such towns as Loodianah or Umritsur. 
 
 The conviction that all our. available male popu- 
 lation was already in India began to be shaken as, 
 regiment after regiment, brigade upon brigade, angry 
 fighting men of Saxon race came pouring up from 
 Calcutta in a continuous stream, by road, by rail, 
 and by river. Ajid yet that conviction lingered long. 
 When the magnificent array collected for the final 
 siege of Lucknow passed through Cawnpore, our 
 Sikh allies would have it that Sir Colin, like the 
 stage-manager at Astley's Theatre, marched his men 
 in at one end of the town and out at the other, and 
 then brought them back outside the walls to repeat 
 the same manoeuvre. When the mutineers first 
 caught sight of the Highland costume, they cried 
 with joy that the men of England had been ex- 
 hausted, and that the Company had been reduced to 
 caU out the women. They soon had reason to repent 
 their mistake, and thenceforward adopted a theory 
 more consistent with the fact, for they held that the 
 petticoats were designed to remind their wearers that 
 
I THE STATION 23 
 
 they had been sent to India to exact vengeance for 
 the murder of the English ladies. 
 
 The insolence and gr eed of the soldiers, their im- 
 patience of discipline, a nd their lust of power, were 
 the effective causes of t he outbreak. But the proxi- 
 mate cause was the fancied insultwhich had been 
 offered to their national religion. tJpon this most 
 vexed question, a distinguished civil servant, who 
 held high office in Calcutta during those eventful 
 months, is wont to say that he could never trust the 
 judgment of a man who maintains that the greased 
 cartridges had little to do with the mutiny. The 
 mind of the sepoy reeked with religious prejudice. 
 He had adopted his profession in accordance with 
 the dictates of his superstition. He belonged to a 
 sacred order, and his life was one long ceremony. 
 He could not prepare his simple food without clear- 
 ing for himself a separate plot of ground secure 
 from the intrusion of others. Should a stranger step 
 into this magic ring, the food which he had cooked 
 was thrown untasted away. When some Bengal 
 regiments were serving in China, it occasionally hap- 
 pened that an unlucky native of the country, intent 
 on theft or barter, set his profane foot within the 
 hallowed circle, and was immediately saluted with 
 a volley of threats and missiles from the outraged 
 soldier whose meal he had spoiled. The bewildered 
 wretch would take to flight across the camping-ground, 
 plunging through the kitchens, defiling dinners by 
 the score, and, in whatever direction he turned, 
 rousing about his ears a swarm of indignant hungry 
 Brahmins. Even if the sepoy was inclined to be- 
 come lax in his observances, there were not wanting 
 
24 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 ghostly advisers to check his latitudinarian ten- 
 dencies. A battalion on march was usually preceded 
 by two or three fakeers, the bloated, filthy, sensual 
 wandering friars of the East; wild-looking fellows, 
 in orange or salmon-coloured linen, if by good luck 
 they deigned to wear any clothes at all ; their locks 
 of long hair matted in strange fashion with grease 
 and dirt; their bodies sprinkled with ashes and 
 daubed with coarse paint. So pernicious and irre- 
 gular a custom was not tolerated in the Presidencies 
 of Bombay and Madras : but in Bengal these fellows 
 were highly regarded by the soldiers, and did duty 
 as unofficial regimental chaplains. 
 
 Five parts tallow, five parts stearin e, and one part 
 wax, were the ingredients of that unsavoury composi- 
 tion, the memory of which will henceforward never 
 perish as long as England has history and India has 
 tradition. Captain Boxer, of the Royal Laboratory 
 at Woolwich, was quite unable to offer any decided 
 opinion as to the particular description of animal 
 from which the tallow was derived, but was certain 
 that the mixture was innocent of hog's lard. Not so 
 thought the Brahmins of the regiments stationed in 
 the vicinity of the capital. From about the middle 
 of January 1857 onward, certain vague and uncom- 
 fortable paragraphs peer out from time to time in 
 the Calcutta journals. " A rumour has been current 
 "among the sepoys at Dumdum and Barrackpore 
 "that they are to be baptized, and we hear that 
 "they are greatly alarmed in consequence. It 
 " should be explained to them that the only cere- 
 "mony of the kind to which soldiers are required 
 " to submit is the baptism of fire." Again, a letter 
 
I THE STATION 25 
 
 from Barrackpore announces that "bungalows here 
 " are set fire to every night." On the 10th of 
 February, " a Hindu " solemnly warns the Governor- 
 General thus : " My Lord, this is the most critical 
 " time ever reached in the administration of British 
 " India. Almost all the independent native Princes 
 "and Rajahs have been so much offended at the 
 "late Annexation policy, that they have begun to 
 " entertain deadly enmity to the British empire in 
 "India. Moreover, as for the internal defences of 
 "the empire, the cartridge question has created a 
 " strenuous movement in some portions of the Hindu 
 "sepoys, and will spread it through all their ranks 
 "over the whole country to the great insecurity of 
 "British rule." These notices, which we now read 
 by the light of a terrible experience, appear side 
 by side with satirical poems on their more fortunate 
 comrades by military officers who cannot get civil 
 employ; advertisements of a fancy fair for the 
 advancement of native female education ; and a pro- 
 position to appoint a committee of " eligible young 
 civiHans " to indemnify the ladies whose European 
 bonnets have been ruined by the dust of the course. 
 Ere many months were flown, eligible young civilians 
 had far other matters to occupy their attention. 
 
 At length, on the 26th of February, the Nineteenth 
 Bengal Native Infantry, quartered at Berhampore, 
 being directed to parade for exercise with blank 
 ammunition, refused to obey the command, and in 
 the course of the following night turned out with a 
 great noise of drumming and shouting, broke open 
 the bells of arms, and committed other acts of open 
 mutiQy. By order of the Governor-General the 
 
26 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 regiment was disarmed, marched down to Barrack- 
 pore, a distance of something over a hundred miles, 
 and there disbanded by Major-general Hearsey, who 
 performed his trying task with energy, discretion, and 
 courage. As yet there had been no blood shed ; but 
 far worse was soon to come. The Thirty-fourth 
 Native Infantry had for some time past been ripe 
 for revolt. There were nearly six hundred high-caste 
 men in the ranks, and the corps was stationed among 
 local associations which fostered the most lively 
 emotions in the minds of men in a state of high 
 religious excitement. In the year 1825, Barrack- 
 pore had been the scene of a military tumult which 
 had been repressed with timely severity. One of 
 the ringleaders, a Brahmin sepoy, had been hanged 
 in the presence of his comrades. This man was 
 regarded as a martyr; the spot where he met his 
 fate, on the edge of a large tank, was stiU pointed 
 out to each new-comer, and the brass implements 
 with which he performed his acts of worship had 
 been preserved in the quarter-guard as relics of the 
 departed saint. 
 
 The regiment was at that time commanded by an 
 officer who thus describes himself. " I beg to state 
 " that it has been my invariable plan to act on the 
 "broad line which Scripture enforces, that is, to 
 "speak without reserve to every person. When I 
 "therefore address natives on the subject of re- 
 "ligion, whether individually or collectively, it has 
 "been no question with me whether the person or 
 "persons I addressed belonged to this or that 
 "regiment, or whether he is a shopkeeper, mer- 
 " chant, or otherwise, but I speak to all alike 
 
I THE STATION 27 
 
 " as sinners in the sight of God ; and I have no- 
 "doubt that I have often in this way (indeed, am 
 "quite certain,) addressed sepoys of my own 
 "regiment, as also of other regiments at thi& 
 "and other stations where I have been quartered. 
 "... As to the question whether I have endeavoured 
 "to convert sepoys and others to Christianity, I 
 " would humbly reply that this has been my object ; 
 "and, I conceive, it is the aim and end of every 
 " Christian who speaks the Word of God to another,, 
 "namely, that the Lord would make him the 
 " happy instrument of converting his neighbour 
 "to God." 
 
 On the 29th of March, a private of the Thirty- 
 fourth, Mungul Pandy by name, under the combined 
 influence of religious frenzy and intoxicating drugs, 
 took into his head to swagger about in front of the 
 lines, musket in hand, bawling: "Come out, you 
 " blackguards ! The Europeans are upon us ! From 
 "biting these cartridges we shall become infidels I 
 " Get ready ! Turn out, all of you ! " This conduct 
 in the course of time brought down upon him the 
 Adjutant and the Sergeant-major, which in no wise 
 disconcerted Mungul Pandy. He shot the officer s 
 horse, disabled his bridle arm, and finally, with the 
 assistance of some of the boldest among his com- 
 rades, desperately wounded and drove off both the 
 Europeans. The Colonel next appeared on the 
 stage. Here again it may be best to quote his 
 own words: "The native officer at length ordered 
 " the guard to advance. They did so, six or seven 
 "paces, and halted. The native officer returned to 
 "me, stating that none of the men would go on. 
 
28 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 *' I felt it was useless going on any further in the 
 *' matter. Some one, a native in undress, mentioned 
 *'to me that the sepoy in front was a Brahmia, 
 "and that no one would hurt him. I considered 
 *'it quite useless, and a useless sacrifice of life, to 
 " order a European ofiicer with the guard to seize 
 "him, as he would, no doubt, have picked off the 
 " European officer, without his receiving any assist- 
 " ance from the guard. I then left the guard, and 
 " reported the matter to the Brigadier." 
 
 Fortunately there was at hand a man who had 
 no scruple about the life of at least one European 
 officer. Before many minutes had elapsed General 
 Hearsey rode on to the parade-ground, and found it 
 already covered with an agitated mob of sepoys, 
 amongst whom might here and there be seen an 
 English officer doing his best to prevent his men 
 from following the example of Mungul Pandy, who 
 had by this time reloaded his musket, and was now 
 stalking about in the presence of his regiment, 
 which had got together round the quarter-guard, 
 brandishing his dripping sword, and shouting; 
 "You have excited me to do this, and now, you 
 "blackguards, you will not join me!" An officer 
 called out to Hearsey, " Have a care ! His musket 
 " is loaded ! " The General replied, " Damn his 
 musket ! " an oath concerning which every true 
 Englishman will make the customary invocation to 
 the Recording Angel. 
 
 Hearsey summoned the guard to advance, but the 
 native officer answered as before. The General, 
 however, by a significant motion of his revolver, 
 gave the Jemmadar to understand that this time 
 
I THE STATION 2& 
 
 he had to deal with a man of a very different stamp 
 from the Colonel. The guard, accordingly, went 
 forward ; the Jemmadar in front, watched on either 
 side by a young Hearsey, pistol in hand. Their sire 
 himself rode straight at the mutineer, who, seeing 
 that the game was up, turned the muzzle to his own 
 breast, touched the trigger with his toe, and fell 
 severely hurt. He was secured, and conveyed to 
 the hospital; and the concourse dispersed quietly 
 to their lines, after having been roundly taken 
 to task by the General for their cowardice and 
 unsold! erlike behaviour in standing by without 
 moving a finger while their officers were being cut 
 to pieces. 
 
 Mungul Pandy was condemned by court-martial, 
 and duly hanged on the 8th of April. At first there 
 was some difficulty about finding an executioner. 
 PubHc opinion had become less squeamish before 
 the year was out. From this miserable fanatic was 
 taken the name of " Pandy," which in Anglo-Indian 
 slang signified mutineer. 
 
 Seven companies of the Thirty-fourth regiment 
 were disbanded, after all pecuniary claims had been 
 discharged. The closing effect was dramatic enough. 
 General Hearsey made the men a spirited harangue, 
 remindiDg them of their misdeeds, and giving some 
 hints as to their future conduct which they would 
 have done well to have laid to heart. Then came 
 the parting; not witiiout tears, it is said, on both 
 sides. The sepoys stripped off their accoutrements, 
 and were ferried across the river, bag and baggage, 
 in Government steamers, and there sent about their 
 business. In order to disprove the report that the 
 
30 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 Company had designs against their religion, they 
 were informed that every facility would be afforded 
 them for visiting Hindoo shrines of repute before 
 they bent their steps towards their villages in Oude 
 and Bahar. 
 
 Unfortunately for themselves, the men of the two 
 regiments broken up at Barrackpore were bent upon 
 doing a far less innocent service to the cause of 
 their faith than that of feeing, out of the arrears of 
 their pay, the priests of Juggemauth and Tripety. 
 The most active and determined among their number 
 deliberately proceeded to spread over the whole 
 continent of India the tidings of the late occur- 
 rences, told with more than Oriental exaggeration, 
 and received with more than Oriental credulity. No 
 society of rich and civilized Christians, who ever 
 undertook to preach the gospel of peace and good- 
 will, can have employed a more perfect system of 
 organization than was adopted by these rascals, 
 whose mission it was to preach the gospel of sedition 
 and slaughter. By twos and threes, in various 
 disguises, and on divers pretexts, they found their 
 way to every native regiment in the three Presi- 
 dencies. Wherever they went they related how 
 the Queen of England had commanded that the 
 Hindoos and Mussulmans of India should be made 
 Christians, come what might; how the Governor- 
 General, the Great Lord Sahib, had remonstrated 
 with her, saying that he must first slay three 
 hundred thousand holy and learned men of both 
 religions ; how the Queen had rejoined, " Let it then 
 be done ; " how the Great Lord Sahib had resolved 
 to begin with the army, and had ordered the troops 
 
I THE STATION 31 
 
 to bite cartridges smeared with the fat of cow and 
 pig; how the sepoys at Barrackpore had bravely 
 resisted the tyrannous and accursed mandate; how 
 some had testified to the death, and some had 
 suffered bonds and scourging, and all had been 
 deprived of their rank and calling, and robbed of the 
 pensions which they had earned by valour and 
 fidelity and ancient service. Then their hearers 
 were warned that a like fate was in store for all; 
 that a strenuous and united effort could alone save 
 their freedom and their religion ; and that the hour 
 was fast approaching when the Brahmins of the 
 army must rule, or be for ever slaves and Christians. 
 Sometimes it was a couple of fakeers perched on 
 an elephant; sometimes a party of country-people 
 on their way to the Ganges for their annual dip in 
 the sacred stream; a gang of gipsies; a string of 
 camel-drivers; or a troop of musicians escorting a 
 celebrated nautch-dancer to her home in Cashmere 
 after a successful season in Bengal. However it 
 might be, it invariably happened that, a few hours 
 after the strangers had entered the station, the 
 bazaar and the cantonments were in a ferment of 
 gossip and conjecture ; the sepoys at once grew sulky 
 and idle; the Mohammedans of the town became 
 insolent, and the Hindoos pert. The very domestic 
 servants appeared to share the contagion ; the cooks 
 got drunk, and the grooms stupid ; the water-carrier 
 omitted to fill the bath, and the butler to ice the 
 Moselle ; the peon spent twice his usual number of 
 hours in conveying a note to the next compound but 
 one; while the bearers delighted to insult their 
 mistress by smoking under her window, and coming 
 
32 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 bareheaded into her presence, whenever the Sahib 
 was well out of the way. 
 
 To us, who from the standing-point of complete 
 and certain knowledge look back upon that March 
 and April pregnant with a great and sombre future, 
 it seems indeed miraculous that our countrymen 
 then resident in India should not have entertained 
 a suspicion of what those months would bring forth. 
 It appears incredible that the officers should have 
 lived their ordinary lives ; hunting ; dining ; dancing ; 
 speculating on the probable height of the thermo- 
 meter, and the possible chances of promotion ; while 
 within a few yards of their quarters the men were 
 debating the programme of the coming mutiny; 
 arranging who was to shoot down the Adjutant, and 
 who was to fire the thatch of the Colonel's bungalow ; 
 discussing their hopes of assistance from Gwalior, 
 Nepaul, and St. Petersburg. Can it be believed 
 that morning after morning our countrymen looked 
 down the row of dark faces and gleaming eyes, and 
 never dreamed that in all that array, so fair and 
 orderly to view, any heart beat with a loftier 
 ambition than could be satisfied by a stripe or an 
 epaulette; with a deadlier malice than might be 
 gratified by the disappointment of some rival in 
 the good opinion of the Soubahdar ? And yet so it 
 was. In spite of all that was said and written 
 concerning the childlike docility of the aflPectionate 
 sepoy, confidence and regard did not exist between 
 the officer and the soldier. That the case had once 
 been far otherwise was acknowledged on all sides, 
 and the change was noted by military men of the 
 old school with regret, qualified by a slight tincture 
 
I THE STATION 33 
 
 of self-satisfaction. Young subalterns retorted that 
 the ancient intimacy between superior and inferior 
 was connected with the loose habits which disgraced 
 Anglo-Indian society in days gone by, when the 
 soldier pandered to the vices of his officer, or, at 
 any rate, was cognizant of their existence. Those 
 who have studied cause and effect will be slow to 
 accept the theory that this estrangement between 
 the mess-room and the lines was in any great 
 measure due to the increased morality of the Indian 
 army. 
 
 The root of the evil lay in the withdrawal of 
 officers from regimental duty for employment on the 
 staff and in the civil posts; a custom so dear to 
 all who bore the great and time-honoured names, 
 which had been conspicuous in the Court of Directors 
 and at the Calcutta Council-board as far back as 
 the time of Barwell and Warren Hastings. And 
 yet, though family interest received due considera- 
 tion from those who dispensed the good things of 
 the service, it was unfortunate for the efficiency of 
 the Bengal army that merit did not go without 
 a share in the loaves and fishes. A young man 
 on the threshold of his profession was recommended 
 by his father, and entreated by his sisters, skilled 
 Kke all Anglo-Indian ladies in the inscrutable 
 mysteries of official success, to get away from his 
 regiment as early as possible. The teaching of his 
 relations was enforced by the golden words which 
 dropped from the lips of the Chairman of the 
 Honourable Court, when, on the prize-day at Addis- 
 combe, the lad stood forth blushing with modest 
 pride, the PoUock medal in his hand, the sword of 
 
 D 
 
34 CAWNPOKE chap. 
 
 honour under his arm, and a pile of military histories, 
 emblazoned with the arms of the academy, on the 
 table before him. After his arrival on Indian shores, 
 the same advice was impressed upon him by his uncle 
 the Sudder judge, his cousin the junior-secretary, 
 and his school-chum the probationary-sub-assistant- 
 commissary-general. 
 
 Rich were the prizes open to the aspiring cadet : — 
 rich, but far from rare. There were the political 
 agencies at the courts of Holkar and Scindiah ; 
 at the seats of the ancient and romantic dynasties 
 of Rajpootana; at that European station whence, 
 in dangerous proximity, an English resident still 
 watches with anxious glance the intrigues and feuds 
 which agitate the nest of Ajrab and Eohilla cut- 
 throats, who protect and terrify the Nizam of Hyder- 
 abad. There were the Deputy-Commissionerships 
 of Oude and the Punjaub, whose occupants enjoyed 
 a salary almost equal to that of a Collector in the 
 more settled provinces, with a far greater share of 
 power and responsibility. There were the posts 
 in the branches of administration more exclusively 
 military : the Departments of the Adjutant-General, 
 the Quartermaster-General, the Commissary-Gen- 
 eral, and the Judge-Advocate-General. Finally, 
 there were the numerous irregular corps in the 
 Deccan and on the North-west Frontier, to each of 
 which were attached some three or four captains 
 and subalterns, who fully appreciated the increase 
 of their pay, and the excitement afforded by their 
 critical and interesting duties. In short, appoint- 
 ments which enabled officers to make money and 
 reputation faster than was possible for their less 
 
I THE STATION 35 
 
 fortunate brethren who remained in the line, were so 
 numerous that, after family claims had been satisfied, 
 the surplus sufficed to absorb all the most promis- 
 ing and pushing youngsters in the Bengal Military 
 Service. 
 
 It was not only that this system drained the army 
 of individual zeal and talent. The professional spirit 
 of the mass could not thrive under so blighting 
 an influence. The officers present with the corps 
 gradually ceased to take pride in the conscientious 
 performance of their regimental duties; for their 
 employment upon those duties was a standing proof 
 that they were wanting in abiHty and high official 
 connection. It was very difficult to throw much 
 energy and enthusiasm into such work as escorting 
 treasure, guarding jails, inspecting the cross -belts 
 and listening to the grievances of sepoys, while 
 a junior lieutenant in the same battaHon was 
 coercing refractory Rajahs, or scouring the border 
 at the head of five hundred wild Pathan horsemen. 
 What wonder if, under these circumstances, men 
 became sick at heart ? Disgusted at their position, 
 they no longer made the welfare and happiness of 
 their soldiers an all-important object : and neglect 
 often deepened into aversion and contempt. The 
 cadets, as was only too natural, caught the pre- 
 vailing tone. Young men fresh from home are so 
 shocked at the apparent deficiency in the Hindoo 
 character of manliness, honesty, and self-respect, 
 the qualities which Englishmen most regard, that, 
 so to speak, their better impulses are apt to render 
 them careless of the rights and sentiments of the 
 native population. " Do I not w^ell to be insolent ? " 
 
36 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 is a question asked daily, in a more or less logical 
 form, by too many of our countrymen in India. 
 It requires a larger stock of philosophy than gene- 
 rally falls to the share of a lad of nineteen in 
 a new red coat, with his first month's pay in the 
 pocket, to realize the conviction that an imperial 
 people, who undertake to govern others, must first 
 govern themselves; and that it is the height of 
 foUy and cruelty to subjugate a hundred millions of 
 men, and then abuse them because they are as God 
 made them, and not as we would fain have them. 
 
 And so it came to pass that to be sent back to 
 head-quarters was "a shame," regimental duty was 
 "a bore," and the sepoys were "niggers." That 
 hateful word, which is now constantly on the tongue 
 of all Anglo-Indians, except civilians and mission- 
 aries, made its first appearance in decent society 
 during the years which immediately preceded the 
 mutiny. In a Bengal corps, whether he were a 
 grey-bearded Mohammedan soubahdar, the arbiter 
 and exponent of regimental custom and tradition, 
 or a high-caste Rajpoot, or a Sikh veteran marked 
 with the scars of Sobraon; every man knew well 
 that he was dubbed "nigger" by some slip of an 
 ensign, who could not tell his right hand from 
 his left in any Oriental language. In such an 
 atmosphere how could mutual attachment exist, or 
 mutual confidence ? How could there not exist 
 dislike and disafiection ; the bitterness of injured 
 pride, and of feelings misunderstood or heedlessly 
 contemned ? 
 
 There were usually some eight or nine officers 
 actually doing duty with a battaHon. A colonel and 
 
I THE STATION 37 
 
 doctor, three or four captains and lieutenants, and 
 three or four ensigns, formed what was in those 
 days considered to be a very respectable comple- 
 ment. The other members of the mess were 
 far away from head-quarters, inditing minutes at 
 Calcutta, deciding suits in some distant non-regula- 
 tion province, or tracking the course of the Nile 
 through the deserts of Nubia. Such, however, was 
 not universally the case. Here and there might be 
 found a corps where the regimental tone, that un- 
 written and impalpable law, not passed in words, 
 nor enforced by overt penalties, but obeyed in silence 
 and without question, had ordained that staff em- 
 ployment was not a legitimate object of ambition. 
 The officers plumed themselves upon keeping all 
 together, and rising one with another in the ordinary 
 course of promotion. They shot tigers, and speared 
 hogs, and played whist and billiards, and meanwhile 
 looked well after their companies, and contrived to 
 know something about the private history and 
 character of every man under their command. They 
 voted it unfashionable to attempt to pass examina- 
 tion in Hindostanee, success in which was an in- 
 dispensable quaUfication for the staff: an ordeal 
 familiarly known as the P. H. ; that pair of conson- 
 ants which are seldom far from the lips, and never 
 out of the thoughts of the more aspiring subalterns 
 of the Bengal Army. And yet, averse as they were 
 to grammars and dictionaries, these men spoke the 
 vernacular languages with rare facility. But not 
 even to such officers as these was breathed a syllable 
 of that fearful secret, which England would have 
 cheaply bought at the price of a million pounds for 
 
38 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 a single letter. Their soldiers entertained towards 
 them a strong and genuine regard. It was not 
 among the ranks which they commanded, that the 
 spirit of sedition was bom and nurtured. But in 
 the day of wrath there was no distinction of person. 
 When the baneful sirocco of mutiny, called by the 
 imaginary Hindoo "the Devil's Wind," was abroad 
 in the air, all milder influences yielded before its 
 withering blast. The consciousness of the authority 
 of the "Fouj ki Bheera," or "general will of the 
 army," was to individual men, or regiments, almost 
 irresistible. Some troopers in Fisher's Irregular 
 Cavalry performed a signal act of gallantry at Luck- 
 now, during the early days of the outbreak, for 
 which they received a handsome reward. While 
 waiting for their money in the verandah of the 
 commissioner's house, they fell into conversation 
 with certain of their fellow-villagers among his ser- 
 vants. " We like our Colonel," said they, " and wiU 
 "not allow him to be harmed; but if the whole 
 '* army turns, we must turn too." A week elapsed, 
 and these men looked quietly on from their saddles, 
 while Colonel Fisher was shot to death by a scoundrel 
 in the lines of the military police. Then they threw 
 aside all semblance of discipline, murdered the 
 second in command, and shouted to the Adjutant, 
 who was a general favourite, to ride and begone if 
 he desired to spare them the pain of taking his 
 life. At one large station the men were in open 
 mutiny, and the officers had grouped themselves in 
 front of the battalion, expecting every moment the 
 fatal volley. They agreed, however, not to abandon 
 hope until they had witnessed the effect produced 
 
I THE STATION 39 
 
 by the presence of a Captain of old standing in the 
 service, who was apparently loved and trusted by 
 the whole regiment, and especially by the grenadier 
 company, to which he had been attached for many 
 years. When his approach was announced, every 
 eye turned towards his bungalow, which stood on 
 the parade-ground, close to that flank where the 
 grenadiers were stationed. He had not gone ten 
 paces down the line before he fell dead, pierced by 
 a bullet from the ranks of his own command. 
 
 In every regiment there was a Soubahdar-major, 
 or native colonel ; and in every company a Soubah- 
 dar, who answered to a European captain, and a 
 Jemmadar, who answered to a European subaltern. 
 These were the commissioned officers who wore 
 swords and sashes, sat on a court-martial, and were 
 saluted by the rank and file. They had one and all 
 carried the musket, and there was no approach to 
 friendship or even to familiar intercourse between 
 them and their Saxon brethren in arms, who con- 
 sidered that, if they ofifered their Soubahdar a chair 
 during an interview on regimental business, quite 
 enough had been done to mark the difference 
 between a commissioned and a non-commissioned 
 sepoy. The sergeant and the corporal were repre- 
 sented by the havildah and the naick ; titles which 
 make the list of killed and wounded in Indian 
 battles so bewildering to an English reader. Thus 
 the Brahmin battalion had a complete outfit of 
 Brahmin officers, and this it was that rendered the 
 rebellious army so terribly efficient for evil. When 
 every Englishman in a corps had been murdered or 
 scared away, the organization none the less remained 
 
40 CAWNPOKE chap. 
 
 intact. The regiment was still a military machine 
 finished in every part, compact, flexible, and capable 
 as ever of a great and sustained exertion of strength 
 and courage. This imperfect, but, it is to be feared, 
 tedious sketch of the composition of our native force, 
 as it existed before the mutiny, may well be closed 
 with the oracular words of Sir Charles Napier, the 
 Cassandra of the old Bengal army : " Your young, 
 "independent, wild cadet, will some day find the 
 " Indian army taken out of his hands by the Sou- 
 "bahdars. They are steady, respectful, thoughtful, 
 " stem-looking men ; very zealous and military : the 
 " sole instructors of all our soldiers." 
 
 The native town of Cawnpore contained sixty 
 thousand inhabitants. It possessed no architectural 
 beauties worthy to detain the traveller who, from 
 those stately landing-places whence rise, tier above 
 tier, the shrines and palaces of Benares, was hurry- 
 ing on towards the ineffable glories of Agra. The 
 most remarkable feature was a spacious boulevard, 
 more than a hundred feet in breadth, called the 
 Chandnee Choke, or street of silver. This name, 
 common to the principal avenue in all the great 
 cities of the north-west, is a monument of the days 
 of bad government, and a primitive commercial 
 system. When banks were few and robbers bold 
 and numerous, men preferred to have some part of 
 their wealth about their persons, and in a portable 
 form. The farmers and the shopkeepers were wont 
 to convert their superfluous rupees into ornaments 
 of fantastic design for themselves, their wives, and 
 their children. The custom still holds ; and the 
 unceasing flow of silver towards the East is largely 
 
I THE STATION 41 
 
 accounted for by the fact that the Indian peasant 
 to this day continues to invest his earnings on the 
 wrists and ankles, the ears and noses of his family. 
 Cawnpore was noted for the excellence and cheap- 
 ness of all articles made of leather — saddlery, boots 
 and shoes, bottle-covers, helmets, and cheroot-cases. 
 The manufacture was introduced by a colony of 
 Chinese, the frugal and industrious Lombards of 
 India, who settled in the bazaar many years ago. 
 A subaltern could buy a set of harness for his buggy 
 at something under three pounds, and thoroughly 
 equip his hack for half that sum : and, if he was not 
 very particular about shape and colour, he might 
 pick up a serviceable country-bred horse for a 
 hundred rupee note. 
 
 The city had an evil reputation. Situated on 
 the frontier of two distinct jurisdictions, it swarmed 
 with rascals from Oude, on their way to seek ob- 
 scurity in British territory, and rascals from our 
 north-west provinces, on their way to seek impunity 
 in the dominions of the Nawab. Oonao, the half- 
 way house on the road which led from Cawnpore to 
 Lucknow, gave a name to a class of murders of 
 peculiar atrocity. On and about that highway were 
 constantly found the dead bodies of travellers ; 
 sepoys, for the most part, returning to their villages 
 with their savings and the voucher for their pension. 
 In most cases a rope was drawn tightly round the 
 neck, but the surgeons who conducted the inquests 
 gradually came to be of opinion that the victims had 
 been poisoned, or, at any rate, stupefied, by being 
 induced to smoke tobacco mixed with a noxious 
 drug. The police exerted themselves in vain to 
 
42 CAWNPOKE chap. 
 
 obtain a clue to the mystery. Whenever a fresh 
 officer of note was appointed to the district, the 
 murderers made a point of presenting him with a 
 " nuzzur," or " offering/' in the shape of a larger 
 than usual batch of corpses. The difficulty of 
 detection was increased by an odious custom well 
 known to all Anglo-Indian magistrates, which here 
 flourished with extraordinary vigour. A malicious 
 Hindoo will deliberately mangle the body of a per- 
 son who has died from a natural cause, and fling it 
 on the ground of some neighbour to whom the 
 scamp may happen to bear a grudge. The un- 
 fortunate recipient finds himself involved in the 
 consequences dreaded by the poor people in the 
 Arabian Nights, when the hunchback was choked by 
 a fish-bone beneath their hospitable roof. 
 
 Bajee Eao, the Peishwa of Poonah, was the last 
 monarch of one of those great Mahratta dynasties 
 which long shared the sovereignty of the Central 
 Highlands and the plunder of all Hindostan. So 
 near a neighbour could not fail to be guilty of the 
 amount of " treachery," " faithlessness," and " bad 
 internal government," necessary to justify the an- 
 nexation of his dominions. We dethroned Bajee 
 Rao, confiscated his territories, and assigned him a 
 residence at Bithoor, a small town twelve miles up 
 the river fi-om Cawnpore. Here he lived until his 
 death in princely state, inasmuch as the Company 
 always behaved with great generosity towards the 
 princes whom it had plundered, after the manner of 
 those open-handed thieves of fiction who fling back 
 a couple of broad pieces to the traveller whom they 
 have eased of his purse and watch. Bithoor was 
 
I THE STATION 43 
 
 pleasantly situated upon the banks of the sacred 
 stream, and was peculiarly suited to be the Saint 
 Juste in which a retired Brahmin ruler might be 
 content to end his days ; for the spot was held in 
 singular favour by Brahma. Here, after the crea- 
 tion had been accomplished, the deity had sacrificed 
 a hecatomb, in token that his great work was good. 
 The pin which fastened the divine sandal was 
 picked up in after days, and inserted in the steps 
 of the principal landing-place, where it may still 
 be seen by the incredulous. At the full moon in 
 November, prodigious crowds of pilgrims assemble 
 from all parts of India to celebrate the present god 
 with frankincense, and flowers, and barbarous music, 
 and drunken frenzy. With his traditions and his 
 greyhounds, his annuity of eighty thousand pounds, 
 and his host of retainers, Bajee Rao led a splendid 
 and not unhappy existence. But the old Mahratta 
 had one sore trial. He had no son to inherit his 
 possessions, perpetuate his name, and apply the 
 torch to his funeral pyre : for the last office, so the 
 inflexible law of his religion ordained, might be 
 performed by none other than a filial hand. In 
 this strait he had recourse to adoption, a ceremony 
 which, by Hindoo law, entitles the favoured person 
 to all the rights and privileges of an heir bom of 
 the body. His choice fell upon an individual who, 
 according to some, was the son of a Poonah corn- 
 merchant, while others say that he was bom in 
 great poverty at a miserable village in the vicinity 
 of Bombay. The name of this man was Seereek 
 Dhoondoo Punth : but the execration of mankind 
 has found his cluster of titles too long for use, 
 
44 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 and prefers the more familiar appellation of "the 
 Nana." 
 
 Bajee Rao died in 1851, and the heir forthwith 
 put in a demand for the continuance of the pension 
 which the Company had granted to his adopted 
 father. The claim was disallowed, and the Nana, 
 who at length began to despair of prevailing upon 
 the Calcutta authorities, determined to go to the 
 fountain-head, and accordingly despatched an agent 
 to London. For this purpose he selected his con- 
 fidential man of business, Azimoolah Khan, a clever 
 adventurer who began life as kitmutgar, or foot- 
 man, in an Anglo-Indian family. In spite of his 
 disadvantages, he acquired a thorough acquaintance 
 with the English and French languages. He subse- 
 quently became a pupil, and thence a teacher, in the 
 Government School at Cawnpore ; in which position 
 he attracted the notice of the Nana. Azimoolah 
 arrived in town during the height of the season of 
 1854, and was welcomed with open arms by that 
 portion of society which makes no inquiries into the 
 antecedents of an aspirant to its favour, provided he 
 be not a fellow-countryman or Christian. According 
 to the creed of this class, every Hindoo was neces- 
 sarily a prince, just as every Maronite is a martyr, 
 and every Pole a patriot. Azimoolah speedily 
 became a Hon, and obtained more than even a 
 lion's share of the sweetest of all flattery. The 
 ladies voted him charming. Handsome and witty, 
 endowed with plenty of assurance and an apparent 
 abundance of diamonds and Cashmere shawls, the 
 ex-kitmutgar seemed as fine a gentleman as the 
 prime minister of Nepaul, or the Maharaja of the 
 
I THE STATION 45 
 
 Punjaub. On the first day of the great vengeance, 
 when Havelock's forlorn hope came to Bithoor, grim 
 and eager, straight from the brink of the fatal well, 
 our soldiers discovered amongst the possessions of 
 this scoundrel letters from more than one titled lady 
 couched in terms of the most courteous friendship. 
 An indiscretion for which a smile would be too severe 
 a punishment, at such a moment excited bitter and 
 painful emotion. 
 
 Great as were the successes which the agent of the 
 Nana gained on his own account in Mayfair, he was 
 able to effect very little for his master in Leadenhall 
 Street and Westminster. In the reports which he 
 transmitted to Bithoor he attributed his failure to 
 the bribes which the Board of Control and the Privy 
 Council had eaten at the hands of the East Indian 
 Company; an explanation which appeared satisfac- 
 tory to the Maharaja. On his way home Azimoolah 
 passed through Constantinople at the time when our 
 fortune in the Crimea was at the lowest ebb. During 
 the mid-gloom of that terrible winter there was much 
 talk among those who did not love us concerning the 
 decadence of England and the youthful vigour of the 
 Russian power. Of such gossip the clever Asiatic 
 collected an ample budget, in order to console his 
 baffled employer with cheery vaticinations relating 
 to the approaching downfall of the British rule. 
 
 Although the Nana had failed in his attempt on 
 the public purse, his wealth was stiU conspicuous 
 even among the colossal incomes of Indian land- 
 holders. He had contrived to secure to himself the 
 whole property of the ex-Peishwa, and strange stories 
 were told about the means by which this end had 
 
46 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 been accomplished. The nephew of Bajee Rao 
 started a claim for one half of his uncle's estate, 
 which moiety he valued at more than three millions. 
 The suit was dismissed, and the plaintiff never ceased 
 to affirm that " the palm of the judge had been 
 greased by the Nana : " but too much attention 
 must not be paid to this declaration ; for, whenever 
 a native accuses the bench of corruption, he simply 
 means that he has lost his case. It is certain that 
 the Maharaja kept in confinement against their will 
 the widows of his predecessor; for whose younger 
 daughter he planned a marriage inconsistent with 
 the rules and traditions of the family ; an act of out- 
 rageous tjrranny in the estimation of High Brahmins. 
 He wedded the eldest sister to a husband whom she 
 was never allowed to see ; and, when her death oc- 
 curred after no long interval, it was whispered about 
 the neighbourhood that there had been very foul 
 play in every sense of the word. Those fictitious 
 tales of vice and atrocity, with which literary hacks 
 of the vilest class feed the corrupt imaginations of 
 their readers, too often find a parallel in the reaHties 
 of a great Oriental household. The doctrine of per- 
 sonal rights had no existence within the walls of a 
 zenana. Nowhere was the mystery of iniquity deeper 
 and darker than in the palace of Bithoor, which was 
 indeed a worthy nest for such a vulture. There were 
 rooms in that palace horribly unfit for any human 
 eye, where both European and native artists had 
 done their best to gratify a master who was willing 
 to incur any expense for the completion of his loath- 
 some picture-gallery. 
 
 In the apartments open to the inspection of 
 
I THE STATION 47 
 
 English visitors there was nothing which could shock 
 either niodesty or humanity, though a Sahib of fas- 
 tidious taste might take exception to the arrange- 
 ment of the furniture and the decorations. The habits 
 of an Oriental are so simple, his wants so few, that 
 a Hindoo gentleman can never acquire himself, 
 and still less impart to his servants, a thorough 
 acquaintance with our complicated domestic ap- 
 pliances. And no Eastern Anglo-maniac possessed 
 a more heterogeneous collection than the Nana, who, 
 Kving far from Calcutta, the centre of exotic fashion, 
 was reduced to content himself with whatever trea- 
 sures might come into the market at casual up- 
 country sales. A gentleman of some literary reputa- 
 tion, who was entertained by the Maharaja in days 
 gone by, thus describes the Bithoor manage : — " I 
 " sat down to a table twenty feet long (it had origin- 
 "ally been the mess-table of a cavalry regiment) 
 "which was covered with a damask table-cloth of 
 "European manufacture, but instead of a dinner 
 "napkin there was a bedroom towel. The soup — 
 " for the steward had everything ready — was served 
 "up in a trifle-dish which had formed part of a 
 " dessert service belonging to the Ninth Lancers — at 
 " all events the arms of that regiment were upon it ; 
 " but the plate into which I ladled it with a broken 
 " tea-cup was of the old willow pattern. The pilau 
 "which followed the soup was served upon a huge 
 " plated dish, but the plate from which I ate it was 
 " of the very commonest description. The knife was 
 "a bone-handled affair; the spoon and fork were 
 "silver, and of Calcutta make. The plated side- 
 " dishes, containing vegetables, were odd ones ; one 
 
48 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 "was round, the other oval. The pudding was 
 "brought in upon a soup-plate, of blue and gold 
 "pattern, and the cheese was placed before me on 
 "a glass dish belonging to a dessert service. The 
 " cool claret I drank out of a richly cut champagne 
 " glass, and the beer out of an American tumbler of 
 " the very worst quality." 
 
 The Maharaja had a large and excellent stable 
 of horses, elephants, and camels ; a well-appointed 
 kennel ; and a menagerie of pigeons, falcons, pea- 
 cocks, and apes, which would have done credit to any 
 Oriental monarch, from the days of Solomon down- 
 wards. His armoury was stocked with weapons 
 of every age and country, from a masterpiece of 
 Purdey to the bow and arrows used by the Hillmen 
 of Orissa. His reception-rooms sparkled with 
 mirrors and chandeHers that had come direct from 
 Birmingham; and his equipages had stood within 
 the twelvemonth in the warehouses of Long Acre. 
 He possessed a vast store of gold and silver plate; 
 and his wardrobe overflowed with shawls and jewel- 
 lery, which on gala days were regarded with long- 
 ing eyes by the Cawnpore ladies. Nor did they 
 lack frequent opportunities of contemplating the 
 Maharaja in his panoply of kincob and Cashmere 
 scarfs, crowned with a tiara of pearls and diamonds, 
 and girt with old Bajee Rao's sword of state, which 
 report valued at three lacs of rupees. For the 
 Nana seldom missed an occasion for giving a ball 
 or a banquet in European style to the society of 
 the station; although he would never accept an 
 entertainment in return, because our Government, 
 which refused to regard him as a royal personage. 
 
I THE STATION 49 
 
 would not allow him the compliment of a salute. 
 Nor did he treat his guests with the semi-barbarous 
 discourtesy evinced by some native hosts, who pass 
 the evening seated among a group of courtiers, 
 scrutinizing the dancers through a lorgnette, and 
 apparently regarding the whole proceeding as a 
 ballet arranged for their individual amusement. The 
 Maharaja mixed freely with the company ; inquired 
 after the health of the Major's lady ; congratulated 
 the judge on his rumoured promotion to the Sudder 
 Court ; joked the assistant magistrate about his last 
 mishap in the hunting-field ; and complimented the 
 belle of the evening on the colour she had brought 
 down from Simla. His wealth was abundant enough 
 to allow of any vagaries of hospitality and personal 
 extravagance, and does not seem to have been 
 seriously impaired even by the expense entailed by 
 a crowd of lazy myrmidons whom he kept about 
 his person; a folly common to all high-bom and 
 opulent Hindoos. Every native landlord, who can 
 induce his neighbours to dignify him with the title 
 of Rajah, delights in flourishing about the country 
 under the escort of a host of blackguards — ^the 
 horsemen armed with lances and old cavalry swords, 
 and mounted on raw-boned, long-tailed horses, 
 smeared with coarse paint — the infantry straggling 
 along under the weight of clubs, partizans, brass 
 blunderbusses, and long matchlocks, of which the 
 stock is studded with glass beads, and the muzzle 
 shaped into the semblance of a dragon's moiith. The 
 Nana kept several hundreds of these scamps in idle- 
 ness and insolence. He provided them with four 
 rupees a month, and a suit of clothes once a year ; 
 
50 CAWNPORE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 an allowance which they eked out by plundering 
 the peasants for twenty miles round, and extorting 
 an intermittent blackmail from the tradesmen of 
 Cawnpore. 
 
 At the time of the mutiny the Nana was about 
 thirty-six years of age. His complexion was sallow ; 
 his features strongly marked, and not unpleasing. 
 Like all Mahrattas, both head and face were shaven 
 clean. He was fat, with that unhealthy corpulence 
 which marks the Eastern voluptuary. The circum- 
 stances under which a young Rajah comes to maturity 
 leave him very scant chance of obtaining perfection, 
 moral or physical. From his earliest years he is 
 surrounded by flatterers and pandars. While still 
 a child in the harem, it is the object of every one, 
 beginning with his own mother, to obtain his ear 
 by adulation, and by the freemasonry of corrupt 
 discourse. During his boyhood he has no little 
 peers on whom to exert his faculties for emulation 
 and self-denial, and, when he has arrived at man's 
 estate, he may look in vain for any object of 
 honourable ambition amidst the dead level of na- 
 tional dependence. He never walks, save from his 
 divan to his bath; never mounts one of the huge 
 cream-coloured steeds, which on high feast-days 
 amble behind his palanquin in melancholy cavalcade ; 
 never knows the sensation of honest fatigue and 
 wholesome hunger. Long before the age at which 
 a high-bom Englishman makes his choice of Her- 
 cules between balls and blue-books, the effete 
 sensuality of a Hindoo noble is reduced to seek 
 gratification in the illicit charms of Indian hemp 
 and French brandy. What wonder that in middle 
 
I THE STATION 51 
 
 life lie is flabby and gross beyond hope and compass ; 
 too feeble for manly exercise, too self-indulgent to 
 practise a self-denying regimen? It is to be pre- 
 sumed that a long course of lentil diet and hiU- 
 climbing in Nepaul has by this time reduced that 
 superfluous bulk which may yet grace a Cawnpore 
 gallows. 
 
 The Maharaja of Bithoor exhibited a lively in- 
 terest in the proceedings of our Government at 
 home and. abroad, in our history, our arts, our 
 religion, and our customs ; although he was entirely 
 ignorant of our language. He subscribed to all the 
 leading Anglo-Indian journals, which were translated 
 to him daily by an individual who had been unlucky 
 enough to exchange a situation on the East Indian 
 Railroad for the post of English Professor in the 
 household of the Nana. The Rajah played billiards 
 admirably, while he was yet slim enough to bend 
 over the table without inconvenience. He especially 
 delighted in the game, because it afforded him an 
 opportunity for mixing on familiar terms with the 
 ofiicers of the garrison. Nothing could exceed the 
 cordiality which he constantly displayed in his 
 intercourse with our countrymen. The persons in 
 authority placed an implicit confidence in his friend- 
 hness and good faith, and the ensigns emphatically 
 pronounced him a capital fellow. He had a nod or 
 a kind word for every Sahib in the station ; hunting- 
 parties and jewellery for the men, and picnics and 
 shawls for the ladies. If a subaltern's wife required 
 change of air, the Rajah's carriage was at the service 
 of the young couple, and the European apartments 
 at Bithoor were put in order to receive them. If a 
 
52 CAWNPORE chap, i 
 
 civilian had overworked himself in court, he had but 
 to speak the word, and the Kajah's elephants were 
 sent on to the Oude jungles. But none the less 
 did he never for an instant forget the grudge which 
 he bore our nation. While his face was all smiles, 
 in his heart of hearts he was for ever brooding over 
 his rejected claim. From his hour of repulse to his 
 hour of vengeance, his life was one long irony. 
 The lads who, with his sapphires and rubies ghsten- 
 ing on their fingers, sat laughing round his table, 
 had one and all been doomed to die by a warrant 
 that admitted of no appeal. He had sworn that the 
 injustice should be expiated by the blood of women 
 who had never heard his grievance named ; of babies 
 who had been born years after the question of that 
 grievance had passed into oblivion. The great crime 
 of Cawnpore blackens the page of history with a far 
 deeper stain than any Sicilian "Vespers, or Septem- 
 ber massacres ; for this atrocious act was prompted, 
 not by diseased and mistaken patriotism, nor by the 
 madness of superstition, nor yet by incontrollable 
 fear that knew not pity. The motives of the deed 
 were as mean as the execution was cowardly and 
 treacherous. Among the subordinate villains there 
 might be some who were possessed by bigotry and 
 class-hatred, but the chief of the gang was actuated 
 by no higher impulses than ruffled pride and 
 disappointed greed. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE OUTBREAK 
 
 DURING the spring of 1857 the native society 
 of Hindostan presented those remarkable 
 phenomena which, in an Asiatic community, are the 
 infallible symptoms of an approaching convulsion. 
 The atmosphere was alive with rumours, of the 
 nature peculiar to India ; — strange and inconsequent 
 fragments of warning or prediction, which, with 
 reverent credulity, are passed from mouth to mouth 
 throughout a million homesteads. No one can teU 
 whence the dim whisper first arose, or what it may 
 portend ; it is received as a voice from heaven, and 
 sent forward on its course without comment or 
 delay; for the Hindoo people, like the Greeks of 
 ancient time, hold Rumour to be divine. Some of 
 these unwritten oracles undoubtedly grew spon- 
 taneously from the talk of men, and were to be 
 regarded merely as indications of the agitated and 
 uneasy condition of the public mind ; but, beyond 
 aU question some secret influence was at work to 
 advertise, so to speak, the mutiny. The ringleaders 
 of that gigantic conspiracy advisedly undertook to 
 impress upon the world at large the idea that some- 
 thing was coming, the like of which had not been 
 
54 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 known before. Manifold and variously expressed 
 as were the prevailing reports, all had one and the 
 same tendency. With a thousand tongues, and in 
 a thousand forms, they spoke of a great trial that 
 awaited the national rehgions; a trial from which 
 they were eventually to emerge unscathed and vic- 
 torious. A prophecy had long been current, that 
 the hundredth year from the battle of Plassy would 
 witness the downfall of the English rule ; and the 
 hundredth year had arrived. A mandate had of 
 late gone forth from the palace of Delhi, enjoining 
 the Mohammedans at all their solemn gatherings to 
 recite a song of lamentation, indited by the royal 
 musician himself, which described in touching strains 
 the humiliation of their race, and the degradation 
 of their ancient faith, once triumphant from the 
 Northern snows to the Southern strait, but now 
 trodden under the foot of the infidel and the alien. 
 In January, the peasants of Bengal were repeating to 
 each other a sentence apparently devoid of meaning, 
 "Sub lal hoga hi," "everything is to become red." 
 Some referred this dubious announcement to the 
 probable extension of our empire over the whole 
 continent, when the scarlet coats of our soldiers 
 would be seen at Hyderabad and Khatmandoo, in 
 Cashmere and Travancore ; while others hinted that 
 there was something thicker than water, and of a 
 deeper crimson than a British uniform. Side by 
 side with like ambiguous sayings were more plain- 
 spoken assertions concerning cartridges smeared 
 with lard, and flour mixed with the ground bones 
 of cow and pig, and other treacherous devices by 
 which the demon who swayed the sceptre of Hin- 
 
n THE OUTBREAK 65 
 
 dostan, the impalpable but omnipotent Kumpani, 
 aimed at the destruction of sect and caste, and 
 the universal establishment of Christianity. And, 
 finally, during the early days of March, every hamlet 
 in the Gangetic provinces received from its neigh- 
 bour the innocent present of two chupatties, or 
 bannocks of salt and dough, which form the staple 
 food of the population. This far-famed token, the 
 fiery cross of India, had no definite signification. It 
 notified generally that men would do weU to keep 
 themselves prepared, for that something was in the 
 air. In after days, one who had learned their effect 
 by bitter experience, likened the chupatties to the 
 cake of barley-bread which foreshadowed the destruc- 
 tion of the host of Midian. And so, from hand to hand, 
 and from house to house, and from village to village, 
 the mysterious symbol flew, and spread through the 
 length and breadth of the land concision and ques- 
 tioning, a wild terror, and a wilder hope. Truly, it 
 may be said that, as in Judaea of old, there was 
 distress of nations, and perplexity; men's hearts 
 failing them for fear, and for looking after those 
 things that were coming on the earth. 
 
 Meanwhile, at Cawnpore, people ate, and drank, 
 and married, and gave in marriage, and led the 
 ordinary life of an up-country station. The magis- 
 trate grumbled because the judge acquitted too 
 large a percentage of his committals ; and the col- 
 lector pronounced himself ill-used because the re- 
 venue board would not allow him an additional lac 
 of rupees for his pet embankment ; and the subalterns 
 complained that the police-magistrate did not per- 
 mit them to impress men to act as beaters at less 
 
56 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 than tlie market rate of wages ; and the captains, by 
 the aid of the mess-room army-list, made those in- 
 tricate calculations which are the delight of military 
 men and the despair of civilians; and the ladies 
 began to allow that the weather had grown too warm 
 for dancing, though still favourable for morning calls ; 
 and one talked of sending her children home ; and 
 another of going herself to the hills ; and, towards 
 the end of April, a party of disbanded Brahmins 
 of the Nineteenth regiment came from the west, 
 and spread through the sepoy lines strange tales 
 of greased cartridges, and gibbets, and midnight 
 tumults, and officers cut down in the midst of the 
 parade-ground. 
 
 Before the month of May was half over, the 
 EngHsh residents at Cawnpore were beginning to 
 be made uneasy by the disagreeable character of the 
 intelligence from Agra. Something had happened 
 at Meerut, and it was feared that something had 
 happened at Delhi. Guns had been heard all the 
 night of the tenth. European travellers from the 
 north-west, whose arrival had been confidently ex- 
 pected, did not make their appearance. A party 
 of the police had gone out to look for them, but 
 met nobody except a young sepoy trotting down the 
 road on a cavalry troop-horse, who refused to answer 
 any questions. But in the meanwhile, by those 
 secret channels through which in Eastern regions bad 
 news travels with more than proverbial celerity, it 
 was well known in the bazaar that the Third Light 
 Cavalry had turned upon their officers ; that murder 
 and arson had been the order of the day; that the vast 
 native garrison of Delhi had risen to a man, and had 
 
n THE OUTBREAK 57 
 
 butchered every EngKshman on whom they could 
 lay their hands ; that mutiny had gotten to itself a 
 nucleus and a stronghold in the capital of the Mogul. 
 These tidings caused great excitement throughout 
 the cantonments, and especially in the lines of the 
 Second Cavalry, to whose regiment the corps which 
 had set the example of sedition stood next on the 
 rolls of the Bengal army. 
 
 The officer in command of the Ca^vnpore division 
 was Major-General Sir Hugh Wheeler, K.C.B. At 
 the outbreak of the troubles, many of our most im- 
 portant stations were entrusted to the charge of 
 men who had won their spurs in the Mahratta wars, 
 and might well have been content to have closed 
 their career at Mooltan ; and that such was the case 
 is to our shame as a military nation. History blushes 
 to chide these veterans for shortcomings incidental 
 to their age. It is hardly just to blame them for 
 displaying supineness and indecision at a crisis when 
 younger warriors would have been disarming, and 
 blowing from guns, and securing treasure, and throw- 
 ing up earthworks, and sending the women and 
 children down the river to Calcutta. In his second 
 half-century of Indian service, Sir Hugh was among 
 the oldest members of the old school of Bengal 
 officers. He worshipped his sepoys; spoke their 
 language like one of themselves; and, indeed, had 
 testified to his predilection for the natives of Hin- 
 dostan by the strongest proof which it is in the 
 power of a man to give. Short and spare, he still 
 rode and walked like a soldier ; and appears to have 
 been capable of as much exertion as could reasonably 
 be expected from an EngKshman who had spent 
 
58 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 beneath an Indian sun more than two-thirds of his 
 seventy-five years. On the eighteenth of May, he 
 despatched the following message to the seat of 
 Government : 
 
 "All well at Cawnpore. Quiet, but excitement 
 "continues among the people. The final advance 
 " on Delhi will soon be made. The insurgents can 
 " only be about 3,000 in number, and are said to 
 "cling to the walls of Delhi, where they have put 
 " up a puppet-king. I grudge the escape of one 
 "of them. Calm and expert policy will soon re- 
 " assure the public mind. The plague is, in truth, 
 " stayed." 
 
 The reader need not be alarmed at the length of 
 the telegraphic news from Cawnpore. There is but 
 little more to come. For in truth the plague was 
 very far from stayed. The soldiery knew their own 
 strength, and were well inclined to turn the know- 
 ledge to profit. There were schoolmasters who 
 might have taught them a lesson of quite another 
 description : but it was a far cry to Barrackpore, and 
 there was no Hearsey at hand. It happens that a 
 native lawyer, Nanukchund by name, took the pre- 
 caution to keep a full and faithful journal, from the 
 fifteenth of May onwards. This man was bound to 
 our interest by the indissoluble tie of a common fear. 
 A personal enemy of the Nana, he was actually 
 engaged in conducting the suit instituted by the 
 nephew of Bajee Rao to establish his claim to the 
 half of his uncle*s estate. With genuine Hindoo 
 sagacity, he foresaw the approaching struggle, and 
 the ultimate triumph of the English power; and 
 conjectured that a record of events compiled with 
 
II THE OUTBREAK 59 
 
 accuracy, slightly tinged by a somewhat ostentatious 
 loyalty, would certainly procure him credit, and, 
 possibly, a comfortable official income. Two days 
 before Sir Hugh made his cheerful report to the 
 Governor-General, Nanukchund looked in on a friend 
 employed at the Treasury, and there heard the 
 native officers of the guard uttering traitorous 
 language, while their men amused themselves by 
 quarrelling with the townsfolk who went to the 
 Treasury on business. They detained people who 
 came out with money or stamp-papers, and would 
 not release them till ordered to do so by the 
 Soubahdar. "It began to be evident," says this 
 shrewd observer, "that nobody had any authority 
 but the Soubahdars and the sepoys." 
 
 At length the symptoms of the growing malady 
 became too patent to be disregarded even by the 
 most sanguine physician. It came to the ears of 
 the General that the son of a trooper in the Second 
 Cavalry had been boasting to his schoolfellows that 
 he was in the secret of what his father s regiment 
 intended to do for the good cause. And, about the 
 same time, one Khan Mohamed, a sepoy of the Fifty- 
 sixth, took upon himself to assert that on the fifth of 
 the next month the native troops were to be deprived 
 of their arms, assembled under the pretence of getting 
 their pay, and then and there blown up from a mine 
 constructed by the European officers in the intervals 
 of biUiards. This singularly unpleasant prophet seems 
 to have been without honour in his own battalion. 
 His comrades brought information to the adjutant, 
 who gave himself no trouble about the matter, be- 
 yond telling them that the story was all a lie. There- 
 
60 CAWNPOKE chap. 
 
 upon Khan Mohamed went to tlie cavalry lines, 
 where he found an audience more ready to accept his 
 tale. On this occasion he imported into his story 
 some squadrons of English troopers, who were to be 
 equipped with the swords and horses of his hearers. 
 The regiment was soon in a panic of rage and fear. 
 It became necessary to take immediate measures. 
 The incendiary was put in irons, and an urgent 
 application for aid telegraphed to Lucknow. Sir 
 Henry Lawrence was roused from his bed at midnight, 
 and by break of day all the available post-carriages 
 in the station were rolling along towards Cawnpore, 
 crammed inside and out with English soldiers. 
 
 But, in an hour of evil omen, Sir Hugh bethought 
 himself of invoking the assistance of a more dubious 
 ally. The Nana had lately paid a visit to the 
 capital of Oude, under pretence of seeing the Kons 
 of the place. The arrogance of his manner, and 
 the discourtesy of his sudden and unannounced 
 departure, had attracted the attention of Mr. Gub- 
 bins, the Financial Commissioner, who communicated 
 to General Wheeler his suspicions, backed by the 
 opinion of Sir Henry Lawrence. It may be that 
 the fatal step was first suggested by the warning of 
 wiser men. It may be that the idea had long been 
 familiar to the mind of the infatuated veteran. At 
 all events, the sole answer to the remonstrance from 
 Lucknow was a message, dated the twenty-second of 
 May, stating that " two guns, and three hundred men, 
 " cavalry and infantry, furnished by the Maharaja of 
 " Bithoor, came in this morning." 
 
 On their march to Cawnpore, these scoundrels 
 furnished a striking proof of their discipline and 
 
n THE OUTBREAK CI 
 
 good faith. Chimna Apa, a man of some property, 
 who supplied the nephew of Bajee Rao with the 
 means of caxrymg on his lawsuit, was driving out of 
 town in the direction of Bithoor, when he unex- 
 pectedly came upon this formidable array, com- 
 manded by the rival litigant. Apa, like a sensible 
 fellow, jumped off his conveyance, and ran into 
 a neighbouring ravine. The Nana's people appro- 
 priated a valuable sword and five hundred rupees, 
 which the fugitive had left behind in his haste, 
 cudgelled the servants, and went off declaring that 
 the master had better look to himself, as the British 
 rule would only last a few days longer. This speci- 
 men of the services which these new protectors 
 were likely to render to the cause of law and order 
 was brought. to the notice of the authorities; but 
 they had gone too far to draw back. The Nana 
 took up his quarters in the midst of the houses 
 occupied by the civilians and their families; the 
 Treasury, which contained upwards of a hundred 
 thousand pounds, was put under the custody of 
 his body-guard ; and it was even proposed that the 
 ladies and children should be placed in sanctuary 
 in Bithoor Palace. 
 
 There were some, however, who scrupled to 
 entrust the honour of England and the lives of 
 her daughters to the exclusive guardianship of a 
 discontented Mahratta. At their instigation the 
 General set to work in a dilatory spirit to provide 
 an asylum where, if the worst should befall, we 
 might shelter, for a while at least, the relics of 
 our name and power. He does not appear to have 
 thought of the magazine, which was admirably 
 
62 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 adapted for defence. A mud wall, four feet high, 
 was thrown up round the buildings which composed 
 the old Dragoon hospital, and ten guns of various 
 calibre were placed in position round the intrench- 
 ment, by which name the miserable contrivance 
 was dignified. Orders were given to lay in supplies 
 for twenty-five days. The stock of rice, butter, salt, 
 tea, sugar, rum, beer, and preserved meats looked 
 well enough on paper. But the master's eye, which 
 in India is even more essential than elsewhere, was 
 entirely wanting. The contractors behaved after 
 their kind. Peas and flour formed the bulk of the 
 supplies, and even these were ridiculously insuffi- 
 cient. The regimental officers, who had no very 
 lively confidence in Sir Hugh as a caterer, sent in 
 large contributions of liquor and hermetically-sealed 
 tins from their mess-stores. The tangible results 
 of a fortnight's labour and supervision, at a time 
 when every hour was precious, and every day 
 priceless, consisted in a few cart-loads of coarse 
 native food, and a fence not high enough to keep 
 out an active cow. Utterly inefficient as they were, 
 the sight of these preparations had a most unfor- 
 tunate influence upon the minds of the sepoys. 
 The timid were seriously alarmed by the hostile 
 attitude adopted by our countrymen. The bolder 
 spirits rejoiced to witness so plain a confession of 
 apprehension on the part of their officers, while 
 the more honest and trustworthy among their 
 number would say to each other: "The Sahibs 
 " have lost all confidence in us, and we shall never 
 " get over it." Where there is a will, there is a 
 way, even in such a strait. And where there is 
 
n THE OUTBKEAK 63 
 
 half a will, there is a way likewise; but it leads 
 whither it is not good that brave men should 
 go — to disaster and discomfiture, to bootless sac- 
 rifice and inglorious ruin. During these days 
 Azimoolah, while walking with a lieutenant who 
 had been a great favourite at Bithoor, pointed to 
 the fortification which was then in progress, and 
 
 " What do you call that place you are making out 
 "in the plain?" 
 
 " I am sure I don't know," was the reply. 
 
 Azimoolah suggested that it should be called 
 "The Fort of Despair." "No, no," answered the 
 Englishman, " we will call it the Fort of Victory : " 
 an observation that was received by his companion 
 with an air of incredulous assent, which he must 
 have acquired in West-end drawing-rooms. 
 
 And now ensued a period of ceaseless dread, of 
 suspicion that never slumbered, of suspense hardly 
 preferable to the most terrible certainty. The 
 women and children spent the nights within the 
 circuit of the intrenchment, while their husbands, 
 with devotion that merited a better reward, pitched 
 their tents among the sepoy huts, and so took what 
 sleep they might. On the twentieth of May, flames 
 broke out after dark in the lines of the First Native 
 Infantry. In a moment the station was on the 
 alert. Men hurried on their clothes, and clutched 
 revolvers from under their pillows. Guns loaded 
 with grape were trundled down to a preconcerted 
 rendezvous. It was no easy matter to persuade 
 people that so ill-timed a conflagration could be 
 altogether accidental. The twenty-fourth of the 
 
64 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 month was the festival of the Eed ; a season which 
 Mohammedans celebrate with the blood of sheep 
 and goats, though on this occasion there was serious 
 cause to apprehend lest, in their religious enthu- 
 siasm, they should pant for nobler victims. Sir 
 Hugh telegraphed to Lucknow his belief that noth- 
 ing could avert a rising. The feast, however, passed 
 off without any disturbance. The Mussulmans in 
 our ranks paid their respects to their officers; ac- 
 knowledged with apparent gratitude the customary 
 present of a fat Patna sheep ; and protested that, 
 come what might, they would be faithful to their 
 leaders : — a statement that was accepted for as 
 much as it was worth. But these alternations of 
 confidence and alarm gradually settled down into 
 chronic gloom. On the return of the Queen's birth- 
 day the usual compliment was omitted, lest the 
 natives should interpret the firing of the salute as 
 a signal for revolt. Even military loyalty dared not 
 do honour to our sovereign in a garrison that was 
 stiU nominally her own. A sergeant's wife was 
 making some purchases in the bazaar, when a man, 
 whose martial gait and spruce appearance clearly 
 proclaimed the sepoy in undress, accosted the poor 
 woman in these words : — " Ah ! you will none of you 
 "come here much oftener; you will not be alive 
 "another week." Our countrymen began to keep 
 watch all night by turns, armed to the teeth. As 
 on a burning ship, when the sea runs high, and the 
 last boat has been swamped or dashed to pieces, 
 the crew wait with clenched teeth tiU the fire has 
 reached the magazine, and say, " Now it is coming ; " 
 or again, " Now ;" so the Englishmen at Cawnpore, 
 
11 THE OUTBEEAK 65 
 
 ignorant what each day might bring forth, certain 
 only that the catastrophe was not remote, sat, pistol 
 in hand, and expected the inevitable. Some families 
 endeavoured to get down to Allahabad ere it was yet 
 too late. But the roads swarmed with rebelUous 
 peasantry, and liberated jail-birds : the shallows in 
 the river forbade all passage in this the eighth 
 month of the annual drought ; and escape was found 
 to be impracticable. Whatever destiny might have 
 in store was to be shared by all alike. 
 
 During the closing days of May, people were 
 writing hard to catch the Home Mail : and they 
 did well, for it was the last. Strange, beyond con- 
 ception of poet, strange and sad, must have been 
 the contents of that Cawnpore mail-bag. Imagine 
 Colonel Ewart, of the First Native Infantry, seated 
 at his desk in a tent surrounded by line behind line 
 of huts and camp-fires, in and about which are 
 swaggering hundreds of insolent, faithless mercen- 
 aries. Picture that scene, and then read : " I do not 
 "wish to write gloomily, but there is no use in dis- 
 *' guising the fact, that we are in the utmost danger ; 
 " and, as I have said, if the troops do mutiny, my Life 
 " must almost certainly be sacrificed ; but I do not 
 "think they will venture to attack the intrenched 
 " position which is held by the European troops, so I 
 " hope in God that my wife and child will be saved. 
 
 " And now, dear A , farewell. If, under God's 
 
 " providence, this " be the last time I am to write to 
 "you, I entreat you to forgive all I have ever done 
 " to trouble you, and to think kindly of me. I know 
 "you will be everything a mother can be to my 
 "boy. I cannot write to him this time, dear little 
 
66 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 "fellow. Kiss him for me. Kind love to my 
 "brothers." 
 
 So spoke the stout soldier, fearing not for himself, 
 but for a wife who was worthy of the husband, as 
 her own words show. "My dear child," she says, 
 "is looking very delicate. My prayer is that she 
 " may be spared much suffering. The bitterness of 
 "death has been tasted by us many times during 
 "the last fortnight, and, should the reaUty come, 
 ■'I hope we may find strength to meet it with a 
 "truly Christian courage. It is not hard to die 
 " oneself, but to see a dear child suffer and perish, 
 "that is the hard, the bitter trial, and the cup 
 "which I must drink, should God not deem it fit 
 "that it should pass from me. My companion, 
 " Mrs. Hillersdon, is delightful. Poor young thing, 
 "she has such a gentle spirit, so unmurmuring, so 
 "desirous to meet the trial rightly, unselfish and 
 "sweet in every way. She has two children, and 
 " we feel that our duty to our little ones demands 
 " that we should exert ourselves to keep up health 
 "and spirits as much as possible." That is the 
 temper with which the mothers of Englishmen 
 should die, if die they must. 
 
 " Such nights of anxiety," she continues, " I would 
 " never have believed possible, and the days are fall 
 " of excitement. Another fortnight, we expect, will 
 " decide our fate ; and, whatever it may be, I trust 
 "we shall be able to bear it. If these are my last 
 "words to you, you will remember them lovingly, 
 "and always bear in mind that your affection and 
 "the love we have ever had for each other is an 
 " ingredient of comfort in these bitter times." Such 
 
n THE OUTBREAK 67 
 
 was the tone of the letters which, thence and at 
 that season, went forth to spread a terrible solici- 
 tude through many an English household. Very 
 different from the tender confidences and innocent 
 gossip, the reminiscences of sick-leave and the anti- 
 cipations of furlough, the directions to milliners and 
 the inquiries about boarding-schools, which are the 
 ordinary materials of the Home Correspondence 
 from an Indian station. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Nana was in intimate communi- 
 cation with the ringleaders of the Second Cavalry. 
 The black sheep of the regiment were wont to 
 hold meetings at the quarters of a trooper named 
 Shumshoodeen Khan, and of Teeka Sing, a Hindoo 
 Soubahdar, who, by his audacity and energy, had 
 gained an ascendency among his colleagues. These 
 gatherings were attended by Jwala Pershad, a 
 hanger-on at Bithoor Palace, and Muddud Ali, who 
 had lately resigned the service of the Maharaja and 
 taken to horse-dealing, but who still used to visit 
 his former master in the way of business. At 
 length, Teeka Sing had the honour of an interview 
 with the Nana himself, during which, according to 
 the story current among his comrades, the Sou- 
 bahdar spoke to this effect : " You have come to 
 "take charge of the magazine and treasury of the 
 *' English ; we all, Hindoos and Mohammedans, have 
 "united for our religions, and the whole Bengal 
 "army has become one in purpose. What do you 
 " say to it ? " The Nana replied, " I, also, am at the 
 "disposal of the army." This very essential ques- 
 tion having been so frankly answered, arrangements 
 were made for a final consultation. One June even- 
 
68 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 ing, after dusk, the Maharaja, accompanied by his 
 brother Bala and the ubiquitous Azimoolah, repaired 
 to a landing-place on the Ganges, whither his emis- 
 saries had conducted Teeka Sing and his associates. 
 The whole party seated themselves in a boat, and 
 talked earnestly for a space of two hours. They 
 appear to have arrived at a satisfactory conclusion ; 
 for, next day, Shumshoodeen wetted his prospective 
 honours at the house of Azeezun, a favourite cour- 
 tesan of the Second Cavalry troopers. In his tipsy 
 fondness he told the girl that in a day or two the 
 Nana would be paramount, and promised to stuff 
 her house with gold mohurs from roof to cellar. 
 
 The Maharaja endeavoured to conceal his move- 
 ments by shifting his residence to and fro between 
 Bithoor and the cantonments; but he was closely 
 watched by the spies of those among his own coun- 
 trymen who had reason to dread his elevation. If 
 British authority were to perish, if the sepoys and 
 their new ally were in power but for a single week, 
 it would go ill indeed with all who had ever crossed 
 the Nana in love, law, or speculation. And, especi- 
 ally, any who had concern in the great lawsuit would 
 do well to look to themselves, litigant, paymaster, 
 witness, and counsel alike. As early as the twenty- 
 sixth of May, the sharp-sighted advocate, whose 
 diary has been already quoted, drew up an account 
 of the embryo conspiracy, and sent it in the form of 
 a petition to the magistrate of the station ; " Who," 
 says Nanukchund, " gave no heed to my petition, and 
 "got so vexed with me that I cannot describe his 
 " anger. He said to me, * You have all along been 
 "'speaking ill of the Nana, and filing suits against 
 
II THE OUTBREAK 69 
 
 " ' him in the civil courts. I cannot pay attention to 
 " ' any representation from a person so hostile to the 
 " * Nana/ I replied that those affairs had no con- 
 "nection with the present question, that the Nana 
 " had long harboured enmity to the Government, and 
 "a great number of rascals belonged to his party; 
 "that he (the magistrate) would remember my 
 "caution, and that I had obtained certain inteUi- 
 "gence, as the men of the Nana's household com- 
 "municated it to Chimna Apa, my cHent. The 
 "magistrate would listen to nothing. In despair, 
 " I did nothing further than keep a copy of the 
 "petition in my book. It is a hopeless case. Let 
 " us see what will be the end of all this neglect." A 
 dramatist of ancient Greece would have attributed 
 such obstinate bhndness to the malice of some 
 injured deity, deluding those whom he had marked 
 for destruction. 
 
 The last mail had already left Cawnpore. At 
 nine o'clock on the night of the third of June, went 
 forth the last telegraphic message that ever reached 
 the outer world. Thus it ran : — 
 
 " Sir Hugh Wheeler to the Secretary to the Government 
 of India. 
 
 "AU the orders and proclamations have been 
 "sent express, as the telegraph communication be- 
 "tween this and Agra is obstructed. 
 
 "Sir Henry Lawrence having expressed some 
 "uneasiness, I have just sent him by post car- 
 "riages out of my small force two officers and 
 "fifty men of Her Majesty's 84th Foot; convey- 
 
70 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 "ance for more not available. This leaves me 
 '^weak, but I trust to holding my own until more 
 "Europeans arrive." 
 
 So it was. Prompted by a genuine sentiment of 
 chivalry, Sir Hugh not only sent back the Lucknow 
 reinforcement that had arrived during the previous 
 week, but increased it by a detachment from his 
 own scanty command. He doubtless considered 
 that, at such a time, a loan of English bayonets 
 should bear high interest. And it was well for 
 these men that they were removed from the doomed 
 garrison to a field where they might fight not with- 
 out some prospect of life, some hope of victory. 
 Those who were marked to remain and die were 
 enough to do their country loss. 
 
 As in a frame predisposed to disease the slightest 
 irregularity is productive of fatal results, so now at 
 Cawnpore the smouldering fires of discontent and 
 distrust were inflamed by an incident which at 
 ordinary times would have passed almost without 
 remark. There was resident at the station a 
 cashiered subaltern whom it would be cruel to 
 Aame ; one of those miserable men who had sought 
 relief from the mental vacuity and physical prostra- 
 tion of an Indian military life in the deadly solace 
 of excess. This officer, whether in the wantonness 
 of drink, or the horror of shattered nerves, fired a 
 shot at a cavalry patrol who challenged him as he 
 reeled out of his bungalow into the darkness. He 
 missed his aim, as was natural under the circum- 
 stances ; but the trooper lodged a complaint in the 
 morning, and a court-martial was assembled which 
 
n THE OUTBREAK 71 
 
 acquitted the Englishman, on the ground that he 
 was intoxicated at the time, and that his musket 
 had gone off under a mistake. The sepoys, familiar 
 as they were with the brutality of low Europeans 
 and the vagaries of military justice, would at a less 
 critical season have expressed small surprise either 
 at the outrage or the decision. But now their blood 
 was up, and their pride awake, and they were not 
 inclined to overrate the privileges of an Anglo-Saxon, 
 or the sagacity of a military tribunal. The men of 
 the Second Cavalry muttered angrily that possibly 
 their own muskets might go off by mistake before 
 very long, and this significant expression became 
 proverbial throughout the whole native force. Ad- 
 ditional point was given to the grim humour of the 
 soldiery by the unwonted sight of the corpses of an 
 English lady and gentleman, which, floating down 
 the river from some distant scene of death, had 
 turned aside into the canal that traversed the city 
 of Cawnpore. Ganges was yet to bear many such 
 burdens. Though wires had been cut, and mails 
 burnt, and every road blockaded, these silent but 
 unimpeachable messengers, in virtue of the safe- 
 conduct granted to them alone, were long destined to 
 carry from station to station the tidings of woe and 
 dismay. 
 
 The end was not remote. That despair deferred, 
 which had long made sick the hearts of our country- 
 men ; that great fear which was their companion day 
 and night, had now reached their consummation. On 
 Thursday, the fourth of June : while far away on the 
 banks of pleasant Thames, Eton was celebrating the 
 birthday of her patron monarch, with recitations from 
 
72 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 Julius Caesar, and copious libations of unwonted 
 champagne : at Cawnpore the men of the Second 
 Cavalry were sharpening sabres, and distributing 
 ammunition, and secreting their families and their 
 property in the back-slums of the native city. In 
 the mid-darkness of the succeeding night, when men 
 were in their first sleep, three reports of a pistol, and 
 a sudden and brilliant conflagration, showed that the 
 hour had arrived. Teeka Sing, who was on picket 
 duty with his troop, set the example of sedition, 
 which was speedily followed by the entire corps. 
 Some ran to set alight the house of the English 
 riding-master ; some to make a bonfire of the horse- 
 litter; others to secure the treasure-chest and the 
 colours. These last were stoutly opposed by the old 
 Soubahdar-major, or native colonel, who was cut 
 down at his post after a gallant resistance. Then 
 the regiment, mounted and accoutred, drew up on 
 the high-road. A bugle sounded, and two horsemen 
 left the ranks, and went towards the lines of the 
 First Native Infantry, and there cried in a loud 
 voice through the gloom: "Our Soubahdar-major 
 " sends his compliments to the Soubahdar-major of 
 "the First, and wishes to know the reason of this 
 "delay, as the cavalry are drawn up on the road." 
 Hereupon the sepoys, ignorant that the man in 
 whose name they were invoked was at that moment 
 lying senseless and bleeding in the quarter-guard 
 as a punishment for his loyalty — ignorant of this, 
 and perhaps not much caring — began to load their 
 muskets, and hurry on their cross-belts, and pack up 
 their valuables. Colonel Ewart was at once on the 
 spot, and in vain endeavoured to recall his soldiers to 
 
n THE OUTBREAK 73 
 
 their allegiance, saying to them in the Hindostanee 
 tongue : " My children ! my children ! this is not 
 your usual conduct. Do not so great a wickedness ! " 
 But it was too late for argument or entreaty. 
 The battahon turned out in a body, fraternized 
 with the mutinous troopers, and marched off in 
 their company towards Nawabgunge, the North-west 
 suburb of Cawnpore, where lay the treasury and the 
 magazine. 
 
 Meanwhile the alarm spread through the station. 
 The Adjutants of the Fifty-third and Fifty-sixth 
 regiments got their sepoys together on the parade- 
 ground, and kept them under arms till the sun was 
 well above the horizon. Then the Colonel of the 
 Fifty-sixth marched his battalion down to the 
 deserted lines of the Second Cavalry, collected and 
 secured the horses and arms which had been left 
 behind by the mutineers, and finally permitted his 
 men to doff their uniforms and cook their breakfasts. 
 The Major of the Fifty-third likewise dismissed 
 his regiment, and at the same time summoned 
 into the intrenchment aU his native officers, com- 
 missioned and non-commissioned. At such a crisis it 
 was singularly injudicious to leave the men to them- 
 selves, especially as in this corps the Soubahdars and 
 Jemmadars were for the most part free from the taint 
 of disaffection, and might have done much towards 
 keeping the rank and file to their allegiance. During 
 their absence a trooper of the Second Cavalry rode 
 in among the huts with a message from the company 
 of the Fifty- third which was posted at the Govern- 
 ment Treasury, to the effect that the guard would 
 allow no division of the spoil until their own regiment 
 
74 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 was on the spot to claim its share. Ere long four or 
 five grenadiers of the Fifty-sixth were observed to 
 steal across the neighbouring lines, and soon after 
 they were seen talking eagerly and in a low voice 
 with a sergeant and private of the light company. 
 Presently these two men shouted out : " Glory be to 
 " the great God ! Gentlemen, prepare for action ! " 
 and a rush was made on the quarter-guard. The 
 sergeant broke open the treasure-chest, and the 
 private seized the colours. The native captain who 
 was in charge of the precious deposit stood his 
 ground like a man ; but he was fired at, hustled, 
 and overpowered by numbers. In an instant all was 
 uproar, confusion, and terror. The sergeant of the 
 fourth company burst into tears, and ran to fetch the 
 Adjutant ; the soldiers of the fifth and light com- 
 panies flung on their coats, loaded their muskets, 
 and crammed their girdles with the regimental 
 rupees; while the remainder of the corps came of 
 their own accord on to the parade-ground with the 
 intention of placing themselves under the command 
 of their officers. Unfortunately at this moment Sir 
 Hugh Wheeler, prompt with an ill-timed energy, 
 and wary with a misplaced distrust, ordered the guns 
 of the intrenchment to open fire upon the wavering 
 multitude. At first the sepoys of the Fifty-third 
 seemed unwilling to believe that their commander 
 had adopted this cruel and uncourteous method of 
 intimating to them that he dispensed with their ser- 
 vices : but the third round proved too strong a test 
 for their loyalty. They broke and fled along the 
 main road : the greater part never stopping until 
 they had joined the mutineers at Nawabgunge: 
 
II THE OUTBREAK 75 
 
 though a considerable number preferred to conceal 
 themselves in an adjacent ravine until such time as 
 it should please Sir Hugh to allow them to come 
 within gunshot of their own officers. 
 
 So went the Fifty-third. The story of the revolt 
 of the Fifty-ninth is told with characteristic Hindoo 
 simplicity by Khoda Bux, a commissioned officer 
 of that regiment. He says, " I was sleeping in my 
 " house between twelve and one A.M., when Hossain 
 "Bux, Havildar, Grenadier Company, came and 
 " awoke me, and said, ' What ! Are you not awake ? 
 " ' There is a row in the cavalry lines, three reports 
 " ' of a pistol, and the quartermaster-sergeant's bun- 
 "'galow is on fire.' I was astonished, and ordered 
 "the regiment to turn out, and went to give in- 
 '' formation to the Adjutant. He came out of his 
 "tent, and went with me to parade, and asked if 
 " the regiment was ready. I said, ' Yes, it is ready.' 
 " He said, ' Where is it ? ' I said, ' In front of the 
 " ' bells of arms.' He ordered them to form up in 
 "front of the quarter-guard. I formed them up, 
 "and made them ready. I received orders that, 
 "if any cavalry man came, he was instantly to 
 "be shot. In this way we passed the night with 
 "our officers. No one took off his uniform. The 
 " cavalry having mutinied went away to Delhi. In 
 "the morning the Adjutant ordered us to take off 
 "our uniforms, and eat our dinners. Then the 
 " guards were placed, and we took off our uniforms. 
 " The Colonel came to us, and asked what Naick 
 " was on duty at the elephant sheds, as the Cavalry 
 "and First Native Infantry wanted four elephants, 
 "which were under a guard of a Naick and four 
 
76 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 " sepoys of the regiment, and lie was greatly pleased 
 " they had refused to give them up, and that he was 
 "so content with the Naick that he should make 
 " him an Havildar. I said it was Gunga Deen, Naick, 
 "First Company. The First Regiment mutinied 
 "like the cavalry, and went away. After this the 
 "Colonel said, 'Bhowany Singh, Soubahdar, has been 
 "'wounded by these mutineers. I will go and see 
 " ' him.' I and Annundeedeen, Havildar-major, went 
 "with the Colonel to the Cavalry hospital, and 
 "saw Bhowany Singh, who was wounded. The 
 "Colonel was very much pleased with him. The 
 "Colonel then went to his bungalow, and I and 
 "Annundeedeen went to our lines, and, haviag 
 " taken off our uniforms, began to smoke ; when 
 " Chain Singh, Havildar, came and said, ' Jemmadar, 
 "'the regiment is turning out.' I asked by whose 
 "orders, and why. He said, 'I don't know.' I 
 "went outside, and saw that the Havildar was 
 "dreadfully frightened, and was buttoning his coat. 
 "I went with him to my company, and saw some 
 " of the men in the tent packing up their clothes, 
 "and others throwiQg them away. I asked them 
 "what was the matter, and why they were getting 
 " ready. They said, * The Fifty-third regiment is 
 " ' getting ready, and so are we.' I said, * Your 
 " ' regiment is the Fifty-sixth ; what have you to 
 " ' do with the Fifty-third ? It would be better for 
 " ' you first to shoot me, and then to do what you 
 "'like afterwards.' Many of the men said, 'You 
 " ' are our senior officer ; we will not kill you. Come 
 "'with us.' I said, 'Very well; I will get ready, 
 "'and come with you.' I went out of the tent 
 
II THE OUTBREAK 77 
 
 "very slowly for about a hundred yards, and then 
 "ran as fast as I could to the intrenchment, and 
 "told the Colonel and Adjutant that the regiment 
 "had mutinied. They said, 'Come with us, and 
 "'we will see/ I said, 'Oh, gentlemen, all the 
 " ' regiment has mutinied, and are your enemies. It 
 " ' is not right for you to go to them.' " 
 
 While Khoda Bux was in search of his Colonel it 
 happened that one of the round shots, fired with a 
 view of frightening away the sepoys of the Fifty- 
 third, rolled among the camp-kitchens of the Fifty- 
 sixth. Hereupon Gunga Rai, a grenadier of an ex- 
 citable and suspicious temperament, called out that 
 they were all going to be killed, and took to his 
 heels in the direction of Nawabgunge, followed by 
 the whole mob of his comrades. 
 
 And now the ship had struck the reef towards 
 which she had long been drifting, and had gone to 
 pieces in the twinkling of an eye. It only remained 
 for the crew to provision the boats and knock together 
 some sort of a raft, as in that hour of sudden and 
 bewildering peril best they might. Our ofiicers 
 at once proceeded to gather up the relics of the 
 native force. Some went the round of the huts, 
 while others, by the aid of a bugler, ferreted out 
 the men who had sought a hiding-place in the ravine. 
 There were found in aU some eighty soldiers whose 
 sense of duty had been stronger than their fear of 
 the English nine-pounders. During the rest of the 
 day, these sepoys were employed in carting and 
 conveying within the intrenchment the muskets, 
 ammunition, and accoutrements which were lying 
 about in the lines. Meanwhile many of our country- 
 
78 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 men commenced preparations for instant flight. All 
 that day a stream of luggage and furniture was 
 passing to and fro between the European quarter 
 and the principal landing-places. In that season 
 of uncertainty and danger, natives who followed the 
 calling of porters and carriers could not be procured 
 in the bazaar, so the work had to be done by the 
 domestic servants. A sense of comparative relief 
 now began to prevail throughout the community. 
 Our officers felt that the time had arrived when they 
 might consult without dishonour the security of 
 themselves and their families. Their occupation 
 was gone ; and it seemed very well that their lives 
 had not gone likewise. The blow had fallen ; and 
 they survived. They knew the worst; and that 
 worst was better than the best which they had fore- 
 seen. Their military pride had been hurt by the 
 sight of their battalion running from them like a 
 parcel of street-boys at the appearance of a police- 
 man; but in the cowardice of the sepoys lay the 
 salvation of the officers. Besides, not only was it 
 extremely improbable that the mutineers would ever 
 venture again within range of Sir Hugh's artillery, 
 but there existed a powerful attraction to draw them 
 in quite another direction. Delhi was the centre 
 towards which gravitated all the wandering atoms of 
 sedition. There the green flag of the Prophet had 
 been unfurled, and the ancient imperial faith was 
 again dominant. There, on his ancestral throne, sat 
 the descendant of Shah Jehan, roi faineant no longer, 
 but endowed with a lurid splendour of princely 
 independence. There, with arms dyed to the 
 elbows in European blood, mustered the heroes of 
 
n THE OUTBREAK 79 
 
 the great outbreak — the men who had hated with 
 the deepest hate, and dared with the most headlong 
 and effectual daring. Thither, to swell the ranks of 
 that Praetorian guard, swarmed from every comer of 
 Northern India all who had reason to covet the ruin 
 of England, or to dread her triumph. And thither, 
 as our countrymen were well aware, the Cawnpore 
 mutineers designed to go without delay. Under a 
 firm impression that all instant risk was at an end, 
 a considerable number of officers passed the night 
 of the fifth July in their private residences without 
 the circuit of the intrenchment. Confidence had 
 succeeded to distrust, cheerful activity to sombre 
 and passive expectation. The faces of the sepoys 
 were turned towards far Delhi. On the way to 
 Allahabad, by road or by river, there was nothing 
 which could stop armed and determined men. Their 
 professional feelings wounded, but their throats un- 
 cut and their honour untarnished, there was good 
 hope that within a month they might be smoking 
 their cheroots in the verandah of the United Service 
 Club in safe and luxurious Calcutta. 
 
 But it was not so to be. The rebellion had already 
 gotten to itself a chief, and the chief had matured 
 for himself a policy. When the mutineers had 
 arrived at Nawabgunge they were given to under- 
 stand that the Nana was in the neighbourhood. 
 Accordingly he was waited on by a deputation of 
 native officers and troopers who addressed him in 
 these words: "Maharaja, a kingdom awaits you if 
 " you join our enterprise, but death if you side with 
 " our enemies." The ready reply was, " What have 
 " I to do with the British ? I am altogether yours." 
 
80 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 The envoys then requested him to lead the troops to 
 Delhi. He assented to their desire ; and ended by 
 placing his hand on the head of each of the pai-ty, 
 and swearing fidelity to the national cause. Then the 
 rebels returned to their comrades, and the business of 
 spoliation began. The mutineers first marched in a 
 body to the Treasury : the keeper of the keys was 
 terrified into surrendering his charge : the doors were 
 unlocked, and silver to the value of near a hundred 
 thousand pounds sterling was distributed among the 
 ranks of the four regiments. Then the concourse 
 dispersed in search of plunder and mischief. Some 
 broke open the jail, and turned loose upon society 
 the concentrated rascality of one of the most rascally 
 districts in our Eastern dominions. Others set fire 
 to the magistrate's ofiice and the court-house ; and, 
 in a fit of irrational malice, made a bonfire of all the 
 records, civil and criminal alike. Others again, after 
 parading about with a flag hoisted upon the back 
 of an elephant, vented their spite by cutting the 
 cables of the bridge of boats, great part of which 
 floated down the river. All European houses at the 
 west end of the station were burned and sacked. An 
 unhappy overseer of highways was fired upon, not 
 without effect, and hunted along the road, the con- 
 struction of which he had been engaged in superin- 
 tending. When they had done as much damage as 
 could be got into a single morning the mutineers 
 packed their more valuable booty about their per- 
 sons; filled a long caravan of carts with their 
 property, their domestic gods, and their female re- 
 lations of every degree; set forth on their adven- 
 turous journey; and, after a very easy afternoon's 
 
II THE OUTBREAK 81 
 
 march, halted at Kullianpore, the first stage on 
 the Delhi road. 
 
 But as soon as the deputation from the rebel army- 
 had left the presence of the Nana, his most trusted 
 advisers unanimously adjured him to give up the 
 idea of accompanying the march on Delhi ; and espe- 
 cially his dme damn6e, Azimoolah, urged that if he 
 allowed himself to be absorbed into the court of the 
 Mogul he would lose all power and influence : that it 
 would be far more politic to bring into subjection the 
 country round Cawnpore, and so command all the 
 avenues by which the Enghsh reinforcements could 
 penetrate into the heart of the disaffected regions : 
 that when once possessed of the keys of Delhi and 
 the Punjaub he might bargain with the rebels for 
 the captain-generalship of their armies, and the uni- 
 versal sovereignty of the north of India ; and then, 
 with twenty myriads of bayonets and sabres at his 
 back, he might sweep down the valley of the Ganges, 
 and wreak, once and for ever, his vengeance on the 
 detested race ; fight, on this its hundredth anniver- 
 sary, a Plassy very different from the last ; renew the 
 Black Hole of Calcutta under happier auspices, and 
 on a far more generous scale; and so teach those 
 Christian dogs what it was to flout a Mahratta and 
 cheat a Brahmin of royal blood. This eloquence fired 
 the Maharaja, who accordingly ordered his elephants 
 and pushed on for Kullianpore, attended by his 
 brothers Bala and Baba Bhut, and the indispensable 
 Azimoolah. The ringleaders of the mutiny expressed 
 their pleasure in being blessed once more with the 
 light of his countenance, but displayed very little 
 inclination to give up the idea of Delhi. On the 
 
82 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 contrary, they suggested that the Nana should stay 
 behind at Cawnpore, and garrison the magazine with 
 his own retainers, while they themselves prosecuted 
 their expedition towards the north-west. To this 
 Bala, a man of execrable temper, which, however, he 
 appears to have been able to curb on occasion, replied 
 that Sir Hugh Wheeler and his Europeans would 
 make themselves very unpleasant to the defenders 
 of the magazine, and proposed that the mutineers 
 should first return and clear out the intrenchment 
 and then go off to Delhi. At this point the Maha- 
 raja threw in a prospect of unlimited pillage, and an 
 offer of a gold anklet to each sepoy, which produced 
 an instant and favourable effect upon his audience. 
 The mutineers agreed to retrace their steps, and not 
 leave the station until they had put all the English 
 to the sword. As a pledge of their earnest intention 
 to carry out his desires they unanimously saluted 
 the Nana as their Rajah, and proceeded forthwith 
 to choose leaders who should command them in the 
 field. Soubahdar Teeka Sing, the prime mover of 
 the revolt, was appointed chief of the cavalry, with 
 the title of General. Jemmadar Dulgunjun Sing 
 became Colonel of the Fifty-third, and Soubahdar 
 Gunga Deen Colonel of the Fifty-sixth. There is a 
 certain significance in these names : for they indicate 
 that, in the opinion, at any rate, of the mutineers 
 themselves, the boldest and most active among the 
 authors of the mutiny were not Mussulmans but 
 Hindoos ; and the belief that such was in fact the 
 case is now very generally entertained by our most 
 thoughtful and observant pubHc servants. 
 
 At dawn on the morning of the sixth of June, Sir 
 
n THE OUTBREAK 83 
 
 Hugh Wheeler received a letter, in which the Nana 
 announced his intention of at once commencing the 
 attack. Our officers were summoned within the in- 
 trenchment, where, for a fortnight past, the women 
 and children had already been in sanctuary. The 
 order was obeyed with soldier-Uke promptitude, in- 
 tensified by the consciousness of imminent peril. It 
 fared ill with those who had indulged in a fond 
 anticipation that their next change of lodging would 
 be to Allahabad and Calcutta. There was no time 
 for packing, or even for selection. There was not 
 leisure to snatch a parting cup of coffee, or a hand- 
 ful of cigars, or an armful of favourite books, or a 
 pith helmet that had been tested by many a long 
 day's tiger-shooting under the blazing Indian sun. 
 All possessions, however hardly earned and highly 
 prized ; all dear memorials of home and love, were 
 to be alike abandoned to the coming foe. Few and 
 happy were they who had secured a single change 
 of raiment; and they who, in the hurry of the 
 moment, had stayed to dress themselves from head 
 to foot were by comparison not unfortunate. Half- 
 clad, unbreakfasted, confused and breathless, our 
 countrymen huddled like shipwrecked seafarers 
 into the precincts of the fatal earthwork, which 
 they entered only to suffer, and left only to 
 die. 
 
 For that fortification had been erected under evil 
 auspices. As of Hiel the Bethelite, so it may be 
 said of poor Sir Hugh, that he marked out the 
 ground in his first-bom, and set up the ^jpaulement 
 in the youngest of his household. A chief, whose 
 military eye had not been dulled by age, would 
 
84 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 have discerned the rare capabilities for defence 
 afforded by the magazine, which consisted of an 
 immense walled inclosure, containing numerous 
 buildings and an inexhaustible store of guns and 
 ammunition. The position was watered, and at the 
 same time protected in the rear, by the Ganges. 
 The pubHc offices and the Treasury were in the 
 immediate vicinity, so that the records and the 
 money might have been placed in safety at the 
 cost of a few hours' labour. The doors of the 
 jail would have been commanded by our cannon, 
 and at least one tributary to the flood of disorder 
 pent within its bounds. The native Government 
 officials, who for the most part resided at Nawab- 
 gunge, might have remained in communication with 
 the civil authorities within the fortress ; and the 
 garrison could have been readily supplied with pro- 
 visions from the loyal villages in the neighbourhood, 
 and, indeed, from the city itself; which, says our 
 old friend Nanukchund, " was like a certain wife 
 " who used to act up to the wishes of her husband, 
 "because she feared him, and then could also 
 "protect herself; but, when her husband died, she 
 "found herself under other people's control, and 
 " lived in licence." He further observes that " the 
 " Sahibs did the reverse of wisdom. They made 
 "the intrenchment far out in the plain and outside 
 " the city, without reflecting that, in case of mutiny 
 "breaking out, it would be surrounded by the 
 "rebels on all four sides, who would be assisted 
 " by the artillery of the magazine, and the Govem- 
 " ment treasure so temptingly thrown in their way. 
 "Thus, to illustrate the proverb, the Sahibs put 
 
n THE OUTBREAK 85 
 
 "a sword into the enemy's hand, and thrust their 
 "own heads forward." 
 
 Such was indeed the case. If the choice of the 
 site for our place of refuge had been confided to 
 Azimoolah and Teeka Sing, they could not have 
 selected one more favourable for the attack. The 
 Dragoon hospital stood in the centre of a vast open 
 space, flat with the flatness of Bengal, on the south 
 bank of the canal which separated the miHtary 
 quarter from the native city, the bridge of boats, 
 the civil station, and the magazine. The estabUsh- 
 ment consisted of two single-storied barracks sur- 
 rounded by spacious verandahs; each intended to 
 afford accommodation for a company of a hundred 
 men. The building that was somewhat the larger 
 of the two was thatched with straw, which circum- 
 stance alone rendered the position untenable. The 
 other was roofed with concrete, a condition usually 
 expressed by the word " pucka " ; that ubiquitous 
 adjective which is the essential ingredient of Anglo- 
 Indian conversation. Both houses were constructed 
 of thin brickwork, hardly proof against the rays 
 of an Eastern sun, and far too frail to resist a 
 twenty-four pound shot. The hospital was provided 
 with a due modicum of cooking sheds and servants' 
 huts ; and in front of the thatched barrack was a 
 well, protected by a slight parapet. By order of Sir 
 Hugh these premises had been inclosed in a mud- 
 wall of the shape of a rectangular parallelogram ; 
 four feet in height ; three feet in thickness at the 
 base ; and twenty-four inches at the crest, which 
 was, therefore, pervious to a buUet from an Enfield 
 rifle. The batteries were constructed by the very 
 
86 CAWNPOEE chap. 
 
 simple expedient of leaving an aperture of a size 
 proportioned to the number of the guns : so that 
 our artillerymen served their pieces, as in the field, 
 with their persons entirely exposed to the fire of 
 the enemy. 
 
 Behind those slender bulwarks was gathered a 
 mixed and feeble company, to the full sum of a 
 thousand souls. Of these, four hundred and sixty- 
 five were men, of every age and profession. Their 
 wives and grown daughters were about two hundred 
 and eighty in number, and their little ones at least 
 as many. All who were able to bear arms, twenty 
 score by tale, were at once called together, and told 
 off in batches under their respective ofiicers. The 
 north side of the intrenchment, facing the river, was 
 strengthened by a poor little triangular outwork, 
 which our garrison entitled " the Redan " : as if to 
 cheer themselves, during their cruel and inglorious 
 struggle, with a reminiscence of chivalrous European 
 warfare. This important post was intrusted to Major 
 Vibart, of the Second Cavalry, assisted by Captain 
 Jenkins. At the north-eastern comer. Lieutenants 
 Ashe and Sotheby superintended a battery of one 
 twenty-four-pounder howitzer and two nine-pounders. 
 Captain Kempland had charge of the east curtain, 
 while at the south-eastern angle stood three nine- 
 pounder guns under the charge of Lieutenants 
 Eckford, Bumey, and Delafosse ; of whom one was 
 destined to show upon happier fields of battle how 
 the soldiers of Cawnpore fought and bled. Next 
 in order came the main-guard, held by Lieutenant 
 Turnbull, and flanked by a tiny rifled piece carrying 
 a three-pound ball, which was manned by a detach-. 
 
n THE OUTBREAK 8V 
 
 ment under the orders of Major Prout. Towards 
 the north, Lieutenants Dempster and Martin directed 
 the working of three nine-pounders ; and their next 
 neighbour was Captain Whiting, who felt the Redan 
 with his right, and thus closed the circuit of the 
 defence. The general supervision of the artillery 
 devolved upon Major Larkins ; but that officer was 
 incapacitated by illness from taking a very active 
 part in the operations. 
 
 There was no time to be lost. While the com- 
 manders of the various posts were choosing their 
 parties, and placing their sentries, and dispensing 
 their share of the arms and ammunition, already the 
 roar of great guns, and the clouds of black smoke 
 rising fast and frequent in the north-west quarter, 
 told them that the warning of the Nana was no 
 empty menace. As when, during some great hurri- 
 cane, the tidal wave comes surging up the river, 
 unlooked for and irresistible, leaving in its track 
 desolation and ruin, the wrecks of ships and the 
 corpses of men — so on that morning, over doomed 
 Cawnpore swept the returning flood of mutiny 
 and misrule. At break of day the whole rebel 
 array poured down the Delhi road in a compact 
 body, with the Maharaja at their head, who had 
 good reason to be proud of his following. It was 
 a force which would have done credit to any 
 Mahratta chief in the palmiest days of that re- 
 doubted race. There was an entire regiment of 
 excellent cavalry, well mounted and equipped. There 
 was a detachment of gunners and drivers from the 
 Oude Artillery, who had been despatched as a loan 
 from Lucknow to Cawnpore, just in time to enable 
 
88 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 them to take part in the revolt. There were the 
 Nana's own myrmidons, who made up by attach- 
 ment to his cause what they wanted in militaiy 
 skill. Lastly, there were three fine battalions of 
 Bengal sepoys, led by experienced sepoy officers, 
 armed with English muskets, and trained by English 
 discipline. When the mutineers arrived at the out- 
 skirts of the station, Teeka Sing, the General, post- 
 poning his private gain and malice to the public 
 good, repaired at once to the magazine, and spent 
 the morning in securing a fleet of thirty boats which 
 lay beneath the walls, laden with shot, shell, and 
 heavy cannon. The guns in serviceable order he 
 sent off towards the intrenchment on carriages drawn 
 by Government bullocks ; and those which were not 
 in condition for immediate use he compelled the 
 artificers of the establishment to brush up on the 
 Government lathes. But the main body of the in- 
 surgents displayed no such foresight or self-control. 
 They kept close order no longer, but spread them- 
 selves out to the right and left, and, robbing, burn- 
 ing, and murdering as they went, bore southwards 
 over the civil quarter and the native city. Sir George 
 Parker and a party of his friends, who, unobservant 
 of the coming storm, were lingering over their last 
 breakfast in his pleasant villa, had barely time to 
 fly for their lives. Four office-clerks, who lived 
 together in a shop on the banks of the canal, after 
 a valiant resistance, were smoked out of their lodging, 
 and slain as they fled. The troopers of the Second 
 Cavalry galloped up and down the lanes of the black 
 town, hunting for Englishmen; and the low-caste 
 Mohammedans of the bazaar — the sword-polishers, the 
 
n THE OUTBREAK 89 
 
 cotton-spinners, and the dealers in silver ornaments 
 — joined eagerly in the chase. One European was run 
 down and worried to death in a garden. Another, a 
 gentleman advanced in age, had concealed himself 
 in a hut near the posting-house in company with his 
 wife, his little daughter, and his son, a boy of sixteen 
 years. The wretched family were tracked to their 
 hiding-place, arrested, and dragged before the Nana, 
 who ordered them for instant execution; and they 
 were happy at least in this, that they died together 
 and without delay. Proclamation was made that 
 every building in which shelter had been given to 
 Europeans, Eurasians, or Christians of any extrac- 
 tion, should first be plundered, and then razed to 
 the ground. This announcement provided the rebels 
 with a pretext for breaking open and ransacking the 
 dwellings of many respectable natives. Buddree 
 Nath, the commissariat contractor, who was accused 
 of secreting Lady Wheeler and her daughters, lost 
 the savings of a lifetime in the course of a single 
 hour. The scum of the city made the most of their 
 period of licence, and, when any portable property 
 came in their way, took good care not to inquire very 
 closely into the creed of the owner. Among others, 
 the King of Oude is supposed to have suffered a 
 heavy loss. Forty thousand rupees belonging to a 
 Hindoo merchant were taken from a cart which 
 stood in the premises of the post-office, and removed 
 into the most blackguard districts of the neighbour- 
 hood. A gang of cavalry soldiers went down the 
 Street of Silver, the main thoroughfare of the town, 
 beating in the doors of the cloth-merchants and 
 money-changers, insulting the trembling tradesmen. 
 
90 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 and carrying ofiP all the valuables on which they 
 could lay their hands. Meanwhile, those mutineers 
 whose religious spite overcame their desire for lucre, 
 were deriving intense enjoyment from the occupation 
 of cannonading the church. Another large company 
 of Brahmin sepoys, whose orthodox indignation took 
 a more practical turn, and could not content itself 
 with the somewhat tame pastime of persecuting 
 senseless brick and plaster, marched off to the 
 Mohammedan quarter ; bombarded the residence of 
 the Nunhey Nawab, the most influential Mussulman 
 noble of the vicinity ; blew open the gates ; smashed 
 the glass-ware and the porcelain ; appropriated the 
 contents of the wardrobe and the plate-chest ; and 
 told the master of the house to consider himself a 
 prisoner. They then proceeded to take into custody 
 other leading gentlemen of the same persuasion, and 
 returned to the Nana loaded with spoil, and followed 
 by a line of sedan-chairs containing the persons of 
 their captives. 
 
 As the morning advanced, the reports of the 
 musketry and the tumult of voices grew more and 
 more distinct to the ears of our countrymen. Nearer 
 and ever nearer rolled the flames of the blazing 
 houses, and the white puffs which betokened the 
 presence of artillery. At length, stung by a generous 
 impatience, Lieutenant Ashe took out his guns to 
 reconnoitre, accompanied by some five-and-twenty 
 volunteers. The party had barely gone forward a 
 quarter of a mile, when they caught sight of the 
 rebel van, which had already passed the canal, and 
 occupied in force the neighbourhood of the bridge. 
 Our people returned faster than they went, and not 
 
n THE OUTBREAK 91 
 
 all; for one, at least, Lieutenant Ashbumer, was 
 never again seen or heard of; and poor Mr. Murphy, 
 of the East Indian Railway, brought back with him 
 a wound, to which he succumbed before the day was 
 out. He enjoyed the melancholy honour of being 
 buried in a solitary coffin which had been found in 
 a comer of the hospital ; and shared with one other, 
 a lady who died of fever, enviable in that she was 
 the first, the privilege of being decently interred 
 within the precincts of the intrenchment. There 
 soon came to be scanty leisure for funeral rites. At 
 ten o'clock the mutineers fired their first shot, from 
 a nine-pounder gun, which they had brought down 
 to the vacant lines of the First Infantry. The ball 
 struck the crest of the mud wall, and glided over 
 into the smaller barrack, where it broke the leg of 
 an unhappy native footman, who breathed his last in 
 the course of the afternoon. This terrible and un- 
 wonted visitor, the precursor of many, scared indoors 
 a large assembly of ladies and children who were 
 sitting and playing in and about the verandahs; 
 and sent to their posts the fighting men, most of 
 whom had now their earliest experience of the sen- 
 sation produced by the rush of a round shot. 
 
 And so the siege had begun. The first stroke had 
 been played in that momentous contest, of which 
 the stake was a thousand English lives; since no- 
 thing remained for our countrymen to protect save 
 their bare existences and the empty shadow of the 
 British rule. The first game had gone against us. 
 The Nana had won the regiments ; and the regiments 
 had won their colours, their weapons, and their 
 pay. Why needed they to grudge the losers their 
 
92 CAWNPOKE chap. 
 
 breath ? Why, for a possession of no value, except 
 to the owner, should they deliberately commence a 
 hazardous and protracted game of double or quits? 
 Power and authority, treasures and munitions, the 
 sinews and the muscles of war, had aUke passed over 
 to the sepoys. What temptation was there to run 
 the manifold public chances of battle, and incur the 
 personal risk which none can avoid who bring angry 
 Englishmen to bay, in order to destroy a handful of 
 disheartened invalids and civilians, scarcely numer- 
 ous enough to escort their women and children in 
 safety to Allahabad through the perils of eddies, and 
 quicksands, and bands of highwaymen recruited and 
 emboldened in those months of general anarchy ? 
 
 But it came to pass that their heart was hardened, 
 and they would not let our people go. The ring- 
 leaders of the mutiny knew well that their position 
 was one of utmost hazard. They had been too 
 criminal to be forgiven, and too successful to be for- 
 gotten. Henceforward their aim was to implicate 
 their comrades beyond the hope of pardon ; to place 
 between them and their former condition of life a 
 gulf filled with English blood. And when the Nana 
 exhorted his followers to slay and spare not, he 
 spoke to willing ears; for between them and our 
 countrymen there existed a degree of mutual dis- 
 trust which could only end in mutual extermination. 
 The minds of men were so agitated and disordered 
 by anger and uneasiness, that the sole chance of life 
 for either party lay in the utter destruction of the 
 other. Already quarter was no longer given, and, 
 indeed, could hardly be said to be worth the asking. 
 
 A European knew that, if one set of Pandies enter- 
 
n THE OUTBREAK 93 
 
 tained any qualms of compassion or gratitude, the 
 next squad who came across him would infallibly cut 
 his throat ; and a sepoy knew that, if his captors 
 took the trouble to drag him about in their train for 
 a few days, the magistrate at the first station on the 
 road would have him hung before the officer in com- 
 mand of the party had emerged from the bath-room. 
 This was no generous rivalry of national vigour and 
 skill and prowess. Little of military science was here, 
 and less of military courtesy. With clenched teeth and 
 bated breath, the Brahmin and the Saxon closed for 
 the death-grapple ; well aware that, when once their 
 fingers were on each other s throats, one only of the 
 combatants would ever rise from the trampled sand. 
 As soon as the Rubicon of insurrection had been 
 passed, — as soon as the gauntlet of sedition had been 
 thrown, — the first care of the mutineers was to get 
 rid of all who had been the witnesses of their guilt, 
 and who might hereafter be the judges. No sepoy 
 felt secure of his neck and plunder as long as one 
 solitary Englishman remained on Indian soil. The 
 revolted soldier desired with a nervous and morbid 
 anxiety to get quit of the Sahibs by fair means or 
 foul. He did not care to expose us to unnecessary 
 misery and humiliation; to torture our men, or to 
 outrage our women. His sole object was to see the 
 last of us : to get done with us for good and for ever. 
 Ignorant beyond conception of European geography 
 and statistics, he had convinced himself that, if once 
 the Anglo-Indians of every sex and age were killed 
 off, from the Governor-General to the Sergeant-major's 
 baby, there did not exist the wherewithal to replace 
 them. He conceived that Great Britain had been 
 
94 CAWNPOKE chap. 
 
 drained dry of men to recruit the garrison of our 
 Asiatic empire ; that our home population consisted 
 of nurses and children, of invalids who had lefb the 
 East for a while in quest of health, and veterans 
 who had retired to live at ease on their share of the 
 treasures of Hindostan. He fancied that the tidings 
 of a general massacre of our people would render 
 our island a home of helpless mourners ; he found 
 that those tidings changed it into a nest of pitiless 
 avengers. He believed our power to be a chimera, 
 and he discovered it to be a hydra. He learned too 
 late that he had digged a pit for himself, and had 
 fallen into the ditch which he had made : that his 
 mischief and his violent dealings had come down 
 upon his own head : that Englishmen were many, 
 and that, when the occasion served, their feet too 
 were not slow to shed blood : that our soldiers could 
 kill within the year more heathen than our mis- 
 sionaries had converted in the course of a century : 
 that our social science talk about the sacredness of 
 human life, and our May Meeting talk concerning 
 our duty towards those benighted souls for whom 
 Christ died, meant that we were to forgive most of 
 those who had never injured us, and seldom hang 
 an innocent Hindoo if we could catch a guilty one : 
 that the great principles of mercy and justice and 
 charity must cease to be eternally true until the 
 injured pride of a mighty nation had been satisfied, 
 its wrath glutted, and its sway restored. 
 
 But though apprehension and dislike had inspired 
 the rebels with a determination to destroy every 
 Englishman off the face of the land, had they no 
 feehng of ruth for the sufferings and the fate of our 
 
II 
 
 THE OUTBREAK 95 
 
 women ? Never in European warfare has the sword 
 been deliberately pointed at a female breast ; save 
 during those rare seasons, indelible from memory 
 and inexpiable by national remorse, when, after the 
 mad carnage of a successful escalade, drunkenness 
 and licence have ruled the hour. If the Nana knew 
 the valour and strength of our oiSicers too well to 
 aUow him to be merciful, how came it that he did 
 not respect the weakness of our ladies? No one 
 can rightly read the history of the mutineers unless 
 he constantly takes into account the wide and radi- 
 cal difference between the views held by Europeans 
 and Asiatics with reference to the treatment and 
 position of the weaker sex. We who live among 
 the records and associations of chivalry still make 
 it our pride to regard women as goddesses. The 
 Hindoos, who allow their sisters and daughters few 
 or no personal rights ; the Mohammedans, who do 
 not even allow them souls ; cannot bring themselves 
 to look upon them as better than playthings. The 
 pride of a Mussulman servant is painfully wounded 
 by a scolding from the mistress of the house, and he 
 takes every opportunity of showing his contempt for 
 her by various childish impertinences. Among the 
 numberless s3rmptoms of our national eccentricity, 
 that which seems most extraordinary to a native 
 is our submitting to be governed by a woman. And 
 as a Hindoo fails to appreciate the social standing 
 of an EngHsh lady, so it is to be feared that he gives 
 her little credit for her domestic virtues. Her free 
 and unrestrained life excites in his mind the most 
 singular and unjust ideas. To see women walking 
 in public, driving about in open carriages, dining, 
 
96 CAWNPORE chap. ii. 
 
 and talking, and dancing with men connected with 
 them neither by blood nor marriage, never fails to 
 produce upon him a false and unfortunate impres- 
 sion.* And therefore it happened that a sepoy 
 corporal, whose estimate of a European lady was 
 curiously compounded of contempt, disapprobation, 
 and misconception, was little adapted to entertain 
 for her sentiments of knightly tenderness and 
 devotion. In the eyes of such a man every English- 
 woman was but the mother of an English child, and 
 every English child was a sucking tyrant. The 
 wolves, with their mates and whelps, had been 
 hounded into their den, and now or never was the 
 time to smoke them out, and knock on the head the 
 whole of that formidable brood. And so, on the 
 first Saturday of that June, — these, bent on a whole- 
 sale butchery : those, prepared to play the man for 
 their dear life, and for lives dearer still, — with 
 widely different hope, but with equal resolution, on 
 either side of the meagre rampart, besiegers and 
 besieged mustered for the battle. 
 
 * In The Mirror of Indigo^ a vernacular drama which has 
 gained for itself a niche in Indian history, and contributed a 
 rather remarkable page to the Law Reports of the Calcutta 
 tribunals, the following passage occurs in a conversation 
 between two native women : — 
 
 Eeboti. Moreover, the wife of the Indigo-planter, in order 
 to make her husband's case strong, has sent a letter to the 
 magistrate, since it is said that the magistrate hears her words 
 most attentively. 
 
 Adwie. I saw the lady. She has no shame at all. "When the 
 magistrate of the district (whose name occasions great terror) 
 goes riding about through the village, the lady also rides on 
 horseback with him. Riding about on a horse ! Because the 
 aunt of Kezi once laughed before the elder brother of her 
 husband, all people ridiculed her : while this was the magis- 
 trate of the district. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE SIEGE 
 
 THE intelligence of the revolt speedily travelled 
 over all surrounding districts, and attracted to 
 the spot the entire available blackguardism of the 
 neighbourhood. The disloyal and insolvent land- 
 holders for thirty miles about called out their 
 tenantry and retainers, and made the best of their 
 way to Cawnpore. Some chieftains brought two 
 hundred armed followers ; others four hundred. One 
 Rajah came with a tail of forty score : while Bho- 
 wany Sing, whom Nanukchund designates as " that 
 old and notorious scoundrel," marched into the rebel 
 camp at the head of twelve hundred matchlock-men. 
 No one seems to have entertained any doubt as to 
 the final extinction of our sway. The old order of 
 things had disappeared for ever, and it behoved any 
 feudal leader who had ambition or necessities to be 
 present and ready to assert himself ere the new 
 order was definitely established. The Nana was 
 first to seize the occasion by the forelock. A trusty 
 adherent was sent to Bithoor with an escort of 
 twenty horse to announce the commencement of 
 the Mahratta rule. It was a terrible hour for the 
 personal enemies of him who had assumed the 
 
 H 
 
98 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 prime authority. As soon as it became known that 
 tlieir master was in power, the idle ruffians who 
 swarmed in his palace at once proceeded to gratify 
 his spite and their own wanton cruelty. They 
 forced the doors of Goordeen, who acted as agent 
 to the widows of Bajee Rao, the late Peishwa; 
 knocked down his house about his ears; slew his 
 people ; and ended by blowing him from the mouth 
 of a cannon. They seized the attendants of Chimna 
 Apa, who pulled the strings of the lawsuit brought 
 against the Maharaja by his cousin, loaded them 
 with chains, and informed them that they were to 
 be put to death as soon as the captors could find 
 leisure to cut off their hands and noses. Nanuk- 
 chund, who had been the leading counsel in the 
 case, was warned in time of the impending danger. 
 He sent word to his juniors to provide for their 
 own safety, and himself sought concealment in an 
 unfurnished house belonging to one of his friends, 
 whence he observed the progress of the insurrection 
 with a penetration that was occasionally distorted 
 by present terror and the anticipation of future 
 advancement. 
 
 On the morning of Sunday, the seventh of June, 
 a proclamation in two languages was issued at 
 Cawnpore from the press of a schoolmaster, and 
 distributed by his pupils, adjuring all true Hindoos 
 and Mussulmans to unite in defence of their religions, 
 and rally round the person of the Nana. Neither 
 Mussulmans nor Hindoos were slow to obey the 
 call. The residents of the Butcher s Ward forth- 
 with set up the green standard, and were joined 
 by the dregs of the population. Respectable Moham- 
 
m THE SIEGE 99 
 
 medans at first held aloof; but next day the banner 
 was removed to an open square, south of the canal, 
 whither a large and influential body of the faithful 
 repaired to do homage to the symbol of their religion. 
 Azeezun, the Demoiselle Theroigne of the revolt, 
 appeared on horseback amidst a group of her ad- 
 mirers, dressed in the uniform of her favoured regi- 
 ment, armed with pistols, and decorated with medals. 
 A priest of high consideration seated himself beneath 
 the flag, rosary in hand, and endeavoured by prayer 
 and meditation to ascertain whether the day was 
 propitious for an attack upon the stronghold of 
 the infidel. His piety, however, was cut short by 
 a round-shot from Lieutenant Dempster's battery, 
 which sent the assemblage of behevers scuttling to 
 the nearest cover : upon which the holy man bundled 
 together his beads, tucked up his robes, and made 
 off with a precipitation not altogether consistent 
 with the doctrine of fatalism. 
 
 Meanwhile throughout and around the town were 
 being gathered in the gleanings of that harvest of 
 murder. A miserable family of the name of Mackin- 
 tosh was discovered lurking under a bridge disguised 
 in native clothes, their faces stained with pitiful 
 want of skill in imitation of the Hindoo complexion. 
 A road overseer was caught with his wife and 
 children to the north of the station; and another 
 person employed in the same department, who 
 had found a temporary refuge beneath the roof of 
 an individual whom he had formerly obliged with 
 a contract, was now turned adrift, and taken by 
 the bloodhounds who were scouring the city. To 
 each and all of these capture was death, instant, 
 
100 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 inexorable. The Maharaja had despatched a party 
 of sepoys to the residence of Mr. Edward Greenway, 
 a man of considerable property, who had given 
 shelter to an ofi&cer recently cashiered by court- 
 martial. This latter gentleman now proved that 
 in whatever military qualities he might have been 
 deficient, courage, at least, was not amongst them ; 
 for he defended the threshold of his host until the 
 last cartridge had been expended, and then walked 
 in among the assailants, and bade them cut his 
 throat: an invitation to which they eagerly responded. 
 
 They then secured Mr. Greenway, his wife, his 
 sister, and his little ones, and brought them as 
 prisoners to the Nana ; who ordered them into con- 
 finement with the expectation of obtaining a ransom, 
 and the intention of killing them whether or not 
 the money was forthcomiug. He for one had no 
 notion of permitting his avarice to clash with his 
 barbarity. 
 
 As the excitement of tracking down and unearth- 
 ing Englishmen began to languish on account of 
 the growing scarcity of victims, the mutineers 
 gradually betook themselves to the more serious 
 busiuess of the siege. During the whole of Saturday 
 Teeka Sing had been hard at work in the Arsenal, 
 mounting the great guns, and despatching them 
 successively to the scene of action. As fast as each 
 piece arrived, it was placed in position, and manned 
 by a party of volunteers. By noon on Sunday the 
 cordon of batteries was complete, and our intrench- 
 ment was raked by twenty-four-pound shot from 
 every quarter of the compass. Now became patent 
 to the most inexperienced eye the fatal and irre- 
 
m THE SIEGE 101 
 
 mediable defects of the site which our General 
 had selected for the fortification. The Dragoon 
 hospital was entirely surrounded by large and solid 
 buildings, at distances var3dng from three to eight 
 hundred yards : buildings from which the assailants 
 derived protection at least as effectual as that 
 afforded to the garrison by their improvised defences. 
 From roof and window poured a shower of bullets 
 during the hours of daylight, while after dusk troops 
 of sepoys hovered about within pistol-shot, and made 
 night hideous with incessant volleys of musketry. 
 Henceforward, there was but little sleep for our 
 countrymen. 
 
 The annals of warfare contain no episode so 
 painful as the story of this melancholy conflict. 
 It is a story which needs not comment or embellish- 
 ment. Whether related in the inornate language of 
 official correspondence, or in the childish phraseology 
 of Hindoo evidence, it moves to tears as surely as 
 the pages in which the greatest of all historians 
 tells the last agony of the Athenian host in Sicily. 
 The sun never before looked on such a sight as a 
 crowd of women and children cooped within a small 
 space, and exposed during twenty days and nights 
 to the concentrated fire of thousands of muskets 
 and a score of heavy cannon. At first every 
 projectile which struck the barracks was the signal 
 for heartrending shrieks, and low waiUng more 
 heartrending yet: but, ere long, time and habit 
 taught them to suffer and to fear in silence. Before 
 the third evening every window and door had been 
 beaten in. Next went the screens, the piled-up 
 furniture, and the internal partitions: and soon 
 
102 CAWNPOKE chap. 
 
 shell and ball ranged at will through and through 
 the naked rooms. Some ladies were slain outright 
 by grape or round-shot. Others were struck down 
 by bullets. Many were crushed beneath falling 
 brickwork, or mutilated by the splinters which flew 
 from shattered sash and panel. Happy were they 
 whose age and sex called them to the front of the 
 battle, and dispensed them from the spectacle of 
 this passive carnage. Better to hear more distinctly 
 the crackle of the sepoy musketry, and the groans of 
 wounded wife and sister more faintly. If die they 
 both must, such was the thought of more than one 
 husband, it was well that duty bade them die apart. 
 Never did men fight with more signal determina- 
 tion against more fearful odds. Not at Fontenoy, 
 not at Arcot, not at Albuera was British endurance 
 so stubborn, or British valour so conspicuous. For, 
 while the besiegers worked their guns under cover, 
 the artillerymen of the besieged stood erect upon 
 the bare plain. While the besiegers possessed un- 
 bounded store of huge mortars and battering-guns, 
 the besieged had a few cannon too small for effica- 
 cious service in the field. While disease and the 
 accidents of combat hourly diminished the numbers 
 of those within, the ranks without were daily swollen 
 by regiments of recent mutineers and fresh clans of 
 rebels. But circumstances such as these are best 
 adapted to exhibit the strange humour of the 
 English warrior. With all that was most dear at 
 their backs, and in front all that was most hateful, 
 and, in their view, most contemptible, undaunted 
 and not uncheerful our countrjnnen bore up the fray. 
 From the very earliest days of the attack it became 
 
m THE SIEGE 103 
 
 apparent that old Sir Hugh was unequal to the 
 exposure and fatigue involved in the conduct of the 
 struggle, and in the inspection and re-distribution of 
 the posts, a labour rendered only too severe by the 
 deadly fire of the enemy. In such a strait men act as 
 acted those ten thousand Greeks, when by the banks 
 of far Euphrates their chief had been slain and their 
 allies scattered to the winds. " Then," says Xeno- 
 phon, " Clearchus took the command, and the rest 
 "obeyed; not as having chosen him by formal 
 "election, but because they saw that he, and he 
 " alone, had the temper of a general." The Clearchus 
 of Cawnpore was Captain Moore, an officer in charge 
 of the invalids of the Thirty-second Foot. He was a 
 tall, fair, blue-eyed man, glowing with animation and 
 easy Irish intrepidity. Wheresoever there was most 
 pressing risk, and wheresoever there was direst 
 wretchedness, his pleasant presence was seldom 
 long wanting. Under the rampart; at the bat- 
 teries; in some out-picket, where men were dropping 
 like pheasants under a fearful cross-fire; in some 
 comer of the hospital, to a brave heart more fearful 
 still, where lay the mangled forms of those young 
 and delicate beings whom war should always spare : 
 — ever and everywhere was heard his sprightly voice 
 speaking words of encouragement, of exhortation, of 
 sympathy, and even of courteous gallantry. Wher- 
 ever Moore had passed he left men something more 
 courageous, and women something less unhappy. 
 It is well when such leaders are at hand. It is ill 
 when they are discovered and promoted too late to 
 undo the evil that has been already done. 
 
 Across the south-western angle of the intrench- 
 
104 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 ment ran a line of barracks which were still in course 
 of erection. They each measured some two hundred 
 feet in length, and were constructed of red brick, 
 which had not as yet received that coat of white 
 plaster that reduces all Anglo-Indian house decora- 
 tion to a uniformity of colour diversified only by the 
 various degrees of age and shabbiness. Of these, the 
 buildings marked in the plan by the numbers 2, 8, 
 and 4, were in close proximity to the comer of our 
 fortification, the entire extent of which they com- 
 manded, inasmuch as their walls had been already 
 completed to an elevation of forty feet. None of the 
 others had been raised to a height of more than two 
 or three yards from the level of the ground. The 
 floors had not been laid, nor the bamboo poles 
 removed, which, rudely spliced together, form the 
 cheap but frail scaffolding of Hindoo architecture: 
 and the ground both within and without, along the 
 whole row, was thickly covered with piles of the 
 materials used in the progress of the works. From 
 the very first the sepoys possessed the northern half 
 of the range : but they never succeeded in obtaining 
 a hold on Barrack Number Four, which was defended 
 by a party of civil engineers who had been em- 
 ployed upon the East Indian Railroad. These gentle- 
 men, over and above that indigenous aptitude for 
 conflict common to all Englishmen of the upper 
 classes, had acquired, during years spent in survey- 
 ing, a trained sharpness of vision and a correct judg- 
 ment of distance which rendered them peculiarly 
 dangerous when placed behind the sights of an 
 Enfield rifle. For three days these amateurs baffled 
 every attempt of the enemy : but at the end of that 
 
m THE SIEGE 106 
 
 period the assaults of the enemy became so fierce 
 and frequent that they were not sorry to accept the 
 services of a fighting man by profession. And so 
 there came across to them from the Redan Captain 
 Jenkins, a valiant soldier, foredoomed to a death of 
 anguish extraordinary even at such a time. 
 
 Whether the mutineers were aware of this intro- 
 duction of the military element, or whether they 
 already had learned to respect civilian skill and 
 bravery, from this time forth they desisted from 
 their efforts in that -quarter, and turned their atten- 
 tion to the southernmost of the unfinished erections, 
 which they proceeded to occupy in great force. 
 Hereupon Lieutenant Glanville was posted with a 
 small detachment in the adjoining barrack, which 
 thenceforward was recognized by both parties as the 
 key of our position. What the farm of Hougoumont 
 was at Waterloo, — what the sand-bag battery was at 
 Inkerman, — that was Barrack Number Two in the 
 death-wrestle of Cawnpore. How furious was the 
 strife, — how desperate the case of the little garrison, 
 may be gathered from the fact that, though only 
 sixteen in number, they had a surgeon to them- 
 selves, who never lacked ample employment. Glan- 
 ville came under his hands, desperately wounded: 
 and the vacancy thus caused was soon after supplied 
 by Lieutenant Mowbray Thomson of the Fifty-sixth 
 Native Infantry. This officer did his best to lose a 
 life which destiny seemed determined to preserve in 
 order that England might know how, in their exceed- 
 ing distress, her sons had not been unmindful of 
 her ancient honour. " My sixteen men," he writes, 
 " consisted in the first instance of Ensign Henderson 
 
106 CAWNPOEE chap. 
 
 " of the Fifty-sixth. Native Infantry, five or six of the 
 " Madras Fusiliers, two plate-layers from the railway 
 " works, and some men of the Eighty-fourth Regi- 
 "ment. The first instalment was soon disabled. 
 " The Madras Fusiliers were armed with the Enfield 
 " rifle, and consequently they had to bear the brunt 
 " of the attack. They were all shot at their posts. 
 " Several of the Eighty-fourth also fell : but, in con- 
 " sequence of the importance of the position, as soon 
 " as a loss in my little corps was reported. Captain 
 "Moore sent us over a reinforcement from the in- 
 "trenchment. Sometimes a civilian, sometimes a 
 "soldier came. The orders given us were, not to 
 " surrender with our lives, and we did our best to 
 " obey them." 
 
 Nothing contributed so much to check the spread 
 of the rebellion of 1857 as the individual courage 
 and pugnacity of our countrymen resident in the 
 East. Civil and military alike, they were all skilled 
 in the use of weapons, and cool in the presence of 
 personal danger. Such a habit of body and mind 
 they acquired both for policy and for pleasure. 
 Every Anglo-Indian is well aware that he is one of 
 an imperial race, holding its own in the midst of a 
 subject population by dint of foresight and martial 
 prowess. There were villages of evil reputation 
 which on the day of assessment the collector pre- 
 ferred to visit on the back of the steadiest Arab 
 in his stables, with a favourite hog spear carelessly 
 balanced beside his right stirrup. There were no- 
 torious bits of road where the traveller felt more 
 comfortable if he heard from time to time the lock 
 of his revolver clanking against the soda-water 
 
m THE SIEGE 107 
 
 bottles in the pocket of his palanquin. Never was 
 there a better training-school for warfare than the 
 Indian hunting-field. A man who has heard un- 
 moved above his head the scream of a crippled 
 elephant, — who behind his trusty Westley Richards 
 has awaited, calm and collected, the last rush of a 
 wounded tiger, — need not doubt what his behaviour 
 may be in any possible emergency. He who, hke 
 more than one true sportsman, has hardly crawled 
 away, bloody knife in hand, from the embrace of a 
 dying bear, — ^who has kept at bay a forty-inch boar 
 with the butt of his shivered lance, — will not be 
 at a loss how to meet the charge of a mutinous 
 trooper. The rebels found to their cost that the 
 Sahibs, hke old stalkers of large game, were seldom 
 foolhardy and never remiss ; — that they were neither 
 fluttered by peril nor over-excited by success; — 
 that they rarely failed to make the most of what 
 cover they could get, and still more rarely wasted a 
 cartridge. Lieutenant Thomson contrived a sort of 
 perch half-way up the wall of his barrack, in which 
 he stationed a young officer, named StirHng, of high 
 repute as a marksman, who soon proved that a rebel 
 running home to his dinner was at least as easy to 
 hit as an ibex bounding down the crags in a 
 Himalayan valley, or a blue cow dodging in and 
 out amidst the trunks of an Oude forest. 
 
 The whole of this range of buildings not included 
 within our posts was literally alive with sepoys. They 
 could distinctly be heard scampering along in troops, 
 like rats behind an antique wainscot, chattering, 
 yelling, or screaming under the emotion of the 
 moment. From door, and window, and drain, and 
 
108 CAWNPOKE chap. 
 
 loophole they fired away at our stronghold, accom- 
 pan3dng each shot with a taunt, conveying, in Oriental 
 fashion, a random but painful statement concerning 
 a remote ancestress of the person addressed. Ever 
 and anon a fanatic, inspired by some vile drug, would 
 issue forth into the open, brandishing his sword, in 
 order to indulge himself in a dance of defiance ; on 
 all which occasions Lieutenant Stirling took good 
 care that the performance should not meet with an 
 encore. When the enemy became more than usually 
 troublesome, the picket which was most hardly 
 pressed would invite their neighbours to come over 
 and assist them: and then the combined force of 
 some thirty bayonets sallied forth to sweep the line 
 of barracks, chasing the foe before them ; killing the 
 boldest and slowest of foot; knocking on the head 
 such as were drunk or asleep ; shooting down those 
 who, in their anxiety to get a good aim, had 
 ensconced themselves too high up to be able to 
 climb down on so short a notice; and driving the 
 rest out, and across the plain : at which point the 
 gunners of the intrenchment took up the work, and 
 plied the flying multitude with grape and canister. 
 During one of the earliest of these sorties eleven 
 mutineers were captured, and brought into the in- 
 trenchment. As no sentry could just then be spared 
 firom the front, they were placed under the charge 
 of Bridget Widdowson, a stalwart dame, wife of a 
 private of the Thirty-second Regiment. Secured by 
 the very insufiicient contrivance of a single rope, 
 passed from wrist to wrist, they sat quietly on the 
 ground like good school-children, while the matron 
 walked up and down in front of the row, drawn 
 
m THE SIEGE 109 
 
 sword in Land. After she had been relieved by a 
 warder of the other sex, they all managed to slip 
 off: and from that time forward it was generally 
 understood that prisoners were to be left on the spot 
 where they had been caught, with the jackal and 
 the vulture as their jailers. A captive, as long as 
 he remained in custody, was a consumer of precious 
 food; and at once became the most dangerous of 
 spies, if he succeeded in makiQg his escape to the 
 rebel lines with a report of our destitute condition. 
 
 On Friday, the twelfth, the insurgents made their 
 first general assault upon our position. The cavalry, 
 who on that day week had been the first in the 
 career of sedition, were now with some difficulty 
 prevailed upon to dismount and lead the way to 
 glory; but after the loss of two of their number 
 they concluded that enough had been done to sustain 
 the credit of their branch of the service, and retired 
 to console themselves for their repulse in the opium 
 shops of the suburbs. The sepoy infantry next 
 advanced to try their fortune, followed by all the 
 rabble of the bazaars. They came on Hke men, but 
 they went thither where there were men likewise. 
 It was not thus that our rampart was to be won. 
 Every English soldier had ready to his hand from 
 three to ten muskets loaded with ball and slug : for 
 there was a plentiful stock of small-arms within the 
 fortification. The civihan held his thumb pressed 
 tight upon the hammer of a pet smooth-bore, with 
 a charge of Number Four shot for close quarters 
 snugly packed in the left-hand barrel. The officer 
 in command of the battery was feeling for the leaden 
 tip in each chamber of his revolver, as he gave his 
 
110 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 final order to take time and aim below the cross- 
 belts. Our people were composed and confident. 
 Sending quiet shots from behind a wall into the 
 middle of a crowd was child's play compared with 
 the daylong hazard of the crashing cannonade. After 
 a short but bitter engagement the assailants with- 
 drew, leaving on the field many of their comrades. 
 Profiting by this harsh lesson they returned hence- 
 forward to their old tactics, and applied themselves 
 to pound out the life of our garrison by an unremit- 
 ting storm of ball, and bomb, and buUet. 
 
 Few, and ever fewer, in number ; overmatched in 
 weight of metal ; ill-provided with ammunition, and 
 protected by not an inch of cover, our artillerymen 
 still sustained the hot debate. Lieutenant Ashe 
 went through his work with a display of professional 
 interest that would not have disgraced Sir William 
 Armstrong during a trial match at Shoeburyness. 
 After each round the besiegers saw with astonish- 
 ment the zealous young Sahib leap on the heel of 
 the discharged gun, spy-glass in hand, heedless of 
 the missiles which were chirping round his ears. 
 Unfortunately eight out of our ten pieces were nine- 
 pounders, and the supply of nine-pound balls was 
 soon expended. Reduced to load with shot a size 
 too small, our officers could not secure accuracy in 
 their practice. The gunners in our south-eastern 
 battery had suffered much from a small piece which 
 the sepoys had contrived to hoist into position 
 amidst the debris of one among the half-built bar- 
 racks. Lieutenant Delafosse, after despatching a 
 number of six-pound balls in the direction of the 
 embrasure without any perceptible result, at length 
 
ra THE SIEGE 111 
 
 resolved to bring the matter to a conclusion in one 
 way or another. He rammed down three cannon- 
 balls, filled up the chinks with grape, bade his men 
 stand back, and fired off this portentous charge. 
 To his surprise and delight his own gun did not 
 burst, and nothing more was ever heard of the tire- 
 some little antagonist. The same officer, somewhat 
 later in the siege, was in the north-eastern battery 
 when the carriage of a cannon was ignited by an un- 
 lucky accident. The situation was most critical, for 
 the woodwork, which had stood beneath the June 
 sun until it was dry as tinder, blazed furiously, 
 and there was imminent risk of a general explosion 
 of all the powder in the battery. The rebels dis- 
 cerned the opportunity, and concentrated their fire 
 upon the spot where Delafosse, stretched at length 
 on his back beneath the gun, was puUing down 
 the burning splinters and scattering earth upon the 
 flames. By the aid of two private soldiers he extin- 
 guished the conflagration, though eighteen-pound 
 and twenty-four-pound shot were flying past at the 
 rate of six a minute. With such examples before 
 them, people of no class or calling were behindhand 
 in acts of daring when the common safety was at 
 stake. One Jacobi, a coachmaker by trade, and, 
 to judge from his appellation, a person of mixed 
 parentage, descried on the roof of the magazine a 
 fire-ball, which he mistook for a live shell. Under 
 this impression he clambered up, secured the object 
 of his apprehension, and heaved it over the breast- 
 work with a sigh of relief. There was many a Cross 
 of Victoria earned in that camp, where victory was 
 not, nor any reasonable chance of victory. 
 
112 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 But the contest was too unequal to last long. By 
 the end of the first week our fifty-nine artillerymen 
 had all been killed and wounded at their posts. Of 
 the officers to whom the charge of the guns had 
 originally been intrusted, few had escaped unhurt 
 from the hail of lead and iron, or the hardly less 
 deadly rays of the Indian noon. Sunstroke had 
 killed Major Prout. Captain Kempland was stretched 
 on the floor of the barrack, dazed and powerless. 
 His next in command, Lieutenant Eckford, a soldier 
 of high promise and an accomplished gentleman, 
 while snatching half-an-hour's repose under the roof 
 of the verandah, was struck full on the heart by a 
 cannon-ball. In the west quarter Dempster had 
 been shot dead, and from the same battery Martin 
 had been carried into the hospital with a bullet in 
 his lungs. For a while volunteers endeavoured to 
 supply the place of the trained gunners ; and all was 
 done that could be expected from bandsmen, and 
 opium agents, and telegraph-clerks firing six-pound 
 balls out of damaged nine-pounders, while exposed 
 without protection to a murderous discharge fi:om 
 siege guns and heavy mortars. There could be only 
 one termination to such a business. Our only 
 howitzer was knocked clean off its carriage. One 
 cannon lost the entire muzzle. Some had their sides 
 beaten in, some their vents blown out. At length 
 our park of artillery was reduced to a couple of 
 pieces, which were withdrawn under cover, loaded 
 with grape, and reserved for the purpose of repelling 
 an assault. And even of these the bore had been 
 injured to such an extent that the canister could not 
 be driven home. Our poor ladies, accordingly, in 
 
Ill THE SIEGE 113 
 
 rivalry of those somewhat apocryphal Carthaginian 
 dames who twisted their hair into bowstrings, gave 
 up their stockings to supply the case for a novel but 
 not unserviceable cartridge. Since the days when 
 the shopmen of Londonderry loaded their quaint old 
 ordnance with brickbats wrapped in strips of gutter- 
 piping, necessity has, perhaps, never been brought 
 to bed of a more singular offspring. 
 
 As our reply waxed more faint and ever fainter, 
 the fire of the enemy continued to augment in 
 volume, in rapidity, and in precision. The list of 
 individual casualties mounted up in increasing ratio, 
 and before long our misfortunes culminated in a 
 wholesale disaster. Grave fears had been enter- 
 tained for the security of the thatched barrack by 
 every man who had the common sense to see that 
 fire would bum straw. There were found some who, 
 with admirable self-devotion, had scrambled on to 
 that lead-bespattered slope, and essayed to cover 
 with tiles and rubbish the inflammable material of 
 the roof On the eighth evening of the bombard- 
 ment a lighted carcase settled among the rafters, 
 and the whole building was speedily in a blaze. It 
 happened most unfortunately that this barrack, as 
 affording the better shelter and the less confined 
 space, had been selected for the accommodation of 
 our wounded and our sick. No effort was spared, 
 no hazard shunned to rescue those who could not 
 help themselves : but in spite of everything which 
 could be tried, two brave men perished a little sooner 
 than their fellows, and by a rather more distressing 
 fate. That was indeed a night of horror. The roar 
 of the flames, lost every ten seconds in the peal of 
 
 I 
 
114 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 the rebel artillery; the whistle of the great shot; 
 the shrieks of the sufferers, who forgot their pain in 
 the helpless anticipation of a sudden and agonizing 
 death; the groups of crying women and children 
 huddled together in the ditch ; the stream of men 
 running to and fro between the houses, laden with 
 sacks of provisions and kegs of ammunition, and 
 private property of value, and living burdens more 
 precious still; the guards crouching silent and 
 watchful, finger on trigger, each at his station along 
 the external wall; the forms of countless foes, 
 revealed now and again by the fitful glare, prowling 
 around through the outer gloom; — these sights and 
 sounds combined to form a scene and a chorus which 
 will be ever memorable to the trio of actors who 
 lived through the catastrophe of that awful drama. 
 
 Captain Moore thought it well to give the enemy 
 an early and a convincing proof that the spirit of our 
 people was not broken by this great calamity. At 
 the dead of the ensuing night he stole out from the 
 intrenchment with fifty picked men at his heels in 
 the direction of the chapel and the racket-court. 
 Beginning from this point, the party hurried down 
 the rebel lines under favour of the darkness, doing 
 whatever rapid mischief was practicable. They sur- 
 prised in untimely slumber some native gunners, 
 who never waked again ; spiked and rolled over 
 several twenty-four pounders ; gratified their feelings 
 by blowing up a piece which had given them special 
 annoyance ; and got back, carrying in their arms four 
 of their number, and leaving another behind: — a 
 service brilliant indeed, but barren of results : for 
 the sepoys had only to resolve on the calibre that 
 
m THE SIEGE 115 
 
 they preferred, and the number of cannon which they 
 could conveniently work, and then take at will from 
 the arsenal so inconsiderately placed at their dis- 
 posal. This chivalrous act, one among many such, 
 at that time passed without reward or public ap- 
 proval. When in a water-logged vessel men are 
 toning for their lives, who observes whether his 
 neighbour does more or less at the pumps than 
 he, provided all do their utmost ? And when they 
 have betaken themselves to the boats, and are 
 rowing against time and famine, who cares which of 
 the crew feathers most neatly, and which reaches 
 forward with the straightest back ? This was no set 
 duel of civilized nations: no stately tournament, 
 wherein the champions fight beneath the eyes of a 
 friendly people, ready with their praise and sym- 
 pathy; where wounds are bandaged with a ribbon, 
 and self-sacrifice entitles the hero to a comer in our 
 modem Walhalla, the columns of the daily press. 
 Rare were those who here had leisure or heart to 
 take note, and they who survived to make report 
 were rarer still. As during the ages before Atrides 
 came on earth countless chieftains, imwept, un- 
 known, S£ink into eternal oblivion because they 
 lacked a sacred bard : so at Cawnpore many a soldier 
 brave as Hodson of Hodson's Horse, nobly prodigal 
 of himself as William Peel of the Shannon, dared, 
 and fell, and was forgotten for want of a special 
 correspondent. Correspondence there was, contain- 
 ing much earnest entreaty for a rescue and some 
 unconscious eloquence ; but too important matter 
 had to be compressed into too small a compass to 
 admit of panegyric or recommendation for honours 
 
116 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 and advancement. Several urgent missives found 
 their way to Lucknow, rolled tightly into quills, 
 sealed up, and hidden with mysterious art in and 
 about the person of Hindoo messengers ; so curiously 
 stowed away that in some cases it took almost as 
 long to produce as to convey the note : though, if 
 the rebels chanced to intercept the despatch, they 
 generally abridged the operation by cutting in pieces 
 the ill-starred courier. On the middle day of June 
 the Lucknow surgeons extracted the following lines 
 from the nose or ear of a native who had been 
 fortunate and adroit enough to elude the manifold 
 perils which beset those forty miles of road : — 
 
 " From Sir E. M. Wheeler ^ K.G.B., to Martin 
 GuhhinSy Esq. 
 
 " My dear Gubbins, 
 " We have been besieged since the sixth by the 
 "Nana Sahib, joined by the whole of the native 
 " troops, who broke out on the morning of the fourth. 
 " The enemy have two 24-pounders, and several 
 " other guns. We have only eight 9-pounders. The 
 "whole Christian population is with us in a tem- 
 "porary intrenchment, and our defence has been 
 "noble and wonderful, our loss heavy and cruel. 
 " We want aid, aid, aid ! Regards to Lawrence. 
 "Yours, &c., 
 
 " H. M. Wheeler. 
 " 14th June, 
 " Quarter-past 8 P.M. 
 
 "P.S. — If we had 200 men we could punish the 
 "scoundrels and aid you." 
 
ra THE SIEGE 117 
 
 The nature of the reply may be gathered from 
 an acknowledgment which it ehcited from Captain 
 Moore. The anniversary seems to have inspired his 
 pen. Brief and manly, cheerful and yet thoughtful, 
 it is such a letter as an English officer should write 
 on the eighteenth of June. 
 
 ''From Captain Moore, H.M. S2d Foot, 18th 
 
 June, 10 P.M. 
 "Sir, 
 
 "By desire of Sir Hugh Wheeler, I have the 
 "honour to acknowledge your letter of the 16th. 
 
 " Sir Hugh regrets you cannot send him the 200 
 " men, as he believes with their assistance we could 
 "drive the insurgents from Cawnpore, and capture 
 "their guns. 
 
 " Our troops, officers, and volunteers have acted 
 "most nobly, and on several occasions a handful of 
 " men have driven hundreds before them. Our loss 
 "has been chiefly from the sun, and their heavy 
 "guns. Our rations will last a fortnight, and we 
 " are still well supplied with ammunition. Our guns 
 "are serviceable. Report says that troops are ad- 
 "vancing from Allahabad, and any assistance might 
 "save our garrison. We, of course, are prepared to 
 "hold out to the last. It is needless to mention 
 " the name of those who have been killed, or died. 
 " We trust in God, and if our exertions here assist 
 " your safety, it will be a consolation to know that 
 " our friends appreciate our devotion. Any news of 
 " relief will cheer us. 
 
 "Yours, &c., 
 
 " J. Moore, Captain, 
 
 « By order." " 32d Regiment. 
 
118 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 And now commenced to our brethren and sisters 
 a period of unspeakable woe ; the ante-chamber of 
 ruin ; the penultimate syllable of their dismal story. 
 After the destruction of the thatched barrack, dearth 
 of house-room forced two hundred of our women 
 and children to spend twelve days of twice twelve 
 hours without ceiling overhead or flooring under- 
 foot. At night they lay on the bare ground, ex- 
 posed to every noxious influence and exhalation that 
 was abroad in the air; and in the morning they 
 rose, those among them who rose at all, to endure, 
 bareheaded often, and always roofless, the blazing 
 fury of the tropical beams. The men off guard 
 attempted to contrive for them a partial protection, 
 by stretching canvas screens across a framework of 
 muskets and poles ; but these canopies were soon 
 fired by the rebel shells, and the poor creatures were 
 reduced to cower beneath the shelter of our earth- 
 work, feebly chasing the shadow thrown by the sun 
 as he rose and set. It is impossible for a home- 
 staying Englishman to realize the true character of 
 the great troubles in 1857, unless he constantly bears 
 in mind that all which he reads was devised, and 
 done, and endured beneath the vertical rays of an 
 Eastern summer, and in a temperature varying from 
 a hundred and twenty to a hundred and thirty-eight 
 degrees in the shade. If there are any whose experi- 
 ence of heat is limited to a field-day at Wimbledon 
 in the month of August, or to a tramp over 
 Norfolk stubbles when the dogs are too thirsty to 
 work, they will obtain a more just notion from a 
 sad tale simply told than from pages of unscientific 
 rhetoric. 
 
m THE SIEGE 119 
 
 This is what befell Mrs. M , the wife of the 
 
 surgeon at a certain station on the southern confines 
 of the insurrection. " I heard," she says, " a num- 
 "ber of shot fired, and, looking out, I saw my 
 "husband driving furiously from the mess-house, 
 "waving his whip. I ran to him, and, seeing a 
 " bearer with my child in his arms, I caught her up, 
 "and got into the buggy. At the mess-house we 
 " found all the officers assembled, together with sixty 
 "sepoys, who had remained faithful. We went off 
 " in one large party, amidst a general conflagration 
 " of our late homes. We reached the caravanserai at 
 " Chattapore the next morning, and thence started 
 " for Callinger. At this point our sepoy escort de- 
 " sorted us. We were fired upon by matchlock-men, 
 "and one officer was shot dead. We heard, like- 
 "wise, that the people had risen at Callinger, so 
 " we returned and walked back ten miles that day. 
 
 " M and I carried the child alternately. Pre- 
 
 "sently Mrs. Smalley died of sunstroke. We had 
 " no food amongst us. An officer kindly lent us a 
 " horse. We were very faint. The Major died, and 
 "was buried; also the Sergeant-major, and some 
 " women. The bandsmen left us on the nineteenth 
 "of June. We were fired at again by matchlock- 
 "men, and changed direction for Allahabad. Our 
 "party consisted of nine gentlemen, two children, 
 "the sergeant, and his wife. On the morning of 
 " the twentieth. Captain Scott took Lottie on to his 
 " horse. I was riding behind my husband, and she 
 "was so crushed between us. She was two years 
 " old on the first of the month. We were both weak 
 "through want of food and the effect of the sun. 
 
120 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 " Lottie and I had no head-covering. M had 
 
 " a sepoy's cap I found on the ground. Soon after 
 " sunrise we were followed by villagers armed with 
 " clubs and spears. One of them struck Captain 
 " Scott's horse on the leg. He galloped off with 
 " Lottie, and my poor husband never saw his child 
 "again. We rode on several miles, keeping away 
 "from villages, and then crossed the river. Our 
 
 " thirst was extreme. M had dreadful cramps, 
 
 " so that I had to hold him on the horse. I was 
 " very uneasy about him. The day before I saw the 
 "drummer's wife eating chupatties, and asked her 
 " to give a piece to the child, which she did. I now 
 "saw water in a ravine. The descent was steep, 
 
 "and our only drinking- vessel was M 's cap. 
 
 " Our horse got water, and I bathed my neck. I 
 "had no stockings, and my feet were torn and 
 "blistered. Two peasants came in sight, and we 
 " were frightened, and rode off. The sergeant held 
 
 "our horse, and M put me up and mounted. 
 
 "I think he must have got suddenly faint, for I 
 " fell, and he over me, on the road, when the horse 
 " started off. Some time before he said, and Barber, 
 " too, that he could not live many hours. I felt he 
 " was dying before we came to the ravine. He told 
 " me his wishes about his children and myself, and 
 " took leave. My brain seemed burnt up. No tears 
 " came. As soon as we fell, the sergeant let go the 
 " horse, and it went off; so that escape was cut off. 
 "We sat down on the ground waiting for death. 
 " Poor fellow ! he was very weak ; his thirst was 
 "fiightful, and I went to get him water. Some 
 " villagers came, and took my rupees and watch. I 
 
m THE SIEGE 121 
 
 "took off my wedding-ring, and twisted it in my 
 " hair, and replaced the guard. I tore off the skirt 
 " of my dress to bring water in, but it was no use, 
 " for when I returned my beloved's eyes were fixed, 
 " and, though I called and tried to restore him, and 
 " poured water into his mouth, it only rattled in his 
 " throat. He never spoke to me again. I held him 
 "in my arms till he sank gradually down. I felt 
 " frantic, but could not cry. I was alone. I bound 
 " his head and face in my dress, for there was no 
 " earth to bury him. The pain in my hands and 
 "feet was dreadful. I went down to the ravine, 
 " and sat in the water on a stone, hoping to get off 
 " at night and look for Lottie. When I came back 
 "from the water, I saw that they had not taken 
 " her little watch, chain, and seals, so I tied them 
 "under my petticoat. In an hour, about thirty 
 " villagers came, they dragged me out of the ravine, 
 " and took off my jacket, and found the little chain. 
 " They then dragged me to a village, mocking me 
 " all the way, and wondering whom I was to belong 
 "to. The whole population came to look at me. 
 " I asked for a bedstead, and lay down outside the 
 " door of a hut. They had dozens of cows, and yet 
 "refused me milk. When night came, and the 
 "village was quiet, some old woman brought me a 
 "leaf-ful of rice. I was too parched to eat, and 
 " they gave me water. The morning after a neigh- 
 "bouring Eajah sent a palanquin and a horseman 
 "to fetch me, who told me that a little child and 
 "three Sahibs had come to his masters house." 
 And so the poor mother found her lost one, " greatly 
 blistered," poor little creature. It is not for Euro- 
 
122 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 peans in India to pray that their flight be not in 
 the winter. 
 
 These women had spent their girlhood in the 
 pleasant watering-places and country homes of our 
 island, surrounded by all of English comfort and 
 refinement that Eastern wealth could buy. Their 
 later years had slipped away amidst the secure 
 plenty and languid ease of a European household 
 in India. In spacious saloons, alive with swing- 
 ing punkahs ; where closed and darkened windows 
 excluded the heated atmosphere, and produced a 
 counterfeit night, while through a mass of wetted 
 grass poured a stream of artificial air; with piles 
 of ice, and troops of servants, and the magazines 
 of the preceding month, and the sensation novels 
 of the preceding season, monotonous, but not un- 
 grateful, the even days flew by. Early married life 
 has in Bengal peculiar charms. Planted down in 
 some out-station, with no society save that of a 
 casual road-surveyor or a distant planter, the world 
 forgetting, and by the world remembered only at 
 such times as there is talk concerning the chances 
 of official promotion, the young pair have full 
 leisure and a fair plea for indulging in that delicious 
 habit of mutual selfishness which changes existence 
 into a perpetual honeymoon, until that sorrowful 
 epoch when the children are too old to be kept 
 any longer in the enervating climate of Hindostan ; 
 when the period arrives for writing to mothers-in- 
 law, and sisters, and London bankers, and Brighton 
 schoolmasters ; when even the pale pet of four years 
 old, who still answers to the name of baby, must go 
 home at the beginning of next cold season, and 
 
in 
 
 THE SIEGE 123 
 
 ought to have gone before the end of last. Then 
 begin the troubles of an Anglo-Indian family. 
 
 But though such ladies are often destined to 
 endure the wearing anxiety of an unnatural separ- 
 ation, they never know what it is to experience a 
 moment of physical privation. The services of 
 menials, who make up by their number and obse- 
 quiousness what they lack in energy ; the unwearied 
 attention of an affectionate partner and friend, shield 
 them from distress and excuse them from exertion. 
 To have slept four in a cabin on board an outward- 
 bound steamer ; to have passed a night in a palan- 
 quin, or a day at a posting-house where there was 
 no tea, and only milk enough for the little ones, 
 had hitherto appeared to the Cawnpore ladies the 
 last conceivable extremity of destitution and discom- 
 fort. Now, the Red Sea in July would have been 
 to them an Elysium, and a luncheon on Peninsular 
 and Oriental ale and cheese a priceless banquet. 
 By a sudden turn of fortune they had been placed 
 beneath the heel of those beings whom they had 
 ever regarded with that unconscious aversion and 
 contempt of race which is never so intense as in a 
 female breast. Those who were to them most dear 
 and trusted, were absent from their side, save when 
 a not unkindly bullet released the husband from his 
 post, and restored him to the wife, if but to die. 
 Accustomed to those frequent ablutions which, in 
 England at least a duty, are in India a necessity, 
 they had not a single spongeful of water for wash- 
 ing from the commencement to the close of the 
 siege. They who, from childhood upwards, in the 
 comprehensive and pretty phrase which ladies love, 
 
124 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 "had had everything nice about them," were now 
 herded together in fetid misery, where delicacy 
 and modesty were hourly shocked, though never 
 for a moment impaired. Unshod, unkempt, ragged 
 and squalid, haggard and emaciated, parched with 
 drought and faint with hunger, they sat waiting to 
 hear that they were widows. Each morning deep- 
 ened the hollow in the youngest cheek, and added a 
 new furrow to the fairest brow. Want, exposure, 
 and depression speedily decimated that hapless com- 
 pany. In those regions, a hideous train of diseases 
 stand always within call : fever and apoplexy, and 
 the fell scourge of cholera and dysentery, plague 
 more ghastly still. It was of fever that Miss Bright- 
 man died, worn out with nursing a boy who had 
 been shot through his first red coat. Sir George 
 Parker, the cantonment magistrate, complained of 
 sickness and headache, accompanied by a sensa- 
 tion of drowsiness and oppression, which gradually 
 deepened into insensibility, and thence into death. 
 Such, too, was the fate of Colonel Williams of the 
 Fifty-sixth Native Infantry, and of the Eev. Joseph 
 Rooney, the Catholic priest, in spite of the devoted 
 care of the Irish soldiery. The horrors which all 
 shared and witnessed overset the balance of more 
 than one highly-wrought organization. A missionary 
 of the Propagation Society, as each day drew in, 
 would bring his aged mother into the verandah for 
 a breath of the evening. At length a musket-ball, 
 shot, we may hope, at a venture, struck down the 
 poor old lady with a painful wound. Her sufferings 
 affected the reason of her son, and he died a raving 
 maniac. Woe was it in those days unto them that 
 
ni THE SIEGE 125 
 
 were with child. There were infants bom during 
 the terrible three weeks ; infants who had no future. 
 There were women who underwent more than all 
 the anguish of maternity, with less than none of 
 the hope and joy. The medical stores had all been 
 destroyed in the conflagration. There remained no 
 drugs, and cordials, and opiates ; no surgical instru- 
 ments and appliances to cure, to alleviate, or to 
 deaden. Perhaps it was as well that the absence 
 of saws and tourniquets rendered impracticable the 
 more critical operations : for here, as at Lucknow, 
 it was found that, during the months of an Indian 
 summer, within the circuit of a beleaguered fortifica- 
 tion the consequences of amputation were invariably 
 fatal. Science could not regret that she was power- 
 less, when her most successful effort would hardly 
 have prolonged an agony. 
 
 But, besides the Nana, another foe, ruthless and 
 pertinacious as he, had broken ground in front of 
 our bulwarks. If our people had eaten as freely 
 as they had fought, their provisions would have been 
 consumed within the ten days : and human abstinence 
 and endurance could not eke out the slender stock 
 beyond the limit of some three weeks. Already 
 the tins of preserved meats were empty, and the 
 meal had fallen low in the casks ; and many barrels 
 had been tapped by the enemy's shot, and the 
 rest were ominously light. The store of luxuries 
 contributed from the regimental mess-rooms had 
 been shared by all ranks alike. A noble equality 
 and fraternity reigned through the little republic. 
 
 During that year our countrymen in India often 
 debated, in a spirit by no means of idle speculation. 
 
126 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 whether a member of a blockaded force had a right 
 to reserve food and drink for the exclusive support 
 of himself, his family, and his intimate associates. 
 That period was fruitful in questions of novel and 
 momentous sophistry. Would a man be justified in 
 shooting his wife if it was evident that she would 
 otherwise fall alive into the power of the mutineers ? 
 Would a European flying for his life be guilty of 
 murder if he blew out the brains of an innocent 
 villager who had unwittingly viewed him as he broke 
 cover, and who might therefore give information to 
 the pursuers of blood? Morally guilty, that is to 
 say : for it is difiicult to conceive the circumstances 
 under which a European would have been found 
 legally guilty of the murder of a native during the 
 year 1857. Might a colonel call out his men, and 
 then mow them down with grape if it was certain 
 that the regiment was on the eve of a revolt? 
 Might he if it was almost certain ? If it was most 
 likely ? If it was barely possible ? These points 
 were raised and determined off-hand by stem 
 casuists, who, with a thrust or a shot, broke off the 
 horns of a dilemma which would have sorely tried 
 the subtlety of a Whately. 
 
 Theories differed as to the lawfulness of a private 
 store in time of siege : but the defenders of Cawn- 
 pore were right in their practice; for, to take no 
 higher ground, in the last extremity of war his own 
 life is not more important to an individual than the 
 life of his neighbour. During the first few days the 
 private soldiers fared sparingly, but, for them, poor 
 feUows, delicately enough. "Here might be seen 
 "one," says Captain Thomson, "trudging away 
 
m THE SIEGE 127 
 
 " from the main-guard laden with a bottle of cham- 
 "pagne, a tin of preserved herrings, and a pot of 
 "jam for his mess allowance. There would be 
 " another with salmon, rum, and sweetmeats for his 
 "inheritance." But very soon the dainties came 
 to an end, and the allowance was scantier than 
 ever. It was a favourite saying among the genera- 
 tion of military men, who in Europe kept unwilling 
 holiday between the day of Waterloo and the day 
 of Alma, that an Englishman fights best when he 
 is full, and an Irishman when he is drunk. And yet 
 nowhere in the chronicles of our army does there 
 exist the record of doughtier deeds than were done 
 in the June of '57 by EngHshmen whose daily susten- 
 ance was a short gill of flour, and a short handful of 
 spht peas ; by Irishmen who had no stimulant save 
 their own bravery and a rare sip of putrid water. 
 
 Numerous attempts were made by friends without 
 to mend the fare of the garrison, which were for the 
 most part defeated by the vigilance of the sepoys. 
 A baker of the town, who had been footman in 
 an Anglo-Indian family, was detected smuggling a 
 basket of bread into the intrenchment. The culprit 
 perhaps fondly imagined that Azimoolah would have 
 had mercy upon him in consideration of their com- 
 mon antecedents; but, if he entertained such an 
 expectation, he was doomed to disappointment. 
 Much credit is due to Zuhooree, an official in the 
 Department of Abkaree, a mysterious branch of the 
 Revenue, the periodical occurrence of which in the 
 Indian budget has vexed the souls of a succession of 
 English financiers. This person put himself into 
 communication with Major Larkins of the Artillery, 
 
128 CAWNPOEE chap. 
 
 and sent into the fortification, as opportunity served, 
 most acceptable parcels of bread and eggs, with 
 occasional bottles of milk and liquid butter. At 
 length, on the night of the fourteenth of June, 
 fifteen of his emissaries, among whom were two 
 women, were caught as they endeavoured to glide 
 through the cordon of sentries under cover of the 
 flurry and consternation of our sortie. They were 
 all blown from guns, but not before the captors had 
 elicited from them the name of their employer. It 
 was high time for Zuhooree to look to his safety. 
 Already his family had been imprisoned and mal- 
 treated on an unfounded charge of Christianity, and 
 the rebel camp was a dangerous stage on which to 
 play the part of good Obadiah. He accordingly left 
 by stealth for Allahabad, bearing with him a letter 
 of commendation fi:om Major Larkins, attested by a 
 gold ring set with five diamonds, which belonged to 
 the wife of that ofiicer. 
 
 Our people did what they could to help them- 
 selves. A fat bull, sacred to Brahma, finding 
 nothing to eat in the streets, inasmuch as the corn- 
 dealers had closed their booths for fear of the 
 sepoys, came grazing along the plain until he 
 arrived within range of our profane rifles. To shoot 
 down this pampered monster, the fakeer of the 
 animal world,* was no considerable feat for marks- 
 
 * These Brahminee bulls are the standing nuisance of Indian 
 city life. They saunter along the public way, laying the shops 
 under contribution, frightening the women, and disgusting the 
 equestrians. To strike them is a high crime, social and re- 
 ligious. To kill them involves present death, and future 
 damnation. At every turn may be seen some old fellow with 
 a platterful of grain in his hand, alluring one of these creatures 
 
m THE SIEGE 129 
 
 men who could hit a black buck running at a distance 
 of a hundred and fifty paces. The difficulty con- 
 sisted in the retrieving of the game, which lay full 
 three hundred yards from our rampart, on a plain 
 swept by the fire of the insurgents. Inside our 
 place, however, courage was more plentiful than 
 beef; and eight or ten volunteers professed them- 
 selves ready to follow Captain Moore, who was first 
 at any feast which partook of the nature of a fray. 
 The party provided themselves with a stout rope, 
 which they fastened round the legs and horns of 
 the beast, and dragged home their prize amidst 
 a storm of cheers and bullets, alive but not un- 
 scathed. 
 
 In the banquet which ensued the defenders of the 
 outposts had no part. On the other hand, they 
 sometimes enjoyed luxuries of their own. A pariah 
 dog, seduced by blandishments never before lavished 
 upon one of his despised race, was tempted within 
 the walls and thence into the camp-kettle of Barrack 
 Number Two. Towards that building, as towards the 
 lion's den in the fable, pointed the footsteps of every 
 kind of quadruped, and fi:om it none. An aged 
 horse, whose younger days had been spent in the 
 ranks of the Irregular Cavalry, was killed, roasted, 
 and eaten up in two meals by the combined pickets. 
 
 away from his store. The authorities of Calcutta at length 
 took courage, collected all the Brahmin bulls, and put them in 
 the carts of the Government scavengers. When Scindiah paid 
 Ms last visit to the capital, he was much scandalized at so 
 impious a regulation, and expressed his desire to buy up the 
 animals, and restore them to their former condition of life. 
 But he wisely refrained, when it was represented to him that, 
 the moment his back was turned, the bulls would again find 
 their way into the public service. 
 
130 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 The head was converted into soup, and sent into 
 the intrenchment for the use of some favoured ladies ; 
 no explanations being offered or demanded concern- 
 ing the nature of the stock. Captain Halliday, of 
 the Fifty-ninth Native Infantry, who had come 
 across on a morning visit, begged a portion for his 
 poor wife, who was lying in the hospital, sick unto 
 death of the small-pox. On his way back, walking, 
 it may be, too slowly for security through dread of 
 spilling one precious drop, he fell never to rise 
 again. In the midst of every action and every 
 movement, during the hours of labour and the 
 minutes of refreshment, unlocked for and unavoid- 
 able the mortal stroke descended. 
 
 For by day and night the fire never ceased ; the 
 round-shot crashed and spun through the windows, 
 raked the earthwork, and skipped about the open 
 ground in every corner of our position. The bullets 
 cut the air, and pattered on the wall like hail. The 
 great shells rolled hissing along the floors and down 
 the trenches, and, bursting, spread around them a 
 circle of wrack, and mutilation, and promiscuous 
 destruction. In their blind and merciless career 
 those iron messengers spared neither old nor young, 
 nor combatants nor sufferers, but flew ever onwards, 
 inflicting superfluous wounds and unavailing de- 
 struction. A single bomb killed and maimed seven 
 married women, who were seated in the ditch; 
 killed Jacobi, a watchmaker, namesake of the in- 
 trepid coach wright; killed too the cashiered ofiicer 
 whose drunken freak had done something to accele- 
 rate the outbreak. There were those who endured 
 in one day a double or a treble bereavement ; while 
 
m THE SIEGE 131 
 
 in some families none remained to mourn. Colonel 
 Williams died of apoplexy, and his wife, disfigured 
 and tortured by a frightful hurt in the face, would 
 fain have rejoined her husband. On the fifteenth 
 of June Miss Mary Williams was stunned by a fall 
 of the ceiling, and expired in the arms of a 
 wounded sister, unconscious of her loving care. 
 Two daughters survived — for a while. Mistress 
 White was walking with a twin child at either 
 shoulder, and her good man, a private of the Thirty- 
 second, by her side. The same ball slew the father, 
 broke both elbows of the mother, and severely 
 injured one of the orphans. Captain Reynolds lost 
 an arm and his life by a cannon-shot, and Mrs. 
 Rejmolds, whose wrist had been pierced by a musket- 
 ball, sank under fever and sorrow. A half-caste 
 tradesman and his daughter, crouching behind an 
 empty barrel, too late and together discovered that 
 their shelter was inadequate. A son of Sir Hugh 
 was reclining on a sofa, faint with recent loss of 
 blood — one sister at his feet, and another, with both 
 his parents, busied about his wants in different parts 
 of the room — when an uninvited and a fatal guest 
 entered the doorway, and left the lad a headless 
 corpse. No less than three subalterns attached to 
 the same regiment as young Wheeler lost their heads 
 within the Redan. Lieutenant Jervis of the En- 
 gineers was walking to his battery through a shower 
 of lead, with a gait of calm grandeur, as if he were 
 pacing the Eden Garden beneath the eye-glasses of 
 Calcutta beauty. In vain his comrades raised their 
 wonted shout of " Run, Jervis ! run ! " He never 
 returned to head-quarters. He never reached his 
 
132 CAWNPOKE chap. 
 
 post. A grape-shot passed through the body of Mr. 
 Heberden, as he was handing some water to a lady. 
 This gentleman, the most undaunted and unaffected 
 of the brave and simple men of science employed 
 upon the East Indian Railroad, lay on his face for 
 a whole week without a murmur or a sigh, but not, 
 we may well believe, without a tacit prayer for 
 the relief which came at last. Mr. Hillersdon, the 
 magistrate of the station, was dashed in pieces by 
 a twenty-four-pound ball, while talking in the 
 verandah to his wife, weak from an unseasonable 
 confinement. A few days elapsed, and a shot, less 
 cruel than some, displaced an avalanche of bricks 
 which put an end to her short widowhood. But 
 poverty of language does not permit to continue the 
 list of horrors. In such a catalogue the synonjrms 
 of death are soon exhausted, and give place to a 
 grim tautology. 
 
 " The frequency of our casualties," writes Captain 
 Thomson, " may be understood by the history of one 
 "hour. Lieutenant Prole had come to the main- 
 " guard to see Armstrong, the Adjutant of the Fifty- 
 " third Native Infantry, who was unwell. While 
 " engaged in conversation with the invalid. Prole 
 " was struck by a musket-ball in the thigh, and fell 
 "to the ground. I put his arm upon my shoulder, 
 " and holding him round the waist, endeavoured to 
 " hobble across the open to the barrack, in order that 
 " he might obtain the attention of the surgeons there. 
 " While thus employed a ball hit me under the right 
 " shoulder-blade, and we feU to the ground together, 
 " and were picked up by some privates, who dragged 
 "us both back to the main-guard. While I was 
 
ifi THE SIEGE 133 
 
 " lying on the ground, wofuUy sick from the wound, 
 " Gilbert Bax, of the Forty-eighth Native Infantry, 
 "came to condole with me, when a bullet pierced 
 " his shoulder-blade, causing a wound from which he 
 " died before the termination of the siege." 
 
 The youngest were the least to be pitied. In such 
 a plight, ignorance of happier days was indeed bHss : 
 — ignorance that there was a fair world without, 
 where people laughed merrily, and slept soundly, and 
 lived in the anticipations of enjoyment, not in the 
 terrors of death. To the small children the present 
 was very weary; but, reasoning in their way, they con- 
 cluded that that present could not last much longer. 
 It must come to an end like the tiresome journey 
 up the great river, when the barge stuck fast in the 
 mud, and mamma cried, and papa called the boatman 
 by that Hindostanee name which they themselves 
 were always whipped for using. The restraint of 
 our protracted incarceration was to them intolerably 
 irksome. There was neither milk, nor pudding, nor 
 jam, nor mangoes, nor any one to sing to them, or 
 listen to their romances, and their wishes, and their 
 grievances. The gentleman who once was most kind 
 to them would now come home from shooting all 
 black, and grimy, and with a rough beard, and would 
 stand at the table and eat quickly, and then run out 
 again without taking any notice of them : and some 
 day or other he would be carried in on a shutter, 
 looking so pale and weak : or some day, perhaps, 
 he never came back at all. When they asked a 
 lady to scold the servants for getting them such 
 a nasty breakfast, she only kissed them, and sobbed. 
 They sorely missed the fond and patient bearer, that 
 
134 CAWNPOKE chap. 
 
 willing playmate and much-enduring slave, whom 
 Mrs. Sherwood's charming tale has rendered a 
 household word in English school-rooms. Left to 
 their own discretions, the poor little creatures, un- 
 conscious of danger, would toddle out of the crowded 
 barrack, and betake themselves to some primitive 
 game which demanded no very elaborate provision of 
 toys. What was it to them that every half-minute 
 a big black ball came hopping along amidst puffs 
 of dust, or that little things which they could not 
 see flew about humming louder than cockchafers 
 or bumble bees? With unexampled barbarity the 
 sepoy sharpshooters forbore to respect these innocent 
 groups. The peril, which some incurred through 
 inexperience, was sought by others under the pres- 
 sure of despondency. One unhappy woman, unable 
 to support the burden of her existence, ran out from 
 the shelter of the walls leading in each hand a child, 
 and was dragged back, despite of herself, by a 
 private soldier, who freely risked his life to preserve 
 that which she was bent on losing. Not a few 
 native domestics refused to desert their employers. 
 Over-worked and under-thanked, with short com- 
 mons, and, if captured by the mutineers, a shorter 
 shrift, they stayed on, not for the sake of their 
 pittance of wages, but actuated solely by the ties 
 of duty, gratitude, and attachment. Most of them 
 were soon dismissed from service, for no fault, and 
 with no warning. Three were killed by the explo- 
 sion of a shell. Another was shot through the head 
 as he was hunying to the outposts intent upon 
 serving his master's dinner before it had time to 
 cool. An ayah, while dandling an infant, lost both 
 
ra THE SIEGE 135 
 
 her legs by the blow of a cannon-ball. That was in 
 truth a dismal nursery. 
 
 Want of water was a constant and growing evil. 
 At the best, a single well would have furnished a 
 pitiably insufficient supply for a thousand mouths 
 during an Indian June : and that well was from the 
 first the favourite target of the hostile artillerymen. 
 Guns were trained on to the exact spot ; so that the 
 appearance of a man with a pitcher by day, and by 
 night the creaking of the tackle, was the signal for a 
 shower of grape. The framework of beam and brick 
 which protected the drawers was soon shot away. 
 The machinery went next, and the buckets were 
 thenceforward hauled up hand over hand from a 
 depth of more than sixty feet. The Hindoo water- 
 carriers were slain early in the siege, and their place 
 was supplied by English soldiers, who nominally 
 were paid at the rate of half a sovereign for every 
 pail : though the brave fellows knew that, when a 
 few days had gone by, it would matter little in whose 
 hands the silver might happen to lie. That water 
 was purchased with blood and not with money. 
 John Mackillop, of the Civil Service, veiling devo- 
 tion under a jocose pretence of self-depreciation, 
 told his friends that, though no fighting-man, he was 
 willing to make himself useful where he could, and 
 accordingly claimed to be appointed Captain of the 
 Well. His tenure of the office was prolonged be- 
 yond his own expectation. It was not till a week 
 had passed that he was laid dying on a bed in the 
 hospital with a grape-shot in the groin. His last 
 words expressed a desire that the lady to whom he 
 had promised a drink should not be disappointed. 
 
136 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 For some days a few gallons were procured at a 
 frightful hazard from a tank situated on the south- 
 east of the intrenchment. Those who were conscious 
 how dear a price was paid for every draught, thirsted 
 in silence ; but the babies kept up a perpetual moan 
 more terrible to some stout souls than a ten minutes' 
 hobble across the plain, a heavy skinful of water 
 round the loins, and an ounce of lead in the ankle. 
 Captain Thomson saw the children of his brother 
 ojB&cers "sucking the pieces of old water-bags, 
 " putting scraps of canvas and leather straps into 
 " the mouth to try and get a single drop of moisture 
 " upon their parched lips." The distress of our 
 countrymen was enhanced by the plague of dust 
 to which Cawnpore is subject on account of the 
 character of the soil. A traveller who visited the 
 station ten or twelve years before the mutiny, com- 
 plains that he got no gratification out of a grand 
 review from which he had promised himself much 
 pleasure, because the show was throughout enveloped 
 in clouds which totally concealed it from his eyes. 
 
 There was yet another well, which yielded nothing 
 then : which will yield nothing till the sea, too, 
 gives up her dead. It lay two hundred yards from 
 the rampart, beneath the walls of the unfinished 
 barracks. Thither at an hour varied nightly, for 
 fear lest the rebel shot should swell the funeral, 
 with stealthy step and scant attendance the slain of 
 the previous day were borne. When morning broke 
 the battle raged around that sepulchre. Overhead 
 the cannon roared, and men charged to and fro. 
 But those below rested none the less peacefully; 
 their last cartridge bitten; their last achievement 
 
Ill THE SIEGE 137 
 
 performed ; their last pang of hunger and affliction 
 undergone and aheady forgotten. There were de- 
 posited, within the space of three weeks, two hun- 
 dred and fifty Enghsh people, a fourth by tale of the 
 whole garrison. As in a season of trouble and law- 
 lessness men bury away their jewels and their gold 
 against the return of tranquillity and order : so the 
 survivors committed to the faithful mould their dear 
 treasures, trusting that time and the fortune of war 
 would enable our country to honour her lost ones 
 with a more solemn rite, and worthier tomb. Brief 
 was the service whispered on the brink of that sad 
 well in the sultry summer night. It was much, when 
 they came to the grave, while the corpse was being 
 made ready to be laid into the earth, if the priest 
 then said : " In the midst of life we are in death. 
 " Of whom may we seek for succour, but of Thee, 
 " Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased ? " 
 
 "Yet, Lord God most holy, Lord most 
 " mighty, holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver 
 " us not into the bitter pains of eternal death." 
 
 And again, while the earth was being cast upon 
 the body by some standing by, the priest might with 
 the assent of aU declare that it was of His great 
 mercy that it had pleased Almighty God to take 
 unto Himself the soul of the dear brother there 
 departed. 
 
 Throughout the siege public worship, at stated 
 hours, and of prescribed length and form, neither 
 did nor could take place : but the spirit and the 
 essential power of reUgion were not wanting. The 
 station chaplain, Mr. Moncrieff, made it his concern 
 that no one should die or suffer without the con- 
 
138 CAWNPORE chaf. 
 
 solations of Christianity. And whenever he could 
 be spared from the hospital, this shepherd of a 
 pest-stricken flock, he would go the round of the 
 batteries, and read a few Prayers and Psalms to the 
 fighting-folk. With heads bent, and hands folded 
 over the muzzles of their rifles; soothed, some by 
 genuine piety, some by the associations of gladsome 
 Christmas mornings and drowsy Sunday afternoons 
 spent in the aisle of their village church; they 
 listened calmly to the familiar words, those melan- 
 choly and resolute men. Each congregation was 
 more thin than the last. There were always pre- 
 sent some two or three to whom never again would 
 grace be given to join with accord in the common 
 suppHcation. The people of Cawnpore might say 
 in the language used in a like strait by a brave 
 and God-fearing soldier, the Greatheart of EngHsh 
 History : — 
 
 " Indeed we are at this time a very crazy company ; 
 "yet we live in His sight, and shall work the time 
 "that is appointed us, and shall rest after that in 
 " peace." 
 
 The condition of the besieged presented a com- 
 plete contrast to the state of things on the other 
 side of the wall. The numbers and the hopes of the 
 insurgents mounted daily. Every morning some new 
 Rajah or Nawab paraded through the suburbs in his 
 palanquin bright with silver poles and silken hang- 
 ings, preceded by drums, and standards, and led 
 chargers, and followed by a stream of lances and 
 matchlocks. Every evening a fresh eruption of 
 scoundrelism surged up from the narrow crooked 
 alleys and foul bazaars of the black city. Nor were 
 
IIT THE SIEGE 139' 
 
 the Hindoos and Mohammedans of the revolted bat- 
 talions left without the satisfaction and encourage- 
 ment of learning what great deeds had been wrought 
 elsewhere by the champions of the united faiths. In 
 the month of June the following document found its 
 way from Delhi to Cawnpore : — 
 
 " To all Hindoos and Mussulmans, Citizens and 
 "Servants of Eindostan, the Officers of the Army 
 " now at Delhi and Meerut send Greeting, 
 
 " It is well known that in these days all the Eng- 
 "lish have entertaiaed these evil designs — first to 
 " destroy the rehgion of the whole Hindostanee army, 
 " and then to make the people Christians by com- 
 " pulsion. Therefore we, solely on account of our 
 " rehgion, have combined with the people, and have 
 " not spared alive one infidel, and have re-established 
 " the Delhi dynasty on these terms, and thus act in 
 " obedience to orders and receive double pay. Hun- 
 " dreds of guns and a large amount of treasure have 
 "fallen into our hands; therefore it is fitting that 
 "whoever of the soldiers and the people dislike 
 " turning Christians should unite with one heart and 
 "act courageously, not leaving the seed of these 
 "infidels remaining. For any quantity of supplies 
 "delivered to the army the owners are to take 
 " the receipts of the officers ; and they will receive 
 " double pa3niient from the Imperial Government. 
 " Whoever shall in these times exhibit cowardice, or 
 "credulously believe the promises of those impos- 
 "tors, the English, shall very shortly be put to 
 "shame for such a deed; and, rubbing the hands 
 
140 CAWNPOKE chap. 
 
 " of sorrow, shall receive for their fidelity the reward 
 " the ruler of Lucknow got. It is further necessary 
 "that all Hindoos and Mussulmans unite in this 
 "struggle, and, following the instructions of some 
 " respectable people, keep themselves secure, so that 
 " good order may be maintained, the poorer classes 
 " kept contented, and they themselves be exalted to 
 "rank and dignity; also, that all, so far as it is 
 " possible, copy this proclamation, and despatch it 
 " everywhere, so that all true Hindoos and Mussul- 
 ** mans may be alive and watchful, and fix it in some 
 ** conspicuous place (but prudently, to avoid detec- 
 " tion), and strike a blow with a sword before giving 
 " circulation to it. The first pay of the soldiers of 
 " Delhi will be thirty rupees per month for a trooper, 
 ^' and ten rupees for a foot-man. Nearly one hundred 
 "thousand men are ready; and there are thirteen 
 " flags of the English regiments, and about fourteen 
 " standards from different parts now raised aloft for 
 " our religion, for God, and the conqueror ; and it is 
 "the intention of Cawnpore to root out the seed of 
 "the Devil. This is what we of the army here 
 "wish." 
 
 This message was succeeded by a proclamation 
 issued from the peacock throne, in which the Mogul 
 promised a monthly wage of twelve rupees and a 
 respectable estate to every sepoy who would rally 
 to the banner of the ancient djmasty. He likewise 
 ordained that no cows should thenceforward be killed 
 throughout the land, and finished by denouncing a 
 malediction upon the head of any one who should 
 intercept the imperial courier. The wretch was 
 
ni THE SIEGE 141 
 
 doomed to eat pork and beef: and, as the mes- 
 senger was eventually hanged by an officer of the 
 Seventieth Infantry, it may be presumed that the 
 curse has by this time been fulfilled to the letter. 
 
 The rebel cause was soon strengthened by a more 
 valuable reinforcement than either the posse comi- 
 tatus of the province, or the sympathy of the Delhi 
 mutineers. At the village of Chowbeypore, on the 
 Great North Road, had been stationed a detachment 
 from the garrison of Lucknow, comprising a squadron 
 of native cavalry, and two companies of sepoys, com- 
 manded by Captain Staples, four subalterns, and a 
 European sergeant-major. At about two o'clock on 
 the afternoon of Tuesday, the ninth of June, these 
 gentlemen were roused from their luncheon by the 
 sound of a bugle playing the "Assembly." Rush- 
 ing forth, they demanded why so strange a liberty 
 had been taken, and were told that it was by the 
 orders of the Nana. At the mention of this ill- 
 omened name our officers flung themselves on 
 horseback, and rode for dear life, with all the dis- 
 advantages resulting from ignorance of the country, 
 and a bad start. That was a run in which the game 
 was allowed no law. The Captain was shot down 
 from his saddle, and cut in pieces where he lay. 
 Two Englishmen took to the water like hunted 
 stags, and there miserably perished. Two others 
 were headed by a mob of villagers, and driven back 
 among the sabres and pistols of their pursuers. 
 Lieutenant Bolton alone, by dint of hard riding, 
 escaped to Cawnpore with a bullet-hole in his cheek, 
 if escape it may be called, which was only the post- 
 ponement of death. After a chase of sixteen miles he 
 
142 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 reached the neighbourhood of the town at nightfall ; 
 passed unobserved through the lines of the muti- 
 neers ; and camped out on the plain, waiting until 
 dawn should disclose to him the outline of the 
 intrenchment. Our sentries, astonished by the ap- 
 parition of a cavalier riding at the earthwork through 
 the twilight like a mounted Remus, fired, and struck 
 his horse. No one, however, was surprised to find 
 that even a crippled steed could clear those defences 
 at a leap. The fugitive was heartily greeted by his 
 ,countr3mien, and entertained with such hospitality 
 .as their situation would admit. Wounded and ex- 
 hausted as he was, he proved weU worth his 
 ^keep. 
 
 The troops who had revolted at Chowbeypore 
 marched into Cawnpore, bringing with them three 
 English heads in a basket, and taking up on their 
 way a toU-keeper named Joseph Carter, and his 
 wife ; a young person, who was daily expecting her 
 first baby. This offering, combined agreeably to his 
 taste of the dead and the living, was mightily ac- 
 ceptable to the Nana. With fraternal kindness he 
 ,made a present of the grisly trophies to Bala Rao, 
 who exposed them in his saloon, and gave a sort of 
 .conversazione at which they formed the leading at- 
 traction. Mr. Carter was shot, as a matter of course, 
 ;and his little widow would have shared his fate, had 
 not the rehcts of the late Peishwa, the stepmothers 
 by adoption of the Maharaja, felt a womanly com- 
 miseration for one so tender and so afilicted. The 
 good ladies begged hard for this single example of 
 clemency, and begged in vain. At length their pride 
 .of sex was aroused against such determined bnitahty 
 
Ill THE SIEGE 143 
 
 towards a woman who had so lately been a wife, and 
 was so soon to be a mother, and they threatened to 
 commit suicide unless their petition was granted. 
 The Nana then gave way, and permitted his rela- 
 tions to carry off their 'proUg^e to the apartments 
 appropriated to the females in the palace at Bithoor, 
 where they placed her under the charge of an expe- 
 rienced Mohammedan nurse. He insisted, however, 
 that she should be considered as under custody, 
 and appointed a squad of troopers to see that she 
 was forthcoming whenever it might suit his will and 
 pleasure. He never lost sight of a victim. He 
 boasted the worst half of, at any rate, one kingly 
 quality — an unerring memory. 
 
 On next Friday the remnant of the native force 
 which had mutinied at Benares made their appear- 
 ance on the opposite side of the river. The exit of 
 these gentlemen from the Holy City had not been of 
 a nature to gratify their conceit, and their entry into 
 Oawnpore was the reverse of triumphant. They 
 straggled up, jaded and dispirited, without any 
 semblance of martial order, some on horseback, and 
 •others perched up in the uncomfortable country- 
 carts of Hindostan, which seemed to have been de- 
 vised with the express object of conveying the least 
 -possible amount of freight with the greatest expen- 
 diture of traction power. Their condition excited 
 the contempt and cupidity of the officials appointed 
 to superintend the river traffic ia the interest of the 
 Nana ; who accordingly refused to ferry across these 
 shabby auxiharies for less than a rupee per head. 
 'Considering that the majority of the passengers were 
 ^of pure Sikh blood, their spirit must indeed have 
 
144 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 been broken before they could have endured such 
 insolence and extortion. 
 
 On the fifteenth of June, a welcome message was 
 brought to the Maharaja from the Meer Nawab, a 
 Mussulman of rank, who sent word that he was 
 coming up from the eastward with a couple of thou- 
 sand regular infantry, and a full complement of 
 artillery. Azimoolah resolved that his subordinates 
 should not have an opportunity of repeating their 
 conduct of the previous week. Every mark of re- 
 spect was to be displayed towards so august and 
 puissant a chieftain. The bridge contractors were 
 commissioned to collect barges for the transit of the 
 expected allies, and the confectioners of the town 
 received instructions to prepare for their refreshment 
 a menu, containing all those dishes of sweetened 
 animal food so nauseous to a European palate. On 
 the morrow the Nawab arrived at the head of two 
 fine regiments, which had been raised on the occa- 
 sion of Lord Dalhousie's annexation, amidst the 
 deep but suppressed uneasiness of all who gave the 
 native mind credit for the human qualities of am- 
 bition, shame, and patriotism; of all who believed 
 the Hindoo capable of any loftier sentiment than 
 the desire to curry favour with an English magis- 
 trate, touch a hundred rupees per mensem from an 
 English treasury, talk broken Addison, and read the 
 Deserted Village in the original. On the rolls of 
 our army these battalions were styled the Fourth 
 and Fifth Oude Locals : but sepoys have invariably 
 some pet title for their own corps, in most cases a 
 corruption of the name of its first colonel, more 
 suited to the Indian tongue than our complicated 
 
m THE SIEGE 146 
 
 military nomenclature. Thus the First, the Fifty- 
 third, and the Fifty-sixth Bengal Native Infantry, 
 were spoken of familiarly as "Gillises," "Lam- 
 boom's," and " Garsteen's." The Oude soldiers 
 under the Meer Nawab were known to themselves 
 and their compatriots as the men of the Nadiree 
 and the Akhtaree Kegiments. 
 
 When the new-comers caught sight of the fortress 
 which had hitherto baffled the ingenuity and courage 
 of their associates, they expressed no small contempt 
 for the generalship of the Nana, but bade him 
 be at his ease, for that they would engage to put 
 him in possession of the intrenchment after they 
 had enjoyed a day's rest and surfeit. And so, on 
 the eighteenth of June, at the hour when, exactly 
 two and forty years before, the French tirailleurs 
 were swarming through the woods of Hougoumont 
 up to the loopholes of the wall which they never 
 passed, the Oude mutineers charged in a mass 
 across the plain, and over our rampart ; bore down 
 the defenders; overturned a gun; and seemed for 
 a moment in a fair way of justifying their vaunt. 
 A moment only: for, without waiting for orders, 
 angry Sahibs came running from all sides to the 
 rescue. Our people slewed round a nine-pounder; 
 gave them first some stockingfuls of grape, and 
 then an English rush ; and sent them bfick to their 
 master fewer and wiser than they came. 
 
 The rebel position presented an aspect animating 
 and picturesque in a high degree. To the north 
 of our fortification, between the Racket Court and 
 the Chapel of Ease, was planted a battery well 
 armed with mortars and twenty-four-pounder cannon. 
 
146 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 In this region the command was taken by the 
 Nunhey Nawab, the Mohammedan grandee, who, 
 with Bakur AH, and others, had been plundered and 
 imprisoned by the Brahmins during their first out-, 
 break of rehgious spite. The high-spirited Moslem 
 soldiery at once refused to brook this outrage, and 
 began to talk of setting up the Nawab's claim to 
 royalty against that of the Maharaja: upon which 
 the latter released his prisoners, and thenceforward 
 behaved towards them rather as an equal than as 
 a master. The Nana s rival showed both judgment 
 and vigour. He beat up all the pensioned veterans 
 of the neighbourhood who had formerly served in 
 the artillery, and employed work-people of both 
 sexes in keeping him supplied with red-hot shot. On 
 one occasion an apprentice to the trade took it 
 into his head to try the experiment of heating a 
 loaded shell, and succeeded in blowing up a woman 
 And five men, including, we may presume, himself. 
 The Nawab passed most of his time in the gallery 
 of the Racket Court, where, in the late afternoon 
 of more quiet days, had lolled a cluster of chatty 
 Englishmen; opening bottles of soda-water; chaffing 
 the players with the threadbare raillery that suffices 
 for the simple taste of a limited community; de- 
 scending in parties of four, cheroot in mouth, when 
 the cry of " game-ball all " warned them that their 
 turn was come. Occasionally he would issue forth 
 to see how his gunners were getting on, and to 
 watch the effect of their practice through a tele- 
 scope. A half-caste Christian, who had disguised 
 himself as a Mohammedan with admirable skill, gives 
 an interesting account of what passed in this quarter. 
 
HI THE SIEGE 147 
 
 He says, "I saw Nunhey Nawab coming to the 
 "batteries accompanied by a number of troopers, 
 "and sepoys, and his own attendants also; and 
 "I was told by the people that the Nawab had 
 "received a post of great dignity, and was in 
 " command of a battery. About one o'clock I came 
 "close to Major-general Wheelers bungalow, and, 
 " finding a piece of mat in the compound, lay down 
 "on it, and saw several troopers going about, 
 "forcing people to carry water to the batteries. 
 " Hearing an uproar I rose from the place where 
 " I was, when a trooper, seeing me, told me that it 
 " was a great shame for a young Mussulman like me 
 " to be thus idling away my time, and that I should 
 "assist at the batteries. He also told me that 
 "a young man, the son of Kurrum Ali, the one- 
 " eyed, a pensioned soubahdar, was sent for by the 
 " Nawab, and had laid a gun so precisely that the 
 " shot carried away a portion of one of the barracks 
 "within the intrenchment, for which he received 
 " a reward of ninety rupees, and a shawl. I replied 
 "to this that I possessed no arms, and had never 
 "been a soldier." It was no wonder that a battery 
 where the service was conducted on so open-handed 
 a system soon became the popular resort. The 
 lovely Azeezun made this spot her head-quarters. 
 She appears to have exercised a strange fascination 
 over our good friend Nanukchund, so frequently 
 does she appear in the course of his narrative. 
 Whether he cherished towards her a sneaking kind- 
 ness, or a grudge for some past incivility, or, as 
 is most probable, both the one and the other, he 
 certainly never leaves her alone for many pages 
 
148 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 together. In his quaint way he writes : — " It shows 
 " great daring in Azeezun, that she is always armed 
 " and present in the batteries, owing to her attach- 
 " ment to the cavalry ; and she takes her favourites 
 " among them aside, and entertains them with milk, 
 " &c., on the public road." 
 
 The Meer Nawab planted the cannon, which 
 he had brought with him across the river, on the 
 south-east of our position, near the Artillery Mess 
 House. This manoeuvre forthwith debarred the 
 garrison from obtaining occasional and perilous 
 access to the tank; a privation the more severely 
 felt, because the Oude men, bent on avenging their 
 repulse, worked their pieces with a will, and kept 
 up at point-blank range so hot a fire upon the 
 mouth of our weU that the drawing of water was 
 a deed of heroism by night, and in daylight an 
 act of insanity. In the west, Bakur Ali, who had 
 shared with the Nunhey Nawab his disgrace and 
 his restoration to favour, bombarded our outposts 
 from among the stables of the Second Cavalry ; while 
 in and about the lines of the First Native Infantry 
 stood a number of heavy guns, known by the col- 
 lective appellation of "the Sepoy Battery," under 
 cover of which a Jemmadar, who fancied himself 
 gifted with a turn for engineering, was sinking a 
 mine by the aid of some invalid sappers and miners, 
 whom he had persuaded to place themselves at 
 his disposal. In the south-west direction was a 
 stately mansion, which formerly held rank as a 
 charitable institution, under the title of the "Sal- 
 vador," a name which the effeminate articulation of 
 the native had long before this converted into the 
 
m THE SIEGE 149 
 
 "Savada." As tlie Mohammedan faction mustered 
 strong in the vicinity of the Racket Court, so the 
 Savada soon became the centre of Hindoo influence. 
 It was the special haunt of the Nana. Here were 
 his ministers, his diviners, his courtiers, and the 
 prisoners from whom he purposed to extort some- 
 thing besides their breath. Here was the battery 
 which went by his name. Here was the tent of 
 his most able and ardent partisan, Teeka Sing, 
 the generalissimo. Here, too, in an agreeable comer 
 of the grounds, under the shade of a conspicuous 
 grove, conveniently remote alike from the camp 
 of the Moslem and the muzzles of the English 
 artillery, was pitched his own pavilion ; for he seems 
 to have inherited the Mahratta preference for canvas 
 over brick and mortar. The chiefs of that hardy 
 and unquiet race seldom had a tight roof over their 
 heads until they were laid beneath some mausoleum 
 of fair white marble, sparkling with cornelian and 
 jasper and lapis lazuli, constructed out of the spoils 
 and the tribute of nations. 
 
 The mutineers showed every intention of enjojdng 
 their spell of liberty and domination. These revolted 
 regiments were rapidly turning into mobs. The work 
 of the batteries was left to the retainers of ambitious 
 Rajahs ; to pensioned gunners ; and to such amateurs 
 as had a stomach for fighting, and a taste for the 
 shawls and cash lavished by the Nunhey Nawab. 
 The sepoys, meanwhile, lounged in the shops which 
 fringed the canal, eating sweetstuiBf with school-boy 
 avidity, and drinking sherbet to their hearts' content ; 
 or swaggered along the streets with a nonchalance 
 copied from their reminiscences of the fashionable 
 
150 CAWNPOEE chap. 
 
 frequenters of the band-stand, criticizing the driving 
 of those among their comrades who had been for- 
 tunate enough to lay their hands upon a buggy 
 belonging to a British officer. No decent people 
 were to be seen in the public places. No business 
 was done in the main thoroughfares. The tradesmen, 
 in piteous trepidation, eyed the passing scamps from 
 behind their shutters, consoling their enforced idle- 
 ness by recollecting in what angle of the garden 
 their money was interred, and framing excuses 
 against the probable visit of the Nana's tax-collector, 
 or the possible return of the English authorities. 
 The opium-sellers and the innkeepers, who in these 
 days anterior to Mr. Wilson's budget had not attained 
 to the dignity of licensed victuallers, alone drove 
 a thriving trade. The warriors of the Religions 
 smoked, and chewed, and snored supine, clad in 
 cotton drawers and a pair of clumsy shoes ; their 
 necks encircled by the Brahminical thread, token 
 of their privileged and sacred extraction. To this 
 costume they superadded a red coat, at such times 
 as the stings of conscience, or the reproaches of 
 priest and paramour, drove them out to get a lazy 
 shot at the infidels and an appetite for their 
 curry. 
 
 The earliest care of the Nana had been to set on 
 foot a respectable municipal organization. With 
 this object in view, he appointed to the chief magis- 
 tracy in the city one Hoolass Sing, who may have 
 been a traitor, but was, apparently, only a time- 
 server. This person was chosen by the advice of a 
 deputation composed of the leading townsmen; a 
 tent-maker, a jeweller, and a dealer in opiates. 
 
m THE SIEGE 151 
 
 Hoolass Sing had no sinecure. It was only by 
 the exercise of judicious firmness, alternating with 
 seasonable pliability, that he contrived to protect 
 Cawnpore from the rapacity of the soldiery, and 
 the wrath of those rural nobles whose paternal acres 
 had been sold by the English Government to re- 
 cover arrears of land-tax, and purchased by moneyed 
 cits, who wished to cut a figure in country society. 
 The duty of victualling the troops was committed 
 to a blind gentleman of the name of Moolla, who, 
 doubtless, saw quite well enough to water the rice 
 and omit to sift the meal. A burlesque judicial 
 court was formed of Azimoolah, Jwala Pershad, and 
 other creatures of the Maharaja ; and presided over 
 by Baba Bhut, who delivered his decisions seated 
 on a billiard-table in Mr. Duncan's hotel. This 
 tribunal passed a variety of sentences without estab- 
 lishing any very valuable precedent. Once, in an 
 unaccountable fit of morality, it sentenced a luckless 
 rogue to lose his hand for theft ; but, for obvious and 
 selfish reasons, the judges appear to have refrained 
 from again taking cognizance of this crime. A 
 Mohammedan butcher was condemned to mutilation 
 for having killed a cow ; and certain individuals were 
 paraded through the town on donkeys, "for dis- 
 reputable livelihood " : a punishment which, when 
 the charge was made known, must have excited very 
 general sympathy and indignation. Gradually this 
 body, like the Committee of Public Safety in the 
 French Revolution, assumed to itself a supervision 
 over every department of the administration. When 
 the powder ran short, the principal dealer in salt- 
 petre was thrown into prison, until he produced the 
 
152 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 requisite quantity of that article. A native merchant 
 was required to provide cloaks for half a battalion, 
 at the rate of two and threepence apiece; a scale 
 of payment which must have inspired him with an 
 unaffected regret for the liberal contracts of the old 
 Company. With a keener relish, Baba Bhut under- 
 took to account for the Englishmen who still lurked 
 about, watching for an opportunity of shpping away 
 to Allahabad or Agra. On the eleventh of June, 
 Mr. Williams, a writer in one of the public offices, 
 was traced out and slaughtered. Two days sub- 
 sequently, the head of young Mr. Duncan was 
 brought into his own father's house. The murderer 
 was rewarded with the present of a pound, and the 
 porter got a couple of rupees. 
 
 At the expiration of a fortnight, an event oc- 
 curred which, for a while, afforded to the besieged 
 people a more suggestive and agreeable matter of 
 conversation than the rise of the mercury in the 
 tube, and the sinking of the flour in the barrels. A 
 native water-carrier skulked over from the opposite 
 lines, and gave out that, on account of his love and 
 respect for the Sahibs, he had set his heart upon 
 being the first to bring them the good news; that 
 there were two companies of white soldiers on the 
 other side of the Ganges, who were supposed to have 
 marched down from Lucknow ; that they had guns 
 with them, and were making as if they would cross 
 the river on the morrow ; that the rebel camp was in 
 panic, and that everybody was saying how much he 
 had all along intended to do for the Sahibs, had he 
 only dared. Next day he turned up again with the 
 intelligence that the Europeans had been detained 
 
Ill THE SIEGE 153 
 
 on the opposite bank by an unexpected flood, but 
 tliat they were busily engaged in knocking together 
 rafts, and might be looked for within the forty-eight 
 hours. Those hours passed, and twice and thrice 
 those hours, and there came not the aspect of help, 
 nor the renewal of confidence, nor the welcome sight 
 of light faces, nor the welcome sound of approaching 
 artillery. The soi-disant water-carrier made no third 
 appearance. His two first visits had taught him all 
 that Azimoolah desired to know of our impoverished 
 and defenceless plight. 
 
 Our spies were less lucky ; or it may be that the 
 sturdy and straightforward British nature cannot 
 promptly adapt itself to those frauds which are 
 proverbially fair in war. There was in the garrison 
 a soldier named Blenman, an Eurasian by birth, 
 astute, and singularly courageous, but in temper 
 uncertain, and impatient of control. There, and at 
 that time, such a man was worth his weight in 
 meal or powder, and his superiors did well to 
 humour him. Cool, observant, and bold to temerity, 
 the most delicate and hazardous of services had for 
 him an innate attraction. After trying his wings 
 in some partial flights, he prepared for a great and 
 final enterprise, and volunteered to penetrate as far 
 as Allahabad with a report of our calamities, and an 
 appeal for instant succour. He disguised himself 
 as a native cook, an easy task, for his complexion 
 showed that he had far more than the due share of 
 maternal blood ; and sallied forth with a pistol and 
 fifteen rupees stufied into his cotton drawers. He 
 passed unnoticed or unsuspected no less than seven 
 horse pickets. The eighth stopped and searched 
 
154 CAWNPORE CHAP. 
 
 him, in spite of his asseverations that he was a 
 poor leather-dresser, taking a walk through the 
 night air, after working all day in a close alley, 
 over the saddles and holsters of the gentlemen 
 troopers of the Second Cavalry. Too plausible to be 
 killed off-hand, and too questionable to be neglected, 
 he was stripped and sent back whence he came, 
 with no other information than that the investment 
 of our position was even more strict and complete 
 than had been apprehended. 
 
 A half-caste Government official offered to make 
 an attempt to obtain intelligence, and to bribe over 
 some of the influential citizens of Cawnpore, on 
 condition that Sir Hugh would permit his family to 
 leave the intrenchment. His terms were accepted. 
 He set forth, but was at once detected, and taken 
 before the Maharaja, who sentenced him to three 
 years' imprisonment with hard labour ; a unique 
 example of leniency, curious, as proving how firmly 
 that usurper was persuaded that his rule would now 
 be permanent. Ghouse Mahomed, a faithful sepoy 
 of the Fifty-sixth, succeeded in getting farther than 
 his predecessors. He crept along the ground in the 
 darkness, until he met two or three men with four 
 yoke of oxen taking supplies to the Savada House. 
 He told them that he was going to the city to buy 
 some grave-clothes for his brother, a brave who had 
 died that day for the good cause in one of the 
 advanced batteries. He was allowed to proceed 
 upon his pious errand; but, when he reached the 
 native town, it was as much as he could do to con- 
 ceal himself from the inquisition of the rebel police. 
 Many emissaries were despatched from our fortifi- 
 
Ill THE SIEGE 155 
 
 cation, but Blenman alone returned. The others, 
 through the months subsequent to our re-occupation 
 of the district, came straggling in, as they could 
 effect their escape from the camp of the fugitive 
 Nana; with noses slit, and hands or ears chopped 
 off by an ignorant and inhuman operator. 
 
 The remaining contents of the Cawnpore budget 
 derive their principal interest from a consideration 
 of the circumstances under which they were pro- 
 duced. Not even at such a season would English- 
 men put their deeper feelings within an envelope; 
 and the gossip of the station in that June was 
 hardly calculated to enliven a correspondence. On 
 the night of Sunday, the twenty-first. Major Yibart 
 transmitted these lines to Lucknow : — 
 
 "We have been cannonaded for six hours a day 
 " by twelve guns. This evening, in three hours, up- 
 " wards of thirty shells [mortars] were thrown into 
 " the intrenchment. This has occurred daily for the 
 "last eight days; an idea may he formed of our 
 "casualties, and how little protection the barracks 
 "afford to the women. Any aid, to be effective, 
 "must be immediate. In event of rain falling, our 
 " position would be untenable. 
 
 "According to telegraphic despatches received 
 "previous to the outbreak, a thousand Europeans 
 " were to have been here on the fourteenth instant. 
 " This force may be on its way up. Any assistance 
 "you can send might co-operate with it. Nine- 
 " pounder ammunition, chiefly cartridges, is required. 
 "Should the above force arrive, we can, in return, 
 "insure the safety of Lucknow. Being simply a 
 
156 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 "military man, General Wheeler has no power to 
 "offer bribes in land and money to the insurgents, 
 **nor any means whatever of communicating with 
 '** them. You can ascertain the best means of cross- 
 ' ing the river. Nujuffgurh Ghaut is suggested. It 
 " is earnestly requested that whatever is done may 
 "be effected without a moment's delay. We have 
 "lost about a third of our original number. The 
 " enemy are strongest in artillery. They appear not 
 "to have more than four hundred or five hundred 
 "infantry. They move their guns with difficulty, 
 " by means of unbroken bullocks. The infantry are 
 " great cowards, and easily repulsed. 
 " By order, 
 
 " G. V. YiBART, Major." 
 
 In the following letter there is one sad touch : the 
 widower writing over his elbow " on the floor," " in 
 " the midst of the greatest dirt, noise, and confusion." 
 
 " I was agreeably surprised to receive your most 
 " welcome letter of the twenty-first, the messenger 
 " of which managed cleverly to find his way here ; 
 "but that surprise was exceeded by the astonish- 
 " ment felt by us all, at the total want of knowledge 
 "you seem to be in regarding our position and 
 " prospects ; while we have been, since the sixth of 
 "the month, equally in the dark respecting the 
 "doings of the world around us. Your loss at 
 "Lucknow is frightful, in common with that of us 
 " all ; for, since the date referred to, every one here 
 "has been reduced to ruin. On that date they 
 *' commenced their attack, and fearfully have they 
 
Ill THE SIEGE 157 
 
 "continued now for eighteen days and nights; 
 "while the condition of misery experienced by all 
 " is utterly beyond description in this place. Death 
 "and mutilation, in all their forms of horror, have 
 "been daily before us. The numerical amount of 
 "casualties has been frightful, caused both by sick- 
 "ness and the implements of war, the latter having 
 "been fully employed against our devoted garrison 
 " by the villainous insurgents, who have, unluckily,. 
 " been enabled to furnish themselves therewith from 
 "the repository which contained them. We await 
 "the aiTival of succour with the most anxious ex- 
 "pectation, after all our endurance and sufferings; 
 "for that. Sir Henry Lawrence has been applied 
 "to by Sir Hugh, and we hope earnestly it will be 
 "afforded, and that immediately, to avert further 
 " evil. If he will answer that appeal with * deux 
 "cents soldats Britanniques' we shall be doubtless 
 " at once enabled to improve our position in a vital 
 " manner : and we deserve that the appeal should 
 " be so answered forthwith. You will be grieved to 
 "learn that among our casualties from sickness, my 
 "poor dear wife and infant have been numbered. 
 " The former sank on the twelfth, and the latter on 
 "the nineteenth. I am writing this on the floor, 
 "and in the midst of the greatest dirt, noise, and 
 "confusion. Pray urge our reinforcement to the 
 "Chief Commissioner. 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 "L. M. WiGGENS.'* 
 
 The employment of the French sentence is worthy 
 of remark. During these troubled times, every 
 
158 CAWNPORE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 modem language was pressed into our service, and 
 more than one old field-olBficer mustered up his 
 school reminiscences of the Anabasis and the Iliad, 
 to compose a bulletin curiously blended of Attic, 
 -^olic, and Aldershot, which would have puzzled 
 Grote or Hermann at least as much as it could 
 possibly perplex any mutineer or highwayman who 
 might chance to intercept the messenger. 
 
 Things had got to a terrible pass on our side of 
 the wall. All the present sweetness of existence 
 was long since vanished, and the last flicker of 
 future hope had now died away. But, moved by 
 a generous despair and an invincible self-respect, 
 our people still fought on. By daring and vigilance, 
 by countless shifts and unremitting labour, they 
 staved off ruin for another day, and yet another. 
 At rare intervals behind the earthwork, they stood — 
 gaunt and feeble likenesses of men — clutching with 
 muffled fingers the barrels of their muskets, which 
 glowed with heat intolerable to the naked hand, so 
 fierce was the blaze of the summer sun. Straining 
 their ears to catch any fancied sounds of distant 
 cannonading, they gazed across the plain to where 
 the horizon faded into a fantastic mirage, which 
 mocked their fevered eyes with fair scenes of forest 
 and mountain, and with infinite expanses of glassy 
 water broken by golden islets ; while in the fore- 
 ground the jackals prowled about the debated space, 
 and the pariah dogs snarled at the grey crows, and 
 slunk away from the spots where the great vultures 
 sat in obscene and sulky conclave. Dim must have 
 been the thoughts, confused the images, which flitted 
 through their wearied intellect ; indistinct memories 
 
Ill THE SIEGE 159 
 
 of home and youth ; faint regrets, and fainter reso- 
 lutions ; fitful yearnings for dear beings whom they 
 would never again behold. One would surmise 
 how his mother in far-off England would bear her 
 sorrow, and who would be selected to break the 
 news. Another would calculate dates, and try to 
 convince himself that his boy at Rugby should have 
 got the scholarship examination off his mind before 
 the receipt of the fatal tidings. But, whatever 
 might be the subject of contemplation, no smile 
 relieved the stolid apathy of their careworn features, 
 save when dejection was for an instant charmed 
 away by the buoyant audacity of Moore. " He was 
 " a strong man. In the dark perils of war, in the 
 " high places of the field, hope shone in him hke a 
 "pillar of fire, when it had gone out in all the 
 " others." Brave and vivacious himself, he was the 
 cause that bravery and vivacity were in other men. 
 It was not that he had less at stake than those 
 around him, for his wife and children were in the 
 intrenchment. When the vicissitudes of battle called 
 her husband to the outposts, Mrs. Moore would step 
 across with her work, and spend the day beneath a 
 little hut of bamboos covered with canvas, which the 
 garrison of Barrack Number Two had raised for her 
 in their most sheltered comer. Seldom had fair 
 lady a less appropriate bower. 
 
 The twenty- third of June 1757 was the date of 
 the great rout that placed Bengal beneath the sway 
 of the foreigner. In 1857 the ringleaders of the 
 mutiny had fixed on the dawning of that day as the 
 signal for a general rebelKon over the entire north 
 of India; but the outbreak at Meerut and the 
 
160 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 massacre of Delhi precipitated and weakened the 
 blow. In that dread year those awful events were 
 to us as saving mercies. At Cawnpore, however, 
 the Nana and his crew, actuated by a partiality for 
 the celebration of centenaries not altogether con- 
 fined to Asiatics, were bent upon effecting something 
 worthy of the occasion. All through the night of 
 the twenty-second the defenders of the outlying 
 barracks were kept on the alert by sounds which 
 betokened that the sepoys in the adjacent build- 
 ings were more than usually numerous and restless. 
 Lieutenant Thomson sent to head-quarters for a 
 reinforcement ; but Moore replied that he could 
 spare nobody except himself and Lieutenant Dela- 
 fosse. In the course of a few minutes the pair 
 arrived, and at once sallied forth armed, one with 
 a sword, and the other with an empty musket. 
 Moore shouted out, " Number One to the front ! " 
 and the enemy, taking it for granted that the 
 well-known word of command would bring upon 
 them a full company of Sahibs with fixed bayonets 
 and cocked revolvers, broke cover and ran like 
 rabbits. But towards morning they returned in 
 force, and attacked with such determined ferocity 
 that there remained more dead Hindoos outside the 
 doorway than there were living Europeans within. 
 At the same moment the main fortification was 
 assaulted by the whole strength of the insurrection. 
 Field-guns, pulled along by horses and buUocks, 
 were brought up within a few hundred yards, 
 unlimbered, and pointed at our wall. The troopers, 
 who had bound themselves by the most solemn oath 
 of their religion to conquer or to perish, charged at 
 
ni THE SIEGE 161 
 
 a gallop m one quarter, while in another advanced 
 the dense array of infantry, preceded by a host of 
 skirmishers, who rolled before them great bundles 
 of cotton, proof against our bullets. It was all in 
 vain. Our countrymen, too, had their anniversary 
 to keep. They shot down the teams which tugged 
 the artillery. They fired the bales, drove the 
 sharpshooters back upon the columns, and sent 
 the columns to the right-about in imseemly hsiste. 
 They taught the men of the Second Cavalry that 
 broken vows, and angered gods, and the waters 
 of Ganges poured fruitlessly on the perjured head 
 were less terrible than British valour in the last 
 extremity. The contest was short but sharp. The 
 defeated combatants retired to brag and to carouse ; 
 the victors to brood, to sicken, and to starve. That 
 evening a party of sepoys drew near our lines, made 
 obeisance after their fashion, and requested leave 
 to bury the slain. This acknowledgment of an 
 empty triumph, which would have spread a lively 
 joy throughout the ranks of an old Spartan army, 
 even in the most desperate strait, was but a poor 
 consolation to these Englishmen under the shadow 
 of their impending doom. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE TREACHERY 
 
 THE event of this conflict produced a sudden 
 change in the projects of the Nana. He forth- 
 with began to despair of carrjdng our fortress by 
 storm, and the circumstances of his position were 
 so critical that he dared not await the unfaihng 
 but tardy process of starvation. The clearing out 
 af the intrenchment proved to be a more serious 
 undertaking than he had anticipated. From forty 
 to fifty score of his stoutest warriors had bitten the 
 dust in front of our rampart, and he appeared to 
 be as far as ever from the object which he had in 
 view. Every day the English fought with increased 
 gallantry and firmness, while in his own camp dis- 
 affection and disgust gained ground from hour to 
 hour. An Oriental army which has turned its back 
 on the foe can seldom be induced once more to toe 
 the scratch ; and every section of the rebel force had 
 by this time been well beaten. The sepoys were 
 already grumbling, and it was to be feared that 
 another repulse would set them conspiring. Even 
 the Oude men preferred the toddy-shops to the 
 batteries; and the mutineers of the Cawnpore 
 brigade swore that no power in heaven or earth 
 
CHAP. IV THE TREACHERY 163 
 
 should prevail on them again to look the Sahibs in 
 the face. Meanwhile the Mohammedans, whom the 
 Maharaja dreaded only less than the British, gathered 
 strength and impunity from the popular discontent. 
 Teeka Sing, the soul of the Hindoo faction and 
 the right hand of the Nana, was imprisoned in 
 his tent on the charge of amassing a private treasure 
 by a party of Moslem troopers, who were growing 
 hungry for the largess so long deferred. Delay 
 was perilous, and defeat would be fatal. By fair 
 means, or, if need was, by the very foulest, it behoved 
 the usurper to bring the matter to a speedy termina- 
 tion. One method remained ; swifter than famine ; 
 more sure than open force. It might be possible 
 to cajole where he could not frighten; to ensnare 
 those whom he might not vanquish; to lure our 
 countrymen from the shelter of that wall within 
 which no intruder had set his foot and lived. 
 
 In one of the rooms in the Savada House the 
 Green way family, of whom mention has been made 
 above, had now been shut up for about a fortnight, 
 in strict confinement, diversified by an occasional 
 conversation with an underling of the Maharaja. 
 He had fixed their ransom at forty thousand pounds, 
 and was at present discussing the terms of a bill 
 of exchange on a Calcutta bank, for which they 
 were never to receive any consideration. In the 
 same apartment lived an elderly person, named Mrs. 
 Jacobi, who had been taken while endeavouring 
 to escape towards Lucknow, disguised in native 
 clothes. On the evening of Tuesday, the twenty- 
 third, these unhappy people were surprised at re- 
 ceiving a call from A zi moolah and Jwala Pershad, 
 
164 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 who seemed in very low spirits on account of the 
 collapse of their centenary. These gentlemen in- 
 formed Mrs. Jacobi * that she had been designated 
 as the bearer of a message to Sir Hugh Wheeler. 
 She readily undertook the office, and in the course 
 of the next day was favoured by an interview with 
 the Nana, who gave her a letter and her instructions. 
 At nine o'clock on the following morning, she pro- 
 ceeded to the intrenchments in a palanquin, and 
 was admitted as soon as the sentries had ascertained 
 that she was an envoy, and not a spy. She delivered 
 the document which had been intrusted to her 
 charge; a note in the handwriting of Azimoolah, 
 attested by no signature, of which the superscription 
 was " To the subjects of Her Most Gracious Majesty 
 Queen Victoria;" and the contents ran as follows, 
 in caricature of a proclamation issued from the 
 Government House at Calcutta : — 
 
 "All those who are in no way connected with 
 "the acts of Lord Dalhousie, and are willing to 
 "lay down their arms, shall receive a safe passage 
 " to Allahabad." 
 
 This protocol, unique for brevity and impudence, 
 was laid before a council, consisting of General 
 Wheeler, and Captains Moore and Whiting. The 
 debate was prolonged and earnest. Poor Sir Hugh 
 could not bear to abandon the position that he 
 
 * On the unimportant point of the identity of the mes- 
 senger a strange discrepancy exists between the best informed 
 authorities. Captain Thomson "recognized her as Mrs. 
 Green way.'' On the other hand, the confidential servant of 
 Mr. Greenway affirms that the choice of the Nana fell upon 
 Mrs. Jacobi, and his statement is supported by the great 
 majority of the depositions. 
 
IV THE TEEACHERY 165 
 
 had chosen so ill, and in the defence of which he 
 had been so little able to participate. It seemed 
 a miserable conclusion of a not discreditable career 
 to stipulate with his own sepoys for the Uberty of 
 slinking away after the loss of all his men and 
 half his officers. Such was indeed an exorbitant 
 price to pay for the sad remnants of a broken life. 
 Better to lie within that well not far above his 
 brave boy than to bargain for the privilege of 
 being interred a few months later beneath one of 
 the unsightly masses of brickwork which encumber 
 the European graveyards of India. But the scruples 
 of the old man at length yielded to the arguments 
 produced by Moore and Whiting — and they were 
 no drawing-room soldiers; for the one throughout 
 those three weeks had never left a comer on which 
 converged the fire of two powerful batteries, and 
 the other had so borne himself that it might weU 
 be doubted whether he knew what fear was. They 
 represented that, if the garrison had consisted ex- 
 clusively of fighting people, no one would ever 
 dream of surrender as long as they had swords 
 wherewith to cut their way to Allahabad. But what 
 could be done with a mixed multitude, in which 
 there was a woman and a child to each man, while 
 every other man was incapacitated by wounds and 
 disease ? The setting in of the wet weather (so they 
 urged), long dreaded as an overwhelming calamity, 
 and delayed hitherto by what resembled the special 
 mercy of Providence, could not now be distant. 
 When the heavens were once opened, when the 
 rain of the East descended in all its first violence, 
 their fortification would straightway cease to be 
 
166 CAWNPOEE chap. 
 
 habitable and secure. The walls of the barracks, 
 shaken and riddled by the cannonade, would sink 
 and crumble beneath the fury of a tropical tempest. 
 The holes in which our ladies sought refuge from 
 the glare and the shot would be filled ere many 
 inches had fallen. The marksmen who, provided 
 with weapons worthy of their skill, could hardly 
 guarantee those paltry bulwarks, would be helpless 
 when damp powder and dirty gun-barrels had re- 
 duced them to their bayonets and hog-spears. In 
 another week they must expect to be washed out 
 of their defences ; but, before that week had elapsed, 
 the state of the barometer would concern them 
 little; for the provisions were fast coming to an 
 end. Their stores had dwindled to less than a 
 quart per head of almost uneatable native food. 
 The choice lay between death and capitulation: 
 and, if the latter were resolved on, it was well 
 that the offer came from the enemy. Loth and 
 late Sir Hugh gave way. In order to avoid the 
 appearance of a suspicious eagerness to accept the 
 advances of the Nana, Mrs. Jacobi was dismissed 
 with an announcement that our commander was in 
 deliberation as to the answer that should be sent. 
 That the intention to treat was generally known 
 among our officers is evident from a note addressed 
 by Lieutenant Master, of the Fifty-third, to his father, 
 a colonel of cavalry, dated at half-past eight in the 
 evening of June the twenty-fifth. 
 
 "We have now held out for twenty-one days 
 "under a tremendous fire. The Rajah of Bithoor 
 "has offered to forward us in safety to Allahabad, 
 "and the General has accepted his terms. I am 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 167 
 
 "all right, though twice wounded. Charlotte 
 "Newnham and Bella Blair are dead. I'll write 
 " from Allahabad. God bless you. 
 
 " Your affectionate son, 
 
 "G. A. Master." 
 
 The old lady returned to the rebel lines early 
 in the afternoon, but somewhat cheered by her short 
 visit. While the summons was under consideration, 
 she had made the most of such an excellent oppor- 
 tunity for pouring out her troubles and terrors 
 to a friendly audience. Her escort conducted her 
 to the Maharaja, who listened to what she had 
 to say, and then sent her back into captivity. He 
 had no further need of her services. A pacific 
 intercourse had been established between the camps, 
 and thenceforward his ambassadors might traverse 
 the intervening ground without apprehension lest 
 a conical bullet from Lieutenant Stirling's rifle 
 should put an abrupt end to the negotiations. That 
 evening there was assembled in the Nana's tent 
 a council of war, to which repaired five or six con- 
 genial advisers, who, in their inmost hearts, were 
 conscious that they had been bidden to a council 
 of murder. One hour after dusk was the time 
 appointed for that accursed colloquy. A subject 
 was to be broached on which few would dare to 
 enter until the kindly sun had veiled his face. 
 History will never cease to shudder at the deeds 
 which thence resulted ; but of the words that there 
 were spoken she will be content to abide for ever 
 ignorant. 
 
 The morrow was a busy day. The first thing 
 
168 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 in the morning, at our invitation, Azimoolah walked 
 Tip to within half a quarter of a mile of our outposts, 
 accompanied by Jwala Pershad, a myrmidon of 
 Bithoor Palace, who, by zeal and servility, had risen 
 to the dignity of a brigadier. To them went forth 
 Moore and Whiting, together with Mr. Roche, the 
 postmaster. These gentlemen, whom Sir Hugh had 
 invested with full powers, undertook to deliver up 
 the fortification, the treasure, and the artillery, on 
 condition that our force should march out under 
 arms, with sixty rounds of ammunition to every 
 man ; that carriages should be provided for the 
 conveyance of the wounded, the women, and the 
 children ; and that boats victualled with a sufficiency 
 of flour should be in readiness at the neighbouring 
 landing-place. These stipulations appeared to meet 
 the approval of the native commissioners ; one of 
 whom volunteered the remark, " We will give you 
 sheep and goats also." 
 
 The terms were committed to paper, and handed 
 to Azimoolah, who broke up the conference with 
 a promise to do what he could towards persuading 
 his master to accede to our proposals. That same 
 afternoon a trooper brought back a document, with 
 a verbal ■ message to the effect that the Nana had 
 no alteration to suggest, and desired that the bar- 
 rack should be evacuated that very night. This 
 extravagant demand produced a remonstrance on 
 our part, to which the response was an insolent 
 assurance that the Peishwa must have his will, and 
 that disobedience or even hesitation would bring 
 upon the delinquents the fire of all his batteries ; 
 that he was not so blind as to give us credit for 
 
IV THE TKEACHEEY 169 
 
 having abundance of food or serviceable cannon; 
 and that another week's bombardment would leave 
 nobody alive to haggle with his behest. To this 
 flourish of Oriental vanity Whiting replied in good 
 English style, that, if Seereek Dhoondoo Punth 
 wanted the intrenchment, he had only to come 
 and take it ; that his soldiers knew the way thither 
 and the way back again ; and that, if the worst came 
 to the worst, there was powder enough in our maga- 
 zine to blow into the Ganges everything south of 
 the canal. This last allusion closed the controversy. 
 The Maharaja consented that we should delay the 
 embarkation till morning, and accorded a most gra- 
 cious reception to Mr. Todd, who formerly had been 
 his English tutor, and who now prevailed upon him, 
 without difficulty, to sign his worthless name on the 
 margin of the treaty. Men give easily what costs 
 them nothing. The Nana informed his old acquaint- 
 ance that arrangements should be made to enable 
 our countrymen to breakfast and dine on board, and 
 start comfortably in the cool of the evening. The 
 servants, he said, had better stay behind, as ladies 
 could look to their own wants on the voyage. Which 
 was true, God knows. 
 
 There was much to be done that night. On the 
 one side preparations were on foot for a departure ; 
 on the other, measures were being taken that the 
 departure should never be. Hoolass Sing, the 
 magistrate of the city, sent for the principal persons 
 who gained their living by letting boats on hire, and 
 ordered them to provide conveyance for five hundred 
 passengers. They declared themselves unable to 
 fulfil his injunctions, a refusal on which, after the 
 
170 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 re-establishment of British rule, they insisted as an 
 irrefragable proof of loyalty. It is more likely that 
 they were influenced by a rational doubt as to 
 whether they would ever see the colour of the Nana's 
 money. Hoolass Sing, however, knew what he was 
 about, as appears from the pathetic language of one 
 of the sufferers. " I told him," says Buddhoo, aged 
 forty years, " that, when I received orders from the 
 " Europeans to procure boats, I was advanced 
 *' money, and allowed a month or fifteen days to 
 " collect the same, and that it was impossible to 
 " procure boats on so short a notice. On this he 
 " was much annoyed, and said I was only putting 
 " him off, and ordered his attendants to take me, 
 '' give me a good beating, and make me get boats. 
 " They did as ordered, kept me there the whole 
 " night, beating me, and threatened to blow me 
 " from guns if I did not comply with their request. 
 *' They continued threatening me till 12 A.M. : but 
 " I did not get them any boats." Buddhoo's com- 
 panions had more regard for their skins ; and, being 
 not unaccustomed to this mode of carr3dng on a 
 commercial transaction, after a due modicum of 
 vapulation discovered that they could muster two 
 dozen barges between them. These were punted 
 down the river, and moored at the appointed spot. 
 Presently a committee of English oflScers, riding 
 upon elephants, and guarded by native troopers, 
 arrived for the purpose of inspecting the proceedings 
 and reporting progress. These gentlemen expressed 
 great vexation at the dilapidated state of the little 
 fleet. Four hundred workmen were at once engaged, 
 and set to repair the thatch of the roofs, and con- 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 171 
 
 struct a temporary flooring of bamboo. During the 
 presence of our countrymen some provisions were 
 brought along and placed on board, with a con- 
 siderable show of assiduity : but they were not satis- 
 fied with all that they saw, and still less with what 
 they seemed to hear. Some sepoys, idling on the 
 bank, interspersed their talk with frequent repeti- 
 tion of the word " kuttle," which, being interpreted, 
 is " massacre." 
 
 And so the stage had been selected whereon to 
 enact the tragedy. Hoolass Sing had furnished the 
 properties ; Azimoolah had composed the plot ; and 
 there lacked only a skilful manager, who should 
 distribute the parts, instruct the actors, and dispose 
 the supernumeraries. The Nana could discover many 
 a one among his pimps and parasites suited to such 
 a job as far as moral constitution was concerned. 
 In his familiar circle there was no dearth of fellows 
 by the hand of nature marked, quoted, and signed 
 to do a deed of shame. But in that degenerate 
 circle there was only a single courtier who had 
 retained something of the old Mahratta dash and 
 martial craft. Tantia Topee was destined ere long 
 to demonstrate that he could run away every whit as 
 successfully as those chieftains who more than half a 
 century before wearied out the hot pursuit of Lake 
 and Wellesley; and on this particular occasion he 
 evinced qualities which might have secured to him a 
 share of fame in a cause less detestable to God and 
 man. Laurels were not to be reaped in that contest. 
 The due meed for such victors was a wreath of 
 cypress and a necklace of hemp. But the bad deed 
 was right cleverly done. Among all the feats of arms 
 
172 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 performed by the rebel forces during the eighteen 
 months which succeeded the explosion of Meerut, 
 no operation was so perfect in all its parts, so able 
 in design, and so prosperous in execution, as the 
 memorable treachery of Cawnpore. 
 
 The Suttee Chowra Ghaut, or landing-place, lay a 
 short mile to the north-west of our intrenchments. 
 At this point a ravine runs into the Ganges, after 
 crossing at a right angle the main road, which is 
 distant three hundred yards from the river. During 
 summer the bed of the stream is dry, and presents 
 the appearance of a sandy lane of irregular width, 
 uneven with frequent lumps of broken soil, and 
 inclosed on either side with high banks crowned 
 by decaying fences. Standing half-way down this 
 passage the tourist sees behind him a bridge which 
 carries the highway across the defile, the rails of 
 which, then as now coated with white paint, have 
 little of an Oriental aspect, and remind him for an 
 instant of a bit in a Surrey common. On reaching 
 the shore he finds himself in an open space, some 
 hundred and fifty yards long and a hundred deep, 
 bounded in the rear by a precipitous rising ground 
 surmounted with prickly pear, in front by the 
 Ganges, and to the left by the ruins of what in 
 1857 was the village from which the Ghaut takes a 
 name. On his right hand rises a picturesque temple, 
 dedicated to the patron deity of fishermen, small 
 but in good repair, resembling nothing so much as 
 those summer-houses of a century back, which at 
 the comers of old gardens overhang Dutch canals 
 and suburban English byways. Passing down the 
 wall of this edifice a steep flight of steps terminates 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 173 
 
 in the very water of the river, so that a man cannot 
 round the comer without wading. This is the scene 
 where the traveller experiences to the full the sen- 
 timent of the spirit of Cawnpore. In other quarters 
 of the station there are objects which evoke no light 
 and transient feehngs. It is painful to trace the 
 faint line of the fortifications, and recognize the site 
 of the barrack which contained so much sorrow and 
 agony. It is interesting to observe the neat garden 
 that strives to beguile away the associations which 
 haunt the well of evil fame, and to peruse the in- 
 scription indited by a vice-regal hand. It may 
 gratify some minds, beneath the roof of a memorial 
 church that is now building, to listen while Christian 
 worship is performed above a spot which once re- 
 sounded with ineffectual prayers and vain ejacula- 
 tions addressed to quite other ears. But it is beside 
 that little shrine on the brink of the yeUow flood 
 that none save they who live in the present alone can 
 speak with unaltered voice, and gaze with undimmed 
 eye. For that is the very place itself where the act 
 was accomplished, not yet transformed by votive 
 stone and marble. There, at least, in the November 
 evening, an Englishman may stand with bare head, 
 and, under the canopy of heaven, breathe a silent 
 petition for grace to do in his generation some small 
 thing towards the conciliation of races estranged by 
 a terrible memory. 
 
 In the course of the Friday evening Tantia Topee 
 was closeted with the Nana, and, on leaving, gave 
 orders that five guns and as many hundred picked 
 musketeers should be mustered at the landing-place 
 two hours before daybreak. He likewise enjoined 
 
174 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 certain among the rebel nobles to be in attendance 
 with their followers at the same rendezvous. The 
 cavalry soldiers, to whom the design was imparted, 
 exclaimed against such a dastardly breach of faith, 
 and would not be convinced until the Maharaja him- 
 self took the trouble to assure them, on the authority 
 of a royal Brahmin, that according to his creed it 
 was permissible to forswear at such a juncture ; and 
 that, for his own part, when the object was to an- 
 nihilate an enemy, he would not hesitate to take a 
 false oath on burning oil or holy water. 
 
 At the prescribed time, Tantia Topee found his 
 power assembled on the bank, and straightway pro- 
 ceeded to make his dispositions. One gun, under 
 the charge of a detachment, was placed among 
 the ruins of Mr. Christie's house, which, from a con- 
 siderable height above the stream, commanded the 
 whole line of boats. A strong body of sepoys took 
 cover behind the village of Suttee Chowra. A 
 squadron of troopers concealed themselves to the 
 south of the Fisherman's Temple. A couple of 
 sections were secreted in and about some timber, 
 which lay ready to be shipped away ; while a mixed 
 party of horse and foot were told off to follow 
 our garrison, with directions to form up on the 
 wooden bridge as soon as the English rear-guard 
 had entered the ravine, and thus cut off the single 
 avenue of escape. A field-piece, protected by a 
 company of infantry, was posted a quarter of a mile 
 down the river : and at a somewhat wider interval 
 was stationed a third gun and another company. 
 On the opposite shore, directly facing the mouth 
 of the lane, stood two cannon, guarded by an entire 
 
IV THE TKEACHERY 175 
 
 battalion of infantry and a regiment of cavalry, 
 who had recently attached themselves to the 
 insurrection. 
 
 The boats, some few excepted, had been hauled 
 into the shallows, and were literally resting on the 
 sand. They were of the ordinary country build, 
 thirty feet from stem to stem, and twelve feet in 
 the beam. They were covered in by a heavy roof 
 of straw, with a space at either end left open for 
 the steersman and the rowers. At a distance they 
 had the air of floating haystacks, rather than of 
 vessels; and, indeed, were not unlike the Noah's 
 ark of our nurseries, both in their outlines and in 
 the number of their crew. Tantia called the boat- 
 men together, and bade them hold themselves pre- 
 pared, at a given signal, to fire the thatch, and make 
 for the shore ; and then, secure of the issue, mounted 
 the stairs of the little temple, there to await, amidst 
 a crowd of armed retainers, the outcome of his able 
 combinations. The men in ambush chattered, and 
 shivered, and munched their cold rice, and shared 
 the alternate pipe; and the Mussulmans in the 
 various groups performed a leisurely obeisance to- 
 wards the rising sun, not sorry when his rays broke 
 through the chill mist of the morning; and the 
 bargemen gathered round fires heaped with a larger 
 supply of charcoal than the economic Hindoo is 
 wont to expend upon the preparation of his frugal 
 breakfast. 
 
 All was quiet in the intrenchment. Brigadier 
 Jwala Pershad, with two companions, came overnight 
 to Sir Hugh Wheeler, and announced that the trio 
 were to remain until the embarkation as hostages 
 
176 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 for the good faith of the Peishwa. The plausible 
 Hindoo made himself exceedingly agreeable to his 
 host ; condoled with the General upon the privations 
 which he had undergone, so trying at that advanced 
 age ; and intimated his disapprobation of those un- 
 grateful soldiers who had turned their arms against 
 an old and indulgent commander. He promised 
 that, as far as in him lay, he would take care that 
 no harm should befall us ; and he soon had occasion 
 to submit to a test of his good intentions, for a 
 rebel sentry in the outlying barracks dropped his 
 musket, which exploded in the faU, an accident 
 that called forth a rapid and wild discharge from 
 all the hostile batteries. Jwala at once despatched 
 to the head-quarters of the enemy a message ex- 
 plaining the cause of the commotion, and procured 
 an immediate cessation of the bombardment. In 
 spite of this interruption, the garrison, rendered by 
 long suspense and wretchedness careless rather than 
 unsuspicious of the future, held high festival upon 
 a double ration of boiled lentils and meal-cake, 
 washed down by copious draughts of water clouded 
 with brick-dust and powdered cement. Though 
 many a wish was uttered for bread, and eggs, and 
 milk-porridge, and curried fowls, no one dare beg 
 or buy of the native sutlers. And so our people 
 filled themselves with such food as they could get, 
 and rested as men rest who have not slept for a great 
 while, and know not when they may sleep again. 
 There were those at hand who knew right well. 
 Meanwhile, as an earnest of our defeat, a squad of 
 mutineers stood guard over the shattered remains 
 of the glorious guns which had done all that British 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 177 
 
 iron could effect for the conservation of British 
 honour and British lives. 
 
 On the morrow, at a very early hour, all Cawnpore 
 was astir. The townspeople poured down to the 
 landing-place by thousands ; some desirous to catch 
 one more ghmpse of the kind-hearted strangers who 
 had so long sojourned in their midst, and unfeignedly 
 sorry to see the last of such easy customers and 
 such open-handed masters; others, curious to ob- 
 serve whether the Sahibs were much changed by 
 their hardships; others, again, drawn thither by 
 a dim expectation that something might happen, 
 which it would be a pity to have missed. And the 
 mutineers, and the matchlock-men, and the rabble of 
 the revolt, swarmed forth from the various dens of de- 
 bauchery, and slouched off, yawning and half-armed, 
 to bear their part in whatever might be going on. 
 And Azimoolah and the brothers of the Peishwa, 
 accompanied by a host of nobles, mounted their 
 horses, and joined Tantia Topee on the platform of 
 the temple. And the Nana did not sleep late, if, 
 indeed, he slept at all. When his courtiers had de- 
 parted, he dismissed his attendants, and listened in 
 soUtude for the sounds which should announce that 
 the supreme moment had arrived. His mind was 
 not in tune for company. 
 
 And our countrymen awoke for the last time. 
 There was a great deal to be thought and talked of, 
 but not much to be done. The packing did not 
 take long. Little had been brought into those hate- 
 ful walls, and less yet remained worth removal when 
 they came to break up their melancholy establish- 
 ment. Some hid about their persons money, or 
 
178 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 jewellery, or fragments of plate. Others seemed 
 bo think that a Bible or a book of prayers was a 
 treasure more likely to be of service in the coming 
 emergency than turquoises, and silver spoons, and 
 gold sovereigns. The able-bodied folk, intent on 
 the common safety, stuffed their hats and pockets 
 with ball-cartridge ; while a few, over whose hearts, 
 softened by the influence of the occasion, affection 
 and regret held exclusive sway, bestowed all their 
 care upon tokens which the dying had put aside as 
 a legacy for the bereaved in England. Many and 
 strange were the relics that crossed the Indian 
 Ocean in the homeward-bound packets of that 
 autumn ; locks of hair, and stained sleeves or 
 collars, and notes scribbled on the fly-leaf of an 
 orderly-book, and pistols, of which some of the 
 barrels were still loaded, and others had been fired 
 in vain. It was then much as it had been in 
 the days of Troy, throughout the villages of an- 
 cient Achaia. " The household knew those whom 
 " it sent forth to the war ; but, instead of the 
 "men, an urn and a poor handful of ashes alone 
 " returned." 
 
 And now began to make itself felt a strong dis- 
 inclination to quit for ever the place where so much 
 had been done and suffered ; a frame of mind which 
 afterwards was remarked among the besieged at 
 Lucknow who outlived the relief of the Presidency. 
 Death, in one of the forms with which all had lately 
 grown so conversant, and among associations that, 
 if not dear, were at any rate familiar, seemed prefer- 
 able to novel exertions and untried perils. More 
 than one young subaltern who, a month previously. 
 
IV THE TKEACHERY 179 
 
 would Lave been ashamed to confess to an emotion, 
 stole ten minutes to pay a farewell visit to the loop- 
 hole at which, on the morning of the great assault, 
 he had fought till his shoulder was blue, and his 
 rifle clogged with lead ; or to stand with wet cheeks 
 in a nook of the hospital, sacred to his first great 
 grief. Not a few peered down the well that lay 
 outside the breastwork, with a tacit adieu to those 
 whom they left behind, and a wish that it had 
 pleased God to unite them, even there. 
 
 If a start was to be made before the advancing 
 day had dispelled the freshness of dawn, there was 
 no time to be lost. A crowd of carriages and beasts 
 of burden had gradually assembled outside the 
 north-western comer of the intrenchment. Some 
 of the women and children disposed themselves in 
 the bullock-carts, while others climbed up to an in- 
 secure seat on the padded back of an elephant. A 
 fine animal, equipped with a state howdah, and 
 steered by the Peishwa's own driver, had been sent 
 for the accommodation of Sir Hugh Wheeler. The 
 General was touched by the attention; but (un- 
 willing, it may be, to form a conspicuous object in 
 a corUge so far from triumphal) after seeing his 
 wife and daughters safely mounted in the place of 
 honour, he ensconced himself in a palanquin, which 
 he never left alive. Our soldiers bestowed their dis- 
 abled comrades in the litters, without receiving the 
 slightest assistance from the native bystanders. It 
 was cruel work, the loading of this mournful train. 
 The inexperienced good-will of that amateur ambu- 
 lance corps occasioned grievous agony to some who 
 ought not to have left their beds for months, and 
 
180 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 to some who should never have been moved 
 again. 
 
 A number of sepoys mingled with the throng of 
 British people, and entered into conversation with 
 the gentlemen under whom they had formerly served. 
 One and all, they expressed lively admiration for 
 the unaccountable obstinacy of our defence. Many 
 spoke with commiseration of the distressing condi- 
 tion to which those had been reduced for whom they 
 entertained so deep a respect; inquired eagerly 
 after their missing officers ; and learned their fate 
 with tears : conduct which none who have studied 
 the Hindoo character can attribute to sheer dissimu- 
 lation. Less equivocal were the demonstrations 
 displayed towards their employers by certain among 
 the better class of domestics. The head bearer of 
 Colonel Williams, who commanded the Fifty-sixth 
 before the mutiny, deserves to tell his own simple 
 story. He says, " Even after the cessation of hos- 
 " tilities, we were not allowed to go and see our 
 "masters. On the morning of the twenty-sixth of 
 " June, three officers of the Fifty-sixth, Goad, 
 " Fagan, and Warde, mounted on elephants, and 
 " two Europeans, whose names and regiments I don't 
 " know, mounted on another elephant, came out 
 " of the intrenchments and went to the river to 
 "inspect the boats. The gardener and I, taking 
 " some grapes, went up to the officers, and told them 
 " that we were in a starving condition, and wanted 
 " to come to our masters in the intrenchment. 
 " They said, ' No, you can't come with us, but we 
 " ' shall come out to-morrow, and you shall accom- 
 " ' pany us to Allahabad in boats.' Goad Sahib 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 181 
 
 " and Warde Sahib gave me each two rupees. They 
 " told me that my master had died a natural death ; 
 " that my mistress was well, but slightly wounded ; 
 " and that Miss Mary was dead. Her death was 
 " caused by fright at the cannonade, and that she 
 " was not wounded. On the twenty-seventh of June, 
 " a little before six A.M. as many as could walk came 
 " out ; some of the wounded in doolies, others of 
 " whom were left behind. The party from the in- 
 "trenchment was surrounded by sepoys. I had 
 " great difficulty in reaching my mistress. I applied 
 " to Annundeedeen, the Havildar-major of the Fifby- 
 " sixth, who said the thing was impossible. I ap- 
 " pealed to him, and begged him to remember the 
 " kindness he had received from the Colonel. After 
 " persuasion, he said that he could not show his face 
 " before the Colonel's lady, but directed four sepoys 
 " to take me to my mistress and prevent my being 
 " disturbed. I was then taken to my mistress, with 
 " whom were her two daughters, Miss Georgiana 
 " and Miss Fanny. They were in wretched plight ; 
 "scorched and bhstered by the sun. My mistress 
 " had a slight bullet-wound on the upper lip. She 
 "said that my master had died on the eighth of 
 " June. My mistress then asked about the property 
 " left in the house, and inquired about all the ser- 
 " vants, and especially after the cook. She then told 
 " me to go and fetch him, as she wanted him to go 
 " down to Allahabad with her ; and told me to go to 
 " her son in the Hills, and inform him of all that 
 " had occurred. She told me to make every endea- 
 " vour to join her son as soon as the roads should 
 "be open, and to show him the spot where the 
 
182 CAWNPOEE chap. 
 
 " Colonel was buried. I told her I did not know 
 " the spot. She said the groom who had remained 
 "with them in the intrenchment would show it 
 "to me." To judge from the attachment of her 
 servants, Mrs. Williams must have ruled her house- 
 hold like a true lady of the kindly old Anglo-Indian 
 school. 
 
 No prayer was said, no blessing invoked, no pass- 
 over eaten, before that inauspicious exodus. Moore 
 went about from group to group, and impressed 
 upon his colleagues that it would be idle to attempt 
 to preserve order in the embarkation. His instruc- 
 tions were to push off as soon as all had been got 
 on board, and make for the opposite shore, where 
 further arrangements might be completed at leisure 
 and in comparative safety. And then a drink of 
 water was handed in at the door of each palanquin, 
 and the expedition set forth. A mob of peasants 
 at once rushed upon the deserted premises, and 
 spread themselves about in quest of plunder. They 
 might have spared their pains. A camel-rider, who 
 entered among the first, saw nothing except " three 
 " useless brass guns that had been split, two leathern 
 "bottles of liquid butter, a sack of fine flour, and 
 "the bodies of eleven Europeans. They were on 
 " quilts on the floor, some of them still breathing, 
 " though dying from severe gunshot wounds." 
 
 The show was not such as would dazzle a vulgar 
 eye : but in the soul of those with whom glory is 
 not skin-deep, the retinue of an imperial coronation 
 would fail to inspire the reverence excited by that 
 ragged and spiritless cavalcade. First came the 
 men of the Thirty-second regiment, their dauntless 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 183 
 
 captain at the head ; — thinking little, as ever, of the 
 past, but much of the future; — and so marching 
 unconscious towards the death which he had often 
 courted. Then moved on the throng of naked 
 bearers, groaning in monotonous cadence beneath 
 the weight of palanquins, through whose sliding 
 panels might be discerned the pallid forms of the 
 wounded ; — their limbs rudely bandaged with shirt- 
 sleeves, and old stockings, and strips of gown and 
 petticoat. Mayhap, as they jolted along, they fed 
 their sickly fancies with a listless anticipation that 
 the hour was not remote when they might forget 
 the miserable present amidst the joys of ice, and 
 lemonade, and clean sheets, and nourishment more 
 appetizing than parched grain and bad pease-por- 
 ridge. Behind these creaked a caravan of carts, 
 dragged by bullocks, on which were huddled ladies 
 used to a very different equipage; while here and 
 there paced a stately elephant, his tusks adorned 
 with rings of brass, and his forehead painted in gro- 
 tesque patterns, who, perchance, a century back, was 
 tugging a gun across the field of Plassy, and who 
 now bore a cluster of English women and children 
 clinging nervously to the ropes which encircled his 
 huge girth. And next, musket on shoulder and 
 revolver in belt, followed they who could still walk 
 and fight. Step was not kept in those ranks. Little 
 was there of martial array, or soldier-like gait and 
 attitude. Lace might not be seen, nor embroidery, 
 nor facings, nor uniforms which could be recognized 
 at the Horse Guards or smiled on in county ball- 
 rooms. In discoloured flannel and tattered nankeen, 
 mute and in pensive mood, tramped by the remnant 
 
184 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 of the immortal garrison. These men had finished 
 their toil and had fought their battle : and now, if 
 hope was all but dead within them, there survived, 
 at least, no residue of feaj*. 
 
 The last to quit the intrenchment was Major 
 Vibart, of the Second Cavalry. He brought up the 
 rear of our column alone, amidst a numerous escort 
 of mutineers belonging to his late regiment, who 
 insisted on conveying his luggage down to the land- 
 ing-place; — a marked instance of complaisance on 
 the part of these gentlemen troopers. There were 
 many, however, among the rebels who no longer 
 thought it worth while to dissemble. Lady Wheeler's 
 ayah, a few minutes before, had been presented by 
 her mistress with a bag of rupees as an acknow- 
 ledgment of her fideHty. She now was forced to 
 exchange her treasure for a slash with a sabre. 
 Some sepoys, who had stood by us to the last, were 
 seized and carried off in spite of the urgent expostu- 
 lations of their Adjutant : and the hour approached 
 when a brave woman was to meet that face to face, 
 the bitterness of which, to repeat her own language, 
 had already been tasted many, many times. Colonel 
 and Mrs. Ewart had started late; she on foot; he 
 on a bed, carried by four native porters. From one 
 cause and another they made slow progress. The 
 bearers were lazy ; and paid no attention to a Mem 
 Sahib, whose husband, prostrate with wounds, was 
 unable to enforce her orders with his cane. Gradu- 
 ally the main body drew farther and farther ahead 
 of the helpless pair ; who, at length, like a sick child 
 dreaming that he is kidnapped by gipsies, saw the 
 backs of the English rear-guard disappear round 
 
IV THE TKEACHERY 185 
 
 a distant comer. As the litter came abreast of 
 St. John's Church, seven or eight rascals belonging 
 to the Colonel's own battalion stepped up ; bade the 
 porters set down their load and stand back; and 
 began to mock their victim, sapng, " Is not this a 
 fine parade, and is it not well dressed up ? " They 
 then hewed him in pieces with their swords, and 
 afterwards turned to Mrs. Ewart, and desired her to 
 throw down whatever she had about her, and go her 
 ways, for that she was a woman, and they would not 
 kill her. She took out of her dress a piece of stuff, 
 with something tied up in it, and deUvered it to 
 one of the gang, who thereupon cut her down dead. 
 Those who loved her, and they were many, could 
 not have wished it otherwise. 
 
 Presently the van reached the white rails of the 
 wooden bridge, and, leaving them on the left hand, 
 turned aside into the fatal ravine. A vast multi- 
 tude, speechless and motionless as spectres, watched 
 their descent into that valley of the shadow of death. 
 Only some sepoys, gazing on the trappings of the 
 elephants, said one to another, " They are taken out 
 " of their fortress grandly. They go gladly. They 
 "know not what is before them. Now let them 
 " repent of their misdeeds, and ask pardon of God." 
 Soon Tantia Topee, who for some while past had 
 been anxiously glancing towards the west, saw the 
 white faces and gleaming bayonets; saw the dark 
 tops of the palanquins dancing up and down; saw 
 the howdahs swaying from right to left above the 
 sea of heads. Then he called to a bandsman who 
 was in attendance, and directed him to proceed 
 up the lane, and sound his bugle when once the 
 
186 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 Europeans were well within the trap. Slowly, very 
 slowly, with many a halt and many an entanglement, 
 the unwieldy mass of men and brutes wound along 
 the bed of the torrent. 
 
 And now the last Englishman walked down into 
 the lane ; and immediately the troops who had been 
 appointed to that duty formed a double line across 
 the mouth of the gorge, and told all who were not 
 concerned to retire and keep aloof, for that within 
 that passage there was no admittance save on one 
 baleful business. Meantime the embarkation was 
 progressing under serious difficulties. No tem- 
 porary pier had been provided, nor even a plank 
 to serve as gangway. None of the Hindoo boatmen 
 or bearers spoke a word or lent a hand, while, stand- 
 ing knee-deep in the stream, our officers hoisted 
 in the wounded and the women. Already they 
 were themselves preparing to scramble on board ; — 
 already the children were rejoicing over the sight of 
 some boiled rice which they had discovered in the 
 comer of a barge ; — when, amidst the sinister silence 
 which prevailed, the blast of a bugle came pealing 
 down the defile. Thereupon the native rowers leaped 
 into the water, and splashed towards dry ground; while 
 those very troopers who had conducted Major Vibart 
 from the barrack with such professions of esteem 
 discharged their carbines at the nearest vessel. The 
 Englishmen, whose rifles were handy, at once opened 
 fire, some on the traitorous crews, others on the hypo- 
 critical scoundrels who had commenced the attack. 
 But of a sudden several of the straw roofs burst 
 into a flame, and almost the entire fleet was blazing 
 in the twinkling of an eye. The red-hot charcoal 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 187 
 
 had done its work. At the same moment from 
 either shore broke forth a storm of grape and mus- 
 ketry. To the imagination of our countrymen, 
 oppressed and bewildered by the infernal tumult, 
 it seemed that the land was alive with a hundred 
 cannon and a mjrriad of sharpshooters. The 
 wounded perished under the burning thatch, while 
 all who could shift for themselves dropped' into the 
 river. Of the ladies, some crouching beneath the 
 overhanging prows, some wading up to their chins 
 along the shelving bottom, sought shelter from the 
 bullets, which sprinkled the surface like falling rain. 
 The men set their shoulders against the planking, 
 and tried to launch off into the mid-current. But he 
 who had chosen those moorings never intended that 
 the keels should leave the sand-bank on which they lay. 
 All the boats stuck fast, save a poor three, of which 
 two drifted across to the Oude bank into the jaws 
 of the perdition which in that quarter also awaited 
 their inmates. The third got clear away from the 
 shallows, and floated steadily down the main channel. 
 Whether fortuitously, or by the attraction of like to 
 like, it so befell that the flower of the defence was 
 congregated between those bulwarks. They were 
 Vibart ; and Whiting, good at need ; and Ashe, be- 
 reaved of his beloved nine-pounder ; and Delafosse 
 of the burning gun ; and Bolton, snatched once 
 more from present destruction. There was Moore, 
 with his arm slung in a handkerchief ; and Blenman, 
 the bold spy; and Glanville of Barrack Number 
 Two ; and Burney of the south-east battery. Fate 
 seemed wilKng to defer the hour which should ex- 
 tinguish those noble lives. 
 
188 CAWNPOEE chap. 
 
 When, after the lapse of some twenty minutes, 
 the dead began to outnumber the living;— when 
 the fire slackened, as the marks grew few and far 
 between; then the troopers who had been drawn 
 up to the right of the temple plunged into the 
 river, sabre between teeth, and pistol in hand. There- 
 upon two half-caste Christian women, the wives of 
 musicians in the band of the Fifty-sixth, witnessed a 
 scene which should not be related at second-hand. 
 " In the boat where I was to have gone," says Mrs. 
 Bradshaw, confirmed throughout by Mrs. Setts, 
 "was the school-mistress and twenty-two missies. 
 "General Wheeler came last, in a palkee. They 
 " carried him into the water near the boat. I stood 
 " close by. He said, * Carry me a little further 
 " ' towards the boat.' But a trooper said, ' No ; 
 " * get out here.' As the General got out of the 
 " palkee, head foremost, the trooper gave him a cut 
 " with his sword into the neck, and he fell into the 
 "water. My son was killed near him. I saw it; 
 " alas ! alas 1 Some were stabbed with bayonets : 
 "others cut down. Little infants were torn in 
 "pieces. We saw it; we did; and tell you only 
 "what we saw. Other children were stabbed and 
 " thrown into the river. The school-girls were burnt 
 "to death. I saw their clothes and hair catch 
 "fire. In the water, a few paces off, by the next 
 "boat, we saw the youngest daughter of Colonel 
 " Williams. A sepoy was going to kill her with his 
 "bayonet. She said, 'My father was always kind 
 " * to sepoys.' He turned away, and just then a 
 "villager struck her on the head with his club, 
 "and she fell into the water." These people like- 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 189 
 
 wise saw good Mr. Moncrieff, the clergyman, take a 
 book from his pocket that he never had leisure to 
 open, and heard him commence a prayer for mercy 
 which he was not permitted to conclude. Another 
 deponent observed a European making for a drain 
 like a scared water-rat, when some boatmen, armed 
 with cudgels, cut off his retreat, and beat him down 
 dead into the mud. 
 
 At this point those Englishmen who had learned 
 to use their limbs in the water, perceiving that all 
 was lost, with a hurried last look and a parting 
 shudder, stripped and made for Vibart's boat, 
 which just then was aground not far from the 
 opposite shore. Thomson swam, and Private Mur- 
 phy, neither for the last time. Three cavalry soldiers 
 chased Lieutenant Harrison on to a small island 
 two hundred yards from the land. One only waded 
 back again, quicker than he came ; while Harrison 
 made the best of his way to the stranded vessel, 
 and clambered over the side, satisfied at having 
 taught his pursuers that it was never safe to trifle 
 with a Sahib, as long as he had breath in his body 
 and a charge in a single chamber. Few were 
 vigorous or fortunate as he. Their strength failed 
 some ; while more than one stout swimmer, shot 
 dead in the middle of his stroke, rolled over and 
 sank amidst the reddening tide. Of the two Hen- 
 dersons, the younger went down in his brothers 
 sight, while the elder hardly struggled in with a 
 shattered hand through the pattering mitraillade. 
 At length all were on board who had not disappeared 
 below the waves ; and, by dint of hard shoving, the 
 boat scraped herself off the shoal, and continued 
 
190 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 her sluggish and devious course : — that hapless Argo 
 with her freight of heroes. 
 
 "At nine, or half-past nine in the morning," 
 writes Nanukchund, who was in hiding at a neigh- 
 bouring village, "I heard the report of cannon, 
 "and immediately despatched my servant for news, 
 " and to learn why guns were being fired. At about 
 " noon, more or less, he returned, and reported that 
 "the people who came to bathe in the Ganges 
 "informed him that the intrenchment had been 
 " taken by the rebels, and the corpses of Europeans 
 "were floating down the river. The villagers ex- 
 " claim, in their village dialect, that the Ganges has 
 "turned crimson, and it is impossible to look upon 
 "it. The terror and alarm that now seizes me 
 "baffles description. It seems sacrilege to take 
 " any sort of food or drink. I can think of nothing 
 "but moving about from side to side with terror." 
 Besides Nanukchund, there was another, whose 
 agitation, arising from very different passions, dis- 
 played itself by the same noticeable symptom. A 
 rich Hindoo, even though he be not of such gross 
 habit as was the Nana, never walks a step unless 
 under dire compulsion: and yet, during the early 
 forenoon, Dhoondoo Punth seldom rested quiet in 
 his chair, but paced to and fro in front of his tent, 
 straining his ears to catch the noise of horse-hoofs. 
 At last a trooper galloped down with the tidings 
 that all was going well, and the Peishwa would soon 
 obtain ample compensation for his ancient wrongs. 
 The Maharaja bade the courier return to the field of 
 action, bearing a verbal order to keep the women 
 live, but kill all the males. By the time Tantia's 
 
IV THE TKEACHERY 191 
 
 aide-de-camp returned to his chief, the latter in- 
 junction appeared all but superfluous : though there 
 was still something to be done. The sepoys posted 
 on the Oude bank had excepted certain Englishmen 
 from the slaughter of the two boatfuls which had 
 fallen into their hands. These, to the sum of 
 seventeen, they now sent over as their contribution. 
 On reference being made' to the Maharaja, he 
 graciously acknowledged the present, and desired a 
 firing-party to be told off; suggesting, however, that 
 powder should not be wasted on the wounded. His 
 directions were obeyed to the letter. A couple of 
 files were likewise detached to see that the sufferers 
 who still lingered in the intrenchment did not take 
 too long to die. 
 
 Meanwhile the women and children, whom the 
 shot had missed and the flames spared, had been 
 collected and brought to land in evil case. Many 
 were pulled out from under the charred woodwork 
 of boats, and others were driven up from four feet 
 depth of water. Before they emerged from the 
 river, some of the ladies were roughly handled by 
 the troopers, who tore away such ornaments as 
 caught their fancy with little regard for ear or finger. 
 But, when all had been assembled on the landing- 
 place, sentries were posted around, with a strict 
 charge to suffer no one to molest the prisoners. There 
 they sat, a hundred and twenty and five by count, 
 some on logs of timber, and others in the trodden 
 sand, a very feeble company in sore distress. Their 
 destitution aroused the compassion of a party of 
 water-carriers, who gave them drink out of the skin's 
 mouth, as they cowered beneath the pitiless sun. 
 
192 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 On the shore of the Ganges, in the midst of that 
 devilish horde, those English girls and matrons 
 abode till the morning was almost spent. And then 
 they were led back along the road which they had 
 traversed a few hours before ; not as they came, for 
 nothing was left them now, save a new grief and a 
 sharper terror. In front, behind, and on either side, 
 surged along a crowd of sepoys, exulting with an un- 
 holy joy, and rich with inglorious spoils. This one 
 carried a girdleful of rupees and broken jewellery. 
 That had secured a double-barrelled fowling-piece, 
 marked with a name illustrious in the London trade. 
 Another dragged a fine setter or Skye terrier, the 
 pride of some cadet who, in too harsh a school, had 
 taken his first and last lesson of war. They started 
 beside the Fisherman's Temple. They threaded the 
 winding lane. They plodded wearily past the white 
 railing and the European bazaar; past the chapel, 
 and the Racket Court, and the ruinous intrench- 
 ment. Through the disputed line of outposts, and 
 across the plain they went, until the procession 
 halted before the pavilion of the Maharaja ; who, 
 after reviewing his captives, ordered them to be 
 transported to the Savada House, and there confined 
 until further notice. Two large rooms, where a 
 number of native soldiers had slept nightly during 
 the previous month, were cleared out for their recep- 
 tion ; and a guard placed over them from the ranks 
 of the Sixth Regiment, which had lately marched 
 in from Allahabad. 
 
 "I saw that many of the ladies were wounded," 
 says one who watched them go by. " Their clothes 
 "had blood on them. Two were badly hurt, and 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 193 
 
 "had their heads bound up with handkerchiefe. 
 " Some were wet, covered with mud and blood ; and 
 "some had their dresses torn, but all had clothes. 
 " I saw one or two children without clothes. There 
 " were no men in the party, but only some boys of 
 "twelve or thirteen years of age." Another eye- 
 witness remarks : " The ladies' clothing was wet and 
 "soiled, and some of them were barefoot. Many 
 " were wounded. Two of them I observed well, as 
 "being wounded in the leg and under the arm." 
 To such a plight had come the bloom which once, 
 fresh from the breezes of home, charmed and 
 puzzled Calcutta; and the toilettes whose importa- 
 tion and inspection suppHed matter for a month's 
 conjecture, and a week's happy occupation. Where 
 were now the tact, the cultivation, and all the inde- 
 finable graces of refined womanhood ? Simplicity 
 and affectation, amiability and pride, coquetry and 
 reserve, discretion and sweet susceptibility, were 
 here confounded in a dull uniformity of woe. 
 
 Four Englishwomen, and three others of mixed 
 parentage, were appropriated and carried off by the 
 soldiers of the Second Cavalry : a corps which, now 
 that the fighting was over, never lost an opportunity 
 of distinguishing itself. These men were summoned 
 into the presence of the Nana, who remonstrated 
 with them at some length, and insisted that the 
 whole seven should be restored without delay. It 
 may be that he regarded his prisoners as hostages, 
 and was unwilling that they should be scattered 
 about in places where he could not lay his hand 
 upon them at the precise moment when his life 
 or power might be at stake. All obeyed promptly. 
 
194 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 with the exception of Ali Khan, a young trooper, 
 described as of " a fair complexion ; height about 
 " five feet seven inches ; long nose ; dark eyes ; 
 " wears a beard and small moustache." This fellow 
 had selected, as his share of the booty, the youngest 
 daughter of Sir Hugh. He must have been one of 
 a pair who were observed "leading away from the 
 " boats a lady on horseback. She wore a green 
 " chintz gown, which appeared to be wet. She 
 " seemed to be eighteen or nineteen years of age." 
 Ali Khan now contrived to spread a report that his 
 victim flung herself down a well, after killing her 
 captor, his wife, and his three children. His de- 
 vice met with extraordinary success. In Hindo- 
 stan it is never a very difficult matter to find 
 witnesses who will swear to anything; and, before 
 long, a private in the Second began to remember 
 that he had been passing his comrade's door when 
 Miss Wheeler came out, with a sword in her hand, 
 and said : " Go in and see how nicely I have rubbed 
 the Corporal's feet." Another individual, blessed 
 with an elastic memory, had been present at the 
 dragging of the well, and had seen " Missy Baba 
 taken out, dead and swollen." The impudent 
 fabrication was generally accepted in the city and 
 the cantonments ; and met with ready credence in 
 England, where the imaginations of men were ex- 
 cited by a series of prurient and ghastly fictions. 
 Under one shape or another the incident long went 
 the round of provincial theatres, and sensation 
 magazines, and popular lectures illustrated with 
 dissolving views. Meanwhile the poor girl was 
 living quietly in the family of her master under a 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 195 
 
 Mohammedaii name. Our police made diligent in- 
 quiries, which resulted in a strong conviction that 
 she had accompanied the flight of the rebels, and, 
 after being hurried about from camping-ground to 
 camping-ground, had met a natural death in a comer 
 of Nepaul. She was by no means of pure English 
 blood. To some the very statement of the fact may 
 appear heartless, but truth demands that it should 
 be made. 
 
 The ladies on board the surviving vessel had no 
 reason to congratulate themselves on their fortune : 
 for they were embarked on a voyage which, for 
 concentrated misery, has no parallel even among the 
 narratives of famous shipwrecks so dear to the 
 taste of our forefathers. Soon after leaving the 
 shore. Major Yibart had taken a large party off a 
 sinking boat ; so that more than five-score persons 
 were crowded into a space which could barely ac- 
 commodate fifty. It was difficult to propel the 
 craft, and impossible to guide her. A shot from 
 the southern bank sent her spinning round in the 
 current, with a broken rudder ; and the native boat- 
 men had taken good care to leave behind neither 
 oar nor punt-pole. Alternately stranding and drift- 
 ing; paddhng with planks torn from the bulwarks, 
 and trying to steer with a spare stretcher ; our coun- 
 trymen tended down towards Allahabad at the rate 
 of half a mile an hour, under a shower of canister 
 and shells from either bank. " We were often," says 
 Thomson, " within a hundred yards of the guns on 
 "the Oude side of the river, and saw them load, 
 "prime, and fire into our midst." Presently the 
 bullocks which drew the sepoy artillery broke down 
 
196 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 in the deep sand of the Ganges ; but incessant 
 volleys of musketry, at point-blank range, allowed 
 our countrymen little leisure to rejoice over the 
 intermission of the cannonade. 
 
 That day was the last to many brave men. Ashe 
 and Bolton leaped out to help haul the boat ofif a 
 sunken bank : and a few minutes later she proceeded 
 on her way without those two young Sahibs whom a 
 thousand bullets had spared to perish here. Moore, 
 regardless of an ill-set collar-bone, was pushing with 
 might and main, when a musket-ball pierced his 
 gallant heart. One and the same round shot at 
 length killed Bumey, and at length Glanville ; and 
 so maltreated a third officer that it would have been 
 well had he died likewise. The wounded and the 
 slain lay entangled together amidst the broken floor- 
 ing. It was a matter of extreme difficulty to extri- 
 cate the corpses from the bottom of the vessel : but 
 the desire of decreasing her draft, and the intense 
 heat of what proved to be the last day of that year's 
 dry weather, obliged the crew to cast overboard the 
 dear but useless cargo. 
 
 About five o'clock that evening the boat settled 
 down deep in the sand. Our countrymen waited 
 patiently till the sunset allowed them to disembark 
 the women under the screen of darkness. Having 
 thus lightened their unwieldy ark they set to with a 
 wiU, and succeeded eventually in getting her adrift. 
 The rebels did what they could to impede the opera- 
 tion. They launched a fire-ship down the current, 
 which came within a few feet of its mark; and, 
 when this contrivance had miscarried, they shot ofi 
 a flight of arrows tipped with lighted charcoal. 
 
IV THE TKEACPIERY 197 
 
 Though no very skilful axchers, they could not well 
 help hitting the thatched roof which loomed through 
 the dusk like the top of a great bam : so that our 
 people thought it better to cut away and tumble into 
 the flood the entire framework of straw and bamboo. 
 No one slept that night, and no one ate : for food 
 there was none on board. They had abundance of 
 water : for Ganges flowed beneath ; and from over- 
 head descended a light and refreshing shower, the 
 unfailing precursor of the annual deluge. 
 
 When the day broke, those of our officers who 
 had learned the bearings of the locality during many 
 a hot tramp after snipe and wild-fowl saw with 
 chagrin that they had hardly gained ten miles in 
 twice as many hours. And yet that dawn brought 
 one last glimmer of hope. The wet weather had 
 arrived : the river would soon be mounting fast : 
 and nothing was to be seen of the enemy. Pre- 
 sently some natives walked down the bank for their 
 morning wash; and Vibart sent on shore a native 
 drummer, Tvdth five rupees in his hand, and direc- 
 tions to obtain information, and, if possible, some 
 provisions. He accosted a peasant, who desisted 
 from the occupation of cleaning his mouth with a 
 bit of stick chewed into a tooth-brush, and Kstened 
 very civilly to what our envoy had to say. This 
 man undertook to procure some rice and flour, but 
 assured the drummer that our people would have 
 no further need of victuals, as Baboo Ram Bux, a 
 powerful noble whose estates lay a little further 
 down on the Oude side, had engaged that not an 
 Englishman should pass his territory alive. He, 
 however, showed no objection to take our money, 
 
198 CAWNPORE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 and went inland, leaving behind his brass drinking- 
 vessel to guarantee bis fidelity : a pledge wbicb 
 be never came back to redeem. On bearing tbe 
 report of tbeir messenger tbe fugitives agreed to 
 despair. After tbe manner of becalmed and starv- 
 ing mariners, Wbiting pencilled some lines on a 
 scrap of paper, wbicb be inclosed in a bottle, and 
 committed to tbe stream : tbe faithless stream, that 
 has never rendered up the sad deposit. 
 
 At two in the afternoon tbe barge struck off 
 a village called Nuzzufgur, which was within the 
 boundary of Ram Bux. Straightway tbe shore was 
 covered with a multitude of feudal militia, inter- 
 mingled with sepoys and mounted troopers. A gun 
 was brought forward, and unlimbered ; but, while 
 the artillerymen were taking their aim, there came 
 down from heaven that unbroken sheet of water 
 for which men bad been looking during the past 
 fortnight. The rains bad begun in earnest. The 
 piece could only be discharged once ; but the storm 
 did not protect our people from a keen fusillade. 
 Whiting fell dead ; and Harrison s trusty revolver 
 here availed him nothing ; and dark Blenman, sorely 
 hurt, implored a comrade to put an end to his 
 wayward existence. Vibart was shot through the 
 arm, and his subordinates, Quin and Seppings ; 
 while Mrs. Seppings and Captain Turner of the 
 First Infantry were badly wounded in tbe leg. After 
 five hours of this bitter work there hove in sight 
 a boat manned by fifty or sixty mutineers, armed 
 to the teeth, who bad been deputed by the Nana 
 to follow and destroy the relics of our force. This 
 vessel, likewise, ran on a sand-bank ; not altogether 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 199 
 
 against the inclination of the crew, who did not 
 relish the notion of forming themselves into a board- 
 ing-party. They liked the idea still less when a 
 score of Englishmen came dashing at them through 
 the shallows. The half-dozen ablest swimmers alone 
 escaped to tell their master that, after all they had 
 gone through, these extraordinary Sahibs were the 
 same as ever. 
 
 Amidst pelting rain and freshening wind the 
 second night closed in. Faint and hungry they 
 sank asleep, those men who would only yield to 
 death. At midnight some of their number awoke, 
 and became conscious that they were again afloat. 
 It was blowing a hurricane ; the stream had risen ; 
 and there were found those who hoped. But day- 
 light told another story, for it revealed that they 
 had turned aside out of the navigable channel into a 
 back water, from which egress was none. And then 
 their vessel grounded, and the musketry recom- 
 menced. Yibart, who was already dying with a ball 
 through either arm, desired Thomson and Delafosse 
 to land and beat away the enemy, while those who 
 remained attempted to ease off the boat. The two 
 officers selected a sergeant and eleven rank and file 
 of various regiments ; and the party sallied forth, 
 fortunate in that it was appointed for some to tread 
 once more on English soil, and for the rest at least 
 to die sword in hand. They had not departed 
 many minutes when a host of insurgents poured 
 down upon the helpless troop of women and 
 wounded men, like wolves upon a flock of sheep 
 deserted by their dogs. The boat was captured 
 after a short but murderous conflict, and escorted 
 
200 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 back to Cawnpore by a strong body of horse and 
 foot. 
 
 Thomson and Delafosse had enough on their 
 hands already, and could do little or nothing towards 
 a rescue. On gaining the shore they drove the 
 foe in style over a considerable space ; but were 
 imperceptibly surrounded in flank and rear by fresh 
 swarms of rebels. Then they faced about, and cut 
 their way back to the place whence they started, 
 bleeding, but undiminished in number. They recog- 
 nized the spot, but the boat was gone, and so the 
 little troop, reduced henceforward to travel afoot, 
 followed the course of the stream ; partly on the 
 slender chance of catching up their lost companions ; 
 partly from an instinctive feeling which drew them 
 in the direction of Allahabad, as the wounded 
 rabbit makes for its burrow, or the winged partridge 
 scurries to the nearest hedge. With an interval 
 of twenty paces between man and man, to lessen 
 the hazard of the hostile musketry, they retreated 
 step by step, loading and firing as best they might 
 upon the horde of pursuers, who pressed nearer 
 and ever nearer. Shoeless on rugged ground, bare- 
 headed beneath the burning sun, they fought over 
 three weary miles of alternate rock and sand, until 
 all but one got safe into a little temple, or " Sammy- 
 house," as it is called in the jargon spoken by 
 the British private in India ; a jargon which he 
 himself denominates "Moors." This rustic shrine, 
 situated about a hundred yards from the river- 
 brink, was just large enough to contain the thirteen 
 as they stood erect. The mob of natives charged 
 helter-skelter at the doorway, which was raised three 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 201 
 
 feet above the surrounding eaxth ; but there was no 
 room for any of them inside, and they presently 
 retired to a distance, except the eight or ten who 
 had managed to squeeze themselves to the front. 
 Among those who learned by experience that the 
 rust of the rainy season had not yet blunted the 
 British bayonets was a brother of Baboo Ram Bux, 
 the inhospitable chieftain who knew no reverence 
 for suppliants who had sought sanctuary in the 
 precincts of his local gods, and who now sent an 
 express to the Nana to the effect that the Nazarenes 
 were still invincible. 
 
 Our countrymen after this enjoyed a short respite, 
 during which they shared a pint or two of putrid 
 water which had collected at the bottom of a hole 
 in the stone altar. Unfortunately the piety of the 
 neighbourhood had of late failed to contribute any 
 oblations of fruit or cakes, which would certainly 
 not have been respected by the famished Christians. 
 But the insurgents soon returned to the attack; 
 made an unsuccessful attempt to dig up the founda- 
 tions; and finally, with the view of smoking the 
 besieged out of their citadel, constructed and set 
 alight a large pile of faggots. It was not till the 
 enemy showed signs of an intention to mend the 
 fire with some bags of gunpowder that the garrison 
 began to be seriously alarmed. Then they rushed 
 out, scattering the embers with their bare feet, 
 and leaped the parapet which inclosed the plot of 
 dedicated ground. Six, who could not swim, ran 
 full into the middle of the crowd, carrying their 
 lives for sale to the best market. Seven reached 
 the bank, and flung in their firelocks, and then 
 
202 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 themselves. The lead in their pouches dragged 
 them so far down that the first flight of bullets 
 splashed harmless on the troubled surface. By the 
 time the sepoys had reloaded their pieces, a score 
 of rapid strokes had rendered our countrymen by no 
 means easy targets for an excited Hindoo marksman. 
 Two were shot through the head. Another, over- 
 come with exhaustion, turned over on his back, and 
 jdelded to the stream, which impelled him towards 
 a shoal where his murderers were awaiting him with 
 uplifted bludgeons. The others resisted the blandish- 
 ments of the wily foe, who endeavoured to coax 
 them within push of lance by offers of food and 
 life, and, ducking like coots at the flash of musketry, 
 swam, and floated, and swam again ; while Ganges, 
 as if resenting the desecration of its holy waves by 
 such an Iliad of bloodshed, bare bravely up the 
 chin of these fugitives who had confided themselves 
 to his protection. One by one the hunters desisted 
 from the chase. A trooper on horseback kept the 
 game in view for some miles ; but in the end he too 
 fell behind, and was no more seen. 
 
 The four Englishmen were sitting up to their 
 necks in water, two good leagues below the point 
 where they first plunged, when the sound of ap- 
 proaching voices again sent them diving after the 
 manner of otters surprised by the throng of hounds 
 and spearmen. As they rose to the upper air, they 
 were greeted with a shout of "Sahib! Sahib! 
 "Why keep away? We are friends." The new- 
 comers, however, were so formidable in aspect and 
 equipment that Thomson refused to come to land 
 until, after a short parley, they volunteered to throw 
 
TV THE TREACHERY 203 
 
 their weapons into the river as a proof of their 
 Binoerity. Their assurances of amity afforded our 
 countrymen a passable excuse for giving in, without 
 inspiring any great amount of confidence. At the 
 very worst, a blow on the head or a thrust in the 
 chest killed more expeditiously than drowning or 
 inanition. It was better to die and have done with 
 it, than to endure all the torment of death without 
 the repose, as of late had seemed to be their appor- 
 tioned lot. Ajid so they turned, and swam in, 
 and were helped ashore naked and exhausted. 
 They had between them a flannel shirt, a strip of 
 linen cloth, and five severe wounds. Exposure to 
 the heat had puffed the skin of their shoulders with 
 huge blisters, as if their clothes had been burned off 
 their backs by fire. But they found a trusty and 
 generous host in the person of Dirigbijah Sing, a 
 loyal gentleman of Oude; the landlord of that 
 district, and the chieftain to whom their captors 
 owed feudal allegiance. Good-natured as they 
 proved to be, these fellows could not resist the 
 temptation of plundering the Englishmen who had 
 been so unaccountably delivered into their hands. 
 They abstracted a cap-pouchful of rupees which 
 poor Murphy had tied under his right knee, 
 the nominal price, it may be, of some buckets drawn 
 at a risk which could not be valued in money. 
 After lying for a while wrapped in blankets, the 
 refugees recovered strength sufficient to allow of 
 their being supported to the nearest village, over a 
 distance which appeared to them more miles than 
 it was furlongs in reality. They were taken to the 
 hut of the headman, who received them kindly, and 
 
204 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 set before them lentil porridge, wheat cakes, and 
 preserves, of which they ate like men who had 
 fed little and badly during a month past, and for 
 seventy hours had not fed at all. 
 
 After a long meal and a short nap the English- 
 men set out for the fort where Dirigbijah Sing 
 resided ; Thomson clad with the solitary shirt, and 
 Delafosse in a borrowed rug. Private Murphy and 
 Gunner Sullivan were suffering too much from recent 
 wounds to care about appearances. The officers 
 resigned to them an elephant which had been 
 despatched for their conveyance, and bestrode a 
 pony, like a pair of needy and valiant knights 
 belonging to a primitive order. As they passed 
 through the villages, peasants came forth with milk 
 and sweetmeats, and discovered that the Sahibs 
 had changed their opinion as to the acceptability of 
 " dollies " ; those presents of Oriental dainties which 
 collectors and commissioners contemptuously make 
 over to their servants, reserving a handful of pistachio 
 nuts for the children, and a box of Cabul grapes 
 to improve the dessert of their next dinner-party. 
 Darkness set in ere the cavalcade rode up to the 
 fort of Moorar Mhow. The Rajah, an old man of 
 venerable presence, was seated in the open air 
 encircled by his sons, his body-guard, his tenants, 
 and his torch-bearers, to the number of some hun- 
 dred and fifty persons. He requested our country- 
 men to alight; inquired minutely into the story 
 of the siege; evinced warm approbation of their 
 courage, and wonder at their escape ; and after pro- 
 mising his countenance and hospitality, sent them 
 indoors to an abundant repast washed down with 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 205 
 
 native wine. Tired of everything save eating, they 
 supped right well, and then, stretched on horse- 
 litter and covered with a bit of carpet, the wanderers 
 rested at last. Soundly they slumbered that night ; 
 and soundly, too, slumbered their six comrades, 
 on whom the moon looked down through her watery 
 veil as they lay around the little temple amidst the 
 trampled brushwood, on their brow the frown of 
 battle, and in their breast the wound that doth 
 not shame. 
 
 Here the four Englishmen remained for three 
 weeks unmolested and tolerably happy. They had 
 spent at least one equal period of time in far less 
 comfortable quarters. They wore coats and trousers 
 cut by a native tailor. Their hurts were poulticed 
 by a native doctor. They sat do^vn thrice a day with 
 British appetites to a meal of native food; and, 
 whenever there was nothing else to be done, they 
 slept. Heedless of the flies, which clustered about 
 their bandaged limbs : careless of the future, and 
 willingly oblivious of the past, — they dreamed, and 
 woke, and yawned, and shifted their straw, and 
 settled themselves down for another fit of drowsiness. 
 Azimoolah might have his eye upon them : the Nana 
 might have spoken the word of doom : up to Delhi 
 and down to Patna every pass might be blockaded 
 by a rebel post ; but for the present they could doze, 
 morning, noon, and eve. Their principal diversion 
 consisted in viewing the performance by the Rajah 
 and his priests of some quaint and pretty domestic 
 rites. The master of the house paid them a daily 
 and very pleasant visit ; and his good lady sent con- 
 stantly to ask after the welfare of the strangers. 
 
206 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 whose fearless deportment under their abject and 
 precarious circumstances she had noted with 
 womanly interest, as she gazed, herself invisible, 
 from behind the fretted stone-work which fenced 
 her verandah. 
 
 Thomson and his companions were forbidden by 
 their host to set foot outside the circuit of the walls, 
 as the vicinity was infested with rebels, who already 
 regarded the country as their own, and appeared to 
 imagine themselves welcome anywhere. There were 
 generally some of them inside the fort, vapouring 
 about sword on thigh and matchlock in hand, and 
 pestering the domestics to get them a sight of the 
 Sahibs. The soldiers of the Cawnpore brigade were 
 indulged in frequent interviews with their former 
 officers, always in the presence of a detachment from 
 the E-ajah's body-guard. These mutineers were full 
 of the great things that were going to be done in the 
 course of the next year by the armies of the religion. 
 A trooper had been despatched to Moscow on a 
 camel, and was to return with a host of Russian 
 Mussulmans. Such Englishmen as had not yet been 
 knocked on the head were to be secured and shipped 
 off at Calcutta; and afterwards the Nana would 
 embark for Europe, conquer our island, and make it 
 over to Hindoo shareholders constituted into a joint- 
 stock Kumpani. That magic word would conjure up 
 a fresh train of ideas, and they would descant upon 
 the flagrant iniquity of Lord Dalhousie, and main- 
 tain that, had it not been for the annexation of 
 Oude, the empire of John Kumpani might have en- 
 dured for all time : but that it was not so ordained ; 
 inasmuch as the ancient oracles, which could not he, 
 
Vf THE TREACHERY 207 
 
 had allotted to that empire a duration of a hundred 
 years, and no more. This prediction came true, but 
 not in the sense anticipated by the leaders of the 
 insurrection. The honour of justifying this prophecy 
 was reserved for Sir Charles Wood and Lord Stanley ; 
 not for Azimoolah and the Maharaja of Bithoor. That 
 potentate repeatedly summoned Dirigbijah Sing to 
 deliver up the refugees to his regal arbitrement : but 
 the stout old fellow answered that he held of EQs 
 Majesty the King of Oude, and knew nothing of 
 Seereek Dhoondoo Punth and his pretensions to 
 royalty. Havelock and Neill soon provided the 
 Nana with more pressing business than the pursuit 
 of his vengeance, or the assertion of his supremacy. 
 
 The Rajah came to the conclusion that a change 
 of domicile was essential to the security of our coun- 
 trymen, about the time that they were growing sated 
 of laughing at sepoy bluster, and watching the Brah- 
 mins of the household ring bells and sprinkle flowers 
 with holy water. They accordingly retired to the 
 seclusion of a hamlet bordering on the river, where 
 they amused themselves as best they could with a 
 volimae bearing the inscription, " 53rd Regiment 
 Native Infantry Book Club;" which had been picked 
 out of the stream by one among their attend- 
 ants, as it floated by amidst a quantity of torn 
 papers and smashed furniture : so many indications 
 of the minute and searching character of the mischief 
 that was being wrought above. After the lapse of 
 a week, the Rajah sent them across to a landholder 
 of his acquaintance, who lived on the south bank, 
 and who undertook to hand them on to the nearest 
 European encampment. They took leave of their 
 
208 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 chivalrous preserver with many expressions of un- 
 affected regret, and a silent resolution never to rest 
 until he had received some tangible mark of their 
 gratitude and regard. On reaching the other shore 
 their new patron packed them off towards Allahabad 
 by a cross-road, in a bullock-cart without springs, 
 preceded by an escort of four armed retainers. After 
 bumping along for an hour the driver stopped, and 
 informed them, in low and agitated tones, that there 
 were guns ahead, planted athwart their path. Ajid 
 so they alighted, those way-worn fugitives, soHcitous 
 to learn whether they should again have to run, and 
 swim, and lurk, and starve ; and they crept stealthily 
 along the edge of the road, and, turning the comer, 
 found themselves within a few yards of the white and 
 freckled face of an English sentry. 
 
 Five years subsequently Murphy left his old regi- 
 ment, and volunteered for India in another corps. 
 Presently it began to be rumoured at mess that 
 there was a man in the ranks who had gone through 
 the siege and the slaughter of Gawnpore. The 
 Colonel made all necessary inquiries, and reported 
 the matter to the Commander-in-chief, who at once 
 appointed Murphy custodian of the Memorial Gar- 
 dens. Here he may be seen, in the balmy forenoons 
 of the cold weather, sauntering about in a pith 
 helmet and linen jacket ; a decent little Irishman, 
 very ready to give a feeling and intelHgent account 
 of what took place under his immediate observation, 
 and insisting much on the fact that he and the 
 gunner, unable to speak a syllable of " Moors," 
 would have been helpless but for the knowledge of 
 Hindostanee possessed by the sepoy officers. He 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 209 
 
 retains a lively impression of the eagerness with 
 which the English privates whom they encountered 
 on the Allahabad highway contributed their allow- 
 ances of liquor to treat the men who had not 
 tasted beer for eight summer weeks. He points 
 out the stone beneath which reposes poor Sullivan, 
 who died of fatigue and debility, taking the form of 
 cholera, within a fortnight of his restoration to 
 safety. Delafosse lived once more to play the man, 
 fighting under Chamberlain, in the passes of the 
 Hindoo Koosh : and Thomson to compose the story of 
 what he had seen and undergone, so told that it may 
 be read by a Christian without horror, and by an 
 educated person without disgust. He was of opinion 
 that a soldier who had performed his duty should 
 not stoop to the vocabulary of a hangman. This 
 man, scarred from head to heel with sepoy bullets, — 
 who had carried his life in his hand for months to- 
 gether, — who had lost friends, possessions, and health 
 in the frightful meUe, — could still write like a modest 
 and tolerant gentleman : while officers, to whom the 
 rebellion had brought nothing except promotion and 
 an opportunity for distinction, were declaiming and 
 printing about battues, and fine bags, and tucking 
 up niggers, and polishing off twenty brace of 
 Pandies. 
 
 At five in the evening on the twenty-eighth of 
 June, the Nana held a state review in honour of his 
 victory of the preceding day. His force looked 
 well on paper, and made a very respectable show 
 in the field. There turned out six entire regiments 
 of foot, and two of horse; besides strong detach- 
 ments from battalions which had been disbanded 
 
210 CAWNPOKE chap. 
 
 at a distance from Cawnpore. The ranks of the 
 artillery were perceptibly thinned by three weeks 
 of desperate fighting. To them was especially due 
 the success of the cause: and they now bore the 
 brunt of the rejoicing. Few but zealous, they worked 
 their pieces with a will, and fired away their ammu- 
 nition as if henceforward there was no occasion for 
 keeping any against the day of battle; as if the 
 clubs of villagers and the daggers of banditti might 
 safely be trusted to gather up the leavings of the 
 sepoys. Bala Kao was welcomed on to the ground 
 with seventeen discharges. The Maharaja himself 
 at length enjoyed the compliment of the royal 
 reception which had been so ardently coveted and so 
 strenuously denied. He was greeted on his appear- 
 ance by the full sum of twenty-one explosions, each 
 bought with a day of carnage. His ears tingling 
 at the unaccustomed sensation, he congratulated 
 the mutineers on their common triumph, and pro- 
 mised to distribute a hundred thousand rupees as 
 an instalment of the debt which he owed to the 
 army : an announcement that produced a repetition 
 of the salute. Then he took his departure : but 
 the enthusiasm which he left behind could evaporate 
 only in a wholesale expenditure of Government 
 powder. The nephew of the Nana, and his brother 
 Baba Bhut, were each honoured with seventeen 
 reports. Bala, who was deservedly a favourite with 
 that gang of disciplined assassins, came in for a 
 second bout of eleven guns: while Jwala Pershad 
 and Tantia Topee got the same number apiece. 
 This closed the proceedings : during which Tantia, 
 whose mind had decidedly a practical cast, was better 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 211 
 
 employed than in listening to an idle cannonade. 
 He was closeted with a man of business named 
 Dabeedeen, liquidating accounts with the owners 
 of the flotilla which had been sunk or burned. 
 Between four and five thousand rupees were paid 
 over as compensation for the boats ; and fifty pounds 
 were put aside to remunerate the bargemen for their 
 share in the operations. It was afterwards asserted 
 that Dabeedeen took undue precautions to avoid 
 cheating himself in the transaction. 
 
 On tlie morrow, some boys loitering about on the 
 Oude side of the river came upon an English officer 
 skulking in a ravine. He was of tall stature, and 
 about forty years old, with a bit of sacking twisted 
 round his waist, but otherwise naked. The children 
 imparted their discovery to the peasants of an 
 adjoining hamlet, who took the fugitive to their 
 headman. The unhappy gentleman did not speak 
 any native language, and could only point towards 
 the east with an imploring gesture, and pronounce 
 the word " Lucknow." They gave him sugar, which 
 he ate up greedily with both hands, and so afforded 
 a bystander an opportunity for observing that he 
 bore the mark of a ring fresh on his finger. Touched 
 by the contrast of his fallen state, these good people 
 showed a disposition to do what they could for his 
 preservation : but just then some landowners of the 
 neighbourhood arrived at the head of a numerous 
 array, and prevailed over these benevolent intentions 
 by threats of present violence and future punish- 
 ment. A short while afterwards, an ex-clerk of the 
 commissariat department met fifty or sixty fellows 
 " with drawn sabres and lighted matches, bringing 
 
212 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 " along a Sahib bound." They halted under a grove 
 which stood near the chapel of ease, and sent one 
 of their party to fetch the Nana. In his stead came 
 Baba Bhut, and, in the name of his brother, bade 
 them kill their prisoner. To this they answered: 
 " Put weapons into his hand, and let him strike us, 
 " and then we will strike in return : but we will not 
 "slay him thus." Some troopers of the Second 
 Cavalry, who happened to be in attendance, had a 
 less nice theory of honour. Three-quarters of an 
 hour subsequently, while the clerk was performing 
 his ablutions, the corpse was thrown into the 
 Ganges, gashed all over with sword-cuts. 
 
 All the night of the twenty-ninth our people who 
 had been captured at Nuzzufgur by Baboo Ram 
 Bux were slowly remounting the stream. As it 
 grew light they began to recognize objects and places 
 which they had trusted never again to behold : and, 
 two hours before noon, the doomed boat-load lay-to 
 at the landing-place whence they had set forth, to 
 return thus after three such days as had not repaid 
 them for the trouble of making their escape. What 
 ensued an Englishman would willingly tell in phrases 
 not his own. The following account was taken from 
 the lips of a native spy, and is supported by a mass 
 of evidence. The mention of General Wheeler is, 
 of course, inaccurate. 
 
 " There were brought back," says the man, " sixty 
 " Sahibs, twenty-five Mem Sahibs, and four children. 
 " The Nana ordered the Sahibs to be separated from 
 "the Mem Sahibs, and shot by the First Bengal 
 " Native Infantry. But they said, ' We will not shoot 
 " * Wheeler Sahib, who has made our regiment's name 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 213 
 
 " ' great, and whose son is our own Quartermaster. 
 " ' Neither will we kill the Sahib people. Put them 
 " ' in prison.' Then said the Nadiree regiment : 
 " ' What word is this ? Put them in prison ? We 
 "'will kill the males.* So the Sahibs were seated 
 " on the ground : and two companies of the Nadiree 
 *' regiment stood with their muskets, ready to fire. 
 "Then said one of the Mem Sahibs, the doctor's 
 "wife: (What doctor? How should I know?) 'I 
 "'will not leave my husband. If he must die, I 
 "'will die with him.' So she ran, and sat down 
 " behind her husband, clasping him round the waist. 
 " Directly she said this, the other Mem Sahibs said : 
 " ' We also will die with our husbands.' And they 
 "all sat down, each by her husband. Then their 
 " husbands said ; ' Go back ; * but they would not. 
 "Whereupon the Nana ordered his soldiers; and 
 "they, going in, pulled them away forcibly. But 
 "they could not pull away the doctor's wife, who 
 "there remained. Then the Padre called out to 
 "the Nana, and requested leave to read prayers 
 " before they died." (This Padre was Captain Sep- 
 pings, with his broken arm. The doctor s wife, good 
 soul, is known to have been Mrs. Boyes.) " The 
 "Nana granted it, and the Padre's hands were 
 "loosened so far as to enable him to take a small 
 "book from his pocket, with which he read. But 
 " all this time one of the Sahibs, who was shot in the 
 " arm, kept crying out to the sepoys : ' If you mean 
 " ' to kill us, why don't you set about it quickly and 
 "'have the work done?' After the Padre had read 
 "a few prayers, he shut the book, and the Sahibs 
 "shook hands all round. Then the sepoys fired. 
 
214 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 "One Sahib rolled one way, one another, as they 
 " sat. But they were not dead : only wounded. 
 "So they went in, and finished them off with 
 " swords." 
 
 Here is a thing which was actually done on the 
 last Tuesday of June, eight years back from the 
 present date. Three months before, these people 
 were passing an existence no more eventful, and 
 apparently no less secure, than the career of a 
 county-court judge, or a military man quartered at 
 Sheffield or Colchester. They laid their plans for 
 the Meerut race-meeting and the biennial trip to a 
 Himalayan station with a confidence equal to that 
 with which a home-staying public servant anticipates 
 the cup-day at Ascot, and the Alpine pass which 
 he is going to discover in September. In April 
 Cawnpore society was lamenting the departure of 
 one period of cold weather, and looking forward 
 to the arrival of another; but, ere the rains had 
 well set in, it had come to this, that the last batch 
 of English officers were lying stiff and stark on the 
 parade-ground, in front of the building where their 
 widows and orphans were enduring a brief imprison- 
 ment for life. 
 
 The number of captives had yet to receive a final 
 addition. At the station at Futtehgur, which was 
 situated about seventy miles up the river from 
 Cawnpore, some hundred and eighty English people 
 of every age and profession were alive when the 
 month of June commenced. The cantonments were 
 occupied by the Tenth Native Infantry, under the 
 command of Colonel Smith, a man distinguished by 
 courage so closely allied with rashness, and firmness 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 215 
 
 so nearly akin to obstinacy, that the European 
 residents could not have fared worse had they been 
 under the charge of a waverer or a coward. He was 
 a zealous adherent of that sect among the Bengal 
 officers which worshipped the sepoy. A willing 
 mart3rr to the creed that he professed, his devotion 
 would have excused his fanaticism, had he been the 
 only victim : but no personal calamity can atone for 
 pedantry which staked and lost nine score English 
 souls on the truth of the axiom that a mutineer was 
 still docile and affectionate until he could be proved 
 a murderer. 
 
 During the latter half of May successive tidings of 
 massacre, insurrection, and, finally, of an approach- 
 ing rebel force, excited the fears of our countrjnnen, 
 and the impious hopes of the soldiery : as turbulent 
 a set of scamps as any in Northern India. At length 
 Mr. Probyn, the magistrate of that district, whose 
 acute discernment, if left to itself, would have saved 
 a large asset of life from the wreck of our fortunes, 
 took measures for evacuating Futtehgur before the 
 extreme crisis. He put himself into communication 
 with Hurdeo Bux, a loyal noble whose estates lay 
 on the left bank, and obtained an escort of fifty 
 picked men and the offer of an asylum. At mid- 
 night, between the third and fourth of June, more 
 than a hundred of the English inhabitants started 
 down the river in a fleet of twelve or thirteen boats, 
 laden with baggage, merchandise, furniture, and an 
 ample store of provisions. Colonel Smith was not a 
 little disgusted that so many people should combine 
 to put a slight 'upon his pet battalion ; but consoled 
 himself with the reflection that time and the issue 
 
216 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 would judge between the sepoys and their defamers. 
 The fugitives comprised the merchants of the place, 
 and the planters of the vicinity ; the civilians, mis- 
 sionaries, clerks, craftsmen, and pensioners ; together 
 with at least forty women, several nurseries of 
 children, and a multitude of native domestics. They 
 anchored for refreshment after accomplishing a stage 
 of four leagues, and, before breakfast was finished, 
 were joined by certain officers of the Tenth, who 
 announced that the regiment had mutinied on parade, 
 and that all was over at Futtehgur. The expedition 
 proceeded on its way, under a desultory fire of mus- 
 ketry from the country people, who were for the 
 most part hostile to our cause. Next morning 
 arrived the bailiff of Hurdeo Bux, who brought 
 Probjm an invitation from his master to take refuge 
 in his fort of Dhurrumpore. It was resolved to 
 split the party. The magistrate, with forty others, 
 accepted the proffered hospitality: while three of 
 the most roomy vessels, containing nineteen men, 
 twenty-three women, and twenty-six children, pushed 
 forwards in the direction of Cawnpore. 
 
 And they reached their destination. On the 
 evening of the ninth of June the little squadron 
 was brought-to on a sand-bank a few furlongs above 
 Nawabgunge, the north-west suburb of Cawnpore. 
 Here they abode forty-eight hours, listening to the 
 ceaseless cannonade which pealed along the stream 
 from the south. Then they sent a messenger bearing 
 a request for permission to pass on their way : the 
 answer to which was brought by a horde of muti- 
 neers, who had no sooner appeared in view than the 
 boatmen set the thatch alight, and fell with blud- 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 217 
 
 geons and sabres upon the passengers, who were 
 taking their afternoon tea, and who now threw them- 
 selves over the bulwarks, and sought concealment in 
 a patch of high grass. But their cover was fired by 
 the rebel guns ; two ladies and a child were scorched 
 or suffocated to death ; and the rest of the company 
 fell into the hands of the troopers of the Second 
 Cavalry, to those esprit de corps this one-sided 
 work was more suited than the dubious contest 
 which was raging around our intrenchment. The 
 captives were made fast to a long rope, and marched 
 as far as ladies with bare and bleeding feet could 
 carry the babies and drag along the children : for 
 by this time all their servants had fled, with the 
 exception of two ayahs and a few menials of the 
 very lowest order. Here, as elsewhere, fortitude 
 and fidelity were in inverse proportion to dignity of 
 caste. Our people spent the night supperless, on 
 the spot where they had halted; and at daybreak, 
 after breakfasting on a mouthful of water apiece, 
 were distributed among sixteen bullock carts, and 
 conveyed into the presence of the Nana: to whom 
 they pointed out the folly of which he would be 
 guilty if he indulged himself in wanton and indis- 
 criminate murder. It was no easy task, they bade 
 him reflect, to empty Europe of Europeans. He is 
 said to have been inclined to mercy : but Bala Rao, 
 who, if there was a choice between the brothers, 
 seems to have been the blackest villain of the three, 
 made such an outcry that the Nana stifled his 
 nascent humanity in order to prevent the scandal 
 of a family quarrel. The ladies and the little ones 
 received orders to seat themselves on the ground; 
 
218 CAWNPORE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 and the gentlemen, with their hands tied behind 
 them, were drawn up as a rear rank. The Second 
 Cavalry had soon another victory to inscribe upon 
 their standards. " I witnessed all this with my own 
 " eyes," says a Hindoo nurse, who, while they were 
 both above the soil, would not lose sight of her dear 
 young charge : " for I was sitting about thirty paces 
 " on one side. Two pits were dug, and all the bodies 
 " thrown in. The Nana was not present. May God 
 "take vengeance on him, and on these wicked 
 " men." 
 
 Nanukchund notes in his diary that "reports of 
 " guns were heard from the direction of ISTawabgunge. 
 " A little after twelve A.M. two dead bodies of Euro- 
 "peans were seen floating- down the Ganges; and 
 " sepoys were seen in a boat coming down behind 
 " these corpses and firing off their muskets as they 
 " came." Next day he found occasion to seek a 
 retreat in a village which lay at some distance up 
 the river. " I perceived," he writes, " bodies of 
 " ladies and gentlemen lying along the banks of the 
 " Ganges. I cannot describe the grief I felt at this 
 " sight. The corpses could not float down from the 
 " shallowness of the river. I saw three boats and a 
 " barge which had been burnt by the rebels. I ques- 
 " tioned the people of the place, and learned that 
 " wine and other articles of merchandise were in the 
 " boats, but the boatmen had plundered the liquors, 
 " and, when drunk, cut down the gentlemen." 
 
 Soon after, "a body of troopers from the Nana 
 " came to seize me, and surrounded the house where 
 " I was, but I was saved from the hands of these 
 " ruffians, and kept in concealment in a garden. At 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 219 
 
 " nightfall the gardener sent four men with me, and 
 " thus I managed to reach the shore. It was not, 
 " however, my fate to find a boat, and I resolved to 
 " drown myself in the river, as I thought it better to 
 " die than to fall into the hands of so cruel a foe. 
 " After midnight I left the garden. The first ford I 
 " came to had water up to the waist only, and it was 
 "moonlight: so I waded across, and reached the 
 "next channel. There I saw the corpses of the 
 "j^Europeans whom the boatmen had slain when 
 " drunk : I cannot tell the exact number of bodies, 
 "but they extended here and there about a mile. 
 " I saw three dead young ladies. They all were 
 " dressed, but the low caste people had commenced 
 " to take off their clothes ; and some had been torn 
 "by animals. Portions of property, books, and 
 "papers, belonging to the plundered boats, were 
 "also strewn about the shores. These drunken 
 " boatmen were armed, some with clubs, some with 
 " weapons ; and they were running about the woods 
 " like wild men. I cannot describe the terror which 
 " seized me at that moment. How I sighed for the 
 " British rule ! I was trembling with fear, and knew 
 " not where I was going. On reaching the opposite 
 " bank I was senseless for four hours." 
 
 Meanwhile at Futtehgur was being played an 
 unique tragi-comedy. On the fourth of June, 
 during morning parade, twenty thousand pounds* 
 worth of Government silver was in course of removal 
 from the treasury to the fort. This mark of dis- 
 trust, coming close upon the departure of the 
 flotilla, proved too much for the sensibility of these 
 military Brahmins ; a number of whom stepped out 
 
220 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 from the ranks, surrounded the carts, and insisted 
 that the money should be taken to their own 
 quarters. Colonel Smith and the Adjutant came 
 forward and expostulated with the insurgents ; but 
 they were pushed up against the waU, and kept 
 within a semi-circle of levelled bayonets until the 
 cash was safely deposited in the middle of the 
 sepoy lines. These proceedings caused a slight 
 unpleasantness, which did not wholly disappear until 
 the troops had been gratified with an advance of 
 two months' pay, a promise of six months' extra 
 allowances, and an assurance that the treasure 
 should henceforward be kept on the parade-ground 
 under their exclusive custody: inasmuch as the 
 Company's property could be nowhere so secure 
 as in the guardianship of the Company's soldiers. 
 That evening Smith harangued as many of the 
 battalion as chose to attend; told them that their 
 conduct had been disgraceful, but threw the blame 
 on the shoulders of the recruits ; and entreated them 
 to believe that he could forgive and forget. He 
 then pronounced the regiment faithful and staunch. 
 And so the first little difficulty between the Colonel 
 and his men had been patched up, and both parties 
 were living together on terms of contemptuous 
 acquiescence on the one side, and doting credulity 
 on the other. 
 
 Such was the state of things which Probyn found 
 when, after an interval of four days, he rode into 
 the cantonment accompanied by a lieutenant and 
 ensign of the Tenth. Immediately upon their 
 arrival the Colonel informed the magistrate that 
 his services were no longer required, as the district 
 
IV THE TREACHER7 221 
 
 was entirely under martial law, and put the two 
 subalterns in arrest for having deserted their posts. 
 The poor lads represented that they had been driven 
 from Futtehgur by the fire of their own companies : 
 but this man, whom sepoy steel pointed at his chest 
 would not convince of sepoy disaffection, refused 
 to accept the word of his officers when it clashed 
 with a darling theory. Probyn, who foresaw the 
 result, wrote to the Europeans then residing under 
 the roof of Hurdeo Bux, stating that in his opinion 
 the battahon could not possibly be kept together; 
 and recommending that their host should put his 
 fort into a defensible condition, and engage five 
 hundred matchlock-men on the credit of the English 
 Government. Feeling that he was useless while in 
 the same locality with the Colonel, he shook from 
 his feet the dust of the devoted station, and made 
 his way back to Dhurrumpore. 
 
 He was followed by a letter from Smith earnestly 
 inviting the refugees to leave their new aUy, and 
 throw themselves into the arms of their natural 
 protectors, the native soldiers of the Tenth Regiment. 
 He affirmed that there were at least a hundred and 
 fifty men upon whom he absolutely relied ; and that, 
 if the worst should come to the worst, he could 
 with their aid fight his way down to Allahabad. 
 The poor creatures, who were very uncomfortably 
 lodged, and who regretted the punkahs and musquito- 
 curtains, the soda-water and bottled beer of their 
 abandoned homes, jumped at the proposition in spite 
 of all the logic and eloquence which Probyn could 
 bring to bear upon their infatuation. He persuaded 
 no one except his own family, and a solitary civilian. 
 
222 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 who had escaped from a slaughter and tumult in 
 Rohilcund too narrowly and recently for him to 
 care to move again. The rest of the party returned 
 to Futtehgur, and reinstated themselves in the good 
 graces of the deluded veteran. Before very long, 
 they were treated with a specimen of sepoy loyalty. 
 On the sixteenth of June the Colonel took measures 
 to carry out a capital sentence of the civil courts. 
 The soldiery, however, considered that at such a time 
 there might be something awkward in the precedent 
 of an execution, and intimated that the criminal 
 had better be released. Their intimation met with 
 prompt obedience. 
 
 The Seetapore mutineers, laden with English booty, 
 and reeking with English blood, were now close at 
 hand. Their ringleaders despatched a letter to the 
 men of the Tenth, calling upon them to murder their 
 officers : to which the reply was : " Come. We will 
 " not oppose you. We have sworn not to do so : but 
 " our vows do not bind you." So little reciprocity of 
 affection existed in that indecorous dalliance between 
 authority and sedition. On the eighteenth of June 
 the troops, eager to fling aside even the pretence of 
 submission and the semblance of discipline, broke 
 forth into open rebellion ; sacked the public chest ; 
 and set up a pretender, whom the event showed to 
 be better than a mere puppet. The Europeans shut 
 themselves up in the fort, in company with one Kalay 
 Khan, the sole representative of the Colonel's hun- 
 dred and fifty faithful sepoys. That evening the 
 Seetapore mutineers marched into the station, hungry 
 for pillage ; and, on discovering an empty treasury, 
 vented their rage by killing every man of the Tenth 
 
IV THE TREACHERY 223 
 
 on whom they could lay hands. In the course of a 
 week, however, stimulated by the prospect of a 
 liberal bounty, and the co-operation of some power- 
 ful Rohilla chieftains, the regiments made up their 
 differences, and united to exterminate the common 
 enemy. For ten days and nights five-and-thirty of 
 our countrymen maintained against as many hundred 
 assailants a rambling tumble-down old earthwork 
 extending over a space of twenty acres. They fired 
 bags of screws and scrap-iron for grape, and the 
 heads of sledge-hammers for round-shot. They re- 
 pulsed three general assaults. They lived amidst an 
 atmosphere alive with bullets and flying splinters, 
 and dim with the smoke of blazing houses and ex- 
 ploding mines. At length, when the besiegers were 
 gradually but surely blowing their way through the 
 rampart, the defenders took to their boats, and 
 dropped down the current, encumbered by thrice 
 their own number of women, children, and invalids. 
 The rest is soon told. The river was low; the 
 pursuit hot and persistent. The barges grounded; 
 and were got off; and grounded for the last time. 
 The crews waded ashore to drive away the hostile 
 sharpshooters : and some were borne back dying ; 
 and some never stirred from the spot where they 
 fell. Vessels hove in view, unwarlike in their ex- 
 ternal aspect; but which, as they ran alongside, 
 proved to be crammed with swordsmen and mus- 
 keteers. And then ensued mad confusion, and pro- 
 miscuous butchery, and suicide that did not merit 
 the name. On the tenth evening of Jul}', after losing 
 a life for every mile of the voyage, the expedition 
 got as far as Nawabgunge, but no farther. The 
 
224 CAWNPORE chap, iv 
 
 ladies helped to swell the throng of prisoners, and 
 their husbands were sent whither the men of the 
 Cawnpore garrison had gone before. Three only 
 were spared upon their engaging to bring about that 
 the citadel of Allahabad should be made over to the 
 rebellion. The Nana had reason for his self-denial. 
 It was worth his while to forego any gratification to 
 purchase security in the southern quarter. That was 
 the direction in which was brewing the storm of 
 retribution and reconquest. 
 
CHAPTER Y 
 
 THE MASSACRE 
 
 AND now Seereek Dhoondoo Punth purposed in 
 the face of all India to invest himself with 
 the ensigns and the titles of royalty. The contest 
 had been fought out. The prize lay ready to his 
 grasp. But it was no light matter to fix upon the 
 auspicious hour when the Mahratta might take pos- 
 session of the kingdom that he had carved out with 
 his blade from the very heart of the dominions held 
 by the alien race which had despoiled his sire. The 
 soothsayers were consulted on this momentous point : 
 but they were forestalled in their office by Dabeedeen, 
 the individual who acted as agent for Tantia Topee 
 in his dealings with the boatmen; and who now, 
 stimulated by his success in that transaction, aspired 
 to try his hand at divination. With the audacity of 
 an amateur he at once named five in the evening of 
 the thirtieth June as the season when, in accord- 
 ance with the wiU of heaven, the Maharaja should 
 proceed to Bithoor for the purpose of assuming his 
 kingly functions. There must have been consider- 
 able discontent among the members of the Sacred 
 CoUege when they learned that this volunteer augur 
 had been rewarded with a fee of five hundred rupees, 
 
 Q 
 
 I - 
 
226 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 and a horse on whicli to attend the ceremony. The 
 Nana set forth, accompanied by Bala Rao, and in 
 the course of the next day took his seat as Peishwa 
 on the paternal throne. The consecration mark was 
 affixed to his forehead amidst the roar of guns, and 
 the acclamations of a crowd composed chiefly of 
 townsmen who had repaired thither to surrender in 
 the shape of an honorary gift such of their valuables 
 as had not already passed by a more direct channel 
 into the coffers of the usurper. 
 
 Some there were, however, who on this august 
 occasion might rejoice with unfeigned rapture. The 
 sepoys were gladdened by an announcement that a 
 large quantity of gold had been sent to the Magazine, 
 and would there be fashioned into decorations for 
 the ankles of those warriors who had borne the 
 burden and heat of the great struggle. The Ganges 
 Canal was bestowed as a perquisite upon Azimoolah. 
 It is difficult to conceive what would have been the 
 indignation of the Directors who sat in Leadenhall 
 Street during the years of the Crimean War, had they 
 been told that the very equivocal native prince who 
 was for ever hanging about the India House, would 
 one day become sole proprietor of the gigantic con- 
 cern which grew dearer to their hearts the more it 
 cost, the less it yielded. 
 
 That night the city of Cawnpore was illuminated, 
 and the following proclamation was posted in all 
 places of general resort ; 
 
 " As by the kindness of God and the good fortune 
 "of the Emperor all the Christians who were at 
 " Delhi, Poonah, Sattara, and other places, and even 
 *' those five thousand European soldiers who went in 
 
V THE MASSACRE 227 
 
 " disguise into the former city and were discovered, 
 "are destroyed and sent to hell by the pious and 
 " sagacious troops, who are firm in their religion ; 
 " and as they have been all conquered by the present 
 "Government, and as no trace of them is left in 
 " these places, it is the duty of all the subjects and 
 "servants of the Government to rejoice at the de- 
 "lightful intelligence, and carry on their respective 
 "work with comfort and ease. 
 
 "As by the bounty of the glorious Almighty and 
 "the enemy-destroying fortune of the Emperor the 
 "yellow-faced and narrow-minded people have been 
 " sent to heU, and Cawnpore has been conquered, it 
 "is necessary that aU the subjects and landowners 
 " should be as obedient to the present Government 
 " as they have been to the former one ; that all 
 "the Government servants should promptly and 
 "cheerfully engage their whole mind in executing 
 "the orders of the Government; that it is the in- 
 "cumbent duty of all the peasants and landed pro- 
 " prietors of every district to rejoice at the thought 
 "that the Christians have been sent to hell, and 
 "both the Hindoo and Mohammedan religions have 
 " been confirmed ; and that they should as usual be 
 " obedient to the authorities of the Government, and 
 "never suffer any complaint against themselves to 
 " reach to the ears of the higher authority." 
 
 On the first of July the prisoners were removed 
 from the Savada HaU to a small building north of 
 the canal, situated between the black city and the 
 Ganges. It was their final change of lodgings. To 
 this day they occupy those premises on a lease which 
 no man may dispute. This humble dwelling, the 
 
223 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 residence of some poor quill-driver, Hindoo or half- 
 caste, as tlie case may be, had long stood amidst 
 a group of sightly villas and edifices of social resort, 
 unnoticed except by a casual sanitary commissioner, 
 and distinguished only by a numeral in the map 
 of the Ordnance Survey. It has since been known 
 in India as the Beebeegur, or House of the Ladies ; 
 in England as the House of the Massacre. It com- 
 prised two principal rooms, each twenty feet by ten, 
 certain windowless closets intended for the use of 
 native domestics, and an open court some fifteen 
 yards square. Here, during a fortnight of the 
 Eastern summer, were penned two hundred and six 
 persons of European extraction: for the most part 
 women and children of gentle birth. The grown 
 men were but five in number : the three gentlemen 
 of Futtehgur, who are supposed to have been Mr. 
 Thomhill, the judge, and Colonels Smith and Goldie : 
 together with Mr. Edward Greenway, and his son 
 Thomas. 
 
 If the various degrees of wretchedness are to be 
 estimated by the faculty for suffering contained in 
 the victim, then were these ladies of aU women the 
 most miserable. Few or none amongst them had 
 been aware that in some corner of the mansion 
 beneath whose roof their happier days were passed, 
 there existed such foul holes as those in which they 
 now lay panting by the score. It was much if they 
 had cared to hazard a supposition that " the servants 
 slept somewhere about the compound." They had 
 neither furniture, nor bedding, nor straw; nothing 
 but coarse and hard bamboo matting, unless they 
 preferred a smoother couch upon the bare floor. 
 
V THE MASSACKE 229 
 
 They fed sparely on cakes of unleavened dough, and 
 lentil-porridge dished up in earthen pans without 
 spoon or plate. There was some talk of meat on 
 Sundays, but it never came to anjrthing. Once the 
 children got a little milk. The same day the head 
 bearer of Colonel Williams came to pay his respects 
 to the daughter who was the sole survivor of the 
 officer's household. "I could not," he says, "get 
 " near the ladies on account of the sentries, but saw 
 " that food was being distributed to them. It con- 
 "sisted of native bread and milk. I remonstrated 
 " with a soldier who had formerly served under my 
 " master, and begged of him to supply with better 
 " food people who had lived in a very different way. 
 "He gave me eight annas" [twelvepence] "to go 
 "to the bazaar and buy some sweetmeats. I did 
 "so; and on my return Miss Georgiana and a 
 " married lady came into the verandah to meet me. 
 "Miss Georgiana repeated to me her mother's in- 
 " junctions about my going to her brother. I gave 
 " them the sweetmeats, and had little time to speak 
 " to them, for, seeing me, the other ladies came out 
 "into the verandah: on which the sentries turned 
 "me out." 
 
 The matron of these female prisoners, whom it 
 took so little to keep in order, was a woman described 
 as tall ; of a fair complexion ; twenty-eight or thirty 
 years in age ; but with a few grey hairs. She went 
 by the nickname of " the Begum," and her character 
 was no better than could be looked for in a waiting- 
 maid of the courtesan who then ruled the circle of 
 the Nana. She superintended a staff of sweepers, 
 who furnished the captives with their food. The 
 
230 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 attendance of such debased menials was in itself 
 the most ignominious affront which Oriental malice 
 could invent : and even these were provided exclu- 
 sively for the humiliation of our countrywomen, 
 and might do nothing for their comfort. A young 
 Brahmin, who chanced to look over the fence of 
 the inclosure, saw some ladies washing their own 
 dirty linen. With the irrepressible loquacity of a 
 Hindoo he began asking some strangers who were 
 standing by whether there was no washerman who 
 would undertake to do for the Mem Sahibs : an ill- 
 timed curiosity which procured him a slap on the 
 face and a night in the guard-room. 
 
 Seventy-five paces from the abode where our people 
 were confined stood an hotel owned by a Mohammedan 
 proprietor : an erection of considerable size, daubed 
 with bright yellow paint. Allured, probably, by the 
 gaudiness of colour, an attraction which no genuine 
 native can resist, the Nana had selected this build- 
 ing as his head-quarters. A couple of guns were 
 planted at the entrance of the compound, and a 
 strong detachment of his retainers kept guard under 
 the portico. Two spacious centre rooms were re- 
 served for the Maharaja's public receptions. One of 
 the wings was set apart for the duties of the kitchen 
 and the altar : and, side by side with religion, cooking 
 went merrily on through every hour of the twenty- 
 four. In the other Dhoondoo Punth lived from day 
 to day in a perpetual round of sensuality, amidst a 
 choice coterie of priests, pandars, ministers, and 
 minions. The reigning beauty of the fortnight was 
 one ■ Oula or Adala. She was the Thais on whose 
 breast sunk the vanquished victor, oppressed with 
 
V THE MASSACRE 231 
 
 brandy and such love as animates a middle-aged 
 Eastern debauchee. She is said to have counted 
 by hundreds of thousands the rupees which were 
 lavished on her by the affection and vanity of her 
 Alexander: and could well afford to spare one of 
 her suite to look after the prisoners for the fraction 
 of time during which they were likely to need her 
 services. Every night there was an entertainment 
 of music, dancing, and pantomime. The hit of the 
 evening was made by a buffoon who took off midst 
 shouts of laughter the stiff carriage of an English 
 officer. 
 
 The noise of this unhallowed revelry was plainly 
 audible to the captives in the adjoining house ; and, 
 as they crowded round the windows to catch the 
 breeze which sprang up at sunset, the glare of 
 torches and the strains of barbarous melody might 
 remind them of the period when he who was now 
 arbiter of their existence thought himself privileged 
 if he could induce them to honour with a half- 
 disdainful acceptance the hospitality of Bithoor. 
 They sometimes got a nearer view of the festivities. 
 The Begum daily took across two ladies to the 
 Nana's stables, where they were set down to grind 
 com at a hand-mill for the space of several hours. 
 They generally contrived to bring back a pocketful 
 of flour for the children. 
 
 Hardship, heat, wounds, and want of space and 
 proper nourishment released many from their bond- 
 age before the season marked out by Azimoolah 
 for a jail dehvery such as the world had seldom wit- 
 nessed. A native doctor, himself a prisoner, has left 
 a list of deaths which occurred between the seventh 
 
232 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 and the fifteentli of the month. Within these eight 
 days, of which one was incomplete, as will be seen 
 by those who read on, there succumbed to cholera 
 and dysentery eighteen women, seven children, and 
 a Hindoo nurse. There is a touching little entry 
 which deserves notice. In the column headed 
 "Names" appear the words "eck baba" (one 
 baby) : under that marked " disease " is written " ap 
 se " (of itself). Dying by threes and fours of fright- 
 ful maladies, the designations of which they hardly 
 knew; trying to eat nauseous and unwonted food, 
 and to sleep upon a bed of boards; tormented by 
 flies, and musquitoes, and dirt, and prickly heat, and 
 all the lesser evils that aggravate and keep for ever 
 fresh the consciousness of a great misfortune ; doing 
 for the murderer of their dearest ones that labour 
 which in Asia has always been the distinctive sign 
 and badge of slavery; to such reality of woe had 
 been reduced these beings for whom nothing had 
 formerly been too dainty and well appointed ; whose 
 idea of peril had once been derived from romances ; 
 and who had been acquainted with destitution only 
 through tracts and the reports of charitable insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 The number of captives diminished so fast that 
 the Nana began to fear lest he should soon have 
 no hostages wherewith to provide against the conse- 
 quences of a possible reverse. They were accord- 
 ingly driven twice a day into the verandah, and 
 forced to sit there until they had inhaled as much 
 fresh air as, in the judgment of the Begum, would 
 support an English constitution for the space of 
 twelve hours. This substitute for the morning gallop 
 
V THE MASSACRE 233 
 
 and the evening promenade was very distasteful to 
 our ladies, on account of the idlers who came to 
 stare, and remark how odd a Lady Sahib looked 
 when neither on horseback nor in her carriage. 
 The poor creatures were overheard whispering 
 among themselves that the British never used their 
 prisoners thus. 
 
 It is probable that from this circumstance origin- 
 ated the rumour concerning European females who 
 had been publicly maltreated in the bazaar. Two 
 or three sentences must here be written upon those 
 fables which it is our misfortune that we once 
 believed, and our shame if we ever stoop to repeat. 
 Delhi, Cawnpore, and Futtehgur were the three 
 stations in which any considerable multitude of our 
 countrywomen were placed under the disposal of the 
 mutineers. With regard to the two latter places, if 
 we except one single case of abduction, it is abso- 
 lutely certain that our ladies died without mention, 
 and, we may confidently hope, without apprehension 
 of dishonour. Those revolting stories which ac- 
 companied to Southampton the first tidings of the 
 tumult at Delhi may all be traced to some gossip 
 regarding the fate of Miss Jennings, the daughter of 
 the chaplain, and her Mend, Miss Clifford. It is 
 now ascertained beyond all question that these girls 
 were sitting in an upper room of the palace gateway, 
 when they heard on the stairs a rush of footsteps 
 and a clattering of scabbards, and were cut down 
 dead as they rose from their chairs to learn the 
 cause of this strange intrusion. 
 
 Some, who love to attribute every event to the 
 special interposition of Providence, have insisted that 
 
234 CAWNPOEE chap. 
 
 nothing short of fabricated indignities, and tales of 
 mutilation equally untrue and more easily disproved, 
 could have kindled the explosion of wrath and pity 
 which sent forth by myriads the youth of England 
 again to subdue Hindostan beneath a Christian yoke. 
 Piety, unwilling to pronounce authoritatively on such 
 a matter, will be loth to imagine that God provoked 
 men to utter and to credit lies for the furtherance of 
 any purpose which could conduce to His glory. As 
 must ever be in the order of things by Him deter- 
 mined, the evil seed produced evil fruit. Grapes 
 came not of those thorns, nor figs of those thistles. 
 The murder of a hundred families, the ruin of a 
 thousand homesteads, were incentives capable of 
 exalting our national enthusiasm to the requisite 
 pitch without the aid of exaggeration or invention. 
 Those hateful falsehoods served but to evoke from 
 the depths of our nature the sombre and ferocious 
 instincts which religion and civilization can never 
 wholly eradicate. To their account unhappy India 
 may charge most of the innocent blood that was 
 spilt and the bad blood that remains. 
 
 It was not long before the usurper began to 
 experience the proverbial uneasiness of a crowned 
 head. At no time a favourite with the Cawnpore 
 population, he now was cordially detested by all 
 the respectable inhabitants ; who, after his downfall, 
 testified their hatred by refusing to pronounce his 
 name without the addition of some disparaging 
 epithet. The majestic appellations of Maharaja and 
 Peishwa were at once cut down to "Nana soor," 
 " that pig of a Nana : " and this was the mildest 
 and the most decent of all his agnomina, with the 
 
V THE MASSACRE 235 
 
 exception, perhaps, of " budmash," which answers as 
 nearly as possible to the French coquin. " That 
 great budmash the Nana," occurs in the perora- 
 tion of one of Nanukchund's outbursts of Hindoo 
 eloquence. For the present, however, the towns- 
 people evinced their ill-will by a tacit but very effec- 
 tive opposition to the new regime. His requisitions 
 of money and supplies met with no response; and 
 he could procure nothing except by open force, 
 which he was not slow to employ. The city had, 
 indeed, little motive to love him or the state of 
 things which he represented. A Mohammedan 
 author describes the aspect of a locality where the 
 rebellion had obtained the ascendency in these 
 graphic words : — " Since the day of my arrival I never 
 " found the bazaar open, unless it were a few poor 
 "shops. The shopkeepers and the citizens are 
 " extremely sorry for losing their safety, and curse 
 "the mutineers from morning to evening. The 
 "people and the workmen starve, and the widows 
 "cry in their huts." 
 
 The class who had most cause to pray for the 
 return of order were the natives of Bengal Proper, 
 then settled in the Upper Provinces for purposes 
 of commerce. Impoverished, suspected, menaced, 
 and outraged, they were conscious that neither life, 
 limb, nor liberty were worth a fortnight's purchase. 
 Many a rich Bengalee within the borders of the 
 insurrection sat all day behind closed blinds, with a 
 pistol in his girdle, a bag of jewels in his turban, 
 and a horse ready saddled at the back door of his 
 garden. And it was not without reason that these 
 men suffered so cruelly : for they were only less 
 
236 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 loyal than the English themselves. The wealthy, 
 industrious, and effeminate denizens of Lower Bengal 
 had no desire to see the many-headed and irrational 
 despotism of a Prsetorian guard substituted for the 
 mild and regular sway of old John Company. The 
 conduct of the soldiery rendered them exceedingly 
 uncomfortable and not a little indignant : and they 
 lost no opportunity of wreaking their spite upon the 
 turbulent mercenaries who would not allow honest 
 folk to go about their business in peace. The 
 sepoys who mutinied at Chittagong and Dacca, both 
 of which stations lie within the limits of Bengal, 
 met with such hostility from the country-people that 
 they gave up all thoughts of moving on Calcutta, 
 and endeavoured to make their way into Assam. 
 Few ever reached the frontier. They literally rotted 
 away in the jungle. Some died of starvation : some 
 of fever and ague. The foragers were knocked on 
 the head by the peasantry, skilled, like all Hindoo 
 villagers, in the play of the quarter-staff. The 
 stragglers were carried off by wild animals which 
 swarm amidst the swamps and forests that fringe 
 the great rivers of Eastern India. At length, driven 
 into a comer, they one morning cut the throats 
 of the women who had hitherto accompanied their 
 march, and dispersed into the wilderness, to re- 
 appear not even on the gallows. They could not 
 have fared worse amidst the moors of Yorkshire or 
 Northumberland. 
 
 July had not well set in before the insurgents 
 of Cawnpore showed symptoms that marked the 
 wilfulness and inconstancy of soldiers who have 
 once forgotten their duty. Idleness bred discon- 
 
V THE MASSACRE 237 
 
 tent, and discontent speedily ripened into sedition. 
 The honejnnoon had not yet drawn to a close, and 
 already this unnatural connection between the Nana 
 and the army was distasteful to the stronger of 
 the contracting parties. Regiments which had re- 
 vised to obey such men as Ewart and Delafosse 
 were not likely to entertain any very profound 
 reverence for an effete Hindoo rake. The Peishwa 
 evinced an inclination to enjoy for a while the 
 contemplation of his recent dignity in the retire- 
 ment of Bithoor : but the troops had no notion of 
 letting their paymaster out of sight, and brought 
 him back into their midst by violence which they 
 hardly cared to disguise beneath the semblance of 
 respect. On the third of the month a donation 
 was distributed among their ranks, and accepted 
 with anything but gratitude. Few got as much as, 
 in their own opinion, they deserved; and all less 
 than they desired. What they had was not in 
 a portable form. Government silver proved to be 
 an inconvenient burden for the loins ; and, if things 
 went ill, it might procure a still more unpleasant 
 girdle round the neck. There were disagreeable 
 anecdotes current regarding certain gentlemen, late 
 of the Company's service, who had been executed 
 at Allahabad on the discovery about their persons 
 of some new copper coins, which had never issued 
 from the Treasury by a regular payment, and which 
 they were suspected of having intended to put into 
 premature circulation. There accordingly was a 
 brisk demand for gold. Azimoolah ordered it to 
 be proclaimed in the bazaar by beat of drum that 
 bankers should supply the mutineers with mohurs 
 
238' CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 at a minimum price of twenty-one rupees. The 
 Cawnpore exchange, however, had so Kttle confi- 
 dence in the star of the Maharaja, that these coins 
 could not be bought for less than twenty-eight 
 rupees, which was an advance of seventy-five per 
 cent, on their ordinary price. The sepoys, who 
 were not more acquainted than European privates 
 with the laws which regulate the money-market, 
 and knew only that they had ended by pocketing 
 little more than half the cash that they expected, 
 were soon talking about a fresh change of masters. 
 The Mussulman faction gained ground rapidly and 
 surely. Men began to recollect how cleverly the 
 Nunhey Nawab had managed his battery without 
 any prior experience in gunnery, and drew the con- 
 clusion that he might be equally successful if he 
 could be bribed by an offer of sovereignty to turn 
 his attention towards the rate of discount. 
 
 But military greediness, and Moslem ambition, 
 and the jealousy of the nobles, and the enmity 
 of the lourgeoisie ceased ere long to occupy the 
 thoughts of the tyrant. These sources of uneasiness 
 were absorbed in one great and pressing terror, 
 when, at the first doubtful and intermittent, but 
 more frequent ever and clearer, came surging up 
 from the south-west the fame of the advancing ven- 
 geance. Couriers mounted on swift camels were 
 sent down the road, and returned with the intel- 
 ligence that the British were certainly approaching 
 by forced marches, laying down a telegraph as they 
 proceeded, and hanging the inhabitants of the 
 villages within which were found pieces of the old 
 wire. This information naturally produced a strong 
 
T THE MASSACRE ^39 
 
 effect upon men whose crimes were not such as 
 to meet with impunity under the new scale of 
 penalties that seemed to have been adopted by 
 the Sahibs. The consternation was so deep and 
 universal that the Nana had recourse to his cus- 
 tomary palliative. On the fifth of July he issued 
 the following proclamation : — 
 
 " It has come to our notice that some of the 
 "city people, having heard the rumours of the 
 "arrival of the European troops at Allahabad, are 
 "deserting their houses and going out into the 
 " districts. Be it therefore proclaimed in each lane 
 "and street of the city that regiments of cavalry, 
 "and infantry, and batteries have been despatched 
 "to check the Europeans either at Allahabad or 
 "Futtehpore; that the people should therefore 
 " remain in their houses without any apprehension 
 " and engage their minds in carrying on their work." 
 
 This manifesto was probably considered too tame 
 and brief for such a crisis. Next day there appeared 
 a truly notable state-paper, which, to judge from 
 internal evidence, may be attributed to the pen of 
 the prime-minister. It is regarde(f as the master- 
 piece of that author, and may serve for a model to 
 all Governments that undertake to enlighten the 
 public mind by means of an ofiicial organ. 
 
 " A traveller just arrived at Cawnpore from Alla- 
 "habad states that before the cartridges were dis- 
 "tributed a Council was held for the purpose of 
 "taking away the religion and rites of the people 
 " of Hindostan. The Members of Council came to 
 " the conclusion that, as the matter was one affecting 
 " religion, seven or eight thousand Europeans would 
 
240 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 "be required, and it would cost the lives of fifty 
 "thousand Hindoos, but that at this price the 
 "natives of Hindostan would become Christians. 
 " The matter was therefore represented in a despatch 
 " to Queen Victoria, who gave her consent. A second 
 " Council was then held, at which the English mer- 
 " chants were present. It was then resolved to ask 
 "for the assistance of a body of European troops 
 " equal in number to the native army, so as to 
 *' insure success when the excitement should be at 
 " the highest. When the despatch containing this 
 " application was read in England, thirty-five thou- 
 "sand Europeans were very rapidly embarked on 
 " ships, and started for Hindostan, and intelligence 
 " of their despatch reached Calcutta. Then the 
 "English in Calcutta issued the order for the dis- 
 " tribution of the cartridges, the object of which was 
 "to make Hindostan Christian; as it was thought 
 "that the people would come over with the army. 
 " The cartridges were smeared with hog and cow's 
 " fat. One man who let out the secret was hung, 
 *' and one imprisoned. 
 
 " Meantime, -^rhile they were occupied in carrying 
 "out their plan, the ambassadors of the Sultan of 
 "Roum" [Turkey] "in London sent word to his 
 "sovereign that thirty-five thousand Europeans had 
 "been despatched to Hindostan to make all the 
 "natives Christians. The Sultan (may Allah per- 
 " petuate his kingdom !) issued a firman to the 
 "Pacha of Egypt, the contents of which are as 
 " follows : * You are conspiring with Queen Victoria. 
 " ' If you are guilty of neglect in this matter, what 
 " ' kind of face will you be able to show to God ? ' 
 
V THE MASSACRE 241 
 
 " When this firman of the Sultan of Roum reached 
 " the Pacha of Egypt, the Lord of Egypt assembled 
 " his army in the city of Alexandria, which is on the 
 "road to India, before the Europeans arrived. As 
 " soon as the European troops arrived the troops of 
 "the Pacha of Egjrpt began to fire into them with 
 "guns on all sides, and sunk all their ships, so 
 "that not even a single European escaped. The 
 "English in Calcutta, after issuing orders for biting 
 "the cartridges, and when these disturbances had 
 "reached their height, were looking for the assist- 
 " ance of the army from London. But the Almighty 
 " by the exercise of His power made an end of them 
 "at the very outset. When intelligence of the 
 " destruction of the army from London arrived, the 
 " Governor-General was much grieved and distressed, 
 " and beat his head. 
 
 " At eventide he intended murder and plunder. 
 
 " At noon neither had his body a head, nor his head a cover. 
 
 " In one revolution of the blue heavens 
 
 " Neither Nadir remained, nor a follower of Nadir. 
 
 " Done by order of his Grace the Peishwa. 1273 of the Hegira." 
 
 But the onward march of the English was not to 
 be checked by quotations from Oordoo poets. It 
 behoved that some weapons besides the eloquence 
 of Azimoolah and the sign-manual of Dhoondoo 
 Punth should be found, and found quickly. The 
 rebel chiefs were enjoined to muster their re- 
 tainers, and Teeka Sing to beat up the bazaars 
 for sepoys. Reluctant and dispirited the truants 
 turned out to fight for a sovereign whom they 
 were scheming to dethrone, and for plunder which 
 had already by some magical process melted away 
 
242 CAWNPORE chap, 
 
 to half the original value. Baba Bhut under- 
 took to provide carriage for the stores and ammu- 
 nition : and accordingly impounded the conveyances 
 of the town, particularly aU vehicles formerly the 
 property of European gentry: a measure which 
 caused no small vexation to the mutineers who had 
 been cutting a dash in the buggies that had belonged 
 to our subalterns. The merchants received exten- 
 sive indents for tents and waterproof great-coats : a 
 most essential article of equipment during the first 
 weeks of the rainy season. The Ordnance OjSfice 
 reported itself to be short of percussion caps : and 
 the whole staff of the department was at once set to 
 work at converting detonating muskets into match- 
 locks. These preparations were completed by the 
 ninth of July, on which day Brigadier Jwala Pershad 
 left the station in the direction of Allahabad at the 
 head of detachments from three regiments of cavalry 
 and seven of infantry, together with a strong body 
 of feudal militia : in all some thirty-five hundred 
 sabres, bayonets, and lances. The column was ac- 
 companied by twelve guns of various pattern and 
 calibre, which the result of the earliest action 
 enabled General Havelock to describe with minute 
 accuracy. 
 
 They did well to hurry : for the avenger was 
 abroad. Late in May there landed at Calcutta a 
 wing of the First Madras Fusiliers, under the com- 
 mand of Major Benaud and Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Neill : who, after securing an order which enabled 
 them to draw upon the Patna Treasury, proceeded 
 straight to the terminus situated on the bank of the 
 Hooghly facing the capital, with the intention of 
 
V THE MASSACRE 243 
 
 performing the first stretch of their journey by rail. 
 A train was on the point of starting ; and the station- 
 master, jealous, it may be, to obtain his new line a 
 reputation for punctuality, refused to delay until the 
 rear-guard could be embarked in the cars. Here- 
 upon Neill, an Indian veteran, who during a long 
 absence from home had lost what little reverence he 
 ever possessed for the authority of Bradshaw, clapped 
 the official under arrest in his own waiting-room, and 
 gave the guards and stokers to understand that he 
 had constituted himself traffic-manager for the time 
 being. Travelling in this high-handed style he 
 reached Benares when least expected either by the 
 English residents, who were waiting to have their 
 throats cut, or by the native force, which was looking 
 out for an excuse to mutiny, and which now found a 
 pretext in the arrival of Neill. After a rough and 
 tumble fight he bundled the insurgents out of the 
 place; quieted the fears of the European popula- 
 tion; and at once began his arrangements for pene- 
 trating to Allahabad, where a feeble garrison, closely 
 invested by an enormous rebel host, was defending 
 a mile and a half of wall with scanty prospect of 
 deliverance. 
 
 On the evening of the ninth June he sent on in 
 bullock-carts a hundred and seventeen of his people ; 
 despatched thirty-six others in a small steamer ; and 
 packed himself, with two officers and forty-four men, 
 into such stage-carriages as had shafts and axles. 
 Posting in the East is never a very expeditious 
 method of locomotion ; and at this conjuncture 
 every stable along the Grand Trunk Road had been 
 plundered more or less thoroughly. But the agents 
 
244 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 of the Dawk Company knew their man : and it may 
 safely be asserted that the grooms were less sleepy 
 than usual, and the drivers less sulky; that the 
 horses jibbed not quite so pertinaciously, and the 
 wheels came off at somewhat wider intervals. No 
 promise of treble gratuities from an embryo member 
 of Parliament, hurrying up-country in search of 
 statistics, ever so surely cut short a stoppage or an 
 altercation, as did the rattle of the panels of the 
 foremost van, which betokened that Neill Sahib was 
 awake, and in another moment would be thrusting 
 out his head to ask what the matter was. When 
 the animals broke down, strings of peasants were 
 harnessed to the traces : and by the afternoon of 
 the second day the relieving army, numbering a 
 short four dozen of exhausted men, had found their 
 way into the beleaguered place. On the following 
 morning the struggle began in earnest, and con- 
 tinued for a full week. Successive instalments of 
 Fusiliers swarmed in by road and river : while the 
 enemy had soon consumed most of their courage and 
 all their ball-cartridge, and were reduced to load 
 with morsels of telegraph wire: a device whereby, 
 over and above the effect of their fire, they got rid of 
 an article the possession of which came under the 
 chapter of capital offences in the Criminal Code as 
 revised by Colonel Neill. That officer by the nine- 
 teenth July had re-conquered the city of Allahabad, 
 and cleared the district of insurgents. He now found 
 leisure to make some inquiries into the past, which 
 resulted in a series of executions : not more than 
 the crisis warranted (for, though an austere man, he 
 was no savage), but quite numerous enough, in the 
 
 I 
 
V THE MASSACRE 245 
 
 expressive dialect of the day, to " establish a great 
 lunk." 
 
 Meanwhile the heat was such as no words can 
 adequately describe. The Europeans died of sun- 
 stroke at an average rate of two a day. Our troops 
 had outstripped their Commissariat, and could get 
 neither bread, nor coffee, nor drugs, nor fans, nor 
 screens of moistened grass : appliances which, known 
 to an English housekeeper as " luxuries " and " com- 
 forts," in the estimation of those who have spent 
 an Indian June in the tented field merit quite 
 another denomination. Unfortunately, though the 
 larder and the medicine-chest were empty, the cel- 
 lars of Allahabad were only too well furnished. They 
 were pillaged by some Sikhs, who, without applying 
 for a licence, at once opened a lively trade : selling 
 beer, brandy, madeira, and champagne at a uniform 
 charge of sixpence the bottle. Cholera soon broke 
 out among our poor fellows, living as they did on 
 wine and spirits without even a halfpenny-worth of 
 bread in a temperature of a hundred and thirty-five 
 degrees. In the course of seventy-two hours forty 
 deaths occurred in the ranks of the Madras Regiment. 
 The Colonel bought up and destroyed the whole 
 stock of liquor; ransacked the neighbourhood in 
 quest of wholesome provisions ; removed his patients 
 to the most healthy quarters which he could com- 
 mand; and was repaid by seeing the mysterious 
 disease vanish as suddenly as it had appeared, after 
 carrying off one out of every nine among his 
 soldiers. 
 
 As when a slender riU, ominous to an experienced 
 eye, trickles through the crack in an embankment 
 
246 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 behind which is gathered an immense weight of 
 water, so came along the valley of Ganges this Kttle 
 band, the forerunner of a mighty multitude of 
 warriors. Every evening brought into Allahabad a 
 fresh batch of Englishmen, jaded, indeed, and 
 suffering cruelly from the climate, but eager to be 
 led forward to rescue or revenge. Continental 
 authors who descant on the stolidity and insensi- 
 bility of the British private might have learned a 
 useful lesson could they have overheard the talk of 
 those pale and sickly lads. By the last day of June 
 Neill judged himself strong enough to detach towards 
 Cawnpore two guns and eight hundred men, half of 
 whom were Europeans. The column was placed 
 under the orders of Major Renaud, who pushed up 
 the road, fighting as occasion offered ; tranquillizing 
 the country by the very simple expedient of hanging 
 everybody who showed signs of insubordination ; 
 and using all endeavours to procure information 
 concerning the fate of the Cawnpore garrison. On 
 the fourth July he was met by a report of the 
 capitulation and the massacre. Corroborated, and 
 contradicted, and qualified, and again confidently 
 afiirmed, rumour insensibly matured into undoubted 
 fact : but to this day no man ventures to name the 
 precise hour when he himself became assured that 
 the worst was true. 
 
 With July arrived Brigadier-General Havelock, 
 who, after having employed a week in collecting his 
 resources, moved northwards from Allahabad with 
 six cannon and a thousand English soldiers. That 
 was not a joyous expedition. The hearts of all were 
 occupied with forebodings of evil which they dared 
 
V THE MASSACRE 247 
 
 not shape into words : and the face of creation 
 seemed to reflect the universal gloom. To the fancy 
 of those who were not incapable of vivid emotion 
 even inanimate and irrational nature partook that 
 shade of the future that was on every soul. They 
 waded in a sea of slush, knee-deep now, and now 
 breast-high, while the flood of tropical rain beat 
 down from overhead. As far to right and left as 
 eye could pierce extended one vast morass : and the 
 desolate scene was enlivened by no human sound. 
 Nothing was heard save the melancholy croaking 
 of the cicalas, mingled with an under hum of count- 
 less insects. The air was heavy with the offensive 
 odour of lime-trees. There were no indications that 
 the column was traversing an inhabited country, 
 except the bodies which hung by twos and threes 
 from branch and signpost, and the gaunt swine who 
 by the roadside were holding their loathsome car- 
 nival. After three days of steady toil through the 
 mud and the water Havelock was made aware that the 
 enemy were ahead, and that Renaud was advancing 
 unsupported into the teeth of an overwhelming 
 force. Then our troops hastened forward, and made 
 one march of five leagues and another of eight 
 beneath a blazing sun (for at this point the weather 
 cleared, and they lost the protection of the clouds), 
 until they caught up the Major and his detachment, 
 and finally halted in a state of entire prostration five 
 miles from the town of Futtehpore, where Jwala 
 Pershad was encamped with all his chivalry. 
 
 It was early morning. Our weary people were 
 enjoying their "little breakfast" of tea, that plea- 
 santest of Indian meals, when the rebel vanguard 
 
248 CAWNPOEE chap. 
 
 came pouring down the causeway. Havelock, who 
 wished earnestly to give his harassed soldiers rest, 
 resolved to wait until this ebullition should expend 
 itself. But the affair grew serious; and he had 
 soon no choice but to accept the challenge and draw 
 up his army. In front were the guns, protected by 
 a hundred skirmishers armed with that Enfield rifle 
 which, then a rarity, is now a familiar object to every 
 other household in Great Britain. The Fusiliers and 
 the Seventy-eighth Highlanders struggled through 
 the swamps on the right. The Sixty-fourth Regiment 
 went forward in the centre ; and the Eighty-fourth 
 on the left, supported by a battalion of Punjabees. 
 The cavalry moved along some firm ground which 
 lay on the extreme flank. 
 
 Never was there such a battle. " I might say," 
 writes the General, " that in ten minutes the action 
 "was decided, for in that short space of time the 
 "spirit of the enemy was utterly subdued. The 
 " rifle fire, reaching them at an unexpected distance, 
 " filled them with dismay ; and when Captain Maude 
 " was enabled to push his guns to point-blank range, 
 " his surprisingly accurate fire demolished their little 
 "remaining confidence. In a moment three guns 
 "were abandoned to us on the chauss4e, and the 
 " force advanced steadily, driving the enemy before 
 "it on every point. Their guns continued to fall 
 " into our hands ; and then in succession they were 
 " driven from the garden inclosures ; from a strong 
 "barricade on the road; from the town wall; into 
 " and through, out of and beyond the town. Their 
 "fire scarcely reached us. Ours, for four hours, 
 "allowed them no repose." 
 
V THE MASSACEE 249 
 
 In fact it was a mere rout : a memorable triumph 
 of outraged civilization. The Second Cavalry made 
 a flourish Avhich for a while checked our onset : but 
 the troopers of that redoubted corps soon had had 
 enough of English lead, and felt no appetite for a 
 taste of English steel. Accustomed to deal with 
 feebler adversaries, they were spoilt for fighting with 
 grown men. By noon nothing was to be seen of the 
 mutineers within six miles of Futtehpore save their 
 dead, their accoutrements, and their whole park of 
 artillery. Flpng in irretrievable disorder they spread 
 everywhere that the Sahibs had come back in strange 
 guise; some draped like women, to remind them 
 what manner of wrong they were sworn to requite ; 
 others, conspicuous by tall blue caps, who hit their 
 mark without being seen to fire. Our list of killed 
 and wounded contained not one British name : though 
 a dozen or so of Sowars, Jemmadars, and Russeldars 
 made it as incomprehensible to a home reader as an 
 Indian bulletin should ever be. But the bloodless 
 day was not costless : for twelve of our privates were 
 slain outright by the sun. Our irregular horsemen, 
 who recognized some comrades in the hostile ranks, 
 had flatly refused to charge, and were consequently 
 dismounted and disarmed : a precaution that dimin- 
 ished our cavalry to a score of volunteers. 
 
 When the Nana learned how his soldiers had con- 
 ducted themselves he flew into a violent passion, 
 which could be reheved only by vicarious letting of 
 blood. After attending at the execution of eight 
 ill-fated couriers, who had been intercepted from 
 time to time with English despatches in and about 
 their persons, he felt sufficiently composed to face 
 
250 CAWNPOKE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 the emergency. Determined to reserve his own 
 sacred self for the supreme venture, he sent into the 
 field a Patroclus in the person of Bala Rao, whose 
 stake in the cause was indeed no light one. Every 
 available mutineer was equipped and marched down 
 the road, and the captured pieces were replaced from 
 the magazine. On the morrow the Peishwa's brother 
 followed his reinforcements, and took up a position 
 round a hamlet named Aoung, twenty-two miles 
 south of Cawnpore. He found the rebel mind in 
 high perturbation. The gossip of the camp-fires ran 
 mainly on the disagreeable sensations produced by 
 strangulation ; and the disquisitions of certain among 
 the sepoys who had witnessed that operation were 
 so circumstantial and picturesque that many who 
 had come best off in the partition of the spoil doffed 
 the remains of their uniforms, and stole away with 
 their riches to the seclusion of their native villages. 
 The behaviour of those who remained proved that 
 the army had rather gained than lost in efficiency 
 by the withdrawal of such as had nothing to acquire 
 and something to enjoy. 
 
 Their valour was soon to be tested. At nine in 
 the morning of the fifteenth up came the English ; 
 Maude and his battery leading the way; with the 
 Fusiliers and the sharpshooters of the Sixty-fourth 
 close at his heels. Shrapnel shells and conical 
 bullets quickly cleared away everything from our 
 front, and strewed the highway with corpses, 
 weapons, and abandoned tents and waggons. The 
 Second Cavalry caught sight of our baggage, which 
 had been left beneath a grove in the care of a 
 slender guard, and fancied that they discerned an 
 
V THE MASSACRE 251 
 
 occasion for distinguishing themselves after their 
 own fashion. But they were lamentably disappointed. 
 Q^he regiment had to bustle back with empty pockets 
 and not a few empty saddles, and thenceforward 
 was contented to rest on the renoAvn of previous 
 exploits. 
 
 Bala Rao withdrew his troops- behind a stream 
 which crossed the road a league in rear of the con- 
 tested village. The water was too deep to be forded. 
 The bridge was strongly fortified, and defended by 
 two twenty-four pounders. Our force proceeded to 
 the attack after a slight tiffin, and a short siesta for 
 all whose nerves were firm enough to allow them a 
 snatch of sleep between two of the rounds in a fight 
 for such a prize. Maude raked the hostile cannon, 
 which stood in a salient bend of the river: while 
 the Fusiliers advanced in skirmishing order, enraged 
 at the fall of gallant Major Renaud, whose thigh 
 had been broken early in the day. After pljdng their 
 rifles with deadly effect, they suddenly closed up, 
 and flung themselves headlong on the bridge. Bala 
 Rao, to whom cannot be charged the cowardice 
 which a popular maxim associates with cruelty, had 
 purposed to maintain his post to the last: but on 
 this occasion he had not to do with the front-rank of 
 seated ladies and children, and a rear-rank of gentle- 
 men whose hands were strapped behind their backs. 
 With set teeth, and flashing eyes, and firelocks 
 tightly clenched, pelted by grape and musketry, our 
 people converged at a run upon the narrow passage. 
 When they came near enough to afford the enemy 
 an opportunity of observing on their countenances 
 that expression which the Sahibs always wear when 
 
252 CAWNPOEE chap 
 
 they do not mean to turn back, the rebel array broke 
 and fled. The fugitives took with them their General, 
 who carried off in his shoulder a lump of Govern- 
 ment lead, to which he was most heartily welcome ; 
 but did not find time for the removal of their a,rtil- 
 lery. There passed into our hands four guns ; which 
 cannot be said to have been dearly purchased at six 
 casualties apiece. 
 
 Wounded as he was, Bala Rao brought to Cawn- 
 pore the tidings of his own defeat. He went straight 
 to the quarters of his brother, which were soon 
 crowded with the leading rebels, who came to hear 
 what had happened, and to impart their apprehen- 
 sions and suggestions. The deliberations of this 
 improvised council were at first confused and de- 
 sultory. Some were for retiring to Bithoor; some 
 for uniting their forces with the mutineers of Futteb- 
 gur. At length, by a slender majority of voices, it 
 was decided to make one more stand south of 
 Cawnpore. 
 
 When the resolution had been adopted, Teeka 
 Sing asked whether the Nana had made up his 
 mind as to what should be done with the prisoners ; 
 and hinted that, in case things went ill, it might 
 be awkward for some then present should the Sahibs 
 find such a mass of evidence ready to their hands ; 
 nay, more, that the chances of a reverse would be 
 considerably lessened if the captives were once put 
 out of the way. The British were approaching 
 solely for the purpose of releasing their compatriots, 
 and would not risk another battle for the satisfac- 
 tion of burying them. They would be only too glad 
 of an excuse to avoid meeting the Peishwa in the 
 
V THE MASSACRE 253 
 
 field. Dhoondoo Punth was not hard to convince 
 on such a point. Whenever bloodshed was in ques- 
 tion, he showed himself the least impracticable of 
 men. In the present instance he would never have 
 required prompting, but for the importunity of the 
 royal widows, his stepmothers by adoption, who had 
 sent him word that they would throw themselves 
 and their children from the upper windows of the 
 palace if he again murdered any of their sex. As 
 a pledge that this was no vain parade of philanthropy 
 they had abstained from food and drink for many 
 hours together. In order to anticipate their remon- 
 strances, directions were given to set about the work 
 forthwith. In fact, for every reason, 'twas well that 
 it should be done quickly. The assembly broke up ; 
 but all who could spare the time stayed for at least 
 the commencement of such a representation as none 
 could hope to behold twice in a lifetime. 
 
 At four o'clock in the afternoon, or between that 
 and five, some of the Nana's people went across to 
 the house of bondage, and bade the Englishmen who 
 were there to come forth. Forth they came ; — the 
 three persons from Futtehgur, and the merchant and 
 his son ; — accompanied by the biggest of the children, 
 a youth of fourteen, who, poor boy, was glad perhaps 
 to take this opportunity of classing himself with his 
 elders. Some ladies pressed out to watch the course 
 which the party took, but were pushed back by the 
 sentries. The gentlemen inquired whither they 
 were going, and were answered that the Peishwa 
 had sent for them on some concern of his own. 
 But aU around was a deep throng of spectators, 
 the foremost rows seated on the ground, so that 
 
254 CAWNPOEE chap. 
 
 those behind might see : while an outer circle occu- 
 pied, as it were, reserved places on the wall of the 
 inclosure. There, beneath a spreading lime-tree, 
 lounged Dhoondoo Punth, the gold lace of his 
 turban glittering in the sunshine. There were 
 Jwala Pershad ; and Tantia Topee ; and Azimoolah, 
 the ladies' man ; and Bala Rao, the twinges of whose 
 shoulder-blade heightened his avidity for the coming 
 show. When this concourse was noticed by our 
 countrjnuen, their lips moved as if in prayer. At 
 the gate which led into the road they were stopped 
 by a squad of sepoys, and shot dead. Their bodies 
 were thrown on to the grass which bordered the 
 highway, and became the sport of the rabble ; who, 
 doubtless, pointed to them in turn, and said : " That 
 " Sahib is the Governor of Bengal ; and this is the 
 " Governor of Madras ; and this is the Governor 
 " of Bombay." That was the joke which during 
 that twelvemonth went the round of Northern 
 India. 
 
 About half-an-hour after this the woman called 
 " the Begum " informed the captives that the Peishwa 
 had determined to have them killed. One of the 
 ladies went up to the native officer who commanded 
 the guard, and told him that she learned they were 
 all to die. To this he replied that, if such were the 
 case, he must have heard something about it ; so 
 that she had no cause to be afraid : and a soldier 
 said to the Begum : " Your orders will not be obeyed. 
 Who are you that you should give orders ? " Upon 
 this the woman fired up, and hurried off to lay the 
 affair before the Nana. During her absence the 
 sepoys discussed the matter, and resolved that they 
 
V THE MASSACRE 255 
 
 would never lift their weapons against the prisoners. 
 One of them afterwards confessed to a friend that 
 his own motive for so deciding was anxiety to stand 
 well with the Sahibs, if ever they got back to Cawn- 
 pore. The Begum presently returned with five men, 
 each carrying a sabre. Two were Hindoo peasants : 
 the one thirty-five years of age, fair and tall, with 
 long mustachios, but flat-faced and wall-eyed : the 
 other considerably his senior, short, and of a sallow 
 complexion. Two were butchers by calling : portly 
 strapping fellows, both well on in life. The larger of 
 the two was disfigured by the traces of the small- 
 pox. They were Mohammedans, of course; as no 
 Hindoo could adopt a trade which obliged him to 
 spill the blood of a cow. 
 
 These four were dressed in dirty- white clothes. The 
 fifth, likewise a Mussulman, wore the red uniform of 
 the Maharaja's body-guard, and is reported to have 
 been the sweetheart of the Begum. He was called 
 Survur Khan, and passed for a native of some distant 
 province. A bystander remarked that he had hair 
 on his hands. 
 
 The sepoys were bidden to fall on. Half-a-dozen 
 among them advanced, and discharged their muskets 
 through the windows at the ceiling of the apart- 
 ments. Thereupon the five men entered. It was 
 the short gloaming of Hindostan — the hour when 
 ladies take their evening drive. She who had 
 accosted the officer was standing in the doorway. 
 With her were the native doctor, and two Hindoo 
 menials. That much of the business might be seen 
 from the verandah, but all else was concealed amidst 
 the interior gloom. Shrieks and scuffling acquainted 
 
256 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 those without that the journeymen were earning 
 their hire. Survur Khan soon emerged with his 
 sword broken off at the hilt. He procured another 
 from the Nana's house, and a few minutes after 
 appeared again on the same errand. The third blade 
 was of better temper : or perhaps the thick of the 
 work was already over. By the time darkness had 
 closed in, the men came forth and locked up the 
 house for the night. Then the screams ceased; but 
 the groans lasted till morning. 
 
 The sun rose as usual. When he had been up 
 nearly three hours the five repaired to the scene of 
 their labours over-night. They were attended by a 
 few sweepers, who proceeded to transfer the contents 
 of the house to a dry well situated behind some 
 trees which grew hard by. " The bodies," says one 
 who was present throughout, " were dragged out, 
 " most of them by the hair of the head. Those who 
 " had clothes worth taking were stripped. Some of 
 " the women were alive. I cannot say how many ; 
 " but three could speak. They prayed for the sake of 
 " God that an end might be put to their sufferings. 
 " I remarked one very stout woman, a half-caste, 
 " who was severely wounded in both arms, who 
 "entreated to be killed. She and two or three 
 " others were placed against the bank of the cut by 
 "which bullocks go down in drawing water. The 
 " dead were first thrown in. Yes : there was a great 
 "crowd looking on: they were standing along the 
 "walls of the compound. They were principally 
 "city people and villagers. Yes: there were also 
 "sepoys. Three boys were alive. They were fair 
 " children. The eldest, I think, must have been six 
 
V THE MASSACRE 257 
 
 " or seven, and the youngest five years. They were 
 " running round the well, (where else could they go 
 " to ?) and there was none to save them. No : none 
 " said a word or tried to save them." 
 
 At length the smallest of them made an infantile 
 attempt to get away. The little thing had been 
 frightened past bearing by the murder of one of the 
 surviving ladies. He thus attracted the observation 
 of a native, who flung him and his companions down 
 the well. One deponent is of opinion that the man 
 first took the trouble to kill the children. Others 
 think not. The corpses of the gentlemen must 
 have been committed to the same receptacle ; for a 
 townsman who looked over the brink fancied that 
 there was a " Sahib uppermost." This is the history 
 of what took place at Cawnpore, between four in 
 the afternoon of one day and nine in the morning of 
 another, almost under the shadow of the church- 
 tower, and within call of the Theatre, the Assembly 
 Rooms, and the Masonic Lodge. Long before noon 
 on the sixteenth July there remained no living 
 European within the circuit of the station. 
 
 But there were plenty at no great distance : for, 
 about the turn of day, our force, after travelling 
 five leagues, rested for a space in a hamlet buried 
 amidst a forest of mango groves. A mile to north- 
 ward lay the sepoy host, intrenched across the 
 spot where the by-way to Cawnpore branches from 
 the Grand Trunk Road. Seven guns commanded 
 the approaches, and behind a succession of fortified 
 villages were gathered five thousand fighting men, 
 prepared to strike a last blow for their necks and 
 their booty. Havelock resolved to turn the flank 
 
258 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 of the Nana : for he was aware that, if an opponent 
 assails a native army otherwise than as it intended 
 to be assailed when it took up its position, the 
 General for a certainty loses his head, and the 
 soldiers their hearts. The word was given, and our 
 column defiled at a steady pace round the left of 
 the hostile line. The Fusiliers led, with two field- 
 pieces in their rear. Then came the Highlanders, 
 and the bulk of the Artillery; followed by the 
 Sixty-fourth, the Eighty-fourth, and the Sikh bat- 
 talion. For some time the mutineers seemed to 
 be unconscious of what was going on : deceived 
 by clumps of fruit-trees, that screened our move- 
 ment; and distracted by the sharp look-out which 
 they were keeping straight ahead. But soon an 
 evident sensation was created along their whole 
 array. Their batteries began discharging shot and 
 shell with greater liberality than accuracy; while 
 a body of cavaliers pushed forward in the direction 
 of our march, and made a demonstration that did 
 not lead to much. As soon as the enemy's flank 
 was completely exposed to the English attack, our 
 troops halted, faced, and advanced in the order 
 wherein they found themselves, covered by two 
 companies of the Fusiliers extended as skirmishers. 
 Colonel Hamilton bade the pipes strike up, and led 
 the Seventy-eighth against a cluster of houses de- 
 fended by three guns. His horse was shot between 
 his legs : but the kilts never stopped until they 
 were masters of all inside the village. Three more 
 pieces were captured by Major Stirling and the 
 Sixty-fourth Regiment. The rebel infantry were 
 everywhere in full retreat : for the last half-hour 
 
V THE MASSACKE 259 
 
 nothing had been seen of the cavalry : and the 
 battle appeared to be won. 
 
 Our firing had already ceased. The officers were 
 congratulating each other on their easy victory : 
 the privates were lighting their cheroots, and specu- 
 lating on the probability of an extra allowance of 
 rum : when of a sudden a twenty-four pounder, 
 planted on the Cawnpore Road, opened with fatal 
 precision upon our exhausted ranks. Two large 
 masses of horsemen rode forward over the plain. 
 The foot rallied, and came down with drums beating 
 and colours flying : and the presence of a numerous 
 staff, in gallant attire, announced that the Peishwa 
 himself was there, bent on daring something great 
 in defence of his tottering throne. Meanwhile our 
 artillery cattle, tired out by continual labour over 
 vile roads and under a burning sun, could no longer 
 drag the cannon into action. The volunteers did 
 whatever might be done by a dozen and a half 
 planters mounted on untrained hunters. The in- 
 surgents grew insolent : our soldiers were falling 
 fast : and the British General perceived that the 
 crisis was not yet over. He despatched his son to 
 the spot where the men of the Sixty-fourth were 
 lying down under such cover as they could get, with 
 an order to rise and charge. 
 
 They leapt to their feet, rejoicing to fling aside 
 their inaction : and young Havelock placed himself 
 at their head, and steered his horse straight for 
 the muzzle of the gun : mindful, perhaps, how, four- 
 and-forty years before, his sire, then a light-haired 
 stripling, showed our allies on the banks of the 
 Bidassoa that an English steed could clear a French 
 
260 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 breastwork. But our people were not Spaniards: 
 and more than one indignant veteran asked in 
 grumbling tones whether the corps might not be 
 trusted to the guidance of its own officers. Nor 
 did their Major need that any one should show him 
 the way, when once he had dismounted, and thrown 
 to a groom the bridle of his fidgety little charger, a 
 shapely bay Arab, on whose back, four months later, 
 he was shot dead amidst his shattered regiment in a 
 glorious but ineffectual attempt to retrieve a dis- 
 astrous day. 
 
 And then the mutineers realized the change that 
 a few weeks had wrought in the nature of the task 
 which they had selected and cut out for themselves. 
 The affair was no longer with mixed groups of in- 
 valids and civilians, without strategy or discipline, 
 resisting desperately wherever they might chance to 
 be brought to bay. Now from left to right extended 
 the unbroken line of white faces, and red cloth, and 
 sparkling steel. In front of all, the field officer 
 stepped briskly out, doing his best to keep ahead of 
 his people. There marched the captains, duly posted 
 on the flank of their companies ; and the subalterns, 
 gesticulating with their swords ; and the sober, 
 bearded sergeants, each behind his respective sec- 
 tion. Embattled in their national order, and burn- 
 ing with more than their national lust of combat, on 
 they came, the unconquerable British Infantry. The 
 grape was flying thick and true. Files rolled over. 
 Men stumbled, and recovered themselves, and went 
 on for a while, and then turned and hobbled to 
 the rear. But the Sixty-fourth was not to be 
 denied. Closer and closer drew the measured tramp 
 
V THE MASSACRE 261 
 
 of feet : and the heart of the foe died within him, 
 and his fire grew hasty and ill-directed. As the 
 last volley cut the air overhead, our soldiers raised a 
 mighty shout, and rushed forward, each at his own 
 pace. And then every rebel thought only of himself. 
 Those nearest the place were the first to make away : 
 but throughout the host there were none who still 
 aspired to stay within push of the English bayonets. 
 Such as had any stomach left for fighting were 
 sickened by a dose of shrapnel and canister fi:om 
 four light guns, which Maude, as though by an effort 
 of volition, had driven up within point-blank range. 
 Squadron after squadron, battalion upon battalion, 
 these humbled Brahmins dropped their weapons, 
 stripped off their packs, and spurred, and ran, and 
 limped, and scrambled back to the city that was to 
 have been the chief and central abode of sepoy 
 domination. 
 
 Nanukchund was hanging about the vicinity all 
 the while the conflict was in progress. "On the 
 "fifteenth," he writes, "I perceived some sepoys 
 " and troopers running away in great confusion, and 
 " exclaiming that they would have an easy victory, 
 "as the British were few, and would soon be 
 "despatched. I was then sitting in an orchard, 
 " when I observed a shopkeeper running up. He 
 " came, and seated himself under a tree near me, 
 " and told me that he was hastening to pack up his 
 "wife and children, as the Europeans would arrive 
 "shortly, and would spare nobody. I thought to 
 " myself, this must be true, and the gentlemen must 
 "be very savage. I returned to the city, and saw 
 "several villagers with their dresses changed 
 
262 CAWNPORE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 "coming along the banks of the Ganges, and I 
 "joined them. The terror in the hearts of all was 
 " so great that they asked each other no questions." 
 
 On the morrow, the day of the final struggle, 
 Nanukchund says : " I was in the streets soon after 
 "noon-time. People who have seen the fighting 
 " declare that the rebels are running back, and that 
 " the mutineers are trying to escape from the battle. 
 " Intelligence of this sort was brought from time to 
 "time till it got dusk. The bad people are all 
 "crestfallen, and advising each other to quit the 
 "town. I saw Kalka, a barber by caste, who took 
 "service as a trooper under the Nana, running in 
 "for his life, and trying to get something to eat 
 "from the bazaar. A little while after it was pro- 
 " claimed by beat of drum that the inhabitants must 
 "not get alarmed, as there were only one hundred 
 "Europeans remaining: and that whoever brought 
 "in the head of an Englishman should receive a 
 "hundred rupees. But news came that the Sahibs 
 "were close upon the cantonments, and the man 
 " who was beating the drum abandoned it and fled." 
 
 At nightfall Dhoondoo Punth entered Cawnpore 
 upon a chestnut horse drenched in perspiration, and 
 with bleeding flanks. A fresh access of terror soon 
 dismissed him again on his way towards Bithoor, sore 
 and weary, his head swimming and his chest heaving. 
 He was not in condition for such a gallop, the first 
 earnest of that hardship and degradation which was 
 thenceforward to be his portion. Far otherwise had 
 he been wont to return to his palace after a visit of 
 state in the English quarter, lolling, vinaigrette in 
 hand, beneath the breath of fans, amidst the cushions 
 
V THE MASSACRE 263 
 
 of a luxurious carriage, surrounded by a moving hedge 
 of outriders and running footmen. Once again in 
 the home of his fathers he slept as the wicked sleep, 
 whose sin has found them out ; and, when the 
 morrow's sun had set, he departed in craven trepi- 
 dation, and was never after seen among the haunts 
 of peaceful men. But he was true to himself, even 
 in the crash of his falling dynasty : for, as he stepped 
 on board the barge that was to transport him to the 
 confines of Oude, he bethought him of the young 
 mother who was recovering from the pains of child- 
 birth in the recesses of the female apartments. For 
 the first time he had practised economy in his 
 enjoyments, and was now well repaid : for his 
 savings had borne high interest. There were two 
 English lives to take where a fortnight ago there 
 had been but one. And then, having filled to over- 
 flowing the measure of his guilt, he passed away 
 like a thief in the night, and left his wealth to the 
 spoiler, and his halls to the owl and the snake. 
 
 Some months subsequently two of our spies, who 
 had been commissioned to obtain information about 
 Miss Wheeler, passed six days in the train of the 
 fugitive Nana in the depths of an Oude wilderness. 
 In the vicinity of his encampment they overtook a 
 sepoy, with whom they got into conversation. He 
 asked why they had come into the desert. They 
 represented themselves as desirous of taking service 
 with one of the Peishwa's eunuchs, and reminded 
 the soldiers that they were old acquaintances of his 
 own. He seems to have been a good-natured fellow : 
 for he told them that it was a dangerous neighbour- 
 hood for strangers, but promised, since they had 
 
264 CAWNPOEE chap. 
 
 ventured that far, to introduce them as his fellow- 
 villagers. They found from twelve to fifteen thou- 
 sand people collected in the jungles. Everything 
 betokened distress, disorder, and discontent. Food 
 was scarce and dear. The Maharaja had appro- 
 priated the single pair of tents ; so that his followers 
 were fain to bivouac under the foliage, starving on 
 rice bought at twelvepence a pound; wringing out 
 their tattered garments, wet with the eternal rain; 
 and sighing for the curry-pots and tight roofs of the 
 Cawnpore cantonments. It is interesting to learn 
 that the most poverty-stricken and dejected of all 
 the mutineers were the troopers of the Second 
 Cavalry. The horses had been reduced to less 
 than a hundred, and the artillery to a couple of 
 field-pieces. The Nana, attended by a servant with 
 an umbrella, went daily to bathe in a river which 
 flowed at the foot of the hill whereon his pavilion 
 stood. A crowd regularly assembled to pay their 
 respects as he passed. The two men especially 
 noticed certain ofiicers of his household : the trea- 
 surer and paymaster ; the driver of his bullock- 
 carriage ; his chief baker, and chief gardener ; his 
 shampooer, his sweeper, his boatman, and his 
 wrestlers, both Hindoo and Mohammedan. Bala 
 was there, with the scar of an EngKsh bullet on 
 his shoulder, which he has probably by this time 
 carried to an obscure grave. The royal brothers 
 were said to be very anxious to get back to ease and 
 civilization. Their wives were disposed upon an 
 adjoining range of heights, in company with the 
 widows of Bajee Rao, who deserved better than to 
 be transported about against their will in the suite 
 
7 THE MASSACKE 265 
 
 of that unromantic Pretender. The ladies of the 
 court travelled in six palanquins, and the gentlemen 
 on as many elephants. 
 
 Yet a few weeks, and Dhoondoo Punth, stripped of 
 even these relics of his former affluence and grandeur, 
 escaped across the Nepaulese marches to a life of 
 suspense, and toil, and privations amidst the Hima- 
 layan solitudes. The end of that man we know not, 
 and may never know. Perchance, as they hover over 
 some wild ravine or wind-swept peak, the eagles won- 
 der at the great ruby which sparkles amidst the rags 
 of a vagrant who perished amidst the snows of a past 
 December. Perchance another generation will hear, 
 not without a qualm of involuntary reverence and 
 pity, that the world-noted malefactor is at last to 
 expiate misdeeds already classical. He may have 
 eluded human justice. His hemp may be still to 
 sow. But his place in history is fixed irreversibly 
 and for ever. The most undaunted lover of para- 
 dox would hardly undertake to wash white that 
 ensanguined fame. 
 
 " In the month of July, a year and a half ago," 
 so deposes a native tradesman, eighteen months 
 after the massacre, " I was in my house at Ooghoo, 
 "when ten or eleven persons, who had fled from 
 " Cawnpore, came to my shop, and asked for betel- 
 "leaf to chew. I showed them new betel-leaf; 
 " when two of them, both Hindoos, told me to fetch 
 " good old betel-leaf, or they would take my head off. 
 " I accordingly went to another seller of betel-leaf, 
 " and bought the kind they asked for, and told them 
 " the price of the same, namely, ten pice. The two 
 " men said they would only give me two. I replied 
 
266 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 "that the betel-leaf was worth ten pice, and that 
 " they ought at the least to give me eight pice : on 
 " which they said that they would kill me and all 
 " my family. I stated I was a poor man, and had 
 "got the betel-leaf from another person. They 
 "then said that they had shown no pity to the 
 " ladies and children whom they had just murdered, 
 " and who clung to their feet, and that they would 
 " have no pity upon me. They frightened me greatly, 
 "showing me a naked sword, covered with blood, 
 "and said that they would cut off my head with 
 " the same. I wept," says this weak-minded young 
 man, "and my mother, hearing me cry, came out, 
 " and begged of them not to hurt me, and that she 
 " would let them have more betel-leaf. After this 
 "they drew water from a well close to my house, 
 " near a temple, and, conversing among themselves, 
 "I heard their companions ask the two men how 
 "many ladies they had killed. They replied that 
 " they had murdered twenty-one ladies and children, 
 " and had received a reward of twenty-one rupees ; 
 "and added that at first the Nana ordered the 
 "sepoys to massacre the ladies; but they refused; 
 " and that they two, with three others, carried out 
 " the Nana's orders." 
 
 Another resident of Ooghoo thus tells his story : 
 " The truth is that, shortly after the Nana fled, I 
 "was sitting under a tamarind tree, where all the 
 " men of the village assemble to talk, and was con- 
 " versing with a few others about the massacre of 
 "the Europeans at Cawnpore. We were saying 
 "that the Nana ought not to have murdered the 
 "women and children: when Souracun, Brahmin, 
 
V THE MASSACRE 267 
 
 "of Ooghoo, who is thirty-five years old, and has 
 "a defect in his eye, stated that the officials sent 
 " him to kill the ladies ; that he struck one with his 
 " sword, which bent, and he then felt pity, and did 
 " not again strike. He showed us the bent sword." 
 On this occasion Souracun seems to have sunk the 
 twenty-one rupees : which, however, must have lasted 
 him a good while if he made all his purchases at the 
 same rate as he bought betel-leaf. " All the village 
 " heard that he was one of the murderers : but, since 
 "the British rule has been re-estabUshed, no one 
 "speaks of it for fear he would be hung, and his 
 " death be laid on their head." 
 
 There is good reason to believe that Souracun and 
 his fellows met with their deserts. Mr. Batten, now 
 in high office at Agra, was the first representative of 
 settled government in the district of Cawnpore after 
 the troubles began to subside. He had the honour 
 of removing the gibbet from the ladies' well, and so 
 tempered ferocity with common sense that those 
 who once railed at him as squeamish have at length 
 come to approve his conduct in spite of themselves. 
 But he did not bear the sword in vain. There were 
 brought before him two Hindoos, one advanced in 
 years, and the other much his junior. These men 
 were found guilty of having compassed the death of 
 a Eurasian, and doomed to the gallows. No sooner 
 had their sentence been pronounced than they poured 
 forth a torrent of foul abuse, and were dragged from 
 the dock shouting, and kicking, and cursing their 
 judge and all his relatives on the maternal side. 
 
 Now, the Oriental, always polite, becomes doubly 
 courteous when death is in immediate prospect. 
 
268 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 Then, more than ever, is he anxious to set the 
 company at their ease, and to make away with any 
 disagreeable sense of the false position in which the 
 hangman stands towards the felon. A civilian at 
 Lucknow was superintending an execution when the 
 rope, which had doubtless borne more than one such 
 strain, gave way, and the convict fell to the ground. 
 As he rose, he turned to the Englishman, and said 
 in the tone wherein men utter social convention- 
 alities : " Sahib, the rope's broke." He felt that it 
 was incumbent on him to do what he could towards 
 relieving the general embarrassment arising from a 
 pause in the proceedings, awkward for all parties, 
 but especially for the commissioner, who was en- 
 dowed with sensibility and genuine refinement. 
 
 Batten, than whom no man was more conver- 
 sant with the native character, regarded the fury of 
 his two prisoners as an extraordinary phenomenon, 
 and requested an explanation from the bystanders. 
 He was told that the pair were piqued at being con- 
 demned on so paltry a charge as the murder of a 
 half-caste, after having taken the principal part in 
 a strange and noteworthy exploit, at which they 
 hinted in their cups ; and that, poor as they seemed, 
 they rode fine horses, and wore gorgeous shawls, 
 which they were accustomed to speak of as having 
 been presented to them by the Nana in token of his 
 esteem and satisfaction. 
 
 Few of the Cawnpore mutineers survived to boast 
 of their enterprise. Evil hunted these violent men 
 to their overthrow. Those whom the halter and the 
 bayonet spared had no reason to bless their exemp- 
 tion. Many whom pillage had enriched were slain 
 
V THE MASSACRE 269 
 
 for the sake of that which they had about them by 
 banditti who confidently presumed that the law 
 would not call in question the motives of him who 
 exterminated a sepoy. All who returned to their 
 villages empty-handed were greeted by their indig- 
 nant families with bitter and most just reproaches. 
 They had been excellently provided for by the 
 bounty of God and the Company. Their pay 
 secured them all the comforts which a Brahmin 
 may enjoy, and left the wherewithal to help less 
 fortunate kinsmen. Yet they flung away their ad- 
 vantages in wilful and selfish haste. They sinned 
 alone and for their private ends; but alone they 
 were not to suffer. They had changed the Sahibs 
 into demons, and had conjured up tenfold more of 
 these demons than had hitherto been conceived to 
 exist. They had called down untold calamities upon 
 the quiet peasantry of their native land. And all this 
 misery they had wrought in pursuit of the vision of 
 a military empire. Let them return to the desert, 
 there to feed without interruption on the contempla- 
 tion of their power and pre-eminence. Such were the 
 taunts with which they were driven forth again into 
 the jungles : some to die by the claws of tigers on 
 whose lair they had intruded for refuge, or beneath 
 the clubs of herdsmen whose cattle they had pilfered 
 in the rage of hunger: others to wander about, 
 drenched and famished, until amidst the branches 
 of a tree into which they had climbed to seek safety 
 from the hyaenas and the ague, or on the sandy floor 
 of a cave whither they had crept for shelter from the 
 tempest, they found at once their death-bed and their 
 sepulchre. The jackals alone can tell on what bush 
 
270 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 flutter the shreds of scarlet stuff whicli mark the 
 spot where one of our revolted mercenaries has 
 expiated his broken oath. 
 
 Soon after daybreak on Friday the seventeenth 
 July, the English van was marching across the 
 desolate plain which lay to southward of the city. 
 Already the magical effect of the tropical rain had 
 clothed that expanse of parched and dusty soil 
 with luxuriant grass, in which rustled the feet of 
 our soldiers as they pushed along, now stumbling 
 over a hidden cannon-ball, and now kicking up the 
 fragments of a sepoy skeleton. They traversed the 
 deserted line of rebel posts, and halted beneath the 
 walls of the roofless barracks, pitted with shot and 
 blackened with flame, and beside the grave at whose 
 mouth were scattered the bones of our people, as 
 when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth. 
 Three Fridays back from that very morning the 
 treaty of surrender was being attested by a faith- 
 less signature, and sworn to with perfidious vows ; 
 and again at a like interval of time the men of 
 the Second Cavalry were firing their stables, and 
 saddling their horses, and buckling on the swords 
 that were to be fleshed in unmanly strife. So much 
 had been done and endured within a period of six 
 weeks and a space of six miles. 
 
 " At half-past six A.M.," writes Nanukchund, " the 
 " British force arrived in cantonments outside the 
 " city. Those of the citizens who were well-wishers 
 "to the Government brought them bread, butter, 
 "and milk. A great crowd of the townspeople 
 " assembled to see what was going on. I also, who 
 " had not stepped out of my house for a month and 
 
V THE MASSACRE 271 
 
 " a half for fear of being murdered, now came out 
 "and went to cantonments. Generals Havelock 
 " and Neill, and a number of other oflficers, were 
 " standing there. Fruiterers, milkmen, buttermen, 
 "bakers, and other sellers of provisions were in 
 " attendance with their dollies. Those who were 
 " aware of what was coming had made preparations 
 " on the night previous by having provisions cooked 
 " in the bazaar. A little after eight the rebels who 
 " had mined the magazine set fire to the powder, and 
 " fled. The report of the explosion was so terrific, 
 " that the doors of city-houses fell off their hinges." 
 Our old friend was now in high spirits. His 
 turn had come, and he showed himself fully equal 
 to the occasion. " I continued," he says, " to 
 " attend on the Sahibs with a view of performing 
 " acts of loyalty. I set to work to find out what 
 " men of the city had been loyal, and which of 
 " them disloyal, and how some of the public officers 
 "came to present themselves to the Nana, while 
 " others contrived not to present themselves. I 
 " laboured night and day at great personal incon- 
 " venience to learn full particulars about these 
 " people. I questioned only honourable and upright 
 " men, and no others." He is especially disturbed 
 at the assurance of one Narain Rao, " who, just as I 
 " anticipated, wishes to pass himself off as a well- 
 " wisher to the Government. But there is a great 
 " crowd at this moment, and the Sahibs have no 
 "time to spare. It is also very difficult to find 
 "witnesses against him by private inquiries, and 
 " I see no chance of filing a complaint about it 
 "before any officer." 
 
272 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 It seems strange if tlie Sahibs could not afford 
 time to pay off an old score that had really been 
 incurred. But the truth was that it mattered to them 
 very little whom they killed, as long as they killed 
 somebody. After the first outbreak of joy and wel- 
 come the inhabitants of Cawnpore began to be aware 
 that the English were no longer the same men, if 
 indeed they were men at all. The citizens, with their 
 wives and children, poured forth into the country by 
 crowds, without stopping to calculate whether they 
 could establish their innocence. At such an assize, 
 and in the eyes of such a jury, absence was the only 
 defence that could avail aught. From noon till 
 midnight, on the Lucknow and Delhi highway were 
 to be seen immense mobs rushing eastward and 
 westward in headlong haste. They did well both 
 for their own security and for our honour. Of what 
 did take place the less said is the better. Of that 
 from which by God's mercy we were saved it were 
 best to say nothing at all. The heat of the climate 
 and the conflict, the scarcity of food and the con- 
 stant presence of disease, the talk which they had 
 heard at Calcutta, the deeds that they had been 
 allowed and even enjoined to commit during their 
 upward progress, had depraved the conscience and 
 destroyed the self-control of our unhappy soldiers. 
 Reckless as men who for many weeks had never 
 known what it was to be certain of another hour's 
 life, — half starved, and more than half intoxicated, 
 — ^regarding carnage as a duty and rapine as a 
 pleasure, — they enacted a scene into the details of 
 which an Englishman at least will not care to inquire. 
 Havelock, in a report to the Commander-in-Chief, 
 
V THE MASSACKE 273 
 
 thus writes : " I have ordered all the beer, wine, 
 "spirits, and every drinkable thing at Cawnpore 
 "to be purchased by the Commissariat. It will 
 " then be guarded by a few men. If it remained 
 "at Cawnpore it would require half my force to 
 " keep it from being drunk up by the other half, 
 " and I should not have a soldier in camp. While 
 " I was winning a victory on the sixteenth some of 
 " my men were plundering the Commissariat on the 
 " line of march." 
 
 And so the General purchased all the liquor. 
 It would have been well if he could have bought 
 up the blood also. It was idle to count upon the 
 forbearance of poor ignorant privates, when the 
 ablest among our officers had forgotten alike the age 
 in which he lived, and the religion that he professed. 
 This is an extract from a letter which would that 
 Neill had never found occasion to indite ! 
 
 " Whenever a rebel is caught he is immediately 
 "tried, and, unless he can prove a defence, he is 
 " sentenced to be hanged at once : but the chief 
 "rebels or ringleaders I make first to clear up a 
 " certain portion of the pool of blood, still two 
 " inches deep, in the shed where the fearful murder 
 "and mutilation of the women and children took 
 "place. To touch blood is most abhorrent to the 
 " high-caste natives. They think, by doing so, they 
 " doom their souls to perdition. Let them think so. 
 " My object is to inflict a fearful punishment for a 
 " revolting, cowardly, barbarous deed, and to strike 
 " terror into these rebels. The first I caught was a 
 " soubahdar, or native officer, a high-caste Brahmin, 
 " who tried to resist my order to clean up the very 
 
274 CAWNPORE chap. 
 
 " blood he had helped to shed : but I made the 
 " provost-marshal do his duty, and a few lashes soon 
 "made the miscreant accomplish his task. When 
 " done, he was taken out and immediately hanged, 
 " and, after death, buried in a ditch at the road- 
 " side." 
 
 For a parallel to such an episode we must explore 
 far back into the depths of time. Homer relates 
 the punishment that befell those maidservants, who 
 in the palace of Ithaca had been unmindful of what 
 they owed to their absent lord. " First they bore 
 " forth from the hall the dead bodies of their para- 
 " mours, and placed them in, the vestibule, staggering 
 " beneath the weight : while Ulysses urged on the 
 " work by word and gesture : and they laboured at 
 " the ungrateful task, wailing, and shedding bitter 
 " tears. And afterwards with water and sponges they 
 " washed the tables and the seats : and Telemachus 
 " and his henchmen scraped with spades the floor of 
 " the chamber. But, when they had set the house in 
 " order, the women were led out, and cooped up for a 
 " while in a comer of the well-fenced court, in a strait 
 " place, whence escape was none. And then Tele- 
 " machus slung from the roof the cable of a dark- 
 "prowed ship, and made it fast to a pillar of the 
 " colonnade, stretching it high and taut, so that no 
 " foot might feel the ground. And, as when swift 
 "thrushes or doves, making for their nest, have 
 "dashed into a snare which a fowler had planted 
 " across the thicket, so these women were fastened 
 " in a row, with a halter round every neck, to die 
 "in unseemly fashion. And their feet fluttered a 
 " moment in the air : but not for long." 
 
V THE MASSACRE 275 
 
 It is curious that an act, which the Pagan poet 
 allows an old moss-trooper and his son to perpetrate 
 in the flush of revenge and victory, should have been 
 revived by a Christian warrior after the lapse of 
 twenty-five centuries. And it must be owned that 
 Neill surpassed his model: for apparently the pri- 
 mary object of Ulysses was to sweep away the traces 
 of the butchery, and make his refectory clean and 
 habitable : an unpleasant drudgery, which, as with 
 the simplicity of an ancient Greek he reflected, 
 might as well be performed by the least worthy 
 members of his household before they were taken to 
 execution : whereas the Englishman desired only to 
 wound the sentiments of the doomed men, and 
 prolong their prospect of death with a vista of 
 eternal misery. And this, in the crisis of an insur- 
 rection of which the immediate cause was the belief 
 that the British Government was attempting to 
 tamper with caste ! 
 
 But there was a spectacle to be witnessed which 
 might excuse much. Those who, straight from the 
 contested field, wandered sobbing through the rooms 
 of the ladies' house, saw what it were well could the 
 outraged earth have straightway hidden. The inner 
 apartment was ankle-deep in blood. The plaster was 
 scored with sword-cuts : not high up, as where men 
 have fought ; but low down, and about the comers, 
 as if a creature had crouched to avoid the blow. 
 Strips of dresses, vainly tied round the handles 
 of the doors, signified the contrivance to which 
 feminine despair had resorted as a means of keeping 
 out the murderers. Broken combs were there, and 
 the frills of children's trousers, and torn cufis and 
 
276 CAWNPOEE chap. 
 
 pinafores, and little round hats, and one or two 
 shoes with burst latchets, and one or two daguerreo- 
 type cases with cracked glasses. An officer picked 
 up a few curls, preserved in a bit of cardboard, and 
 marked " Ned's hair, with love '* : but around were 
 strewn locks, some near a yard in length, dissevered, 
 not as a keepsake, by quite other scissors. All who 
 on that day passed within the fatal doors agree posi- 
 tively to assert that no inscription of any sort or 
 kind was visible on the walls. Before the month 
 was out, the bad habit, common to low Englishmen, 
 of scribbling where they ought not, here displaying 
 itself in an odious form, had covered the principal 
 buildings of Cawnpore with vulgar and disgusting 
 forgeries, false in date, in taste, in spelling, and in 
 fact. 
 
 There were found two slips of paper : one bearing 
 in an unknown hand a brief but correct outline of 
 our disasters. On the other a Miss Lindsay had 
 kept an account of the killed and wounded in a 
 single family. It runs thus, telling its own tale : 
 
 " Entered the barracks May 21st. 
 " Cavalry left June 5th. 
 " First shot fired June 6th. 
 " Aunt Lilly died June I7th. 
 " Uncle Willy died June 18th. 
 " Left barracks June 27th. 
 " George died June 27th. 
 "Alice died July 9th. 
 " Mamma died July 12th." 
 
 The writer, with her two surviving sisters, perished 
 in the final massacre. 
 
7 THE MASSACRE 277 
 
 The library of the captives was small indeed : but 
 such books as they had were to the purpose. The 
 earliest comers discovered among the vestiges of 
 slaughter, a treatise entitled Preparation for 
 Death: and a Bible, which must have travelled in 
 Major Yibart's barge down to Nuzzufgur and back 
 to Cawnpore, as may be gathered from the following 
 record : 
 
 " 27th June. Went to the boats. 
 
 " 29th. Taken out of boats. 
 
 " 30th. Taken to Sevadah Kothi. Fatal day." 
 
 Fatal indeed : for that was the day when " the 
 "wives sat down, each by her husband;" when 
 "the sepoys, going in, pulled them away forcibly; 
 "but could not pull away the doctors wife, who 
 "there remained;" when "one Sahib rolled one 
 "way, and one another as they sat." That Bible 
 was a present from the dead to the dead : for on 
 the fly-leaf appeared this address: "For darling 
 "Mamma, from her affectionate daughter, Isabella 
 " Blair : " the " Bella Blair " whose fate is mentioned 
 in the letter from young Masters to his father. The 
 list was closed by a Church Service, from which the 
 cover had been stripped, and many pages at the end 
 torn off. Unbound and incomplete, it had fulfilled 
 its mission : for it opened of itself where, within 
 a crumpled and crimson-sprinkled margin, might be 
 read the concise and beautiful supplications of our 
 Litany. It concluded, that mutilated copy, with the 
 forty-seventh Psalm, wherein David thanks the 
 Almighty for a victory and a saving mercy ; 
 
278 CAWNPOKE chap. 
 
 "O clap your hands together, all ye people : 
 " sing unto God with a voice of melody. 
 
 " He shall subdue the people under us : and the 
 " nations under our feet. 
 
 " God is gone up with a merry noise : and the Lord 
 " with the sound of a trump. 
 
 " God rejoiceth over the heathen : God sitteth on 
 " his holy seat. 
 
 "God, which is very high exalted, doth defend 
 " the earth, as it were with a shield." 
 
 Such were the printed lines which, from amidst 
 the rent tresses, and shivered toys, and the scraps 
 of muslin dyed in the most costly of all pigments, 
 lay staring up to high heaven in tacit but impressive 
 irony. 
 
 It is good that the house and the well of horror 
 have been replaced by a fair garden and a graceful 
 shrine. But there let piety stay her hand. A truce 
 thenceforward to that mistaken reverence which 
 loves to express sorrow and admiration in guineas, 
 and rupees, and the net product of fancy bazaars! 
 Too often already have architect and sculptor dis- 
 guised the place where a notable thing was done. 
 India still contains some sacred plots untouched by 
 the art of the decorator, — some shapeless ruins more 
 venerable than dedicated aisle or stately mausoleum. 
 Still, amidst the fantastic edifices of Lucknow, hard 
 by a shattered gateway, rise or lie prostrate the 
 pillars of a grass-gro:wn portico. Beneath that 
 verandah, in the July evening, preferring the risk 
 of the hostile missiles to the confinement of a 
 stifling cellar, was dying Henry Lawrence, the man 
 who tried to do his duty. It was not time and 
 
V THE MASSACRE 279 
 
 the weather that made bare of plaster the brickwork 
 of the old gate. There from summer into winter, — 
 until of his two hundred musketeers he had buried 
 four-score and five, and sent to hospital three-score 
 and sixteen, — earning his Cross in ragged flannel 
 trousers and a jersey of dubious hue, burly Jack 
 Aitken bore up the unequal fray. An Englishman 
 does not require any extraneous incentives to emo- 
 tion when, leaning against the beams of that arch- 
 way, he recalls who have thereby gone in and out, 
 bent on what errands, and thinking what thoughts. 
 Between those door-posts have walked Peel, and 
 Havelock, and gentle Outram, and stout Sir Colin, 
 heroes who no longer tread the earth. Through the 
 same entrance passed, but not erect, the form of a 
 tall grey soldier, stem even in death, with a bullet- 
 wound in the centre of his forehead, whom the 
 orderlies announced in whispers to be Neill of the 
 Madras army. At Delhi still, before the police- 
 court in the Street of Silver, may be seen the plat- 
 form whereon, naked to the waist and besmeared 
 with dirt and blood, were exposed to three autumn 
 suns the corpses of the last descendants of Timour, 
 slain and spoiled by one who knew neither pity nor 
 scruple. Still, after an evening stroll along the 
 ridge outside the battlements, as on his return he 
 descends the slope rough with crag and brushwood, 
 the visitor may come upon a mound of rubbish so 
 beaten with shot that it is not easy to discern what 
 of it is artificial rampart, and what is broken ground. 
 The rocks coated with frequent films of lead, and 
 the wreck of a small temple, testify that this is 
 the famous post, known in military history as the 
 
280 CAWNPORE chap, v 
 
 " Sammy-liouse picket," which Briton, and Sikh, and 
 Ghoorka, fighting shoulder to shoulder, hardly made 
 good throughout the hundred days of the terrible 
 siege. On the summit of the tottering dome, at a 
 height of some twelve feet from the soil, presides 
 a Hindoo idol with an elephant's head. There he 
 sits, a stupid little god, with arms reposing on his 
 knees, gazing across the valley at the minarets of the 
 ancient capital, as though he had never seen any 
 stranger sight than the tourist in his white dress 
 and dust-coloured helmet, or heard any sounds more 
 wild and maddening than the chirping of the grass- 
 hoppers, and the lowing of the belated cattle as they 
 stray homeward to their stalls. Not urn, nor mono- 
 lith, nor broken column is so fit a monument for 
 brave men as the crumbling breastwork and the 
 battered wall. And in like manner the dire agony 
 of Cawnpore needs not to be figured in marble, or 
 cut into granite, or cast of bronze. There is no fear 
 lest we should forget the story of our people. The 
 whole place is their tomb, and the name thereof is 
 their epitaph. When the traveller from Allahabad, 
 rousing himself to learn at what stage of his journey 
 he may have arrived, is aware of a voice proclaiming 
 through the darkness the city of melancholy fame, 
 — then those accents, heard for the first time on the 
 very spot itself which they designate, recall, more 
 vividly than written or engraven eloquence, the 
 memory of fruitless valour and unutterable woe. 
 
 THE END 
 
 [B. Clay if Sont, Ltd., London 4p Bungay. 
 
 I 
 
MACMILLAN'S 
 
 NEW SHILLING LIBRARY 
 
 Globe 8vo, Is. net per Volume. 
 
 1. LEAVES PROM THE NOTE-BOOKS OP LADY 
 
 DOROTHY NEVILL. Edited by Ralph Nevill. 
 
 2. H.M.I. Some Passages in the Life of one of 
 
 H.M. Inspectors of Schools. By E. M. SneVd- 
 
 Kynnersley. 
 
 3. TALES OP OLD JAPAN. By A. B. Freeman-Mitford 
 
 (Lord Redesdale). Illustrated. 
 
 4 AT LAST: A Christmas in the West Indies. By 
 
 Charles Kingsley. Illustrated. 
 
 5. THE RELIEP OP CHITRAL. By Colonel G. J. Young- 
 
 husband and Sir Francis Younghusband. Illustrated. 
 
 6. BARRACKS, BIVOUACS, AND BATTLES. By 
 
 Archibald Forbes. 
 
 7. REMINISCENCES OP THE GREAT MUTINY. By 
 
 William Forbes-Mitchell. 
 
 8. CAWNPORE. By the Right Hon. Sir G. O. Trevelyan, Bart. 
 
 9. NORTH ITALIAN POLK. Sketches of Town and 
 
 Country Life. By Mrs. Comyns Carr. Illustrated 
 by Randolph Caldecott. 
 
 10. ALCOHOL AND THE HUMAN BODY. An Intro- 
 
 duction to the Study of the Subject, and a 
 Contribution to National Health. By Sir Victor 
 Horsley, F.RS., and Mary D. Sturge, M.D. With a 
 Chapter by Arthur Newsholme, M.D. 
 
 11. A POOR MAN'S HOUSE. By Stephen Reynolds. 
 
 12. THE INTELLECTUAL LIPE. By Philip Gilbert 
 
 Hamerton. 
 
 13. LETTERS PROM HELL. Given in English by J. S. With 
 
 a Preface by Dr. George Macdonald. " 
 
 14. SOUTH SEA BUBBLES. By The Earl and The Doctor. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED, LONDON. 
 

U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES^ 
 
 CD5SSE3bai 
 
 I