THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES CAWNPORE. C A W N P O B E. BY G. 0. TEEVELYAN, AUTHOR OF "THE COMPETITION WALLAH. THIRD EDITION. Jttmbmr anb Camtrribg* : MACMILLAN AND CO. 1866. The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved. LONDON I E. CLAT, SON, ASD TAYLOR, PRINTKHa, BhEAD STREET HILL. D5 47* PREFACE. 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 viii PREFACE. in charge of the several districts. The Author returns his most hearty thanks to Sir John Law- rence and the authorities of the Calcutta Home Office, who, at the cost of great trouble to them- selves, supplied him with the copies of these in- valuable documents reserved for the use of the Indian Government 8, GROSVENOR CRESCENT. CONTENTS. PAGE THE STATION 1 THE OUTBREAK 58 THE SIEGE 112 THE TREACHERY 17& THE MASSACRE . 245 CAWNPORE, } 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 stately course to run before that, 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 India Company engaged to maintain a brigade for the defence of Oude. The revenues of a rich and extensive tract of country were appointed for the maintenance of this force, which was quartered at B 2 C AWN PORE. 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. Indeed, they were not a little uneasy at the splendid rapacity of their high-souled servant. No one understood better than he the full meaning of the finest lines of that poet whose graceful diction none like himself could imitate : " Tu regere imperio populos Romane memento : " Hae tibi erunt artes : pacisque imponere niorem ; " Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos." But that policy which suited the temper of the Senate of old Rome was not exactly of a nature to please the Directors of a Joint Stock Company. It was very well for statesmen and generals to look for their reward in the pages of history. It behoved City men to keep an eye on the fluctuations of the Share list. Thus it happened 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 artillerymen, THE STATION, 3 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 at- tached 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, then quartered at Lucknow, and destined to pass through the most fearful trial from which ever men emerged alive ; fifteen of the Madras Fusileers ; and fifty-nine of the Company's artillerymen : in all, some three hundred soldiers of English birth. Then there were the covenanted civilians, the aristocracy of Indian society ; the lesser officials attached to the Post-office, the Public Works, and the Opium De- partments ; the Railway people ; the merchants and shopkeepers, Europeans some, others half-castes, or, as they would fain be called, Eurasians. There, too, (alas !) were the wives and little ones of the men of all these classes and grades, and in no slender proportion ; for among our countrymen 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 having been begotten by an European sire. The military quarter was entirely distinct from the native city. And here let the English reader divest himself at once of all European ideas, and keep clear of them, as much as in him lies, during the whole course of this narrative. Let him put aside all preconceived notions of a barrack, of a yard B 2 4 CA WNPOEE. paved with rough stones, and darkened by buildings four storeys high, at the windows of which lounge stalwart warriors in various stages of deshabille, digesting their fresh boiled-beef by the aid of a short pipe and a languid gossip. Let him try to form to him- self 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 northwest to southeast : 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, 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 storey, 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 atti- tude 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 bed- room, a monotonous occupation, which from time to THE STATION. 5 time he sweetens by snatches of sleep ; a Madras valet, spreading butter on the Sahib's morning toast with the greasy wing of a fowl ; and, against the wind- ward 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 canvass suspended across the ceiling, and the prevailing impression an overwhelm- ing sense of the presence of cobwebs. The furniture, which is scattered about in most unadmired dis- order, 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 locality where fate and the quartermaster-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, an Hindostanee dictionary, an inkstand, a revolver, a bundle of letters, a box of cigars, the supplement of Bell's Life, and a few odd volumes from the regimental book-club of no very seductive quality, like enough, for the colonel's lady has kept the new novels, and the doctor, who is secretary to the club, has impounded the bio- graphies, so that our ensign is fain to put up with " Aids to Faith," and the third volume of the " His- " tory of the Inductive Sciences." Then there are eight or ten chairs, a good half of which might well claim to be invalided on the score of wounds and <5 CAWNPORE. 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 dimen- sions, the arms of which are prolonged and flattened, so as to accommodate the occupant with a resting- place for his feet. In one corner 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 depreciates as archaic, expressing his intention of providing himself, during his first visit to Europe, with a complete outfit from Purdey. On nails driven into the plaster hang a list of the men in the com- pany to which the young fellow is attached ; a cari- cature of the paymaster ; 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 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 STATION. 7 the sharply-defined line of shadow thrown by the roof of the verandah into the outdoor 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 bed-rooms, 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, un- planed, unpolished ; inclosed on all sides with mus- quito-curtains of white gauze, the edges carefully tucked in beneath the mattress, through which is dimly seen the recumbent form of the 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 8 CAWNPORE. blood ; anon, sallying into the vernadah 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 repo- sitories, 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 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 com- fortable, and the residence of a man in high office considerably more magnificent ; but the same charac- teristics prevail everywhere. A spirit of scrupulous order, and a snug domestic air, are not to be attained THE STATION. 9 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 mili- tary 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 Planter's 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 of Cawn- pore 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 haut- boys and ribstone 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 ordi- nary life of the English officer in India somewhat less monotonous and objectless were wanting at Id CAWNPORE. 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 scatheless 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 cornets and junior magistrates attempting to represent female whims and graces ; a Freemason's 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 library, 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 broken. There was a breakfast club, 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 Sutley to Hong-Kong, whether, as throughout Bengal, it be termed " little " breakfast," or, as at Madras, it be known by the title of " early tea." There was the band-stand, the very THE STATION. 11 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 North American 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 doghole, in which he keeps an inconceivable quantity of female relations, from his grandmother downwards. There he rules supreme : for no Sahib, be he ever so enthusiastic on the subject of sanitation and drainage, would care to intrude upon the mysteries of a sepoy household. At the ends of each row stand the habi- tations of the native officers attached to the company : two or three cabins round a tiny court-yard, fenced in 12 CAWNPOEE. with a mud wall a few feet in height. The sepoy, unlike a European soldier, never becomes wholly military in his tastes and habits. The dearest ambi- tion of a villager is 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 accustomed to the men of Aldershot and Chalons. No Oriental seems at ease in European costume, least of all in the English uniform so dear to the heart of the old tailor colonels. The native soldier in full dress wore a ludicrous and almost pathetic air of uneasiness and rigidity. His clothes hung on THE STATION. 13 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 probability 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 India 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. 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- 14 CAWNPOEE. 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 wag almost invariably deep in debt. A strong sense of family ties, an extreme generosity towards poor con- nexions, is a marked trait in the Hindoo character, amiable indeed, but not encouraging to the student of Social Science. 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 corner of a sepoy's hut and the parings of his pay proved suf- ficiently attractive to bring into cantonments herds of country cousins from Rohilcund and Shahabad. Neither would seven rupees a month adequately THE STATION. 15 defray the occasional extravagances enjoined by " dustoor " or custom : dustoor, the breath of a Hindoo's nostrils, the motive of bis actions, the staple of his conversation, the tyrant of his life. It has frequently happened that a private soldier has celebrated a marriage feast at a cost of three hun- dred 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 symptoms 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. Threatened and frowned on by his employers, sneered at by his fellow officers as an agitator and a busy- 16 C AWN PORE. 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. That great commander, whose excellent military judgment, ma- tured in European camps, revolted at a state of things so fraught with peril and scandal, learned too late that not even the audacity of a Napier, 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 effect of Jiis 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 discipline was lax, that insubordination was a-foot, 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, a 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 straggled 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 THE STATION. 17 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 attributed these irregularities to the abolition of corporal punish- ment 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 enlighten- ment, that men who so think are mistaken 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 c 18 CAWNPOEE. the matter, and the story was hushed up in order that their feelings might be spared. When the Sixty- sixth Native infantry mutinied, their chiefs endea- voured to palliate the guilt of the regiment ; but Sir Charles Napier refused to see with any eyes save his own, and promptly disbanded the corps, which was replaced by an excellent levy of the valiant High- landers of Nepaul. Sir Charles expressed great displeasure at the report sent in by the commanding officer of the regiment, and especially at a sentence which characterised what was in fact a shout of de- fiance as "a murmur of discontent." To the very last, at a 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, faithful only to its oath and salt, to the recollections of bounty-money and the hopes of peRsion. " Pity," writes an officer of the Sixty-fifth regiment, " that Europeans abusing a " corps cannot be strung up." On the twenty-second of May a letter appeared in the Englishman news- paper from Colonel Simpson, who commanded 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, according to him, " evince the utmost loyalty. So far from being mis- " trusted, they are our main protection." 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 un- bounded a reliance. The "staunchness" of the sepoys THE STATION. 19 was at that time so common a topic with their chiefs that the expression became a byword among Calcutta people ; for at whatever station the colonel most loudly, pertinaciously, and angrily declared his regi- ment to be " staunch," it was to that quarter that men looked for the next tidings of massacre and outrage. It was not till 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 old Bengal officer could begin to believe that his 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 surround himself with kindred clerks of the court and con- sanguineous ushers. The Indian superintendant of police prefers to have about him inspectors and ser- geants 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 village ; and, in like manner, the veteran sepoys took measures to keep the regiment supplied with recruits from the neighbourhood in which they c 2 20 CAWNPOEE. themselves had been born and bred. No strapping young Tewarry, or Pandy, who had a mind to shoulder a Company's musket and touch the Com- pany'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 oppression, in which, if we are to believe tlie daily press, military men of all nations and grades are such admirable adepts. And so it came to pass in the course of time that the company partook of the nature of a family, and the battalion of the nature of a clan. The consequence was that there existed a sympathy and free-masonry throughout the ranks of quite another tendency from that tone of regimental patri- otism and martial brotherhood, known in European armies by the title of " esprit-de-corps" Such a state of things afforded peculiar facilities for con- spiring. 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 ma- tured in perfect secrecy, and carried into effect by the weight of a vast and unanimous multitude. The real motive of the mutiny was the ambition 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 THE STATION. 21 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 forward 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 Bun- delcund and Orissa should come with cases of diamonds to beg a favourable decision from Mungul Pandy; when /great merchants from Liverpool and Marseilles should come with bags of sovereigns to ask leave of Peer Bux to establish a factory at Mutlah or Chandernagore. They evinced an equal contempt for all the other classes of the inhabitants of India. They despised the excellent armies of Bombay and Madras, and their insolence was re- quited with bitter aversion. They looked down on the Ghoorkas as savages, and; presumed to regard the heroes of Chillianwallah and Ferozeshah as a conquered race ; as if, forsooth, it was sepoy prowess which, after more than one series of fierce and dubious battles, had at length 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 unto madness. Some twenty thousand European troops were scattered over the continent of India ; for the security of which seventy 22 G AWN PORE. 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 modern times an armed force is helpless, are one and all our own countrymen. Then, our only communication was along roads which the first rains turned into strips of bog, and up rivers trea- cherous with crossing currents and shifting sand- banks. Now, through the heart of every province, there run, 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 limits. The sepoy ringleaders knew to a man the strength, or rather the weakness, of Euro- pean force 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. Public 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 THE STATION. 23 discernment and rare strength of mind. Hyder Ali and Runjeet Singh, 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 Bahadur, 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 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 Punjaubee 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 play 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. And yet that conviction lingered long. 24 CAWNPOEB. 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 call 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 they had been sent to India to exact vengeance for the murder of the English ladies. The insolence and green of the soldiers, their im- patience of discipline, and their lust of power, were the effective causes of the outbreak. But the proxi- mate cause was the fancied insult which had been offered to their national religion. Upon 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. There are a class of our countrymen who delight in stigma- tizing the natives of India as hypocrites and infidels. These men affect to disbelieve in the sincerity of the religious professions of any Mussulman who cannot .resist the temptation of iced champagne, or of any Hindoo who indulges himself in a quiet slice of the THE STATION. 25 joint which has appeared at his master's table. As if the men who are foremost to avenge the wrongs of their creed and to thrust it down the throats of their neighbours were always the most scrupulous in their obedience to its precepts ! As if History was not full of covetous Fathers of the Church and poly- gamous Defenders of the Faith ! Jehu was zealous to destroy the priests of the House of Baal, and to burn his images with fire : howbeit he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. Archbishop Laud was emphati- cally a good Churchman : and yet he too often forgot the blessing pronounced upon the merciful by the Divine founder of his Church, and the curse uttered against those who lade men with burdens grievous to be borne. The mind of the sepoy reeked with religious pre- judice. He had adopted his profession in accord- ance 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 clearing 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 happened 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 26 C AWN PORE. the camping-ground, plunging through the kitchens, defiling dinners by the score, and, in whatever direc- tion he turned, rousing about his ears a swarm of indignant hungry Brahmins. Even if the sepoy was inclined to become lax in his observances, there were not wanting ghostly advisers to check his latitudi- narian tendencies. A battalian 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 amd irregular 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 stearine, 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. About the middle of January, 1857, amidst the frivolous and ill-natured gossip which is the chief material of Calcutta journal- ism, there peer out certain vague and uncomfortable THE STATION. 27 paragraphs : " 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 ceremony of the kind to which " soldiers are required to submit is the baptism of 11 fire." Again, a letter 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 administra- " tion 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 inter- " nal 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 proposition to appoint a committee of " eligible young civilians" to indemnify the ladies whose Europe bonnets have been ruined by the dust on the course. Ere many months were flown, eligible young civilians had far other matters to occupy their attention. 28 CAWNPOEE 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 mutiny. By order of the Governor-General the 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 still 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. Unfortunately the regiment was commanded by an officer who thus describes himself in honest and manly language : " I beg to .state that THE STATION. 29 " 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 religion, 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, merchant, or. otherwise, but I speak " to all alike, 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 this "and other stations where I have been quartered. " .... As to the question whether I have en- " deavoured to convert sepoys and others to Christi- " anity, 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." Did not this good Colonel forget who it was who bade us give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast our pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend us ? 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! 30 CAWNPORE. " Get ready ! Turn out, all of you ! " This conduct in the course of time brought down upon him the Adjutant and the Serjeant-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 comrades, desperately wounded and drove off both the Euro- peans. 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. 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 Brahmin, and that no one " would hurt him. I considered it quite useless, and " a useless sacrifice of life, to order a European " officer with the guard to seize him, as he would, no " doubt, have picked off the European officer, without " his receiving any assistance 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 THE STATION. 31 stalking about in the presence of his regimeut, which had got together round the quarter-guard, brandish- ing 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 he had to deal with a man of very different kidney 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 hos- pital ; and the concourse dispersed quietly to their lines, after having been roundly taken to task by the General for their cowardice and unsoldierlike be- haviour 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. Public opinion had become less squeamish before the year was out. From this miserable fanatic was taken the name of " Pandy," which in Anglo-Indian 32 CAWNPORK slang signified mutineer. There were those who loved to apply the horrible nickname of "white " Pandies " to those wise and good men who, amidst the general frenzy, preserved some spark of justice and humanity ; who would not lend their countenance to a barbarous policy dictated by cruelty and craven fear; who refused to devastate provinces and de- populate cities, to butcher the women of Delhi and torture the shopkeepers of Allahabad, to confound innocent and guilty in one vast proscription and one universal massacre : just as, at the end. of the last century, there were those who stigmatized as " Jacobins " the English statesmen who could not be reviled or shocked out of the belief that the king and the nobility of France had been less sinned against than sinning ; and that, in any case, it was not our business to avenge the wrongs of alien dukes and marquisses upon the senators who had abolished their privileges, the peasants who had shot their game, and the board which was busily engaged in dividing v ttieir provinces into departments. 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, reminding 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 without 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 THE STATION. 33 business. In order to disprove the report that the 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 Juggernauth and Gyah. The most active and determined among their num- ber 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 sedi- tion 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 : ' D 34 CAWNPORE. how the Great Lord Sahib had resolved to begin with the army, and had ordered the troops 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 reli- gion ; 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 cf 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 Mahomedans 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 com- THE STATION. 35 pound but one ; while the bearers delighted to insult their mistress by smoking under her window, and coming bareheaded into her presence, whenever the Sahib and his horsewhip were 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 sus- picion 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 wns jjflid n,Ti(jwrittp.n concerning the childlike docility of the affectio'liaUj bepuy, tuiiflrence and regard dm not extsfhefeiM*** die lltTIcer and the sol- dier. That the case had once been far otherwise was D 2 ~ 36 C AWN PORK acknowledged on all sides ; and the change was noted by military men of the old school with regret, quali- fied by a slight tincture of self-satisfaction. Yojjng tween superioj^aodjjiferku:. -was 40 CAWNPORE. C been the Shibboleth of the Englishmen abroad since the days of Philip de Comines. And so, in a Bengal corps, whether he were a grey-bearded Mahomedan soubahdar, the arbiter and exponent of regimental custom and tradition, or the 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 disaifection ; 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 battalion. A colonel and doctor, three or four captains and lieutenants, and three or four ensigns, formed what was in those days considered to be a very respectable complement. The other members of the mess were far away from head-quarters, inditing minutes at Calcutta, deciding suits in some distant non-regulation 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 unwritten and impalpable law, not passed in words, nor enforced by overt penalties, but obeyed in silence and without question), had ordained that staff employment was not a legi- timate object of ambition. The officers plumed themselves upon keeping all together, and rising one with another in the ordinary course of promo- THE STATION. 41 tion. 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 the pass examination in Hindoostanee, success in which was an indispensable qualification for the staff: an ordeal familiarly known as the P.H. ; that pair of consonants 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 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 born and nurtured. But in the day of wrath there was no distinction of person. When the baneful sirocco of mutiny, called by the imaginative 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 in- dividual men, or regiments, almost irresistible. Some troopers in Fisher's Irregular Cavalry performed a signal act of gallantry at Lucknow, during the early days of the outbreak, for which they received a hand- some reward. While waiting for their money in the 42 CA WNPOEE. verandah of the commissioner's house, they fell into conversation with certain of their fellow-villagers among his servants. "We like our colonel," said they, " and will 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 ; mur- dered the second in command ; and shouted to the adjutant, who was a general favourite, to ride and be- gone, 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 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, everj 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 THE STATION. 43 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 offered their soubahdar a chair during an interview on regimental business, quite enough had been done to mark the difference be- tween a commissioned and a non-commissioned sepoy. The sergeant and the corporal were repre- sented by the havildar 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 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, " stern-looking men ; very zealous and military : the " sole instructors of all our soldiers." The native town of Cawnpore contained sixty 44 CAWNPORE. 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. A minister at a native court, however rich the harvest he might gather in during the fitful sunshine of royal favour, thought it well to keep a handful of diamonds and rubies in his girdle, as a provision against the day of disgrace and flight. Now, by the help of a bill of exchange and a single trusty agent, he may store up his gains in Euro- pean stocks and debentures far out of reach of the greediest Nizam or the neediest Maharaja. In like manner, in old times, farmers and shopkeepers were wont to convert their superfluous rupees into orna- ments of fantastic design for themselves, their wives, and their children. The unceasing flow of silver to- wards the east, which affords to political economists a constant sensation of pleasing bewilderment, is attributed in part to the fact that the Indian peasant still continues to invest his earnings on the wrists and ankles, the ears and noses of his family. Cawn- THE STATION. 45' pore was noted for the excellence and cheapness of all articles made of leather, saddlery, boots and shoes, bottle-covers, helmets, and cheeroot-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 tho- roughly 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 obscurity in British territory, and rascals from our north-west provinces, on their way to seek impunity in the do- minions 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 atro- city. 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 obtain a clue to the mystery. Whenever a fresh officer of note was appointed to the district, the murderers made a point 46 CAWNPOEK 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 person 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 unfor- tunate recipient finds himself involved in the conse- quences dreaded by the poor people in the Arabian Nights, when the hunchback was choked by a fish- bone beneath their hospitable roof. Bajee Rao, 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. Urged by that painful necessity of taking what belongs to others, which is the inevitable result of all our dealings with Oriental powers, we dethroned Bajee Rao, confiscated his ter- ritories, and assigned him a residence at Bithoor, a small town twelve miles up the river from Cawnpore. Here he lived until his death in princely state, inas- much as the Company always behaved with great generosity towards the princes whom it had plun- dered, 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 THE STATION. 47 watch. Bithoor was 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 creation 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 in- serted 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 cele- brate 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 adop- tion, a ceremony which, by Hindoo law, entitles the favoured person to all the rights and privileges of an heir born of the body. His choice fell upon an indi- vidual who, according to some, was the son of a Poonah corn-merchant, while others say that he was born in great poverty at a miserable village in the vicinity of Bombay. The name of this man was Seereek Dhoon- doo Punth : but the execration of mankind has found 48 C AWN PORE. his cluster of titles too long for use, 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 footman, in an Anglo-Indian family. In spite of his dis- advantages, he acquired a thorough acquaintance with the English and French languages. He sub- sequently 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 mar- tyr, and every Pole a patriot. Azimoolah speedily became a lion, 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 THE STATION. 49 prime minister of Nepaul, or the Maharaja of the 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 sneer 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 Naiia 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 still conspicuous even among the colossal incomes of Indian land- holders. He had contrived to secure to himself the E 50 CAWNPORE. whole property of the ex-Peishwa ; and strange stories were told about the means by which this end had 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 delaration ; 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 tyranny 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 realities of a great oriental household. The doctrine of per- sonal rights has 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- THE STATION. 51 to incur any expense for the completion of his loath- some picture-gallery. In the apartments open to the inspection of English visitors there was nothing which could shock either modesty 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 the most Anglified Hindoo gentleman can never acquire himself, and still less impart to his servants a thorough acquaintance with our compli- cated domestic appliances. There is something very droll in the sanctum occupied by the eldest son of a rich native family ; where, by a display of Western art and civilization, " Young Bengal" excites the envy of his contemporaries, and scandalises those among his relatives who belong to the old school. A cast from an exquisite statuette of Thorwaldsen stands side by side with a gilt shepherdess, or High- lander, or other specimen of that vulgar ware which with us has long been banished from the farmhouse to the cottage. A copy of some Roman or Floren- tine Madonna hangs next to a coloured print of a ballet-dancer ; while a proof signed by Holman Hunt or Millais is flanked by " Facing a Bullfinch " and " Swishing a Rasper" from the classical collection of Mr. Fores, of Piccadilly. Over a sideboard of carved oak has long ceased to tick a veneered clock, daubed with the representation of the Exchange at Philadelphia ; and round the tent-table of some de- ceased or insolvent ensign are gathered half a dozen chairs which once graced the boudoir of a vice-regal E 2 62 C AWN PORE. dame. No Eastern Anglo-maniac possessed a more heterogeneous collection than the Nana, who, living far from Calcutta, the centre of exotic fashion, was reduced to content himself with whatever treasures might come into the market at casual up-country sales. A gentleman of some literary reputation, who was entertained by the Maharaja in days gone by, thus describes the Bithoor menage : " I sat down " to a table twenty feet long (it had originally " been the mess-table of a cavalry regiment) which " was covered with a damask table-cloth of Euro- " pean manufacture, but instead of a dinner napkin " there was a bed-room 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 " 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 STATION. 53 The Maharaja had a large and excellent stable of horses, elephants, and camels ; a well-appointed kennel ; and a menagerie of pigeons, falcons, peacocks, 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 chandeliers that had come direct from Birmingham ; and his equipages had stood within the twelvemonth in the warehouses of Longacre. 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 t'he Maharaja in his panoply of kincob and Cashmere scarfs, crowned with a tiara of pearls a'nd 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, 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 54 C AWN PORE. 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-born 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 mouth. 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 ; 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 THE STATION. 55 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 a 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. No whim ungratified ; every propensity cherished and pampered ; incapable of effort ; incognizant of duty ; he is vicious with deeper than Parisian immorality, and listless with more than Belgravian ennui. Long before the age at which a high-born 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 56 CAWNPOBE. life he is flabby and gross beyond hope and compass ; too feeble for manly exercise, too self-indulgent to practise a self-denying regimen ? 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 re- ligion, 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 officers of the garrison. Nothing could exceed the cordiality which he constantly displayed in his in- tercourse with our countrymen. The persons in authority placed an implicit confidence in his friend- liness 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. There were 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 civilian had overworked himself in court, he had but to speak the word, and the Rajah's ele- phants were sent on to the Oude jungles. But none THE STATION. 57 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 brooded over the judgment of the Company, and the wrong of his despised claim. From his hour of repulse to his hour of vengeance his life was one long irony. Thenceforward his story would more fitly be told in the wild and mysterious rhythms of the old Greek drama than in sober English prose ; for in truth that story finds no parallel, save in the ghastly tales which hang like a mist of blood round the accursed house of Pelops. The lads who, with his sapphires and rubies glistening on their fingers, sat laughing round his Thyestean 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 Sicilian Vespers, or September massacres : for this atrocious act was prompted, not by diseased and mistaken patriotism, nor by the madness of supersti- tion, 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 re- verent credulity, are passed from mouth to mouth throughout a million homesteads. No one can tell 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 sponta- neously from the talk of men, and were to be re- garded merely as indications of the agitated and uneasy condition of the public mind ; but, beyond all 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 THE OVTBJREAE. 59 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 religions ; 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 Mahommedans 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 trod- den 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," " 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 60 VA WNPORE. which the demon who swayed the sceptre of Hin- 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 well 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 confusion and quesr tioning, a wild terror, and a wilder hope. Truly, it may be said that, as in Judsea 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 per centage 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 THE OUTBREAK. 61 complained that the police-magistrate did not per- mit them to impress men to act as beaters at less than the 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, those, at least, on whom during the past cold season Fortune and Hymen had smiled, began to allow that the weather had grown too warm for dancing, though still eminently 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 tu- mults, and officers cut down in the midst of the parade-ground. Before the month of May was half over, the English residents at Cawnpore were beginning to be made uneasy by the disagreeable character of the intelligence from Agra. Something had happened at Meerat, 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 62 CAWNPORE. 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 butchered every Englishman 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 Cawnpore division was Major-General Sir Hugh Wheeler, K.C.B. At the outbreak of the troubles, many of our most important stations were entrusted to the charge of men who had won their spurs at Seringapatam, and might well have been content to have closed their career at Mooltau. It was to our shame as a military nation that, during such a crisis, the for- tunes of England too often depended on the anility of invalids who should have been comfortably telling their stories of the Mahratta war in the pump-rooms of Cheltenham and Buxton. History blushes to chide these veterans for shortcomings incidental to their age. It is hardly just to blame them for prating of Lord Lake, and whimpering about the unsoldierlike appearance which the troops presented without their stocks and with their sun-helmets, at a time when younger warriors would have been disarming, and blowing from guns, and securing THE OUTBREAK. 63 treasure, and throwing up earthworks, and sending the women and children down the river to Calcutta. In this 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 Hindostan 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 English- man who had spent beneath an Indian sun more than two-thirds of his seventy-five years. On the eighteenth of May, he despatched the following mes- sage 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 reassure 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 knowledge to profit. There were schoolmasters who might have taught them a lesson of quite another description : but it was a far cry to 64 CAWNPORE. Barrackpore, and there was no Hearsay at hand It happens that a native lawyer, Nanukchund by name, took the precaution 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 ap- proaching struggle, and the ultimate triumph of the English power; and conjectured that a record of events compiled with accuracy, slightly tinged by a somewhat ostentatious loyalty, would certainly pro- cure 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 them- selves 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 THE OUTBREAK. 65 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 Mahomed, 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 billiards. This singularly unpleasant prophet seem, 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- upon Khan Mahomed went to the cavalry lines, where he found an audience more ready to accept his tale. On this occasion he imported 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 incen- diary was put in irons, and an urgent application for aid telegraphed to Lucknow. Sir Henry Law- rence 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 lions of the place. The arrogance of his manner, and the discourtesy of his sudden and unannounced F 66 CA WNPOKJE. 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 good faith. Chimna Apa, a man of some property, who supplied the nephew of Bajee Rao with the means of carrying 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 THE OUTBREAK. 67 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 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 F 2 68 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 insufficient 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 half a will, there is a way likewise ; but it leads whither it is not good that brave men should go, to disaster and dis- comfort, to bootless sacrifice 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 said : " 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. THE OUTBREAK. 69 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 devo- tion 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 month was the festival of the Eed : a season which Mahommedans celebrate with the blood of sheep and goats, though on this occasion there was serious cause to apprehend lest, in their religious enthusiasm, they should pant for nobler victims. Sir Hugh telegraphed to Lucknow his belief that nothing could avert a rising. The feast, however, passed off without any disturbance. The Mussulmans in our ranks paid their respects to their officers ; acknowledged with apparent gratitude the customary present of a fat Patna sheep ; and pro- tested 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 birthday the usual compliment 70 CAWNPORE. 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 still 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 till the fire has reached the magazine, and say, " Now it is " coming ;" and again, " Now ;" so the Englishmen at Cawnpore, 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 rebellious 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 their last. Strange, beyond concep- tion of poet strange and sad, must have been the contents of that Cawnpore mail-bag. Imagine Colonel Ewart seated at his desk in a tent surrounded by THE OUTBREAK. 71 line behind line of huts and camp-fires, in and about which are swaggering hundreds of insolent, faithless mercenaries. Picture that scene, and then read : " I do not wish to write gloomily, but there is no " use in disguising 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 sacri- " ficed ; 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 " fellow. Bass 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 reality 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, 72 CAWNPOBE. " 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 full " 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 was the tone of the letters which, thence and at that season, went forth to spread a terrible solicitude through many an English household. Very different from the tender confidences and innocent gossip, the reminiscences of sick leave and the anticipations of furlough, the directions to milliners and the in- quiries about boarding-schools, which are the ordi- nary 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 Shum- shoodeen Rhan, and of Teeka Sing, a Hindoo Soubahdar, who, by his audacity and energy, had THE OUTBREAK. 73 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 Soubah- dar spoke to this effect : " You have come to take " charge of the magazine and treasury of the English ; " we all, Hindoos and Mahommedans, have united " for our religions, and the whole Bengal army has u 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 question having been so frankly answered, arrangements were made for a final consultation. One June evening, after dusk, the Maharaja, accompanied by his brother Bala and the ubiquitous Azimoolah, repaired to a landing-place on the Ganges, whither his emissaries had conducted Teeka Sing and his associates. The whole party seated themselves in a boat, and talked earnestly for the 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 courtesan 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- 74 CAWNPORE. 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 law-suit would do well to look to themselves, litigant, pay-master, 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 " ' 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- " nexion with the present question, that the Naua " 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 intelli- " gence, as the men of the Nana's household com- " municated it to Chimna Apa, my client. 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 THE OUTBREAK. 75 " us see what will be the end of all this neglect." A dramatist of ancient Greece would have attributed such obstinate blindness to the malice of some injured deity, misleading to their bane those whom he had marked for destruction. There is a Goddess of Delusion in the eternal order of things no less than in the ^Eschylean mythology. 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. "All 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 carriages " out of my small force two officers and fifty men " of Her Majesty's 84th Foot ; conveyance 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- 76 CAWNPOEE. 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 name ; 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 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 THE OUTBREAK. 77 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 dire 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 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 brilh'ant 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. 78 CAWNPOEE. 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 p#ck up their valuables. Colonel Ewart was at once on the spot, and in vain endeavoured to recall his soldiers to their allegiance, saying to them in the Hindoostanee tongue : " My children ! my children ! this is not " your usual conduct. Do not so great a wicked- " ness ! " But it was too late for argument or entreaty. The battalion 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 OUTBREAK. 79 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 de- serted 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 break- fasts. The Major of the Fifty-third likewise dis- missed his regiment, and at the same time summoned into the entrenchment all his native officers, commis- sioned 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 was on the spot to claim its share. Ere long four or five grenadiers of the Fifty-sixth were observed to steal across to 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 80 AWN PORE. 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 adoped 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: 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 gun-shot of their own officers. So went the Fifty-third. The story of the revolt of the Fifty-sixth is told with characteristic Hindoo simplicity by Khoda Bux, a commissioned officer of that regiment. He says: "I was sleeping in my THE OUTBREAK. 81 " 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 Quarter-master 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 sepoys of the regiment, " and he 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 G 82 CAWNPORE. " ' 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, having taken off our uniforms, be- " gan 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 but- *' toning his coat. I went with him to my com- " pany, and saw some of the men in the tent packing " up their clothes, and others throwing 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, l 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 " 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.' " THE OUTBREAK. 83 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 excitable and suspicious temperament, called out that they were all going to be killed, and took to his heels in the direction of Nawabgunge, fol- lowed 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 officers 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, ferretted out the men who had sought a hiding-place in the ravine. There were found in all 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- 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 G 2 84 CAWNPOEE. procured in the bazaar, so the work had to be done by the domestic servants. A sense of com- parative relief now began to prevail throughout the community. Our officers felt that the time had arrived when they might consult without dis- honour 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 beter than the best which they had foreseen. Their military pride had been hurt by the sight of their battalion running from them like a parcel of street-boys at the appear- ance of a policeman ; 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 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 corner of Northern India all who had THE OUTBREAK. 85 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 intrench- ment. Confidence had succeeded to distrust, cheer- ful 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 de- termined men. Their professional feelings wounded, but their throats uncut 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." 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 party, and swearing fidelity to the national cause. Then the 86 CAWNPOEE. 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 office 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 pro- perty, their domestic gods, and their female relations of every degree ; set forth on their adventurous jour- ney ; and, after a very easy afternoon's 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 THE OUTBREAK. 87 advisers unanimously adjured him to give up the idea of accompanying the march on Delhi ; and espe- cially his ame damuee, 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 English 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 Plassey 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. The eloquence of the ci-devant footman 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 ring- leaders of the mutiny expressed their pleasure, in being blessed once more with the light of his coun- tenance, but displayed very little inclination to give up the idea of Delhi. On the contrary, they sug- gested that the Nana should stay behind at Cawn- pore, and garrison the Magazine with his own 88 C AWN PORE. retainers, while they themselves prosecuted their expedition towards the North West. To this Bala, a man of execrable temper, which, however, he ap- pears 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 be- came Colonel of the Fifty-third, and Soubahdar Gunga Been 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 Mussul- mans, but Hindoos. The belief that such was in fact the case is now very generally entertained by our most thoughtful and observant public servants: but that belief is singularly unpalatable to the mass of the Anglo-Indian community. It was the fashion at the THE OUTBREAK 89 time to attribute the outbreak to the machinations of the Mahomedan population. Those ambitious zealots (such was the creed of the day) had never forgiven us for ousting them from their ancient pre-eminence. It was said that the professors of a proselytizing faith would never be reconciled to Nazarene domination ; that the professors of an aggressive faith would never brook that others than they should assert the lofty privileges of an imperial race. And so our countrymen contended that every follower of the prophet was at heart a rebel and a traitor, and, therefore, must necessarily be at the bottom of all the rebellion and treachery in the land. The habit of assuming that men who hold certain opinions must be bent upon a certain course of action, and the habit of using that assumption to justify our own injustice is, and always has been, peculiarly English. Our ancestors took it for granted that their Roman Catholic countrymen were haunted by an incessant longing to compass the death of their own sovereign, and insisted upon treating as fanatics and assassins honest north-country squires who desired to compass nothing except the death of a bitch-fox. Our grandfathers took it for granted that every radical was a Jacobin, and that every Jacobin slept upon thorns as long as clergymen kept their glebes, and marquises kept their heads. Our fathers, and, it is to be feared, not a few of our brothers, took it for granted that every Jew fixed his hopes exclusively upon the day when his venerable faith should again flourish in its pristine haunts, and regarded England as a place of pleasant but not 90 CA WNPORE. unprofitable exile ; and, as a fitting corollary to so plausible a proposition, we deduced the conviction that Baron Rothschild would sacrifice the prosperity of his constituency to the interests of the New Jerusalem. In the year 1857, our passion for visiting upon people the crimes which we thought they were bound by their tenets to commit ran riot throughout the north of India. Our proverbial tendency to give a dog a bad name and hang him was most barbarously and literally exemplified in the case of the unfortu- nate Moslem. After the capture of Delhi, every member of a class of religious enthusiasts named Ghazees were hung, as it were, ex officio; and it is to be feared that a vindictive and irresponsible judge, who plumed himself upon having a good eye for a Ghazee, sent to the gallows more than one individual, whose guilt consisted in looking as if he belonged to a sect which, probably, was hostile to our religion. It would have been equally humane and logical if the ministers of Queen Elizabeth had burned as a Jesuit every one who was bald on the crown of his head. The city of Patna, where the Mahomedan element was large and influential, was the favourite bugbear of the Calcutta alarmists. Happily for them, the officer in charge of that city shared their suspicions and prejudices, and afforded them inexpressible delight by discovering secret meetings, by intercepting treasonable correspon- dence, and by arresting leading bankers on the charge of harbouring mutineers. And yet, while tumult and massacre were rife in the great towns THE OUTBREAK. 91 of Oude and the North-west, the disturbances in Patna were confined to one partial emeute, and one unpremeditated murder. At length the Governor of Bengal, tired of requesting to be informed why people had been executed in an irregular manner; sick of listening to the complaints of shopkeepers who were not allowed to leave their houses after nine at night, and disciples of Mahomedan professors whose studies were interrupted by the incarceration of their teachers, superseded the Commissioner, and appointed a successor, who at once gave his confi- dence to an able official of the Mahomedan per- suasion. From that day forward Patna was as quiet as Madras. !No act of fidelity or self-sacrifice could exempt a Mussulman from the hatred and distrust of a large section of Anglo-Indian society. Syed Azimoodeen, whom Lord William Bentinck had thought worthy of his friendship and esteem, was among the defenders of the house at Arrah. The besiegers had set a price on his head, and had offered to spare the lives of the little garrison if he and one other were surrendered to their vengeance. As a reward for his loyalty, he became for some months subsequently the popular theme of abuse in the Anglo-Saxon papers. " Is it, or is it not the fact," so writes a correspondent, " that "Syed Azimoodeen supplied the mutineers with in- " formation as to the hiding-places of English fugi- " tives ? Is it, or is it not the fact that Coer Sing " gave particular injunctions to the sepoys, that, when " the house was stormed, Syed Azimoodeen should be "excepted from the slaughter?" This production 92 QAWNPORK proved too strong for the digestion even of the constant reader of a Calcutta journal. A few days afterwards there appeared a communication inquiring whether it was or was not the fact that Coer Sing had given particular orders that the bullets fired against the house should not hit Azimoodeen, and that, when the mine exploded, he should be dropped on to a feather-bed placed in the middle of the compound. But who can wonder at any excess of folly and ferocity in a publication which could stoop to insert a letter recommending the rack for " re- " spectable Mahomedans ? " When there were some hopes that an overflow of the river would complete the desolation of our Gangetic provinces, an English- man was found inhuman enough to put these words on paper : " We accorded great favours to the rascally "Mussulmans, but the rains are acting so as to "nullify all our indulgences." During the progress of the revolt, the apprehen- sions of our countrymen always became more intense at the approach of the great anniversaries of the Mahomedan religion. In the early summer, the festival of the Bed was to many an Anglo-Indian household a season of unspeakable anxiety, for men dreaded lest to themselves, as to the Egyptians in old time, the ceremony should prove a veritable Passover, solemnized by the death of their firstborn. Later in the year came the Mohurrum, the most august and touching of all Oriental rites. It is im- possible even for a Christian and an European to look on without emotion when the insignia of the mighty dead are borne along, the crimson standard THE OUTBREAK . 93 of the brother who perished by the sword, and the green standard of the brother who perished by poison : when, midst a forest of silver staves and silken banners, are led the chargers of the heroes ; while behind streams along a dense multitude, beat- ing their breasts, and reciting in sad cadence the immutable formula of lamentation. Though nigh twelve hundred years have passed since the tragedy was enacted, the unfeigned earnestness and melan- choly of the mourners excite in the spectator sym- pathy far more acute than is accorded even to the funeral of a contemporary. In the year 1857, Eng- lishmen sat booted and spurred, pistol in belt and saddle on horse ; and listened, as the tramp of feet, mingled with the clapping of hands and the dull murmur of " Ah me, for Hosein ! Ah me, for " Hassan ! " died away in the distance. And yet the Eed and the Mohurrum passed without bloodshed ; and men ceased to fear for their lives, and began to tremble for their cherished theory. And, in truth, it was just as probable that the Mahomedans of India should succeed in inciting to rebellion a hun- dred thousand Brahmin sepoys, by working upon their religious susceptibilities, as that the Orange- men of Ireland should organize and direct the Roman Catholic population in a crusade against the English Crown. However little may be the love lost between the rival creeds in the Emerald Isle, there is quite as small waste of that sentiment in the case of the rival superstitions of our Eastern dominions. On this question, so important when viewed with respect to the relations between our- 94 CAWNPOEE. selves and the class of our subjects most worthy of our consideration and regard, the eyes of our com- patriots might have been opened at an early stage of the troubles by the report of a Court of Inquiry, which sat upon the disturbance at Barrackpore. That court, " from the evidence before them, are of " opinion that the Sikhs and Mussulmans of the " Thirty-fourth Regiment of Native Infantry are " trustworthy soldiers of the State, but that the " Hindoos generally of that corps are not trust- " worthy." But there is a blindness which it is idle to foment with the application of commen sense, or to couch with the incisive point of fact ; the blind- ness of terror and rage, and vengeance seeking in the dark for a victim and a pretext. At dawn on the morning of the sixth of June, Sir 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-like promptitude, in- tensified by the consciousness of imminent peril. It fared ill with those who had indulged in a fond antici- pation that their next change of lodging would be to Allahabad and Calcutta. With no notice of quarter, or month, or week ; with no valuation for fixtures, or inventory of furniture, they were called upon to shift to a residence held on short and uncertain tenure, and at a fearful rent. There was no time for packing, or even for selection. There was not leisure to snatch a parting cup of coffee, or a handful THE OUTBREAK. 95 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. He who, in that close and burning night of the mid summer, had on his house-top courted a little air and sleep, might not stay to take anything out of his house. He who had been on some early service in the field might not return back to take his clothes. Few and happy were they who had secured a single change of raiment; and those 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 sea-farers 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-born, and set up the e"paulement in the youngest of his household. A chief, whose military eye had not been dulled by age, would 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 public offices and the treasury were in the 96 CA WNPOEE. 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 Nanukclmnd, "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 Govera- " ment treasure so temptingly thrown in their way. " Thus, to illustrate the proverb, the Sahibs put " 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 THE OUTBREAK. 97 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 military quarter from the Native city, the bridge of boats, the civil station, and the magazine. The establish- 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 enclosed in a mud- wall of the shape of a rectangular parallelo- gram ; four feet in height ; three feet in thickness at the base ; and twenty-four inches at the crest, which was therefore pervious to a bullet from an Enfield rifle. The batteries were constructed by the very 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. H 98 CAWNPORE. 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 count, were at once called together, and told off in batches under their respective officers. 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 entrusted to Major Vibart, of the Second Cavalry, assisted by Captain Jenkins. At the north-eastern corner, 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, Burney, 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- 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 THE OUTBREAK. 99 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, such as of late passed o'er pale Calcutta, the tidal wave comes surging up the river, unlocked 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 follow- ing. It was a force which would have done credit to any Mahratta chief in the palmiest days of that redoubted 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 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 military H 2 100 CAWNPOEE. skill. Lastly, there were three fine battaKons 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, inobservant 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 Mahomedans of the bazaar the sword-polishers, the cotton-spinners, and the dealers in silver ornaments joined eagerly in the chase. One European was THE OUTBREAK. 101 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, and carrying off all the valuables on which they 102 CAWNPOEE. 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 Mahomedan 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 THE OUTBREAK. 103 not all ; for one, at least, Lieutenant Ashburner, 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 corner 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 in- doors 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 whizzing rush of a round shot ; an ominous sound, which, ere long, became familiar to them as the click of the billiard-ball to a marker, or the buzz of the tennis-ball to an habitue of Princes' Club. 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 104 CAWNPOEE. 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 breath ? Why, for a possession of no value, except to the owner, should they deliberately commence a hazardous and protracted match of double or quits ? Power and authority, treasures and munitions, the sinews and the muscles of war, had alike 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 numerous enough to escort their women and children in safety to Allahabad through the perils of eddies, and quick- sands, and bands of highwaymen recruited and em- boldened 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 OUTBREAK. 105 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- 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 ; for our revolted mercenaries shared to the full that strange mixture of veneration, bewilderment, aversion, and terror, with which our Eastern subjects still regard that extraordinary people who, in the course of a 106 CAWNPOEE. single decade, expanded from a handful of clerks and factors to a galaxy of warriors and proconsuls. It is hardly possible for a man brought up amidst European scenes and associations to realize the idea conceived of him and his countrymen by a thorough- bred Hindoo. On the one hand, the natives must acknowledge our vast superiority in the arts of war and rule. Our railways, and steamships, and Arm- strong guns, are tangible facts which cannot be slighted. They must be perfectly alive to the know- ledge that we have conquered them, and are govern- ing them in a more systematic and downright manner than they have ever been governed before. But, on the other hand, many of our usages must appear in their eyes most debased and revolting. It is difficult |o imagine the horror with which a punctilious and devout Brahmin cannot but regard a people who eat the flesh of cow and pig, and drink various sorts of strong liquors from morning till night. It is at least as hard for such a man to look up to us as his betters, morally and socially, as it would be for us to place among the most civilized nations of the world a population which was in the habit of dining on human flesh, and intoxicating itself daily with laudanum and salvolatile. The peculiar qualities which mark the Englishman are peculiarly distasteful to the Oriental, and are sure to be widely distorted when seen from his point of view. Our energy and earnestness appear oppressive and importunate to the languid, voluptuous aristocracy of the East. Our very honesty seems ostentatious and contemp- tible to the wily and tortuous Hindoo mind. That THE OUTBREAK. 107 magnificent disregard of les convenances, which among Continental nations is held to be a distin- guishing mark of our countrymen, is inexplicable and hateful to a race who consider external pomp and reticent solemnity to be the necessary accom- paniments of rank, worth, and power. Add the mysterious awe by which we are shrouded in the eyes of the native population, which very generally attributes to magic our uniform success in every- thing we take in hand, and you will have some notion of the picture presented to the Brahmin imagination by an indefatigable, public-spirited, plain-spoken, beer-drinking, cigar-smoking, tiger- shooting, public servant. We should not be far wrong if we were content to allow that we are re- garded by the natives of Hindostan as a species of quaint and somewhat objectionable demons, with a rare aptitude for fighting and administration ; foul and degraded in our habits, though with reference to those habits not to be judged by the same standard as ordinary men ; not altogether male- volent, but entirely wayward and unaccountable ; a race of demi-devils, neither quite human, nor quite supernatural ; not wholly bad, yet far from perfectly beneficent ; who have been settled down in the country by the will of fate, and seem very much inclined to stay there by our own. With this im- pression on his mind the Bengal sepoy 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 108 CAWNPORE. 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 con- vinced himself that, if once the Anglo-Indians of every sex and age were killed off, from the Governor General to the serjeant-major's baby, there did not exist the wherewithal to replace them. And there- fore he said in his heart : " Come, and let us destroy " them together. Let us cut them off from being a " nation, that their name may be no more in remem- " brance." He conceived that Great Britain had been drained dry of men to recruit the garrison of our Asiatic empire ; that our home population con- sisted of nurses and children, of invalids who had left 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 reckless and 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 missionaries had converted in the course of a century : that our social science talk about the sacredness of human life, and our May THE OUTBREAK. 109 Meeting talk concerning our duty towards those be- nighted souls for whom Christ died, meant that we were to forgive most of those who had never injured us, plunder none but suoh as were worth robbing, 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 English man off the face of the land, had they no feeling of ruth for the sufferings and the fate of our 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 officers too well to allow 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 mutinies 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 still live among the records and associations of chivalry, horrify Utilitarians and Positivists by persisting in regarding women as goddesses. The Hindoos, who allow their sisters and daughters few or no personal rights, the Mahomedans, who do not even allow 110 C AWN PORE. them souls, cannot bring themselves to look upon them as better than playthings. The pride of a Mus- sulman 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 vari- ous childish impertinences. Among the numberless symptoms of our national eccentricity, that which seems most extraordinary to a native is our submit- ting to be governed by a woman. And as a Hindoo fails to appreciate the social standi-ng of an English lady, so it is to be feared that he gives her little credit for her domestic virtues. Her free and un- restrained life excites in his mind the most singular and unjust ideas. To see women walking in public, driving about in open carriages, dining, and talking, and dancing with men connected with them neither by blood nor marriage, never fails to produce upon him a false and unfortunate impression.* And there- fore it happened that a sepoy corporal, whose esti- mate of an European lady was curiously compounded of contempt, disapprobation, and misconception, was * In " The Mirror of Indigo," a vernacular drama which has gained for itself a niche in Indian history, and contributed a rather remark- able page to the Law Reports of the Calcutta tribunals, the follow- ing passage occurs in a conversation between two native women : Reboti. Moreover, the wife of the Indigo-planter, in order to make her husband's case strong, has sent a letter to the Magis- trate, since it is said that the Magistrate hears her words most attentively. Aduri. 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 Magistrate of the district THE OUTBREAK. Ill little adapted to entertain those sentiments of knightly tenderness and devotion which Petrarch and Cowley have handed down to us from the days of Bayard and Henry of Navarre. In the eyes of such a man every Englishwoman 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 wholesale 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. CHAPTER III. THE SIEGE. FTIHE intelligence of the revolt speedily travelled JL 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. As when the redoubted Hebrew captain founded an asylum in the cave of Adullam, so now unto the leaders of the mutiny gathered themselves every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was dis- contented. Thus immutable is the constitution of Oriental society : unchanged by thirty centuries ; unchangeable, perchance, by thirty more. Some chieftains brought two hundred armed followers ; others four hundred. One Rajah came with a tail of forty score : while Bhowany Sing, whom Nanuk- chund designates as " that old and notorious " scoundrel," marched into the rebel camp at the head of twelve hundred matchlockmen. No one seems to have entertained any doubt as to the final extinction of our sway. The old order of things THE SIEGE. 113 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 prime authority. As soon as it became known that their 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 law-suit brought against the Maha- raja 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. Nanukchund, 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 belong- ing 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, I 114 CAWNPORE. 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 Maho- 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 believers 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 THE SIEGE. 115 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 chil- dren 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 iras^leath, instan^Trigx^blej, The Maharaja had despatcTieT}~arpSfityof sepoys to the residence of Mr Edward Greenway, a man of consi- derable property, who had given shelter to an officer recently cashiered by court-martial. This 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 re- sponded. Then they 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 forthcoming. 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 gra- dually betook themselves to the more serious business of the siege. During the whole of Saturday Teeka I 2 116 CAWNPOEE. 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 intrenchment was raked by twenty-four pound shot from every quarter of the compass. Now became patent to the most inexperienced eye the fatal and irremediable 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 varying 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 in- cessant volleys of musketry. Henceforward, there was but little sleep for our countrymen. The annals of warfare contain no episode so pain- ful as the story of this melancholy conflict. It is a story which needs not comment or embellishment. 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, as only he can tell, 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 THE SIEGE. 117 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 wailing 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 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 brick- work, 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 dgainst 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 unbounded store of huge mortars and battering-guns, the be- sieged had a few cannon too small for efficacious service in the field. While disease and the accidents 118 CA WNPORE. of combat hourly diminished the numbers of those within, the ranks without were daily swollen by regi- ments 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 countrymen bore up the fray. From the very earliest days of the attack it became 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, whose memory will never fade, when by the banks of far Euphrates their chief had been slain and their allies scattered to the winds. " Then," says Xenophon, " Clearchus took the com- " mand, 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. Where- soever there was most pressing risk, and wheresoever there was direst wretchedness, his presence was seldom long wanting. Under the rampart ; at the batteries ; in some out- picket, where men were drop- ping like pheasants under a fearful cross-fire ; in some corner of the hospital, to a brave heart more THE SIEGE. 119 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 exhorta- tion, of sympathy, and even of courteous gallantry. Wherever 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- 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 paster 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, 3, and 4 were in close proximity to the corner 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 120 CAWNPOEE. 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 period the assaults 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 recognised 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 THE SIEGE. 121 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 " of the Fifty-sixth Native Infantry, five or six of the '" Madras fusileers, two plate-layers from the railway " works, and some men of the Eighty-fourth Regi- " ment. The first instalment was soon disabled. " The Madras fusileers 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 122 C AWN PORE. 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 bot- tles 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, like 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, like 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 THE SIEGE. 123 they could get, and still more rarely wasted a car- tridge. Lieutenant Thomson contrived a sort of perch half-way up the wall of his barrack, in which he stationed a young officer, named Stirling, 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 Hima- layan 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 loophole they fired away at our stronghold, accom- panying 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 124 CAWNPOEE. 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 from 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 insufficient 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 sword in hand. 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 making 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 THE SIEGE. 125 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 like men, but they went where there were men likewise. It was not thus that our , rampart might 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 civilian held his thumb pressed tight upon the hammer of a pet smoothbore, 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 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 engage- ment the assailants withdrew, leaving on the field many of their comrades. Profiting by this harsh lesson they returned henceforward to their old tactics, and applied themselves to pound out the life of our garrison by an unremitting storm of ball, and bomb, and bullet. 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 126 CAWNPORK 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 astonishment 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. Unfor- .tunately 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 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 unlucky 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- THE SIEGE. 127 cerned the opportunity, and concentrated their fire upon the spot where Delafosse, stretched at length on his back beneath the gun, was pulling 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 lire 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. But the contest was too unequal to last long. By the end of the first week our fifty-nine artillerymen had all been killed or wounded at their posts. Of the officers to whom the charge of the guns had originally been entrusted, few had escaped unhurt from the hail of lead and iron, or the hardly less deadly rays of the Indian noon. Sunstroke had killed Maj or 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 128 CAWNPOEE. 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 from siege guns and heavy mortars. There could be only one termi- nation 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 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 brick-bats wrapped in strips of gutter- piping, necessity has, perhaps,, never been brought to bed with a more singular offspring. As our reply waned 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, THE SIEGE. 129 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 burn 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 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, K 130 VAWNFORE. 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 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 especial annoyance ; and got back, carrying in their arms four of their number, and leaving another behind : a ser- vice brilliant indeed, but barren of results : for the sepoys had only to resolve on the calibre that they preferred, and the number of canon 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 toiling for their lives, who observes whether his neighbour does more or less at the pu'aps than he, provided all do their utmost ? And when they THE SIEGE. 131 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 corner in our modern 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, unwept, un- known, sank 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 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 K 2 132 CAWNPOEE. 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 for- tunate and adroit enough to elude the manifold perils which beset those forty miles of road : "From Sir H. M. Wheeler, K.C.B. to Martin Gubbins, 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 temporary in- " trenchment, 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." The nature of the reply may be gathered from an acknowledgment which it elicited 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. THE SIEGE. 133 11 From, Captain Moore, H.M. 32d Foot. " 18th June, 10, P.M. 11 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 V 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 names 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. 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 134 C AWN PORE. of house-room forcefl two hundred of our women and children to spend twelve days of twice twelve hours without ceiling over head or flooring under foot. At night they lay on the bare ground, exposed 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, bare- headed 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 earthwork, feebly chasing the shadow thrown by the sun as he rose and set. It is impossible for a home-staying En- glishman 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 experience 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, and the boy has carried off the beer to the wrong spinney, they will obtain a more just notion from a sad tale simply told than from pages of unscientific rhetoric. This is what bfifell Mrs. M , the wife of the surgeon at a certain station on the southern confines of the insurrection. " I heard," she says, " a number THE SIEGE. 135 " of shots fired, and, looking out, I saw my husband " driving furiously from the mess-house, waving his " wip. 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 Chatta- " pore the next morning, and thence started for " Callinger. At this point our sepoy escort deserted " us. We were fired upon by matchlock-men, and " one officer was shot dead. We heard, likewise, " 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 serjeant-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 serjeant, 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. " Lottie and I had no head-covering. M had " a sepoy's cap I found on the ground. Soon after 136 C AWN PORE. " sunrise we were followed by villagers armed with " clubs and spears. One of then? 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 peasant's came in sight, and we " were frightened, and rode off. The Serjeant 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 Serjeant 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 frightful, and I went to get him water. Some " villagers came, and took my rupees and watch. " I took off my wedding-ring, and twisted it in my THE SIEGE. 137 " 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 vil- " lagers 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-full of rice. I was too parched to eat, and " they gave me water. The morning after, a neigh- " bouring Rajah sent a palanquin and a horseman " to fetch me, who told me that a little child and " three sahibs had come to his master's house." And so the mother found her lost one, "greatly " blistered," poor little darling. It is not for Euro- 138 C AWN PORK 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 an European household in India. In spacious saloons, alive with swinging punkahs ; where closed and darkened windows excluded the heated atmosphere, and produced a counterfeit night, while through a mat 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. Settled 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 THE SIEGE. 139 of next cold season, and 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 en- dure the wearing anxiety of an unnatural separation, they never know what it>is to experience a moment of physical privation. The services of menials, who make up by their number and obsequiousness what they lake in energy, the unwearied attention of an aifectiouate 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 palanquin, 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 discomfort. 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 be- neath the heel of those beings whom they had ever regarded with that unconscious aversion and con- tempt 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 waterf or washing from the commencement to the close of the siege. 140 CAWNPORE. They who, from childhood upwards, in the compie- hensive and pretty phrase which ladies love, " 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 deepened the hollow in the youngest cheek, and added a new furrow to the fairest brow. Want, exposure, and depression, speedily decimated that hapless company. 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 Brightman 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 sensation of drowsiness and oppression, which gradually despened into insensibility, and thence into death. Such, too, was the fate of Colonel Williams of the Fifty-sixth Native Infantry, and of the Rev. 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 THE SIEGE. 141 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 were with child. There were infants born 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 beleagured fortifica- tion the consequences of amputation were invariably fatal. Science could not regret that 1 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 142 CAWNPOEE. been shared by all ranks alike. A noble equa- lity and fraternity reigned through the little re- public. During that year our countrymen in India often debated, in a spirit by no means of idle speculation, whether a member of a blockaded force had a right to reserve food and drink for the exclusive support of Tiimself, his family, and his intimate associates. That period was fruitful in questions of novel and momentous sophistry : questions to be found in no closet compilation of Ethics and Dialectics. 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 Euro- pean 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 difficult 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 stern casuists, who, with a thrust or a shot, broke off the horns of a dilemma which would have sorely tried the sub- tlety of a Whately. Theories differed as to the lawfulness of a private THE SIEGE. 143 store in time of siege : but the defenders of Cawn- pore were right in their practice. For in the last extremity of war his own life is not more important to an individual than the life of his neighbour. A community of warriors striving by a fair and equitable division to extract from their hoard of victual all the collective material of strength and valour which it may contain, presents surely an aspect more philosophical, as well as more elevated, than an association of selfish and suspicious men, comrades only in name, resembling nothing so much as jury- men vying to starve each other out by help of concentrated meat lozenges. During the first few days the private soldiers fared sparingly, but, for them, poor fellows, delicately enough. " Here might " be seen one," says Captain Thomson, " trudging " away from the main-guard laden with a bottle of " champagne, 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 Englishmen whose daily sustenance was a short gill of flour, and a short handful of split peas; by Irishmen who had 144 CAWNPOEE. 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, 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 THE SIEGE. 145 play the part of good Obadiah. He accordingly left by stealth for Allahabad, bearing with him a letter of commendation from Major Larkins, attested by a gold ring set with five diamonds, which belonged to the wife of that officer. Our people did what they could to help them- selves. A fat bull, sacred to Brahma, finding no- thing 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- men who could hit a black buck running at a distance of a hundred and fifty paces. The difficulty con- sistfid 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- * 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 religious. Tc 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 away from his store. The authorities of Calcutta at length took courage, collected all the Brahminee bulls, and put them in the carts of the Government scavengers. When Scindiah paid his 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 con- dition 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. L 146 CAWNPORE. 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 unscathed. 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 from 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. 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, unlooked for and unavoid- able the mortal stroke descended. THE SIEGE. 147 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 or maimed seven married women, who were seated in the ditch ; killed Jacobi, a watchmaker, namesake of the in- trepid coachwright ; killed too the cashiered officer 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 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 in- jured one of the orphans. Captain Reynolds lost L 2 148 CAWNPOEE. an arm and his life by a cannon-shot ; and Mrs. Reynolds, 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 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 ma- gistrate of the station, was dashed in pieces by a twenty-four pound ball, while talking in the ve- randah to his wife, weak from an unseasonable con- finement. A few days elapsed, and a shot, less THE SIEGE. 149 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 synonyms 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 fell to the ground together, " and were picked up by some privates, who dragged " us both back to the main-guard. While I was " lying on the ground, wofully 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 bliss : 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 150 CA WNPOEE. 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 Hindooatanee 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 cuddle them, or 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 : and 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, and called them poor darlings. They sorely missed the fond and patient bearer, that willing playmate and much-enduring slave, whom Mrs. Sherwood's charming tale has rendered a household word in English schoolrooms. Left to their own tiny discretions, the dear creatures, uncon- scious 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 THE SIEGE. 151 dust, or that little things which they could not see flew about humming louder than cock-chafers 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 hurrying to the outposts intent upon serving his master's dinner before it had time to cool. An ayah, while dandling an infant, lost both 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 152 CAWNPOBE. 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 five rupees 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. 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 THE SIEGE. 153 round the loins, and an ounce of lead in the ankle. Captain Thomson saw the children of his brother officers "sucking the pieces of old water-bags, " putting scraps of canvass 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 performed : their last pang of hunger and affliction undergone and already forgotten. There were de- posited, within the space of three weeks, two hun- dred and fifty English 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 154 CAWNPORK 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 a 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, O " 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 all 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 religion were not wanting. The station chaplain, Mr. Moncrieff, made it his concern that no one should die or suffer without the con- 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 THE SIEGE. 155 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 present some two or three to whom never again would grace be given to join with accord in the common suppli- cation. The people of Cawnpore might say in the language used in a like strait by a brave and God- fearing soldier, the Greatheart of English 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 lancers 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 the Hindoos and Mahomedans 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 : 156 CAWNPORE. " To all Hindoos and Mussulmans, Citizens and " Servants of Hindostan, the Officers of the " Army now at Delhi and Meerut send Greet- " ing. " It is well known that in these days all the Eng- " lish have entertained these evil designs first to " destroy the religion of the whole Hindostani army, " and then to make the people Christians by com- " pulsion. Therefore we, solely on account of our " religion, 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 payment 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 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 THJS SIEGE. 157 " 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 footman. 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 dynasty. He likewise ordained that no cows should thenceforward be killed throughout the land, and finished by pronouncing a malediction upon the head of any one who should intercept the imperial courier. The wretch was doomed to eat pork and beef: and, as the mes- senger was eventually hanged by an English 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- 158 CAWNPOEE. tutus 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 serj cant-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." Rushing 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 disadvantages 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 postponement of death. After a chase of sixteen miles he reached the neighbourhood of the town at nightfall ; passed unobserved through the lines of the mutineers ; and camped out on the plain, waiting until dawn should disclose to him the outline of the intrenchment. Our sentries, astonished by the apparition of a cavalier riding at the earth- THE SIEGE. 159 work 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 countrymen, and entertained with such hospitality as their situation would admit. Wounded and exhausted as he was, he proved well 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 toll-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 relicts of the late Peishwa, the step-mothers by adoption of the Maharaja, felt a womanly com- miseration for one so tender and so afflicted. The good ladies begged hard for this single example of clemency, and begged in vain. At length their pride of sex was roused against such determined brutality 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- tives to carry off their protegee to the apartments 160 CAWNPOEE. appropriated to the females in the palace at Bithoor, where they placed her under the charge of an expe- rienced Mahomedan 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 the next Friday the remnant of the native force which had mutinied at Benares made their ap- pearance 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 Cawnpore was the reverse of triumphant. They straggled up, jaded and dispirited, without any sem- blance of martial order, some on horseback, and others perched up in the uncomfortable country- carts of Hindostan, which seem to have been de- vised with the express object of conveying the least possible amount of freight w^th the greatest expen- diture of traction power. Their condition excited the contempt and cupidity of the officials appointed to superintend the river traffic in the interest of the Nana ; who accordingly refused to ffcrry across these shabby auxiliaries for less than a rupee per head. Considering that the majority of the passengers were of pure Sikh blood, their spirit must indeed have 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 THE SIEGE. 161 Mussulman of rank, who sent word that he was coming up from the eastward with a couple of thousand 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 me'nu, 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 military nomenclature. Thus the First, the Fifty- third, and the Fifty-sixth Bengal Native Infantry, were spoken of familiarly as " Gillises," " Lam- M 162 CAWNPOEE. " 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 Regiments. 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 de- fenders ; 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 back to their master fewer and wiser than they came. The rebel position presented an aspect animated 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. In this region the command was taken by the Nunhey Nawab, the Mahomedan grandee, who, with Bakur THE SIEGE. 163 Ali, and others, had been plundered and imprisoned by the Brahmins during their first outbreak of re- ligious 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 neigh- bourhood 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 ; descending 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 telescope. A half-caste Christian, who had disguised himself as a Mahomedan with admirable skill, gives an interesting account of what passed in this quarter. He says, " I saw Nunhey Nawab coming to the M 2 164 C AWN PORE. "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 com- "mand of a battery. About one o'clock I came "close to Major-general Wheeler's 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 in- "trenchment, 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 kindness ; 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 together. In his quaint way THE SIEGK 165 he writes : " It shows great daring in Azeezun, " that she is always armed and present in the bat- " teries, owing to her attachment 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 manosuvre 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 well 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 collective 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 " Salvador," a name which the effeminate articu- lation of the native had long before this converted 166 CAWNPORE. into the "Savada." As the Mahomedan 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 something besides their breath. Here was the bat- tery which went by his name. Here was the tent of his most able and ardent partizan, Teeka Sing, the generalissimo. Here too, in an agreeable corner 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 lapsis lazuli, constructed out of the spoils and the tribute of nations. The mutineers showed every intention of enjoying 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 sweetstuff with schoolboy avidity, and drinking sherbet to their hearts' content; or swaggered along the streets with a nonchalance THE SIEGE. 167 copied from their reminiscences of the fashionable 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 trades- men, in piteous trepidation, eyed the passing scamps from behind their shutters, consoling their enforced idleness 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 168 CA WNPORE. tent-maker, a jeweller, and a dealer in opiates. 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 esta- blishing 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 Mahomedan 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 SIEGE. 169 the powder ran short, the principal dealer in salt- petre was thrown into prison, until he produced the 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 slipping 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 beseiged 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 a panic, and that everybody was saying how much he 170 CAWNPOEE. 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 on the opposite bank by an unexpected flood, but that 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 ap- proaching 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 im- poverished 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 THE SIKUE 171 maternal blood ; and sallied forth with a pistol and fifteen rupees stuffed into his cotton drawers. He passed unnoticed or unsuspected no less than seven horse pickets. The eighth stopped, and searched 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 172 C AWN PORE. 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- 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 Vibart transmitted these lines to Lucknow : " We have been connonaded 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 be 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. THE SIEGE. 173 " This force may be on its way up. Any assistance " you can send might co-operate with it. Nme- " pounder ammunition, chiefly cartridges, is required. " Should the above force arrive, we can, in return, " insure the safety of Lucknow. Being simply a " 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 " crossing 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 hun- " dred infantry. They move their guns with difficulty, " by means of unbroken bullocks. The infantry are " great cowards, and easily repulsed. " By order, " G. V. VIBART, 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 " weleome 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 174 CAWNPORE. " 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 " 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 arrival 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 THE SIEGE. 175 " 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 modern language was pressed into our service ; and more than one old field-officer mustered up his school reminiscences of the Anabasis and the Iliad, to compose a bulletin, curiously blended of Attic, j;Eolic, 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 176 CAWNPOEE. mountain, and with infinite expanses of glassy water broken by golden islets ; while in the foreground 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 ^ulky conclave. Dim must have been the thoughts, confused the images, which flitted through their wearied intellect ; indistinct memories of home and youth; faint regrets, and fainter re- solutions ; 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 like 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 entrenchment. 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 TEE SIEGE. 177 of Barrack Number Two had raised for her in their most sheltered corner. 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 rebellion over the entire north of India ; but the outbreak at Meerut and the 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 confined to Asiatics, were bent upon effecting something worthy of the occasion. All through the night of the twenty-second the de- fenders of the outlying barracks were kept on the alert by sounds which betokened that the sepoys in the adjacent buildings were more than usually nu- merous and restless. Lieutenant Thomson sent to head-quarters for a reinforcement ; but Moore replied that he could spare nobody except himself and Lieu- tenant Delafosse. 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 N 178 CAWNPORE. 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 bullocks, were brought up within a few hundred yards, unlimbered, and pointed at our wall. The troopers, who had bound them- selves by the most solemn oath of their religion to conquer or to perish, charged at a gallop in 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 waw all in vain. Our country- men, to, 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 i-n unseemly haste. 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 acknowledg- ment 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 sha- dow 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 carrying our fortress by storm, and the circumstances of his position were so critical that he dared not await the unfailing but tardy process of starvation. The clearing out of the intrenchment proved to be a more serious un- dertaking 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 gallan- try and firmness, while in his own camp disaffection and disgust gained ground from hour to hour. An Oriental army which has turned its back on the foe can seldom, in the language of the prize-ring, be in- duced 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 N 2 180 C AWN PORE. swore that no power on earth or in heaven should prevail on them again to look the Sahibs in the face. Meanwhile the Mahomedans, 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 termination. One method remained; swifter than famine ; more sure than open force. It might be possible to cajole where he might not frighten ; to ensnare those whom he could not van- quish ; 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 Greenway 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 THE TREACHERY. 181 unhappy people were surprised at receiving a call from Azimoolah and Jwala Pershad, who seemed in very low spirits on account of the collapse of their centenary. These gentlemen informed Mrs. Jacobi* that she had been designated as the bearer of a mes- sage 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 proceeded to the in- trenchments 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 entrusted 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 Govern- ment 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 * On the unimportant point of the identity of the messenger a strange discrepancy exists between the best informed authorities. Captain Thomson "recognized her as Mrs. Greenway." 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. 182 C AWN PORE. debate was prolonged and earnest. Poor Sir Hugh could not bear to abandon the position that he had chosen so ill, and in the defence of which he had been so little able to participate. It seemed a mi- serable conclusion of a long and not discreditable career to stipulate with his own sepoys for the liberty 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 corner on which converged the fire of two powerful batteries, and the other had so borne himself that it might well 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. THE TREACHERY. 183 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 habitable and secure. The walls of the barracks, shakened 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. Jacob! 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 : 184 -CAWNPORE. "We have now held out for twenty-one days " under a tremendous fire. The Raja of Bithoor " has offered to forward us in safety to Allahabad, " and the General has accepted his terms. I am all " right, though twice wounded. Charlotte Newnham " and Bella Blair are dead. I'll write from Allaha- " bad. God bless you. " Your affectionate son, " G. A. MASTER" The old lady returned to the rebel lines early in the afternoon, reluctant, but somewhat cheered by her short visit. While the summons was under con- sideration, she had made the most of such an excel- lent opportunity 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 inter- course 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 even- ing there was assembled in the Nana's tent a council of war, to which repaired five or six congenial ad- visers, 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 THE TREACHERY. 185 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 in the morning, at our invitation, Azimoolah walked up 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 186 CAWNPORE. 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 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 intreuchment, 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 the 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 THE TREACHERY. 187 departure should never be. Hoolas Sing, the ma- gistrate 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 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. Hoolas 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 carrying 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. 188 CA WNPORK Presently a committee of English officers, 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- 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- tions of the word " kuttle," which, being interpreted, is " massacre." And so the stage had been selected whereon to enact the tragedy. Hoolas 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 THE TREACHERY. 189 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 performed by the rebel forces during the eighteen months which succeeded the explosion at Meerut, no operation was so perfect in all its parts, so able in design, and so prosperous in execution, as the me- morable treachery of Cawnpore. The Suttee Chowra Ghaut, or landing-place, lay a short mile to the north-west of our intrenchment. 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 within 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 190 CAWNPORK 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 corners of old gardens overhang Dutch canals and suburban English byways. Passing down the wall of this edifice a steep flight of steps terminates in the very water of the river, so that a man cannot round the corner 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 feelings. It is painful to trace the faint line of the fortifications, and recognise 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 yellow 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 THE TREACHERY. 191 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 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, 192 C AWN PORE. 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 fieldpiece, 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 battalion of infantry and a regiment of cavalry, who had recently attached themselves to the in- surrection. 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 stern, 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 TREACHERY. 193 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 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 fall, 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 194 CAWNPORK a double ration of boiled lentils and meal-cake, washed down by copious draughts of water from the battered well 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 dared 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 English iron could effect for the conservation of English honour and English 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 glimpse 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 matchlockmen, and the rabble of the revolt, swarmed forth from the various dens of debauchery, 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 THE TREACHERY. 195 their horses, and joined Tantia Topee on the plat- form of the temple. And the Nana did not sleep late, if, indeed, he slept at all. When his courtiera had departed, he dismissed his attendants, and listened in solitude 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 jewellery, or fragments of plate. Others seemed to 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 firea in vain. It was then much as it had been in 02 * 196 CA WNPORK the days of Troy, throughout the Tillages 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 Residency. 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, would have 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, arid 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 corner of the iutrenchment. Some of the women and children disposed themselves in the bullock-carts, while others climbed up to an in- THE TREACHERY. 197 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 cortege 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 to some who should never have been moved again. A number of sepoys mingled with the throng of English 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 dis- played towards their employers by certain among the better class of domestics. The head bearer of Colonel Williams, who commanded the Fifty-sixth 198 CAWNPOEE. 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 accompany us " ' to Allahabad in boats.' Goad Sahib 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 intrench- " ment was surrounded by sepoys. I had great " difficulty in reaching my mistress. I applied to " Annundeedeen, the Havildar-Major of the Fiffcy- " 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 THE TREACHERY. 199 " 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 Georgiaiia, " and Miss Fanny. They were in wretched plight ; " scorched and blistered 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