CHAPTER II.

THE OUTBREAK.

During the spring of 1857 the native society of Hindostan presented

those remarkable phenomena which, in an Asiatic community, are the

infallible symptoms of an approaching convulsion. The atmosphere was

alive with rumours, of the nature peculiar to India;--strange and

inconsequent fragments of warning or prediction, which, with reverent

credulity, are passed from mouth to mouth throughout a million

homesteads. No one can 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 spontaneously from the talk

of men, and were to be regarded merely as indications of the agitated

and uneasy condition of the public mind; but, beyond 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 something was coming, the like of

which had not been 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 victorious. 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 trodden under the foot

of the infidel and the alien. In January, the peasants of Bengal were

repeating to each other a sentence apparently devoid of meaning, "Sub

lal hoga," "everything is to become red." Some referred this dubious

announcement to the probable extension of our empire over the whole

continent, when the scarlet coats of our soldiers would be seen at

Hyderabad and Khatmandoo, in Cashmere and Travancore; while others

hinted that there was something thicker than water, and of a deeper

crimson than a British uniform. Side by side with like ambiguous

sayings, were more plain-spoken assertions concerning cartridges

smeared with lard, and flour mixed with the ground bones of cow and

pig, and other treacherous devices by which the demon who swayed the

sceptre of Hindostan, 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 neighbour 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 destruction 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 questioning, a wild terror, and

a wilder hope. Truly, it may be said that, as in Judæa 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

magistrate grumbled because the judge acquitted too large a per centage

of his committals; and the collector pronounced himself ill-used

because the revenue board would not allow him an additional lac of

rupees for his pet embankment; and the subalterns complained that

the police-magistrate did not permit 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 intricate 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 tumults, 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 Meerut, and it

was feared that something had happened at Delhi. Guns had been heard

all the night of the tenth. European travellers from the north-west,

whose arrival had been confidently expected, did not make their

appearance. A party of the police had gone out to look for them, but

met nobody except a young Sepoy trotting down the road on a cavalry

troop-horse, who refused to answer any questions. But in the meanwhile,

by those secret channels through which in eastern regions bad news

travels with more than proverbial celerity, it was well known in the

bazaar that the Third Light Cavalry had turned upon their officers;

that murder and arson had been the order of the day; that the vast

native garrison of Delhi had risen to a man, and had 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 Mooltan. It was to our shame as a

military nation that, during such a crisis, the fortunes 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 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 Englishman 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 message to the seat of Government:

"All well at Cawnpore. Quiet, but excitement continues among the

people. The final advance on Delhi will soon be made. The insurgents

can only be about 3,000 in number, and are said to cling to the walls

of Delhi, where they have put up a puppet-king. I grudge the escape of

one of them. Calm and expert policy will soon 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 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 approaching 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

procure him credit, and, possibly, a comfortable official income. Two

days before Sir Hugh made his cheerful report to the Governor-General,

Nanukchund looked in on a friend employed at the Treasury, and there

heard the native officers of the guard uttering traitorous language,

while their men amused themselves by quarrelling with the townsfolk who

went to the Treasury on business. They detained people who came out

with money or stamp-papers, and would not release them till ordered

to do so by the Soubahdar. "It began to be evident," says this shrewd

observer, "that nobody had any authority but the Soubahdars and the

sepoys."

At length the symptoms of the growing malady became too patent to be

disregarded even by the most sanguine physician. It came to the ears

of the General that the son of a trooper in the Second Cavalry had

been boasting to his schoolfellows that he was in the secret of what

his father's regiment intended to do for the good cause. And, about

the same time, one Khan 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 seems to have been without honour in his own

battalion. His comrades brought information to the adjutant, who gave

himself no trouble about the matter, beyond telling them that the story

was all a lie. Thereupon 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 incendiary was put in irons, and an urgent application for aid

telegraphed to Lucknow. Sir Henry Lawrence was roused from his bed at

midnight, and by break of day all the available post-carriages in the

station were rolling along towards Cawnpore, crammed inside and out

with English soldiers.

But, in an hour of evil omen, Sir Hugh bethought himself of invoking

the assistance of a more dubious ally. The Nana had lately paid a visit

to the capital of Oude, under pretence of seeing the lions of the

place. The arrogance of his manner, and the discourtesy of his sudden

and unannounced departure, had attracted the attention of Mr. Gubbins,

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

law-suit, was driving out of town in the direction of Bithoor, when he

unexpectedly came upon this formidable array commanded by the rival

litigant. Apa, like a sensible fellow, jumped off his conveyance,

and ran into a neighbouring ravine. The Nana's people appropriated 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 specimen of the services which these

new protectors were likely to render to the cause of law and order

was brought to the notice of the authorities; but they had gone too

far to draw back. The Nana took up his quarters in the midst of the

houses occupied by the civilians and their families; the Treasury,

which contained upwards of a hundred thousand pounds, was put under the

custody of his body-guard; and it was even proposed that the ladies and

children should be placed in sanctuary in Bithoor palace.

There were some, however, who scrupled to entrust the honour of England

and the lives of her daughters to the exclusive guardianship of a

discontented Mahratta. At their instigation the General set to work

in a dilatory spirit to provide an asylum where, if the worst should

befall, we might shelter, for a while at least, the relics of our name

and power. He does not appear to have thought of the magazine, which

was admirably 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

intrenchment, 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 insufficient. The regimental officers,

who had no very lively confidence in Sir Hugh as a caterer, sent

in large contributions of liquor and hermetically-sealed tins from

their mess-stores. The tangible results of a fortnight's labour and

supervision, at a time when every hour was precious, and every day

priceless, consisted in a few cart-loads of coarse native food, and a

fence not high enough to keep out an active cow. Utterly insufficient

as they were, the sight of these preparations had a most unfortunate

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 discomfort, 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.

And now ensued a period of ceaseless dread, of suspicion that never

slumbered, of suspense hardly preferable to the most terrible

certainty. The women and children spent the nights within the circuit

of the intrenchment, while their husbands, with devotion that merited

a better reward, pitched their tents among the sepoy huts, and so took

what sleep they might. On the twentieth of May, flames broke out after

dark in the lines of the First Native Infantry. In a moment the station

was on the alert. Men hurried on their clothes, and clutched revolvers

from under their pillows. Guns loaded with grape were trundled down to

a preconcerted rendezvous. It was no easy matter to persuade people

that so ill-timed a conflagration could be altogether accidental. The

twenty-fourth of the 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 protested

that, come what might, they would be faithful to their leaders:--a

statement that was accepted for as much as it was worth.

But these alternations of confidence and alarm gradually settled down

into chronic gloom. On the return of the Queen's birthday the usual

compliment was omitted, lest the natives should interpret the firing

of the salute as a signal for revolt. Even military loyalty dared not

do honour to our sovereign in a garrison that was 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

conception 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 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 sacrificed; but I do not think they will venture to

attack the intrenched position which is held by the European troops, so

I hope in God that my wife and child will be saved.

"And now, dear A----, farewell. If, under God's providence, this be the

last time I am to write to you, I entreat you to forgive all I have

ever done to trouble you, and to think kindly of me. I know you will be

everything a mother can be to my boy. I cannot write to him this time,

dear little fellow. Kiss him for me. Kind love to my brothers."

So spoke the stout soldier, fearing not for himself, but for a wife who

was worthy of the husband, as her own words show. "My dear child," she

says, "is looking very delicate. My prayer is that she may be spared

much suffering. The bitterness of death has been tasted by us many

times during the last fortnight, and, should the 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, 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

inquiries about boarding-schools, which are the ordinary materials of

the Home Correspondence from an Indian station.

Meanwhile, the Nana was in intimate communication with the ringleaders

of the Second Cavalry. The black sheep of the regiment were wont to

hold meetings at the quarters of a trooper named Shumshoodeen Rhan, and

of Teeka Sing, a Hindoo Soubahdar, who, by his audacity and energy,

had gained an ascendency among his colleagues. These gatherings were

attended by Jwala Pershad, a hanger-on at Bithoor Palace, and Muddud

Ali, who had lately resigned the service of the Maharaja and taken to

horse-dealing, but who still used to visit his former master in the

way of business. At length, Teeka Sing had the honour of an interview

with the Nana himself, during which, according to the story current

among his comrades, the Soubahdar 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 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 movements 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 countrymen 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, especially, any who had concern in the great

law-suit would do well to look to themselves, litigant, paymaster,

witness, and counsel alike. As early as the twenty-sixth of May, the

sharp-sighted advocate, whose diary has been already quoted, drew up

an account of the embryo conspiracy, and sent it in the form of a

petition to the magistrate of the Station; "Who," says Nanukchund,

"gave no heed to my petition, and got so vexed with me that I cannot

describe his anger. He said to me, 'You have all along been speaking

ill of the Nana, and filing suits against 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 connexion with the

present question, that the Nana had long harboured enmity to the

Government, and a great number of rascals belonged to his party; that

he (the Magistrate) would remember my caution, and that I had obtained

certain intelligence, as the men of the Nana's household communicated

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 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

Æschylean 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 between 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 without 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 prostration 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 circumstances;

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 very long, and this significant expression became

proverbial throughout the whole native force. Additional 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 countrymen,--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 Cæsar, and copious libations of

unwonted champagne: at Cawnpore the men of the Second Cavalry were

sharpening sabres, and distributing ammunition, and secreting their

families and their property in the back-slums of the native city.

In the mid-darkness of the succeeding night, when men were in their

first sleep, three reports of a pistol, and a sudden and brilliant

conflagration, showed that the hour had arrived. Teeka Sing, who was

on picket duty with his troop, set the example of sedition, which was

speedily followed by the entire corps. Some ran to set alight the

house of the English riding-master; some to make a bonfire of the

horse-litter; others to secure the treasure-chest and the colours.

These last were stoutly opposed by the old Soubahdar-major, or native

Colonel, who was cut down at his post after a gallant resistance.

Then the regiment, mounted and accoutred, drew up on the high road.

A bugle sounded, and two horsemen left the ranks, and went towards

the lines of the First Native Infantry, and there cried in a loud

voice through the gloom: "Our Soubahdar-major sends his compliments

to the Soubahdar-major of the First, and wishes to know the reason of

this delay, as the cavalry are drawn up on the road." Hereupon the

sepoys, ignorant that the man in whose name they were invoked was at

that moment lying senseless and bleeding in the quarter-guard as a

punishment for his loyalty--ignorant of this, and perhaps not much

caring--began to load their muskets, and hurry on their cross-belts,

and pack up their valuables. Colonel Ewart was at once on the spot,

and in vain endeavoured to recall his soldiers to their allegiance,

saying to them in the Hindoostanee tongue: "My children! my children!

this is not your usual conduct. Do not so great a wickedness!" But it

was too late for argument or entreaty. The 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 Adjutants of the

Fifty-third and Fifty-sixth regiments got their sepoys together on the

parade-ground, and kept them under arms till the sun was well above

the horizon. Then the Colonel of the Fifty-sixth marched his battalion

down to the deserted lines of the Second Cavalry, collected and secured

the horses and arms which had been left behind by the mutineers,

and finally permitted his men to doff their uniforms and cook their

breakfasts. The Major of the Fifty-third likewise dismissed his

regiment, and at the same time summoned into the entrenchment all his

native officers, commissioned and non-commissioned. At such a crisis it

was singularly injudicious to leave the men to themselves, 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 Government

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

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 companies flung on their coats, loaded their muskets, and crammed

their girdles with the regimental rupees; while the remainder of

the corps came of their own accord on to the parade-ground with the

intention of placing themselves under the command of their officers.

Unfortunately at this moment Sir Hugh Wheeler, prompt with an ill-timed

energy, and wary with a misplaced distrust, ordered the guns of the

intrenchment to open fire upon the wavering multitude. At first the

sepoys of the Fifty-third seemed unwilling to believe that their

commander had adopted this cruel and uncourteous method of intimating

to them that he dispensed with their services: 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 gunshot 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 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 bungalow is on fire.' I was astonished, and ordered the

regiment to turn out, and went to give information 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 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, began to smoke; when Chain

Singh, Havildar, came and said, 'Jemmadar, the regiment is turning

out.' I asked by whose orders, and why. He said, 'I don't know.' I

went outside, and saw that the Havildar was dreadfully frightened, and

was buttoning his coat. I went with him to my company, and saw some

of the men in the tent packing up their clothes, and others 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, '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.'"

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, followed by the whole mob

of his comrades.

And now the ship had struck the reef towards which she had long been

drifting, and had gone to pieces in the twinkling of an eye. It only

remained for the crew to provision the boats and knock together some

sort of a raft, as in that hour of sudden and bewildering peril best

they might. Our 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 countrymen commenced preparations for instant flight. All that day

a stream of luggage and furniture was passing to and fro between the

European quarter and the principal landing-places. In that season of

uncertainty and danger, natives who followed the calling of porters

and carriers could not be procured in the bazaar, so the work had to

be done by the domestic servants. A sense of comparative relief now

began to prevail throughout the community. Our officers felt that the

time had arrived when they might consult without dishonour the security

of themselves and their families. Their occupation was gone; and it

seemed very well that their lives had not gone likewise. The blow had

fallen; and they survived. They knew the worst; and that worst was

better than the best which they had foreseen. Their military pride

had been hurt by the sight of their battalion running from them like

a parcel of street-boys at the appearance of a 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 fainéant_ 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 Prætorian guard, swarmed from every corner of Northern

India all who had reason to covet the ruin of England, or to dread her

triumph. And thither, as our countrymen were well aware, the Cawnpore

mutineers designed to go without delay. Under a firm impression that

all instant risk was at an end, a considerable number of officers

passed the night of the fifth July in their private residences without

the circuit of the intrenchment. Confidence had succeeded to distrust,

cheerful activity to sombre and passive expectation. The faces of the

sepoys were turned towards far Delhi. On the way to Allahabad, by road

or by river, there was nothing which could stop armed and determined

men. Their professional feelings wounded, but their throats 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 understand 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 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 construction of which he had been engaged in

superintending. When they had done as much damage as could be got into

a single morning the mutineers packed their more valuable booty about

their persons; filled a long caravan of carts with their property,

their domestic gods, and their female relations of every degree; set

forth on their adventurous journey; 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 advisers unanimously adjured him to give

up the idea of accompanying the march on Delhi; and especially his âme

damnée, 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 universal 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 anniversary, 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 ringleaders of the

mutiny expressed their pleasure in being blessed once more with the

light of his countenance, but displayed very little inclination to

give up the idea of Delhi. On the contrary, they suggested that the

Nana should stay behind at Cawnpore, and garrison the Magazine with

his own retainers, while they themselves prosecuted their expedition

towards the North West. To this Bala, a man of execrable temper,

which, however, he appears to have been able to curb on occasion,

replied that Sir Hugh Wheeler and his Europeans would make themselves

very unpleasant to the defenders of the Magazine, and proposed that

the mutineers should first return and clear out the intrenchment and

then go off to Delhi. At this point the Maharaja threw in a prospect

of unlimited pillage and an offer of a gold anklet to each sepoy,

which produced an instant and favourable effect upon his audience. The

mutineers agreed to retrace their steps, and not leave the station

until they had put all the English to the sword. As a pledge of their

earnest intention to carry out his desires they unanimously saluted

the Nana as their Rajah, and proceeded forthwith to choose leaders who

should command them in the field. Soubahdar Teeka Sing, the prime mover

of the revolt, was appointed chief of the cavalry, with the title of

General. Jemmadar Dulgunjun Sing became Colonel of the Fifty-third, and

Soubahdar Gunga Deen Colonel of the Fifty-sixth.

There is a certain significance in these names: for they indicate that,

in the opinion, at any rate, of the mutineers themselves, the boldest

and most active among the authors of the mutiny were not Mussulmans,

but Hindoos. 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 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 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 unfortunate 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 correspondence, and by arresting leading bankers on the

charge of harbouring mutineers. And yet, while tumult and massacre were

rife in the great towns of Oude and the North-west, the disturbances

in Patna were confined to one partial _émeute_, 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 confidence to an able official of the Mahomedan

persuasion. 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 information as to

the hiding-places of English fugitives? 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 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 "respectable Mahomedans?" When there were some hopes that an

overflow of the river would complete the desolation of our Gangetic

provinces, an Englishman 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 apprehensions 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

Eed 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 first-born. Later in the year came the Mohurrum,

the most august and touching of all Oriental rites. It is impossible

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

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, beating 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 melancholy of the mourners excite in the

spectator sympathy far more acute than is accorded even to the funeral

of a contemporary. In the year 1857, Englishmen 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 hundred thousand Brahmin sepoys, by

working upon their religious susceptibilities, as that the Orangemen

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 ourselves and the class of our

subjects most worthy of our consideration and regard, the eyes of our

compatriots 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 trustworthy." But there is a blindness

which it is idle to foment with the application of common sense, or

to couch with the incisive point of fact; the blindness 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

intrenchment, where, for a fortnight past, the women and children had

already been in sanctuary. The order was obeyed with soldier-like

promptitude, intensified by the consciousness of imminent peril. It

fared ill with those who had indulged in a fond anticipation that

their next change of lodging would be to Allahabad and Calcutta.

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 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 épaulement 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 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 Nawabgunge,

might have remained in communication with the civil authorities within

the fortress; and the garrison could have been readily supplied with

provisions from the loyal villages in the neighbourhood, and, indeed,

from the city itself; which, says our old friend Nanukchund, "was like

a certain wife who used to act up to the wishes of her husband, because

she feared him, and then could also protect herself; but, when her

husband died, she found herself under other people's control, and lived

in licence." He further observes that "the Sahibs did the reverse of

wisdom. They made the intrenchment far out in the plain and outside

the city, without reflecting that, in case of mutiny breaking out,

it would be surrounded by the rebels on all four sides, who would be

assisted by the artillery of the Magazine, and the Government 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 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 establishment consisted of two

single-storied barracks surrounded 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 circumstance 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 parallelogram; four feet in height; three

feet in thickness at the base; and twenty-four inches at the crest,

which was therefore pervious to a 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.

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 detachment under the orders of Major Prout. Towards the

north, Lieutenants Dempster and Martin directed the working of three

nine-pounders; and their next neighbour was Captain Whiting, who felt

the Redan with his right, and thus closed the circuit of the defence.

The general supervision of the artillery devolved upon Major Larkins;

but that officer was incapacitated by illness from taking a very active

part in the operations.

There was no time to be lost. While the commanders 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 hurricane, such as of late passed

o'er pale Calcutta, the tidal wave comes surging up the river, unlooked

for and irresistible, leaving in its track desolation and ruin, the

wrecks of ships and the corpses of men--so on that morning, over doomed

Cawnpore, swept the returning flood of mutiny and misrule. At break of

day the whole rebel array poured down the Delhi road in a compact body,

with the Maharaja at their head, who had good reason to be proud of his

following. It was a force which would have done credit to any Mahratta

chief in the palmiest days of that 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 attachment to his cause what they wanted in military

skill. Lastly, there were three fine battalions of Bengal sepoys, led

by experienced sepoy officers, armed with English muskets, and trained

by English discipline. When the mutineers arrived at the outskirts

of the station, Teeka Sing, the General, postponing 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 insurgents

displayed no such foresight or self-control. They kept close order no

longer, but spread themselves out to the right and left, and, robbing,

burning, 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 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

extraction, 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 neighbourhood. 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 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 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 unwonted visitor, the precursor

of many, scared indoors a large assembly of ladies and children who

were sitting and playing in and about the verandahs; and sent to their

posts the fighting men, most of whom had now their earliest experience

of the sensation 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

_habitué_ 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 nothing remained for our countrymen to protect save their bare

existences and the empty shadow of the British rule. The first game

had gone against us. The Nana had won the regiments; and the regiments

had won their colours, their weapons, and their pay. Why needed they

to grudge the losers their 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 quicksands, and bands of highwaymen recruited and

emboldened in those months of general anarchy?

But it came to pass that their heart was hardened, and they would

not let our people go. The ringleaders 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 forgotten. 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 distrust which could only

end in mutual extermination. The minds of men were so agitated and

disordered by anger and uneasiness, that the sole chance of life for

either party lay in the utter destruction of the other. Already quarter

was no longer given, and, indeed, could hardly be said to be worth the

asking. A European knew that, if one set of Pandies entertained 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 command 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 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 thoroughbred Hindoo. On the

one hand, the natives must acknowledge our vast superiority in the arts

of war and rule. Our railways, and steamships, and Armstrong guns,

are tangible facts which cannot be slighted. They must be perfectly

alive to the knowledge that we have conquered them, and are governing

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 to

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 contemptible to the wily and tortuous Hindoo

mind. That magnificent disregard of _les convenances_, which among

Continental nations is held to be a distinguishing mark of our

countrymen, is inexplicable and hateful to a race who consider external

pomp and reticent solemnity to be the necessary accompaniments 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 everything 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 regarded 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 malevolent, 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 impression 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 object was to see the last of us: to get done with us for good

and for ever. Ignorant beyond conception of European geography and

statistics, he had convinced himself that, if once the Anglo-Indians

of every sex and age were killed off, from the Governor General to the

serjeant-major's baby, there did not exist the wherewithal to replace

them. And therefore 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 remembrance." He conceived that Great Britain had

been drained dry of men to recruit the garrison of our Asiatic empire;

that our home population consisted of nurses and children, of invalids

who had 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 Meeting talk concerning our duty towards those

benighted souls for whom Christ died, meant that we were to forgive

most of those who had never injured us, plunder none but such 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

radical 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 them

souls,--cannot bring themselves to look upon them as better than

playthings. The pride of a Mussulman servant is painfully wounded by a

scolding from the mistress of the house, and he takes every opportunity

of showing his contempt for her by various childish impertinences.

Among the numberless symptoms of our national eccentricity, that which

seems most extraordinary to a native is our submitting to be governed

by a woman. And as a Hindoo fails to appreciate the social standing

of an English lady, so it is to be feared that he gives her little

credit for her domestic virtues. Her free and unrestrained life excites

in his mind the most singular and unjust ideas. To see women walking

in public, driving about in open carriages, dining, 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.[1]

And therefore it happened that a sepoy corporal, whose estimate of an

European lady was curiously compounded of contempt, disapprobation,

and misconception, was 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] In "The Mirror of Indigo," a vernacular drama which has gained for

itself a niche in Indian history, and contributed a rather remarkable

page to the Law Reports of the Calcutta tribunals, the following

passage occurs in a conversation between two native women:--

_Reboti._ Moreover, the wife of the Indigo-planter, in order to make

her husband's case strong, has sent a letter to the Magistrate, since

it is said that the Magistrate hears her words most attentively.

_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.