CHAPTER IV.

THE TREACHERY.

The event of this conflict produced a sudden change in the projects

of the Nana. He forthwith 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

undertaking than he had anticipated. From forty to fifty score of his

stoutest warriors had bitten the dust in front of our rampart, and he

appeared to be as far as ever from the object which he had in view.

Every day the English fought with increased gallantry and firmness,

while in his own camp 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 induced once more

to toe the scratch; and every section of the rebel force had by this

time been well beaten. The sepoys were already grumbling, and it was

to be feared that another repulse would set them conspiring. Even the

Oude men preferred the toddy-shops to the batteries; and the mutineers

of the Cawnpore brigade swore that no power 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

vanquish; to lure our countrymen from the shelter of that wall within

which no intruder had set his foot and lived.

In one of the rooms in the Savada House the 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 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[3] that she had

been designated as the bearer of a message to Sir Hugh Wheeler. She

readily undertook the office, and in the course of the next day was

favoured by an interview with the Nana, who gave her a letter and her

instructions. At nine o'clock on the following morning, she proceeded

to the intrenchments in a palanquin, and was admitted as soon as the

sentries had ascertained that she was an envoy, and not a spy. She

delivered the document which had been 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 Government House at Calcutta:--

"All those who are in no way connected with the acts of Lord Dalhousie,

and are willing to lay down their arms, shall receive a safe passage to

Allahabad."

This protocol, unique for brevity and impudence, was laid before a

council, consisting of General Wheeler, and Captains Moore and Whiting.

The debate was prolonged and earnest. Poor Sir Hugh could not bear to

abandon the position that he had chosen so ill, and in the defence of

which he had been so little able to participate. It seemed a miserable

conclusion of a 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 exclusively

of fighting people, no one would ever dream of surrender as long as

they had swords wherewith to cut their way to Allahabad. But what

could be done with a mixed multitude, in which there was a woman and a

child to each man, while every other man was incapacitated by wounds

and disease? The setting in of the wet weather, (so they urged,) long

dreaded as an overwhelming calamity, and delayed hitherto by what

resembled the special mercy of Providence, could not now be distant.

When the heavens were once opened, when the rain of the East descended

in all its first violence, their fortification would straightway cease

to be 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 reduced them to their bayonets and

hog-spears. In another week they must expect to be washed out of their

defences; but, before that week had elapsed, the state of the barometer

would concern them little; for the provisions were fast coming to an

end. Their stores had dwindled to less than a quart per head of almost

uneatable native food. The choice lay between death and capitulation:

and, if the latter were resolved on, it was well that the offer came

from the enemy. Loth and late Sir Hugh gave way. In order to avoid the

appearance of a suspicious eagerness to accept the advances of the

Nana, Mrs. Jacobi was dismissed with an announcement that our commander

was in deliberation as to the answer that should be sent. That the

intention to treat was generally known among our officers is evident

from a note addressed by Lieutenant Master, of the Fifty-third, to his

father, a colonel of cavalry, dated at half-past eight in the evening

of June the twenty-fifth:

"We have now held out for twenty-one days under a tremendous fire.

The 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

Allahabad. 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 consideration, she had made the most of such an excellent

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 intercourse had been

established between the camps, and thenceforward his ambassadors might

traverse the intervening ground without apprehension lest a conical

bullet from Lieutenant Stirling's rifle should put an abrupt end to the

negotiations. That evening there was assembled in the Nana's tent a

council of war, to which repaired five or six congenial advisers, who,

in their inmost hearts, were conscious that they had been bidden to a

council of murder. One hour after dusk was the time appointed for that

accursed colloquy. A subject was to be broached on which few would dare

to enter until the kindly sun had veiled his face. History will never

cease to shudder at the deeds which thence resulted; but of the words

that there were spoken she will be content to abide for ever ignorant.

The morrow was a busy day. The first thing 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 barrack

should be evacuated that very night. This extravagant demand produced

a remonstrance on our part, to which the response was an insolent

assurance that the Peishwa must have his will, and that disobedience or

even hesitation would bring upon the delinquents the fire of all his

batteries; that he was not so blind as to give us credit for having

abundance of food or serviceable cannon; and that another week's

bombardment would leave nobody alive to haggle with his behest. To this

flourish of Oriental vanity Whiting replied in good English style,

that, if Seereek Dhoondoo Punth wanted the intrenchment, he had only

to come and take it; that his soldiers knew the way thither and the

way back again; and that, if the worst came to the worst, there was

powder enough in our magazine 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 gracious 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 acquaintance 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 departure should never be. Hoolas Sing, the magistrate of

the city, sent for the principal persons who gained their living by

letting boats on hire, and ordered them to provide conveyance for five

hundred passengers. They declared themselves unable to fulfil his

injunctions, a refusal on which, after the 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 companions 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. 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

construct a temporary flooring of bamboo. During the presence of our

countrymen some provisions were brought along and placed on board,

with a considerable show of assiduity: but they were not satisfied

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 repetitions 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 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 memorable 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 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 sentiment 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 inscription 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 resounded with ineffectual prayers and vain

ejaculations 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 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 himself 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 annihilate 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 proceeded 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 considerable height above the stream,

commanded the whole line of boats. A strong body of sepoys took cover

behind the village of Suttee Chowra. A squadron of troopers concealed

themselves to the south of the Fisherman's Temple. A couple of sections

were secreted in and about some timber, which lay ready to be shipped

away; while a mixed party of horse and foot were told off to follow

our garrison, with directions to form up on the wooden bridge as soon

as the English rear-guard had entered the ravine, and thus cut off

the single avenue of escape. A 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 insurrection.

The boats, some few excepted, had been hauled into the shallows, and

were literally resting on the sand. They were of the ordinary country

build, thirty feet from stem to 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 boatmen together,

and bade them hold themselves prepared, at a given signal, to fire

the thatch, and make for the shore; and then, secure of the issue,

mounted the stairs of the little temple, there to await, amidst a crowd

of armed retainers, the outcome of his able combinations. The men

in ambush chattered, and shivered, and munched their cold rice, and

shared the alternate pipe: and the Mussulmans in the various groups

performed a leisurely obeisance towards 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 over-night 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 ungrateful 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 explaining the cause of the

commotion, and procured an immediate cessation of the bombardment. In

spite of this interruption, the garrison, rendered by long suspense

and wretchedness careless rather than unsuspicious of the future, held

high festival upon a double ration of boiled lentils and meal-cake,

washed down by copious draughts of water 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 observe whether the Sahibs were much changed by their

hardships; others, again, drawn thither by a dim expectation that

something might happen which it would be a pity to have missed. And the

mutineers, and the matchlock-men, and the rabble of the revolt, swarmed

forth from the various dens of 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 their horses, and joined Tantia Topee on the platform

of the temple. And the Nana did not sleep late, if, indeed, he slept

at all. When his courtiers had 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 hateful walls, and less

yet remained worth removal when they came to break up their melancholy

establishment. 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 fired in

vain. It was then much as it had been in the days of Troy, throughout

the villages of ancient 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 disinclination 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 preferable 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 loophole at which, on

the morning of the great assault, he had fought till his shoulder was

blue, and his rifle clogged with lead; or to stand with wet cheeks in a

nook of the hospital, sacred to his first great grief. Not a few peered

down the well that lay outside the breastwork, with a tacit adieu to

those whom they left behind, and a wish that it had pleased God to

unite them, even there.

If a start was to be made before the advancing day had dispelled the

freshness of dawn, there was no time to be lost. A crowd of carriages

and beasts of burden had gradually assembled outside the north-western

corner of the intrenchment. Some of the women and children disposed

themselves in the bullock-carts, while others climbed up to an

insecure 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 (unwilling, it may be, to form

a conspicuous object in a _cortège_ 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 disabled 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 ambulance 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 condition 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

dissimulation. Less equivocal were the demonstrations displayed towards

their employers by certain among the better class of domestics. The

head bearer of Colonel Williams, who commanded the Fifty-sixth before

the mutiny, deserves to tell his own simple story. He says, "Even after

the cessation of hostilities, 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 intrenchment was surrounded

by sepoys. I had great difficulty in reaching my mistress. I applied

to Annundeedeen, the Havildar-Major of the Fifty-sixth, who said the

thing was impossible. I appealed to him, and begged him to remember

the kindness he had received from the Colonel. After persuasion, he

said that he could not show his face before the Colonel's lady, but

directed four sepoys to take me to my mistress, and prevent my being

disturbed. I was then taken to my mistress, with whom were her two

daughters, Miss Georgiana, and Miss Fanny. They were in wretched

plight; scorched and 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 left in the

house, and inquired about all the servants, and especially after the

cook. She then told me to go and fetch him, as she wanted him to go

down to Allahabad with her; and told me to go to her son in the Hills,

and inform him of all that had occurred. She told me to make every

endeavour to join her son as soon as the roads should be open, and to

show him the spot where the Colonel was buried. I told her I did not

know the spot. She said the groom who had remained with them in the

intrenchment would show it to me." To judge from the attachment of her

servants, Mrs. Williams must have ruled her household like a true lady

of the kindly old Anglo-Indian school.

No prayer was said, no blessing invoked, no passover eaten before

that inauspicious exodus. Moore went about from group to group, and

impressed upon his colleagues that it would be idle to attempt to

preserve order in the embarkation. His instructions were to push

off as soon as all had been got on board, and make for the opposite

shore, where further arrangements might be completed at leisure and in

comparative safety. And then a drink of water was handed in at the

door of each palanquin, and the expedition set forth. A mob of peasants

at once rushed upon the deserted premises, and spread themselves about

in quest of plunder. They might have spared their pains. A camel-rider,

who entered among the first, saw nothing except "three useless brass

guns that had been split, two leathern bottles of liquid butter, a sack

of fine flour, and the bodies of eleven Europeans. They were on quilts

on the floor, some of them still breathing, though dying from severe

gunshot wounds."

The show was not such as would dazzle a vulgar eye: but in the soul

of those with whom glory is not skin-deep, the retinue of an imperial

coronation would fail to inspire the reverence excited by that ragged

and spiritless cavalcade. First came the men of the Thirty-second

regiment, their dauntless captain at the head;--thinking little, as

ever, of the past, but much of the future;--and so marching unconscious

towards the death which he had often courted. Then moved on the

throng of naked bearers, groaning in monotonous cadence beneath the

weight of palanquins, through whose sliding panels might be discerned

the pallid forms of the wounded;--their limbs rudely bandaged with

shirtsleeves, and old stockings, and strips of gown and petticoat.

Mayhap, as they jolted along, they fed their sickly fancies with a

listless anticipation that the hour was not remote when they might

forget the miserable present amidst the joys of ice, and lemonade, and

clean sheets, and nourishment more appetising than parched grain and

bad pease-porridge. Behind these creaked a caravan of carts, dragged

by bullocks, on which were huddled ladies used to a very different

equipage; while here and there paced a stately elephant, his tusks

adorned with rings of brass, and his forehead painted in grotesque

patterns, who, perchance, a century back, was tugging a gun across

the field of Plassey, and who now bore a cluster of English women and

children clinging nervously to the ropes which encircled his huge

girth. And next, musket on shoulder and revolver in belt, followed

they who could still walk and fight. Step was not kept in those ranks.

Little was there of martial array, or soldier-like gait and attitude.

Lace might not be seen, nor embroidery, nor facings, nor uniforms

which could be recognised at the Horseguards or smiled on in county

ballrooms. In discoloured flannel and tattered nankeen, mute and in

pensive mood, tramped by the remnant of the immortal garrison. These

men had finished their toil and had fought their battle: and now, if

hope was all but dead within them, there survived, at least, no residue

of fear.

The last to quit the intrenchment was Major Vibart, of the Second

Cavalry. He brought up the rear of our column alone, amidst a numerous

escort of mutineers belonging to his late regiment, who insisted on

conveying his luggage down to the landing place;--a marked instance

of complaisance on the part of these gentlemen troopers. There were

many, however, among the rebels, who no longer thought it worth while

to dissemble. Lady Wheeler's ayah, a few minutes before, had been

presented by her mistress with a bag of rupees as an acknowledgment

of her fidelity. She now was forced to exchange her treasure for a

slash with a sabre. Some sepoys, who had stood by us to the last, were

seized and carried off in spite of the urgent expostulations of their

adjutant: and the hour approached when a brave woman was to meet that

face to face, the bitterness of which, to repeat her own language,

had already been tasted many, many times. Colonel and Mrs. Ewart had

started late; she on foot; he on a bed, carried by four native porters.

From one cause and another they made slow progress. The bearers were

lazy; and paid no attention to a Mem Sahib, whose husband, prostrate

with wounds, was unable to enforce her orders with his cane. Gradually

the main body drew farther and farther ahead of the helpless pair;

who, at length, like a sick child dreaming that he is kidnapped by

gipsies, saw the backs of the English rear-guard disappear round a

distant corner. As the litter came abreast of St. John's Church, seven

or eight rascals belonging to the Colonel's own battalion stepped up;

bade the porters set down their load and stand back; and began to mock

their victim, saying: "Is not this a fine parade, and is it not well

dressed up?" They then hewed him in pieces with their swords, and

afterwards turned to Mrs. Ewart, and desired her to throw down whatever

she had about her, and go her ways, for that she was a woman, and they

would not kill her. She took out of her dress a piece of stuff, with

something tied up in it, and delivered it to one of the gang, who

thereupon cut her down dead. Those who loved her, and they were many,

could not have wished it otherwise.

Presently the van reached the white rails of the wooden bridge, and,

leaving them on the left hand, turned aside into the fatal ravine. A

vast multitude, speechless and motionless as spectres, watched their

descent into that valley of the shadow of death. Only some sepoys,

gazing on the trappings of the elephants, said one to another: "They

are taken out of their fortress grandly. They go gladly. They know not

what is before them. Now let them repent of their misdeeds, and ask

pardon of God." Soon Tantia Topee, who for some while past had been

anxiously glancing towards the west, saw the white faces and gleaming

bayonets; saw the dark tops of the palanquins dancing up and down; saw

the howdahs swaying from right to left above the sea of heads. Then

he called to a bandsman who was in attendance, and directed him to

proceed up the lane, and sound his bugle when once the Europeans were

well within the trap. Slowly, very slowly, with many a halt and many an

entanglement, the unwieldy mass of men and brutes wound along the bed

of the torrent.

And now the last Englishman walked down into the lane; and immediately

the troops who had been appointed to that duty formed a double line

across the mouth of the gorge, and told all who were not concerned

to retire and keep aloof, for that within that passage there was no

admittance save on one baleful business. Meantime the embarkation was

progressing under serious difficulties. No temporary pier had been

provided, nor even a plank to serve as gangway. None of the Hindoo

boatmen or bearers spoke a word or lent a hand, while, standing

knee-deep in the stream, our officers hoisted in the wounded and

the women. Already they were themselves preparing to scramble on

board;--already the children were rejoicing over the sight of some

boiled rice which they had discovered in the corner of a barge;--when,

amidst the sinister silence which prevailed, the blast of a bugle came

pealing down the defile. Thereupon the native rowers leaped into the

water, and splashed towards dry ground; while those very troopers who

had conducted Major Vibart from the barrack with such professions of

esteem discharged their carbines at the nearest vessel. The Englishmen,

whose rifles were handy, at once opened fire, some on the traitorous

crews, others on the hypocritical scoundrels who had commenced the

attack. But of a sudden several of the straw roofs burst into a flame,

and almost the entire fleet was blazing in the twinkling of an eye.

The red-hot charcoal had done its work. At the same moment from either

shore broke forth a storm of grape and musketry. To the imagination of

our countrymen, oppressed and bewildered by the infernal tumult, it

seemed that the land was alive with a hundred cannon and a myriad of

sharpshooters. The wounded perished under the burning thatch, while

all who could shift for themselves dropped into the river. Of the

ladies, some crouching beneath the overhanging prows, some wading up

to their chins along the shelving bottom, sought shelter from the

bullets, which sprinkled the surface like falling rain. The men set

their shoulders against the planking, and tried to launch off into the

mid-current. But he who had chosen those moorings never intended that

the keels should leave the sandbank on which they lay. All the boats

stuck fast, save a poor three, of which two drifted across to the

Oude bank into the jaws of the perdition which in that quarter also

awaited their inmates. The third got clear away from the shallows,

and floated steadily down the main channel. Whether fortuitously,

or by the attraction of like to like, it so befell that the flower

of the defence was congregated between those bulwarks. There were

Vibart; and Whiting, good at need; and Ashe, bereaved of his beloved

nine-pounder; and Delafosse of the burning gun; and Bolton, snatched

once more from present destruction. There was Moore, with his arm slung

in a handkerchief; and Blenman, the bold spy; and Glanville of Barrack

Number Two; and Burney of the south-east battery. Fate seemed willing

to defer the hour which should extinguish those noble lives.

When, after the lapse of some twenty minutes, the dead began to

outnumber the living;--when the fire slackened, as the marks grew

few and far between:--then the troopers who had been drawn up to the

right of the temple plunged into the river, sabre between teeth, and

pistol in hand. Thereupon two half-caste Christian women, the wives

of musicians in the band of the Fifty-sixth, witnessed a scene which

should not be related at second-hand. "In the boat where I was to have

gone," says Mrs. Bradshaw, confirmed throughout by Mrs. Setts, "was

the schoolmistress and twenty-two missies. General Wheeler came last,

in a palkee. They carried him into the water near the boat. I stood

close by. He said 'Carry me a little further towards the boat.' But a

trooper said: 'No; get out here.' As the general got out of the palkee,

head foremost, the trooper gave him a cut with his sword into the neck,

and he fell into the water. My son was killed near him. I saw it: alas!

alas! Some were stabbed with bayonets; others cut down. Little infants

were torn in pieces. We saw it; we did; and tell you only what we saw.

Other children were stabbed and thrown into the river. The school girls

were burnt to death. I saw their clothes and hair catch fire. In the

water, a few paces off, by the next boat, we saw the youngest daughter

of Colonel Williams. A sepoy was going to kill her with his bayonet.

She said, 'My father was always kind to sepoys.' He turned away, and

just then a villager struck her on the head with his club, and she

fell into the water." These people likewise saw good Mr. Moncrieff,

the clergyman, take a book from his pocket that he never had leisure

to open, and heard him commence a prayer for mercy which he was not

permitted to conclude. Another deponent observed a European making for

a drain like a scared water-rat, when some boatmen, armed with cudgels,

cut off his retreat, and beat him down dead into the mud.

At this point those Englishmen who had learned to use their limbs

in the water, perceiving that all was lost, with a hurried last look

and a parting shudder, stripped, and made for Vibart's boat, which

just then was aground not far from the opposite shore. Thomson swam,

and Private Murphy, neither for the last time. Three cavalry soldiers

chased Lieutenant Harrison on to a small island two hundred yards

from the land. One only waded back again, quicker than he came; while

Harrison made the best of his way to the stranded vessel, and clambered

over the side, satisfied at having taught his pursuers that it was

never safe to trifle with a Sahib, as long as he had breath in his

body and a charge in a single chamber. Few were vigorous or fortunate

as he. Their strength failed some; while more than one stout swimmer,

shot dead in the middle of his stroke, rolled over and sank amidst the

reddening tide. Of the two Hendersons, the younger went down in his

brother's sight, while the elder hardly struggled in with a shattered

hand through the pattering mitraillade. At length all were on board

who had not disappeared below the waves; and, by dint of hard shoving,

the boat scraped herself off the shoal, and continued her sluggish and

devious course:--that hapless Argo with her freight of heroes.

"At nine, or half-past nine in the morning," writes Nanukchund, who was

in hiding at a neighbouring village, "I heard the report of cannon,

and immediately despatched my servant for news, and to learn why

guns were being fired. At about noon, more or less, he returned, and

reported that the people who came to bathe in the Ganges informed him

that the intrenchment had been taken by the rebels, and the corpses

of Europeans were floating down the river. The villagers exclaim, in

their village dialect, that the Ganges has turned crimson, and it

is impossible to look upon it. The terror and alarm that now seizes

me baffles description. It seems sacrilege to take any sort of food

or drink. I can think of nothing but moving about from side to side

with terror." Besides Nanukchund, there was another, whose agitation,

arising from very different passions, displayed itself by the same

noticeable symptom. A rich Hindoo, even though he be not of such gross

habit as was the Nana, never walks a step unless under dire compulsion:

and yet, during the early forenoon, Dhoondoo Punth seldom rested quiet

in his chair, but paced to and fro in front of his tent, straining his

ears to catch the noise of horse-hoofs. At last a trooper galloped down

with the tidings that all was going well, and that the Peishwa would

soon obtain ample compensation for his ancient wrong. The Maharaja

bade the courier return to the field of action, bearing a verbal order

to keep the women alive, but kill all the males. By the time Tantia's

aide-de-camp returned to his chief, the latter injunction appeared

all but superfluous: though there was still something to be done.

The sepoys posted on the Oude bank had excepted certain Englishmen

from the slaughter of the two boatfuls which had fallen into their

hands. These, to the sum of seventeen, they now sent over as their

contribution. On reference being made to the Maharaja, he graciously

acknowledged the present, and desired a firing-party to be told off;

suggesting, however, that powder should not be wasted on the wounded.

His directions were obeyed to the letter. A couple of files were

likewise detached to see that the sufferers who still lingered in the

intrenchment did not take too long to die.

Meanwhile the women and children, whom the shot had missed and the

flames spared, had been collected and brought to land in evil case.

Many were pulled out from under the charred woodwork of the boats,

and others were driven up from four feet depth of water. Before they

emerged from the river, some of the ladies were roughly handled by

the troopers, who tore away such ornaments as caught their fancy with

little regard for ear or finger. But, when all had been assembled on

the landing-place, sentries were posted around, with a strict charge

to suffer no one to molest the prisoners. There they sat, a hundred

and twenty and five by count, some on logs of timber, and others

in the trodden sand, a very feeble company in sore distress. Their

destitution aroused the compassion of a party of water-carriers, who

gave them drink out of the skin's mouth, as they cowered beneath

the pitiless sun. On the shore of the Ganges, in the midst of that

devilish horde, those English girls and matrons abode till the

morning was almost spent. And then they were led back along the road

which they had traversed a few hours before; not as they came, for

nothing was left them now, save a new grief and a sharper terror. In

front, behind, and on either side, surged along a crowd of sepoys,

exulting with an unholy joy, and rich with inglorious spoils. This one

carried a girdleful of rupees and broken jewellery. That had secured

a double-barrelled fowling-piece, marked with a name illustrious in

the London trade. Another dragged a fine setter or Skye terrier, the

pride of some cadet who, in too harsh a school, had taken his first

and last lesson of war. They started beside the Fisherman's Temple.

They threaded the winding lane. They plodded wearily past the white

railing and the European bazaar; past the chapel, and the racket-court,

and the ruinous intrenchment. Through the disputed line of outposts,

and across the plain they went, until the procession halted before the

pavilion of the Maharaja; who, after reviewing his captives, ordered

them to be transported to the Savada House, and there confined until

further notice. Two large rooms, where a number of native soldiers had

slept nightly during the previous month, were cleared out for their

reception; and a guard placed over them from the ranks of the Sixth

regiment, which had lately marched in from Allahabad.

"I saw that many of the ladies were wounded," says one who watched

them go by. "Their clothes had blood on them. Two were badly hurt, and

had their heads bound up with handkerchiefs. Some were wet, covered

with mud and blood; and some had their dresses torn, but all had

clothes. I saw one or two children without clothes. There were no

men in the party, but only some boys of twelve or thirteen years of

age." Another eye-witness remarks: "The ladies' clothing was wet and

soiled, and some of them were barefoot. Many were wounded. Two of them

I observed well, as being wounded in the leg and under the arm." To

such a plight had come the bloom which once, fresh from the breezes of

home, charmed and puzzled Calcutta; and the toilettes whose importation

and inspection supplied matter for a month's conjecture, and a week's

happy occupation. Where were now the tact, the cultivation, and all the

indefinable graces of refined womanhood? Simplicity and affectation,

amiability and pride, coquetry and reserve, discretion and sweet

susceptibility, were here confounded in a dull uniformity of woe.

Four Englishwomen, and three others of mixed parentage, were

appropriated and carried off by the soldiers of the Second Cavalry; a

corps which, now that the fighting was over, never lost an opportunity

of distinguishing itself. These men were summoned into the presence

of the Nana, who remonstrated with them at some length, and insisted

that the whole seven should be restored without delay. It may be that

he regarded his prisoners as hostages, and was unwilling that they

should be scattered about in places where he could not lay his hand

upon them at the precise moment when his life or power might be at

stake. All obeyed promptly, with the exception of Ali Khan, a young

trooper, described as of "a fair complexion; height about five feet

seven inches; long nose; dark eyes; wears a beard and small moustache."

This fellow had selected, as his share of the booty, the youngest

daughter of Sir Hugh. He must have been one of a pair who were observed

"leading away from the boats a lady on horseback. She wore a green

chintz gown, which appeared to be wet. She seemed to be eighteen or

nineteen years of age." Ali Khan now contrived to spread a report

that his victim flung herself down a well, after killing her captor,

his wife, and his three children. His device met with extraordinary

success. In Hindostan it is never a very difficult matter to find

witnesses who will swear to anything; and, before long, a private in

the Second began to remember that he had been passing his comrade's

door when Miss Wheeler came out, with a sword in her hand, and said:

"Go in and see how nicely I have rubbed the Corporal's feet." Another

individual, blessed with an elastic memory, had been present at the

dragging of the well, and had seen "Missy Baba taken out, dead and

swollen." The impudent fabrication was generally accepted in the city

and the cantonments; and met with ready credence in England, where the

imaginations of men were excited by a series of prurient and ghastly

fictions. Under one shape or another the incident long went the round

of provincial theatres, and sensation magazines, and popular lectures

illustrated with dissolving views. Meanwhile the poor girl was living

quietly in the family of her master under a Mahomedan name. Our police

made diligent inquiries, which resulted in a strong conviction that

she had accompanied the flight of the rebels, and, after being hurried

about from camping-ground to camping-ground, had met a natural death

in a corner of Nepaul. She was by no means of pure English blood. To

some the very statement of the fact may appear heartless, but truth

demands that it should be made.

The ladies on board the escaped vessel had no reason to congratulate

themselves on their fortune: for they were embarked on a voyage which,

for concentrated misery, has no parallel even among the narratives of

famous shipwrecks so dear to the taste of our forefathers. Soon after

leaving the shore, Major Vibart had taken a large party off a sinking

boat; so that more than five-score persons were crowded into a space

which could barely accommodate fifty. It was difficult to propel the

craft, and impossible to guide her. A shot from the southern bank sent

her spinning round in the current, with a broken rudder; and the native

boatmen had taken good care to leave behind neither oar nor punt-pole.

Alternately stranding and drifting; paddling with planks torn from the

bulwarks, and trying to steer with a spare stretcher; our countrymen

tended down towards Allahabad at the rate of half a mile an hour, under

a shower of canister and shells from either bank. "We were often," says

Thomson, "within a hundred yards of the guns on the Oude side of the

river, and saw them load, prime, and fire into our midst." Presently

the bullocks which drew the sepoy artillery broke down in the deep sand

of the Ganges; but incessant volleys of musketry, at point blank range,

allowed our countrymen little leisure to rejoice over the intermission

of the cannonade.

That day dismissed to Hades many valiant souls of warriors, and left

their bodies a prize for dogs and every kind of fowl. But the will of

God was accomplished. Ashe and Bolton leaped out to help haul the boat

off a sunken bank: and a few minutes later she proceeded on her way

without those two young Sahibs whom a thousand bullets had spared to

perish here. Moore, regardless of an ill-set collar-bone, was pushing

with might and main, when a musket-ball pierced his gallant heart.

One and the same round shot at length killed Burney, and at length

Glanville; and so maltreated a third officer that it would have been

well had he died likewise. The wounded and the slain lay entangled

together amidst the broken flooring. It was a matter of extreme

difficulty to extricate the corpses from the bottom of the vessel: but

the desire of decreasing her draft, and the intense heat of what proved

to be the last day of that year's dry weather, obliged the crew to cast

overboard the dear but useless cargo.

About five o'clock that evening the boat settled down deep in the

sand. Our countrymen waited patiently till the sunset allowed them

to disembark the women under the screen of darkness. Having thus

lightened their unwieldy ark, they set to with a will, and succeeded

eventually in getting her adrift. The rebels did what they could to

impede the operation. They launched a fire-ship down the current,

which came within a few feet of its mark; and, when this contrivance

had miscarried, they shot off a flight of arrows tipped with lighted

charcoal Though no very skilful archers, they could not well help

hitting the thatched roof which loomed through the dusk like the top

of a great barn: so that our people thought it better to cut away

and tumble into the flood the entire framework of straw and bamboo.

No one slept that night, and no one ate: for food there was none on

board. They had abundance of water: for Ganges flowed beneath; and

from overhead descended a light and refreshing shower, the unfailing

precursor of the annual deluge.

When the day broke, those of our officers who had learned the bearings

of the locality during many a hot tramp after snipe and wild-fowl saw

with chagrin that they had hardly gained ten miles in twice as many

hours. And yet that dawn brought one last glimmer of hope. The wet

weather had arrived: the river would soon be mounting fast: and nothing

was to be seen of the enemy. Presently some natives walked down the

bank for their morning wash; and Vibart sent on shore a native drummer,

with five rupees in his hand, and directions to obtain information,

and, if possible, some provisions. He accosted a peasant, who desisted

from the occupation of cleaning his mouth with a bit of stick chewed

into a tooth-brush, and listened very civilly to what our envoy had to

say. This man undertook to procure some rice and flour, but assured

the drummer that our people would have no further need of victuals, as

Baboo Ram Bux, a powerful noble whose estates lay a little further down

on the Oude side, had engaged that not an Englishman should pass his

territory alive. He, however, showed no objection to take our money,

and went inland, leaving behind his brass drinking-vessel to guarantee

his fidelity: a pledge which he never came back to redeem. On hearing

the report of their messenger the fugitives agreed to despair. After

the manner of becalmed and starving mariners, Whiting pencilled some

lines on a scrap of paper, which he enclosed in a bottle, and committed

to the stream: the faithless stream, that has never rendered up the sad

deposit.

At two in the afternoon the barge struck off a village called

Nuzzufgur, which was within the boundary of Ram Bux. Straightway the

shore was covered with a multitude of feudal militia, intermingled

with sepoys and mounted troopers. A gun was brought forward, and

unlimbered; but, while the artillerymen were taking their aim, there

came down from heaven that unbroken sheet of water for which men had

been looking during the past fortnight. The rains had begun in earnest.

The piece could only be discharged once; but the storm did not protect

our people from a keen fusillade. Whiting fell dead; and Harrison's

trusty revolver here availed him nothing; and dark Blenman, sorely

hurt, implored a comrade to put an end to his wayward existence. Vibart

was shot through the arm, and his subordinates, Quin and Seppings;

while Mrs. Seppings and Captain Turner of the First Infantry were badly

wounded in the leg. After five hours of this bitter work there hove in

sight a boat manned by fifty or sixty mutineers, armed to the teeth,

who had been deputed by the Nana to follow and destroy the relics of

our force. This vessel, likewise, ran on a sandbank; not altogether

against the inclination of the crew, who did not relish the notion of

forming themselves into a boarding-party. They liked the idea still

less when a score of Englishmen came dashing at them through the

shallows. The half-dozen ablest swimmers alone escaped to tell their

master that, after all they had gone through, those extraordinary

Sahibs were the same as ever.

Amidst pelting rain and freshening wind the second night closed in.

Faint and hungry they sank asleep, those men who would only yield to

death. At midnight some of their number awoke, and became conscious

that they were again afloat. It was blowing a hurricane; the stream

had risen; and there were found those who hoped. But daylight told

another story, for it revealed that they had turned aside out of the

navigable channel into a back water, from which egress was none. And

then their vessel grounded, and the musketry recommenced. Vibart, who

was already dying with a ball through either arm, desired Thomson and

Delafosse to land and beat away the enemy, while those who remained

attempted to ease off the boat. The two officers selected a sergeant

and eleven rank and file of various regiments; and the party sallied

forth, fortunate in that it was appointed for some to tread once more

on English soil, and for the rest at least to die sword in hand. They

had not departed many minutes when a host of insurgents poured down

upon the helpless troop of women and wounded men, like wolves upon a

flock of sheep deserted by their dogs. The boat was captured after a

short but murderous conflict, and escorted back to Cawnpore by a strong

body of horse and foot.

Thomson and Delafosse had enough on their hands already, and could do

little or nothing towards a rescue. On gaining the shore they drove

the foe in style over a considerable space; but were imperceptibly

surrounded in flank and rear by fresh swarms of rebels. Then they

faced about, and cut their way back to the place whence they started,

bleeding, but undiminished in number. They recognised the spot, but

the boat was gone, and so the little troop, reduced henceforward to

travel afoot, followed the course of the stream; partly on the slender

chance of catching up their lost companions; partly from an instinctive

feeling which drew them in the direction of Allahabad, as the wounded

rabbit makes for its burrow, or the winged partridge scurries to

the nearest hedge. With an interval of twenty paces between man and

man, to lessen the hazard of the hostile musketry, they retreated

step by step, loading and firing as best they might upon the horde

of pursuers, who pressed nearer and ever nearer. Shoeless on rugged

ground, bareheaded beneath the burning sun, they fought over three

weary miles of alternate rock and sand, until all but one got safe into

a little temple, or "Sammy-house," as it is called in the jargon spoken

by the British private in India; a jargon which he himself denominates

"Moors." This rustic shrine, situated about a hundred yards from the

river-brink, was just large enough to contain the thirteen as they

stood erect. The mob of natives charged helter-skelter at the doorway,

which was raised three feet above the surrounding earth; but there

was no room for any of them inside, and they presently retired to a

distance, except the eight or ten who had managed to squeeze themselves

to the front. Clio cannot repress a smile as she records that among

those who learned by experience that the rust of the rainy season had

not yet blunted the British bayonets was a brother of Baboo Ram Bux;

the inhospitable chieftain who knew no reverence for suppliants who

had sought sanctuary in the precincts of his local gods, and who now

sent an express to the Nana to the effect that the Nazarenes were still

invincible.

Our countrymen after this enjoyed a short respite, during which they

shared a pint or two of putrid water which had collected at the

bottom of a hole in the stone altar. Unfortunately the piety of the

neighbourhood had of late failed to contribute any oblations of fruit

or cakes, which would certainly not have been respected by the famished

Christians. But the insurgents soon returned to the attack; made an

unsuccessful attempt to dig up the foundations; and finally, with the

view of smoking the besieged out of their citadel, constructed and

set alight a large pile of faggots. It was not till the enemy showed

signs of an intention to mend the fire with some bags of gunpowder

that the garrison began to be seriously alarmed. Then they rushed out,

scattering the embers with their bare feet, and leaped the parapet

which enclosed the plot of dedicated ground. Six, who could not swim,

ran full into the middle of the crowd, carrying their lives for sale to

the best market. Seven reached the bank, and flung in their firelocks,

and then themselves. The lead in their pouches dragged them so far down

that the first flight of bullets splashed harmless on the troubled

surface. By the time the sepoys had reloaded their pieces, a score of

rapid strokes had rendered our countrymen by no means easy targets for

an excited Hindoo marksman. Two were shot through the head. Another,

overcome with exhaustion, turned over on his back, and yielded to

the stream, which impelled him towards a shoal where his murderers

were awaiting him with uplifted bludgeons. The others resisted the

blandishments of the wily foe, who endeavoured to coax them within push

of lance by offers of food and life, and, ducking like coots at the

flash of musketry, swam, and floated, and swam again; while Ganges,

as if resenting the desecration of his holy waves by such an Iliad of

bloodshed, bare bravely up the chin of these fugitives who had confided

themselves to his protection. One by one the hunters desisted from the

chase. A trooper on horseback kept the game in view for some miles; but

in the end he too fell behind, and was no more seen.

The four Englishmen were sitting up to their necks in water, two good

leagues below the point where they first plunged, when the sound of

approaching voices again sent them diving after the manner of otters

surprised by the throng of hounds and spearmen. As they rose to the

upper air, they were greeted with a shout of, "Sahib! Sahib! Why keep

away? We are friends." The new-comers, however, were so formidable

in aspect and equipment that Thomson refused to come to land until,

after a short parley, they volunteered to throw their weapons into

the river as a proof of their sincerity. Their assurances of amity

afforded our countrymen a passable excuse for giving in, without

inspiring any great amount of confidence. At the very worst, a blow

on the head or a thrust in the chest killed more expeditiously than

drowning or inanition. It was better to die and have done with it,

than to endure all the torment of death without the repose, as of late

had seemed to be their apportioned lot. And so they turned, and swam

in, and were helped ashore naked as Ulysses when he was washed up on

the Phæacian coast after his wrestle with the Adriatic surf. Like him,

their knees and wrists gave away beneath them: for their vigour was

subdued by long toil among the billows: and their bodies were livid

and swollen; and much water oozed from mouth and nostril; and they lay

without breath, and speech, and well nigh without life, stricken by an

exceeding weariness. They had between them a flannel shirt, a strip of

linen cloth, and five severe wounds. Exposure to the heat had puffed

the skin of their shoulders with huge blisters, as if their clothes had

been burned off their backs by fire. But they found an Alcinöus in the

person of Dirigbijah Singh, a loyal gentleman of Oude; the landlord

of that district, and the chieftain to whom their captors owed

feudal allegiance. Good-natured as they proved to be, these fellows

could not resist the temptation of plundering the Englishmen who had

been so unaccountably delivered into their hands. They abstracted a

cap-pouchful of rupees which poor Murphy had tied under his right

knee, the nominal price, it may be, of some buckets drawn at a risk

which could not be valued in money. After lying for a while wrapped in

blankets, the refugees recovered strength sufficient to allow of their

being supported to the nearest village, over a distance which appeared

to them more miles than it was furlongs in reality. They were taken to

the hut of the headman, who received them kindly, and set before them

lentil porridge, wheat cakes, and preserves, of which they eat like men

who had fed little and badly during a month past, and for seventy hours

had not fed at all.

After a long meal and a short nap the Englishmen set out for the fort

where Dirigbijah Singh resided; Thomson clad with the solitary shirt,

and Delafosse in a borrowed rug. Private Murphy and Gunner Sullivan

were suffering too much from recent wounds to care about appearances.

The officers resigned to them an elephant which had been despatched for

their conveyance, and bestrode a pony, like a pair of needy and valiant

knights belonging to a primitive order. As they passed through the

villages, peasants came forth with milk and sweatmeats, and discovered

that the Sahibs had changed their opinion as to the acceptability of

"dollies;" those presents of Oriental dainties which collectors and

commissioners contemptuously make over to their servants, reserving a

handful of pistachio nuts for the children, and a box of Cabul grapes

to improve the dessert of their next dinner-party. Darkness set in ere

the cavalcade rode up to the fort of Moorar Mhow. The rajah, an old

man of venerable presence, was seated in the open air encircled by

his sons, his body-guard, his tenants, and his torch-bearers, to the

number of some hundred and fifty persons. He requested our countrymen

to alight; inquired minutely into the story of the siege; evinced warm

approbation of their courage, and wonder at their escape; and after

promising his countenance and hospitality, sent them indoors to an

abundant repast washed down with native wine. Tired of everything save

eating, they supped right well, and then, stretched on horse-litter and

covered with a bit of carpet, the wanderers rested at last. Soundly

they slumbered that night; and soundly, too, slumbered their six

comrades, on whom the moon looked down through her watery veil as they

lay around the little temple amidst the trampled brushwood, on their

brow the frown of battle, and in their breast the wound that doth not

shame.

Here the four Englishmen remained for three weeks unmolested and

tolerably happy. They had spent at least one equal period of time in

far less comfortable quarters. They wore coats and trousers cut by a

native tailor. Their hurts were poulticed by a native doctor. They sat

down thrice a day with British appetites to a meal of native food;

and, whenever there was nothing else to be done, they slept. Heedless

of the flies, which clustered about their bandaged limbs; careless

of the future, and willingly oblivious of the past,--they dreamed,

and woke, and yawned, and shifted their straw, and settled themselves

down for another fit of drowsiness. Azimoolah might have his eye upon

them: the Nana might have spoken the word of doom: up to Delhi and

down to Patna every pass might be blockaded by a rebel post: but for

the present they could doze, morning, noon, and eve. Their principal

diversion consisted in viewing the performance by the Rajah and his

priests of some quaint and pretty domestic rites. The master of the

house paid them a daily and very pleasant visit; and his good lady sent

constantly to ask after the welfare of the strangers, whose fearless

deportment under their abject and precarious circumstances she had

noted with womanly interest, as she gazed, herself invisible, from

behind the fretted stone-work which fenced her verandah.

Thomson and his companions were forbidden by their host to set foot

outside the circuit of the walls: as the vicinity was infested with

rebels, who already regarded the country as their own, and appeared to

imagine themselves welcome anywhere. There were generally some of them

inside the fort, vapouring about, sword on thigh and matchlock in hand,

and pestering the domestics to get them a sight of the Sahibs. The

soldiers of the Cawnpore brigade were indulged in frequent interviews

with their former officers, always in the presence of a detachment

from the Rajah's body-guard. These mutineers were full of the great

things that were going to be done in the course of the next year by

the armies of the religious. A trooper had been despatched to Moscow

on a camel, and was to return with a host of Russian Mussulmans. Such

Englishmen as had not yet been knocked on the head were to be secured

and shipped off at Calcutta; and afterwards the Nana would embark for

Europe, conquer our island, and make it over to Hindoo shareholders

constituted into a joint-stock Kumpani. That magic word would conjure

up a fresh train of ideas, and they would descant upon the flagrant

iniquity of Lord Dalhousie, and maintain that, had it not been for the

annexation of Oude, the empire of John Kumpani might have endured for

all time: but that it was not so ordained; inasmuch as the ancient

oracles, which could not lie, had allotted to that empire a duration

of a hundred years, and no more. This prediction came true, but not in

the sense anticipated by the leaders of the insurrection. The honour

of justifying this prophecy was reserved for Sir Charles Wood and Lord

Stanley; not for Azimoolah and the Maharaja of Bithoor. That potentate

repeatedly summoned Dirigbijah Singh to deliver up the refugees to

his regal arbitrement: but the stout old fellow answered that he held

of His Majesty the King of Oude, and knew nothing of Seereek Dhoondoo

Punth and his pretensions to royalty. Havelock and Neill soon provided

the Nana with more pressing business than the pursuit of his vengeance,

or the assertion of his supremacy.

The Rajah came to the conclusion that a change of domicile was

essential to the security of our countrymen, about the time that they

were growing sated of laughing at sepoy bluster, and watching the

Brahmins of the household ring bells and sprinkle flowers with holy

water. They accordingly retired to the seclusion of a hamlet bordering

on the river, where they amused themselves as best they could with a

volume bearing the inscription "53rd Regiment Native Infantry Book

Club;" which had been picked out of the stream by one among their

attendants, as it floated by amidst a quantity of torn papers and

smashed furniture: so many indications of the minute and searching

character of the mischief that was being wrought above. After the

lapse of a week, the Rajah sent them across to a landholder of his

acquaintance, who lived on the south bank, and who undertook to hand

them on to the nearest European encampment. They took leave of their

chivalrous preserver with many expressions of unaffected regret, and

a silent resolution never to rest until he had received some tangible

mark of their gratitude and regard. On reaching the other shore their

new patron packed them off towards Allahabad by a cross-road, in a

bullock-cart without springs, preceded by an escort of four armed

retainers. After bumping along for an hour the driver stopped, and

informed them, in low and agitated tones, that there were guns ahead,

planted athwart their path. And so they alighted, those way-worn

fugitives, solicitous to learn whether they should again have to run,

and swim, and lurk, and starve; and they crept stealthily along the

edge of the road, and, turning the corner, found themselves within a

few yards of the white and freckled face of an English sentry.

Five years subsequently Murphy left his old regiment, and volunteered

for India in another corps. Presently it began to be rumoured at

mess that there was a man in the ranks who had gone through the

siege and the slaughter of Cawnpore. The Colonel made all necessary

inquiries, and reported the matter to the Commander-in-chief: who at

once appointed Murphy custodian of the Memorial Gardens. Here he may

be seen, in the balmy forenoons of the cold weather, sauntering about

in a pith helmet and linen jacket; a decent little Irishman, very

ready to give a feeling and intelligent account of what took place

under his immediate observation, and insisting much on the fact that

he and the gunner, unable to speak a syllable of "Moors," would have

been helpless but for the knowledge of Hindoostanee possessed by the

sepoy officers. He retains a lively impression of the eagerness with

which the English privates whom they encountered on the Allahabad

highway contributed their allowances of liquor to treat the men who

had not tasted beer for eight summer weeks. He points out the stone

beneath which reposes poor Sullivan, who died of fatigue and debility,

taking the form of cholera, within a fortnight of his restoration to

safety. Delafosse lived once more to play the man, fighting under

Chamberlain in the passes of the Hindoo Koosh: and Thomson to compose

the story of what he had seen and undergone, so told that it may be

read by a Christian without horror, and by an educated person without

disgust. He was of opinion that a soldier who had performed his duty

should not stoop to the vocabulary of a hangman. This man, scarred

from head to heel with sepoy bullets,--who had carried his life in

his hand for months together,--who had lost friends, possessions, and

health in the frightful mêlée,--could still write like a modest and

tolerant gentleman: while officers, to whom the rebellion had brought

nothing except promotion and chance of distinction, were declaiming

and printing about battues, and fine bags, and tucking up niggers, and

polishing off twenty brace of Pandies. He made it his care that the

worthy Rajah of Moorar Mhow should be rewarded with a handsome pension;

that the faithful sepoys of his own battalion should obtain credit for

their loyalty; that a fitting monument should be erected to the memory

of his dead comrades; and that the services of his living companions

in arms should not pass unrecorded. He left it for others to exult

when shopkeepers and bankers, whose property had been confiscated by

the Nana, and plundered by our own mutinous troops, were condemned and

executed for having acknowledged a _de facto_ monarch; when pedlars and

bazaar-porters were strung up by scores to a gallows planted across the

mouth of the funereal well: truly a graceful tribute to the manes of

gentle English women.[4]

At five in the evening on the twenty-eighth of June, the Nana held a

state review in honour of his victory of the preceding day. His force

looked well on paper, and made a very respectable show in the field.

There turned out six entire regiments of foot, and two of horse;

besides strong detachments from battalions which had been disbanded at

a distance from Cawnpore. The ranks of the artillery were perceptibly

thinned by three weeks of desperate fighting. To them was especially

due the success of the cause: and they now bore the brunt of the

rejoicing. Few but zealous, they worked their pieces with a will, and

fired away their ammunition as if henceforward there was no occasion

for keeping any against the day of battle; as if the clubs of villagers

and the daggers of banditti might safely be trusted to gather up the

leavings of the sepoys. Bala Rao was welcomed on to the ground with

seventeen discharges. The Maharaja himself at length enjoyed the

compliment of the royal reception which had been so ardently coveted

and so strenuously denied. He was greeted on his appearance by the

full sum of twenty-one explosions, each bought with a day of carnage.

His ears tingling at the unaccustomed sensation, he congratulated

the mutineers on their common triumph, and promised to distribute a

hundred thousand rupees as an instalment of the debt which he owed to

the army: an announcement that produced a repetition of the salute.

Then he took his departure: but the enthusiasm which he left behind

could evaporate only in a wholesale expenditure of Government powder.

The nephew of the Nana, and his brother Baba Bhut, were each honoured

with seventeen reports. Bala, who was deservedly a favourite with

that gang of disciplined assassins, came in for a second bout of

eleven guns: while Jwala Pershad and Tantia Topee got the same number

a-piece. This closed the proceedings: during which Tantia, whose mind

had decidedly a practical cast, was better employed than in listening

to an idle cannonade. He was closeted with a man of business named

Dabeedeen, liquidating accounts with the owners of the flotilla which

had been sunk or burned. Between four and five thousand rupees were

paid over as compensation for the boats; and fifty pounds were put

aside to remunerate the bargemen for their share in the operations. It

was afterwards asserted that Dabeedeen took undue precautions to avoid

cheating himself in the transaction.

On the morrow, some boys loitering about on the Oude side of the river

came upon an English officer skulking in a ravine. He was of tall

stature, and about forty years old, with a bit of sacking twisted round

his waist, but otherwise naked. The children imparted their discovery

to the peasants of an adjoining hamlet, who took the fugitive to their

headman. The unhappy gentleman did not speak any native language,

and could only point towards the East with an imploring gesture, and

pronounce the word "Lucknow." They gave him sugar, which he eat up

greedily with both hands, and so afforded a bystander an opportunity

for observing that he bore the mark of a ring fresh on his finger.

Touched by the contrast of his fallen state, these good people showed a

disposition to do what they could for his preservation; but just then

some landholders of the neighbourhood arrived at the head of a numerous

array, and prevailed over these benevolent intentions by threats of

present violence and future punishment. A short while afterwards, an

ex-clerk of the commissariat department met fifty or sixty fellows

"with drawn sabres and lighted matches, bringing along a Sahib bound."

They halted under a grove which stood near the chapel of ease, and sent

one of their party to fetch the Nana. In his stead came Baba Bhut, and,

in the name of his brother, bade them kill their prisoner. To this they

answered: "Put weapons into his hand, and let him strike us, and then

we will strike in return: but we will not slay him thus." Some troopers

of the Second Cavalry, who happened to be in attendance, had a less

nice theory of honour. Three-quarters of an hour subsequently, while

the clerk was performing his ablutions, the corpse was thrown into the

Ganges, gashed all over with sword-cuts.

All the night of the twenty-ninth our people who had been captured

at Nuzzufgur by Baboo Ram Bux were slowly remounting the stream.

As it grew light they began to recognise objects and places which

they had trusted never again to behold: and, two hours before noon,

the doomed boatload lay to at the landing-place whence they had set

forth, to return thus after three such days as had not repaid them for

the trouble of making their escape. What ensued an Englishman would

willingly tell in phrases not his own. The following account was taken

from the lips of a native spy, and is supported by a mass of evidence.

The mention of General Wheeler is, of course, inaccurate.

"There were brought back," says the man, "sixty Sahibs, twenty-five

Mem Sahibs, and four children. The Nana ordered the Sahibs to be

separated from the Mem Sahibs, and shot by the First Bengal Native

Infantry. But they said, 'We will not shoot Wheeler Sahib, who has

made our regiment's name great, and whose son is our Quarter-master.

Neither will we kill the Sahib people. Put them in prison.' Then said

the Nadiree regiment: 'What word is this? Put them in prison? We will

kill the males.' So the Sahibs were seated on the ground: and two

companies of the Nadiree regiment stood with their muskets, ready to

fire. Then said one of the Mem Sahibs, the doctor's wife: (What doctor?

How should I know?) 'I will not leave my husband. If we must die,

I will die with him.' So she ran, and sat down behind her husband,

clasping him round the waist. Directly she said this, the other Mem

Sahibs said: 'We also will die with our husbands.' And they all sat

down, each by her husband. Then their husbands said: 'Go back;' but

they would not. Whereupon the Nana ordered his soldiers; and they,

going in, pulled them away forcibly. But they could not pull away the

doctor's wife, who there remained. Then the Padre called out to the

Nana, and requested leave to read prayers before they died." (This

Padre was Captain Seppings, with his broken arm. The doctor's wife,

good soul, is known to have been Mrs. Boyes.) "The Nana granted it, and

the Padre's hands were loosened so far as to enable him to take a small

book from his pocket, with which he read. But all this time one of the

Sahibs, who was shot in the arm, kept crying out to the sepoys: 'If you

mean to kill us, why don't you set about it quickly and have the work

done?'" Poor impatient Sahib! Making the responses in his passionate

way! "After the Padre had read a few prayers, he shut the book, and

the Sahibs shook hands all round. Then the sepoys fired. One Sahib

rolled one way, one another, as they sat. But they were not dead: only

wounded. So they went in and finished them off with swords."

Here is a thing which was actually done on the last Tuesday of June,

eight years back from the present date. Three months before, these

Sahibs and Mem Sahibs were passing an existence no more eventful, and

apparently no less secure than the career of a county-court judge,

or a military man quartered at Sheffield or Colchester. They laid

their plans for the Meerut race-meeting and the biennial trip to an

Himalayan station in a confidence of fruition equal to that with which

a home-staying public servant anticipates the cup-day at Ascot, and the

pass which he is going to discover in September. In April, Cawnpore

society was lamenting the departure of one period of cold weather,

and looking forward to the arrival of another; but, ere the rains

had well set in, it had come to this, that the last batch of English

officers were lying stiff and stark on the parade-ground, in front

of the building where their widows and orphans were enduring a brief

imprisonment for life.

The number of captives had yet to receive a final addition. At the

station of Futtehgur, which was situated about seventy miles up the

river from Cawnpore, some hundred and eighty English people of every

age and profession were alive when the month of June commenced. The

cantonments were occupied by the Tenth Native Infantry, under the

command of Colonel Smith, a man distinguished by courage so closely

allied with rashness, and firmness so nearly akin to obstinacy, that

the European residents could not have fared worse had they been under

the charge of a waverer or a coward. He was a zealous adherent of that

sect among the Bengal officers which worshipped the sepoy. A willing

martyr to the creed that he professed, his devotion would have excused

his fanaticism, had he been the only victim: but no personal calamity

can atone for pedantry which staked and lost nine score English

souls on the truth of the axiom that a mutineer was still docile and

affectionate until he could be proved a murderer.

During the latter half of May successive tidings of massacre,

insurrection, and, finally, of an approaching rebel force, excited

the fears of our countrymen, and the impious hopes of the soldiery:

as turbulent a set of scamps as any in Northern India. At length Mr.

Probyn, the magistrate of the district, whose acute discernment, if

left to itself, would have saved a large asset of life from the wreck

of our fortunes, took measures for evacuating Futtehgur before the

extreme crisis. He put himself into communication with Hurdeo Bux, a

loyal noble whose estates lay on the left bank, and obtained an escort

of fifty picked men and the offer of an asylum. At midnight, between

the third and fourth of June, more than a hundred of the English

inhabitants started down the river in a fleet of twelve or thirteen

boats, laden with baggage, merchandise, furniture, and an ample store

of provisions. Colonel Smith was not a little disgusted that so many

people should combine to put a slight upon his pet battalion; but

consoled himself with the reflection that time and the issue would

judge between the sepoys and their defamers. The fugitives comprised

the merchants of the place, and the planters of the vicinity; the

civilians, missionaries, clerks, craftsmen, and pensioners; together

with at least forty women, several nurseries of children, and a

multitude of native domestics. They anchored for refreshment after

accomplishing a stage of four leagues, and, before breakfast was

finished, were joined by certain officers of the Tenth, who announced

that the regiment had mutinied on parade, and that all was over at

Futtehgur. The expedition proceeded on its way, under a desultory fire

of musketry from the country people, who were for the most part hostile

to our cause. Next morning arrived the bailiff of Hurdeo Bux, who

brought Probyn an invitation from his master to take refuge in his fort

of Dhurrumpore. It was resolved to split the party. The magistrate,

with forty others, accepted the proffered hospitality: while three of

the most roomy vessels, containing nineteen men, twenty-three women,

and twenty-six children, pushed forwards in the direction of Cawnpore.

And they reached their destination. On the evening of the ninth of

June the little squadron was brought to on a sandbank a few furlongs

above Nawabgunge, the north-west suburb of Cawnpore. Here they abode

forty-eight hours, listening to the ceaseless cannonade which pealed

along the stream from the south. Then they sent a messenger bearing a

request for permission to pass on their way: the answer to which was

brought by a horde of mutineers, who had no sooner appeared in view than

the boatmen set the thatch alight, and fell with bludgeons and sabres

upon the passengers, who were taking their afternoon tea, and who now

threw themselves over the bulwarks, and sought concealment in a patch

of high grass. But their cover was fired by the rebel guns; two ladies

and a child were scorched or suffocated to death; and the rest of the

company fell into the hands of the troopers of the Second Cavalry, to

whose _esprit-de-corps_ this one-sided work was more suited than the

dubious contest which was raging around our intrenchment. The captives

were made fast to a long rope, and marched as far as ladies with bare

and bleeding feet could carry the babies and drag along the children:

for by this time all their servants had fled, with the exception

of two Ayahs and a few menials of the very lowest order. Here, as

elsewhere, fortitude and fidelity were in inverse proportion to dignity

of caste. Our people spent the night supperless, on the spot where

they had halted; and at daybreak, after breakfasting on a mouthful

of water a-piece, were distributed among sixteen bullock carts, and

conveyed into the presence of the Nana: to whom they pointed out the

folly of which he would be guilty if he indulged himself in wanton and

indiscriminate murder. It was no easy task, they bade him reflect, to

empty Europe of Europeans. He is said to have been inclined to mercy:

but Bala Rao, who, if there was a choice between the brothers, seems to

have been the blackest villain of the three, made such an outcry that

the Nana stifled his nascent humanity in order to prevent the scandal

of a family quarrel. The ladies and the little ones received orders to

seat themselves on the ground; and the gentlemen, with their hands tied

behind them, were drawn up as a rear rank. The Second Cavalry had soon

another victory to inscribe upon their standards. "I witnessed all

this with my own eyes," says a Hindoo nurse, who, while they were both

above the soil, would not lose sight of her dear young charge: "for I

was sitting about thirty paces on one side. Two pits were dug, and all

the bodies thrown in. The Nana was not present. May God take vengeance

on him, and on these wicked men!" Nanukchund notes in his diary that

"reports of guns were heard from the direction of Nawabgunge. A little

after twelve A.M. two dead bodies of Europeans were seen floating down

the Ganges; and sepoys were seen in a boat coming down behind these

corpses and firing off their muskets as they came." Next day he found

occasion to seek a retreat in a village which lay at some distance up

the river. "I perceived," he writes, "bodies of ladies and gentlemen

lying along the banks of the Ganges. I cannot describe the grief I felt

at this sight. The corpses could not float down from the shallowness of

the river. I saw three boats and a barge which had been burnt by the

rebels. I questioned the people of the place, and learned that wine and

other articles of merchandise were in the boats, but the boatmen had

plundered the liquors, and, when drunk, cut down the gentlemen."

Soon after, "a body of troopers from the Nana came to seize me, and

surrounded the house where I was. But I was saved from the hands of

these ruffians, and kept in concealment in a garden. At nightfall

the gardener sent four men with me, and thus I managed to reach the

shore. It was not, however, my fate to find a boat, and I resolved to

drown myself in the river, as I thought it better to die than to fall

into the hands of so cruel a foe. After midnight I left the garden.

The first ford I came to had water up to the waist only, and it was

moonlight: so I waded across, and reached the next channel. There

I saw the corpses of the Europeans whom the boatmen had slain when

drunk: I cannot tell the exact number of bodies, but they extended

here and there about a mile. I saw three dead young ladies. They all

were dressed, but the low-caste people had commenced to take off their

clothes; and some had been torn by animals. Portions of property,

books, and papers, belonging to the plundered boats, were also strewn

about the shores. These drunken boatmen were armed, some with clubs,

some with weapons; and they were running about the woods like wild

men. I cannot describe the terror that seized me at this moment. How I

sighed for the British rule! I was trembling with fear, and knew not

where I was going. On reaching the opposite bank I was senseless for

four hours."

Meanwhile at Futtehgur was being played an unique tragi-comedy. On the

fourth of June, during morning parade, twenty thousand pounds' worth

of Government silver was in course of removal from the treasury to

the fort. This mark of distrust, coming close upon the departure of

the flotilla, proved too much for the sensibility of these military

Brahmins; a number of whom stepped out from the ranks, surrounded

the carts, and insisted that the money should be taken to their own

quarters. Colonel Smith and the adjutant came forward and expostulated

with the insurgents; but they were pushed up against the wall, and

kept within a semicircle of levelled bayonets until the cash was

safely deposited in the middle of the sepoy lines. These proceedings

caused a slight unpleasantness, which did not wholly disappear until

the troops had been gratified with an advance of two months' pay, a

promise of six months' extra allowances, and an assurance that the

treasure should henceforward be kept on the parade-ground under their

exclusive custody: inasmuch as the Company's property could be nowhere

so secure as in the guardianship of the Company's soldiers. That

evening Smith harangued as many of the battalion as chose to attend;

told them that their conduct had been disgraceful, but threw the blame

on the shoulders of the recruits; and entreated them to believe that he

could forgive and forget. He then pronounced the regiment faithful and

staunch. And so the first little difficulty between the colonel and his

men had been patched up, and both parties were living together on terms

of contemptuous acquiescence on the one side, and doting credulity on

the other.

Such was the state of things which Probyn found when, after an interval

of four days, he rode into the cantonment accompanied by a lieutenant

and an ensign of the Tenth. Immediately upon their arrival the colonel

informed the magistrate that his services were no longer required,

as the district was entirely under martial law, and put the two

subalterns in arrest for having deserted their posts. The poor lads

represented that they had been driven from Futtehgur by the fire of

their own companies: but this man, whom sepoy steel pointed at his

chest would not convince of sepoy disaffection, refused to accept the

word of his officers when it clashed with a darling theory. Probyn,

who foresaw the result, wrote to the Europeans then residing under the

roof of Hurdeo Bux, stating that in his opinion the battalion could

not possibly be kept together; and recommending that their host should

put his fort into a defensible condition, and engage five hundred

matchlock-men on the credit of the English Government. Feeling that

he was useless while in the same locality with the colonel, he shook

from his feet the dust of the devoted station, and made his way back to

Dhurrumpore.

He was followed by a letter from Smith earnestly inviting the refugees

to leave their new ally, and throw themselves into the arms of their

natural protectors, the native soldiers of the Tenth regiment. He

affirmed that there were at least a hundred and fifty men upon whom

he absolutely relied; and that, if the worst should come to the

worst, he could with their aid fight his way down to Allahabad. The

poor creatures, who were very uncomfortably lodged, and who regretted

the punkahs and musquito-curtains, the soda-water and bottled beer

of their abandoned homes, jumped at the proposition in spite of all

the logic and eloquence which Probyn could bring to bear upon their

infatuation. He persuaded no one except his own family, and a solitary

civilian, who had escaped from a slaughter and tumult in Rohilcund too

narrowly and recently for him to care to move again. The rest of the

party returned to Futtehgur, and re-instated themselves in the good

graces of the deluded veteran. Before very long, they were treated

with a specimen of sepoy loyalty. On the sixteenth of June the colonel

took measures to carry out a capital sentence of the civil courts.

The soldiery, however, considered that at such a time there might be

something awkward in the precedent of an execution, and intimated that

the criminal had better be released. Their intimation met with prompt

obedience.

The Seetapore mutineers, laden with English booty, and reeking with

English blood, were now close at hand. Their ringleaders despatched

a letter to the men of the Tenth, calling upon them to murder their

officers: to which the reply was: "Come. We will not oppose you. We

have sworn not to do so: but our vows do not bind you." So little

reciprocity of affection existed in that indecorous dalliance between

authority and sedition. On the eighteenth of June the troops, eager

to fling aside even the pretence of submission and the semblance of

discipline, broke forth into open rebellion; sacked the public chest;

and set up a pretender, whom the event showed to be better than a mere

puppet. The Europeans shut themselves up in the fort, in company with

Kalay Khan, the sole representative of the colonel's hundred and fifty

faithful sepoys. That evening the Seetapore mutineers marched into the

station, hungry for pillage; and, on discovering an empty treasury,

vented their rage by killing every man of the Tenth on whom they could

lay hands. In the course of a week, however, stimulated by the prospect

of a liberal bounty, and the co-operation of some powerful Rohilla

chieftains, the regiments made up their differences, and united to

exterminate the common enemy. For ten days and nights five and thirty

of our countrymen maintained against as many hundred assailants a

rambling tumble-down old earthwork extending over a space of twenty

acres. They fired bags of screws and scrap-iron for grape, and the

heads of sledge-hammers for round-shot. They repulsed three general

assaults. They lived amidst an atmosphere alive with bullets and flying

splinters, and din with the smoke of blazing houses and exploding

mines. At length, when the besiegers were gradually but surely blowing

their way through the rampart, the defenders took to their boats, and

dropped down the current, encumbered by thrice their own number of

women, children, and invalids.

The rest is soon told. The river was low: the pursuit hot and

persistent. The barges grounded; and were got off; and grounded for

the last time. The crews waded ashore to drive away the hostile

sharpshooters: and some were borne back dying; and some never stirred

from the spot where they fell. Vessels hove in view, unwarlike in

their external aspect; but which, as they ran alongside, proved to be

crammed with swordsmen and musketeers. And then ensued mad confusion,

and promiscuous butchery, and suicide that did not merit the name. On

the tenth evening of July, after losing a life for every mile of the

voyage, the expedition got as far as Nawabgunge, but no farther. The

ladies helped to swell the throng of prisoners, and their husbands were

sent whither the men of the Cawnpore garrison had gone before. Three

only were spared, upon their engaging to bring about that the citadel

of Allahabad should be made over to the rebellion. The Nana had reason

for his self-denial. It was worth his while to forego any gratification

to purchase security in the southern quarter. That was the direction in

which was brewing the storm of retribution and reconquest.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] 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.

[4] A single specimen will suffice of the style which, during those

days, a British officer, a Colonel and Companion of the Bath, allowed

himself to adopt in a published work. The page is headed "Major Ouvry's

Battue."

"Major Ouvry had made his dispositions for 'a bag.' Unlike a true

member of the chase, who loves to see his fox take well to the open, he

had headed his game; spreading his cavalry right and left of the road,

to beat back the high crops into which the enemy had skulked. Forming

his line precisely as he would have beaten a field of turnips for game,

a scene commenced which baffles all description."

Unhappily it does not baffle the description of Colonel George

Bouchier, C.B. who proceeds as follows:--

"Peafowl, partridges, and Pandies rose together. The latter gave the

best sport. Here might be seen a Lancer running a-tilt at a wretch who

had unfortunately taken to the open; there a Punjaub trooper cutting

right and left as his victims rose before him; while the enemy, who

were Goojahs, and armed with swords and hatchets, started up as the

line approached, and dashed at their nearest opponent.

"Two troopers and a horse were our only casualties, while about one

hundred brace of Goojahs bit the dust."