CHAPTER V.

THE MASSACRE.

And now Seereek Dhoondoo Punth purposed in the face of all India to

invest himself with the ensigns and the titles of royalty. The contest

had been fought out. The prize lay ready to his grasp. But it was no

light matter to fix upon the auspicious hour when the Mahratta might

take possession of the kingdom that he had carved out with his blade

from the very heart of the dominions held by the alien race which had

despoiled his sire. The soothsayers were consulted on this momentous

point: but they were forestalled in their office by Dabeedeen, the

individual who acted as agent for Tantia Topee in his dealings with the

boatmen; and who now, stimulated by his success in that transaction,

aspired to try his hand at divination. With the audacity of an amateur

he at once named five in the evening of the thirtieth June as the

season when, in accordance with the will of heaven, the Maharaja should

proceed to Bithoor for the purpose of assuming his kingly functions.

There must have been considerable discontent among the members of the

Sacred College when they learned that this volunteer augur had been

rewarded with a fee of five hundred rupees, and a horse on which to

attend the ceremony. The Nana set forth, accompanied by Bala Rao, and

in the course of the next day took his seat as Peishwa on the paternal

throne. The consecrated mark was affixed to his forehead amidst the

roar of guns, and the acclamations of a crowd composed chiefly of

townsmen who had repaired thither to surrender in the shape of an

honorary gift such of their valuables as had not already passed by a

more direct channel into the coffers of the usurper.

Some there were, however, who on this august occasion might rejoice

with unfeigned rapture. The sepoys were gladdened by an announcement

that a large quantity of gold had been sent to the Magazine, and would

there be fashioned into decorations for the ankles of those warriors

who had borne the burden and heat of the great struggle. The Ganges

Canal was bestowed as a perquisite upon Azimoolah. It is difficult to

conceive what would have been the indignation of the Directors who sat

in Leadenhall Street during the years of the Crimean war, had they been

told that the very equivocal native prince who was for ever hanging

about the India House, would one day become sole proprietor of the

gigantic concern which grew dearer to their hearts the more it cost and

the less it yielded.

That night the city of Cawnpore was illuminated, and the following

proclamations were posted in all places of general resort:

"As by the kindness of God and the good fortune of the Emperor all the

Christians who were at Delhi, Poonah, Sattara, and other places, and

even those five thousand European soldiers who went in disguise into

the former city and were discovered, are destroyed and sent to hell by

the pious and sagacious troops, who are firm to their religion; and as

they have been all conquered by the present Government, and as no trace

of them is left in these places, it is the duty of all the subjects and

servants of the Government to rejoice at the delightful intelligence,

and carry on their respective work with comfort and ease."

"As by the bounty of the glorious Almighty and the enemy-destroying

fortune of the Emperor the yellow-faced and narrow-minded people have

been sent to hell, and Cawnpore has been conquered, it is necessary

that all the subjects and landowners should be as obedient to the

present Government as they have been to the former one; that all

the Government servants should promptly and cheerfully engage their

whole mind in executing the orders of the Government; that it is the

incumbent duty of all the peasants and landed proprietors of every

district to rejoice at the thought that the Christians have been

sent to hell, and both the Hindoo and Mahomedan religions have been

confirmed; and that they should as usual be obedient to the authorities

of the Government, and never suffer any complaint against themselves to

reach to the ears of the higher authority."

There is something quaint in the notion of a paternal Government

setting the national mind at ease as to the damnation of the enemy,

and ordaining a public rejoicing over, "the delightful intelligence."

Our authorities never went so far as to imitate the example: but

Calcutta journalism did its best to supply the deficiency. "Fas est

et ab hoste doceri" was the motto of that remarkable department of

ephemeral literature. Among other gems which in 1857 adorned the poetry

corner of the "Englishman," one stands conspicuous both for sentiment

and expression:

"Barring Humanity pretenders

To hell of none are we the willing senders:

But, if to sepoys mercy must be given,

Locate them, Lord, in the back slums of heaven."

Be it observed that Lord Canning, Sir John Peter Grant, Mr. Charles

Buxton, and Sir Henry Rich are here esteemed unworthy even of the

partial and secondary felicity dealt out to Teeka Singh and Mungul

Pandy. A critic who takes into account the creeds held by the

respective writers will of the two productions regard with less

aversion the performance of the Nana. That year of sin and horror

afforded what was in truth an ill commentary upon the injunction

to practise the mercy which rejoiceth against judgment, and on the

oft-repeated assurance that in forgiveness and forbearance, if in

nothing else, the disciple may emulate his master. And we wonder,

forsooth, that our missionaries labour in vain to exalt the effective

power of our faith in the eyes of those very heathen who are conscious

how in the day of temptation talked and acted men calling themselves

after the name of Him whose last miracle was the healing of His

captor, and whose last prayer was for the pardon of His murderers!

On the first of July the prisoners were removed from the Savada Hall

to a small building north of the canal, situated between the black

city and the Ganges. It was their final change of lodgings. To this

day they occupy those premises on a lease which no man may dispute.

This humble dwelling, the residence of some poor quill-driver, Hindoo

or half-caste, as the case may be, had long stood amidst a group of

sightly villas and edifices of social resort, unnoticed except by a

casual sanitary commissioner, and distinguished only by a numeral in

the map of the Ordnance Survey. It has since been known in India as

the Beebeegur, or House of the Ladies; in England as the House of the

Massacre. It comprised two principal rooms, each twenty feet by ten;

certain windowless closets intended for the use of native domestics;

and an open court some fifteen yards square. Here, during a fortnight

of the Eastern summer, were penned two hundred and six persons of

European extraction: for the most part women and children of gentle

birth. The grown men were but five in number: the three gentlemen of

Futtehgur, who are supposed to have been Mr. Thornhill, the judge, and

Colonels Smith and Goldie: together with Mr. Edward Greenway, and his

son Thomas.

If the various degrees of wretchedness are to be estimated by the

faculty for suffering contained in the victim, then were these ladies

of all women the most miserable. Few or none amongst them had been

aware that in some corner of the mansion beneath whose roof their

happier days were passed, there existed such foul holes as those in

which they now lay panting by the score. It was much if they had cared

to hazard a supposition that "the servants slept somewhere about the

compound." They had neither furniture, nor bedding, nor straw; nothing

but coarse and hard bamboo matting, unless they preferred a smoother

couch upon the bare floor. They fed sparely on cakes of unleavened

dough, and lentil-porridge dished up in earthen pans without spoon

or plate. There was some talk of meat on Sundays, but it never came

to anything. Once the children got a little milk. The same day the

head-bearer of Colonel Williams came to pay his respects to the

daughter who was the sole survivor of that officer's household. "I

could not," he says, "get near the ladies on account of the sentries,

but saw that food was being distributed to them. It consisted of

native bread and milk. I remonstrated with a soldier who had formerly

served under my master, and begged of him to supply with better food

people who had lived in a very different way. He gave me eight annas"

(twelvepence) "to go to the bazaar and buy some sweetmeats. I did

so; and on my return Miss Georgiana and a married lady came into

the verandah to meet me. Miss Georgiana repeated to me her mother's

injunctions about my going to her brother. I gave them the sweetmeats,

and had little time to speak to them, for, seeing me, the other ladies

came out into the verandah: on which the sentries turned me out."

The matron of these female prisoners, whom it took so little to

keep in order, was a woman described as tall; of a fair complexion;

twenty-eight or thirty years in age, but with a few grey hairs. She

went by the nickname of "the Begum," and her character was no better

than could be looked for in a waiting-maid of the courtezan who then

ruled the circle of the Nana. She superintended a staff of sweepers,

who furnished the captives with their food. The attendance of such

debased menials was in itself the most ignominious affront which

Oriental malice could invent: and even these were provided exclusively

for the humiliation of our countrywomen, and might do nothing for their

comfort. A young Brahmin, who chanced to look over the fence of the

enclosure, saw some ladies washing their own dirty linen. With the

irrepressible loquacity of an Hindoo he began asking some strangers who

were standing by whether there was no washerman who could undertake to

do for the Mem Sahibs: an ill-timed curiosity which procured him a slap

on the face and a night in the guard-room.

Seventy-five paces from the abode where our people were confined stood

an hotel owned by a Mahomedan proprietor: an erection of considerable

size, daubed with bright yellow paint. Allured, probably, by the

gaudiness of colour, an attraction which no genuine native can resist,

the Nana had selected this building as his head-quarters. A couple

of guns were planted at the entrance of the compound, and a strong

detachment of his retainers kept guard under the portico. Two spacious

centre rooms were reserved for the Maharaja's public receptions. One of

the wings was set apart for the duties of the kitchen and the altar:

and, side by side with religion, cooking went merrily on through every

hour of the twenty-four. In the other Dhoondoo Punth lived from day

to day in a perpetual round of sensuality, amidst a choice coterie of

priests, pandars, ministers, and minions. The reigning beauty of the

fortnight was one Oula or Adala. She was the Thais on whose breast

sunk the vanquished victor, oppressed with brandy and such love as

animates a middle-aged Eastern debauchee. She is said to have counted

by hundreds of thousands the rupees which were lavished on her by the

affection and vanity of her Alexander: and could well afford to spare

one of her suite to look after the prisoners for the fraction of time

during which they were likely to need her services. Every night there

was an entertainment of music, dancing, and pantomime. The hit of the

evening was made by a buffoon who took off amidst shouts of laughter

the stiff carriage of an English officer.

The noise of this unhallowed revelry was plainly audible to the

captives in the adjoining house; and, as they crowded round the windows

to catch the breeze which sprang up at sunset, the glare of torches and

the strains of barbarous melody might remind them of the period when

he who was now arbiter of their existence thought himself privileged

if he could induce them to honour with a half-disdainful acceptance

the hospitality of Bithoor. They sometimes got a nearer view of the

festivities. The Begum daily took across two ladies to the Nana's

stables, where they were set down to grind corn at a hand-mill for

the space of several hours. They generally contrived to bring back a

pocketful of flour for the children.

Hardship, heat, wounds, and want of space and proper nourishment

released many from their bondage before the season marked out by

Azimoolah for a jail delivery such as the world had seldom witnessed.

A native doctor, himself a prisoner, has left a list of deaths which

occurred between the seventh and the fifteenth of the month. Within

these eight days, of which one was incomplete, as will be seen by those

who read on, there succumbed to cholera and dysentery eighteen women,

seven children, and an Hindoo nurse. There is a touching little entry

which deserves notice. In the column headed "Names" appear the words

"eck baba" (one baby): under that marked "disease" is written "ap se"

(of itself).

Dying by threes and fours of frightful maladies, the designations of

which they hardly knew; trying to eat nauseous and unwonted food, and

to sleep upon a bed of boards; tormented by flies, and musquitoes, and

dirt, and prickly heat, and all the lesser evils that aggravate and

keep for ever fresh the consciousness of a great misfortune: doing for

the murderer of their dearest ones that labour which in Asia has always

been the distinctive sign and badge of slavery: to such reality of

woe had been reduced these beings whose idea of peril had once been

derived from romances, and who had been acquainted with destitution

only through tracts and the reports of charitable institutions. Alas

for the delicate Mem Sahibs, and the pretty Missy Babas, for whom

nothing had formerly been too dainty and well-appointed! Alas for the

handy and patient soldiers' wives, who had followed their good men into

the discomfort of barrack life to be rewarded thus! Alas for sturdy

Bridget Widdowson, and tender Mrs. Moore, who bore on her bosom a child

destined never to lisp the name of his brave father! Her perchance one

of the victors, whose son or brother had fallen beneath her husband's

sword, (for he was no sluggard in the onset), might see weeping like

Andromache over her toil at the weary mill, and might say: "This was

the wife of him who of all the English fought the best, whenever the

battle waxed hot around their wall." And, so speaking, he would renew

her grief at thought of the man who was no longer there to shield her

from the day of bondage. But he, floating on his face past some distant

city, or stranded on a bank of sand trodden by none save the vulture

and the crocodile, saw not how she was misused, nor heard when she

cried for succour.

The number of captives diminished so fast that the Nana began to fear

lest he should soon have no hostages wherewith to provide against the

consequences of a possible reverse. They were accordingly driven twice

a day into the verandah, and forced to sit there until they had inhaled

as much fresh air as, in the judgment of the Begum, would support an

English constitution for the space of twelve hours. This substitute for

the morning gallop and the evening promenade was very distasteful to

our ladies, on account of the idlers who came to stare, and remark how

odd a Lady Sahib looked when neither on horseback nor in her carriage.

The poor creatures were overheard whispering among themselves that the

British never used their prisoners thus.

It is probable that from this circumstance originated the rumour

concerning European females who had been publicly maltreated in the

bazaar. Two or three sentences must here be written upon those fables

which it is our misfortune that we once believed, and our shame if we

ever stoop to repeat. Delhi, Cawnpore, and Futtehgur were the three

stations in which any considerable multitude of our countrywomen

were placed under the disposal of the mutineers. With regard to the

two latter places, if we except one single case of abduction, it is

absolutely certain that our ladies died without mention, and we may

confidently hope without apprehension, of dishonour. Those revolting

stories which accompanied to Southampton the first tidings of the

tumult at Delhi may all be traced to some gossip regarding the fate

of Miss Jennings, the daughter of the chaplain, and her friend, Miss

Clifford. It is now ascertained beyond all question that these girls

were sitting in an upper room of the palace gateway, when they heard

on the stairs a rush of footsteps and a clattering of scabbards, and

were cut down dead as they rose from their chairs to learn the cause

of this strange intrusion.

Some, who love to attribute every event to the special interposition of

Providence, have insisted that nothing short of fabricated indignities,

and tales of mutilation equally untrue and more easily disproved,

could have kindled the explosion of wrath and pity which sent forth

by myriads the youth of England again to subdue Hindostan beneath a

Christian yoke. Piety, unwilling to pronounce authoritatively on such a

matter, will be loth to imagine that God provoked men to utter and to

credit lies for the furtherance of any purpose which could conduce to

His glory. As must ever be in the order of things by Him determined,

the evil seed produced evil fruit. Grapes came not of those thorns, nor

figs of those thistles. The murder of a hundred families, the ruin of a

thousand homesteads, were incentives capable of exalting our national

enthusiasm to the requisite pitch without the aid of exaggeration or

invention. Those hateful falsehoods serve but to evoke from the depths

of our nature the sombre and ferocious instincts which religion and

civilization can never wholly eradicate. To their account unhappy India

may charge most of the innocent blood that was spilt and the bad blood

that remains.

It was not long before the usurper began to experience the proverbial

uneasiness of a crowned head. At no time a favourite with the Cawnpore

population, he now was cordially detested by all the respectable

inhabitants; who, after his downfall, testified their hatred by

refusing to pronounce his name without the addition of some

disparaging epithet. The majestic appellations of Maharaja and Peishwa

were at once cut down to "Nana soor," "that pig of a Nana:" and this

was the mildest and the most decent of all his agnomina, with the

exception, perhaps, of "budmash," which answers as nearly as possible

to the French "coquin." "That great budmash, the Nana," occurs in the

peroration of one of Nanukchund's outbursts of Hindoo eloquence. For

the present, however, the townspeople evinced their ill-will by a tacit

but very effective opposition to the new _régime_. His requisitions of

money and supplies met with no response; and he could procure nothing

except by open force, which he was not slow to employ. The city had,

indeed, little motive to love him or the state of things which he

represented. A Mahomedan author describes the aspect of a locality

where the rebellion had obtained the ascendancy in these graphic

words:--"Since the day of my arrival I never found the bazaar open,

unless it were a few poor shops. The shopkeepers and the citizens are

extremely sorry for losing their safety, and curse the mutineers from

morning to evening. The people and the workmen starve, and widows cry

in their huts."

The class who had most cause to pray for the return of order were the

natives of Bengal Proper, then settled in the Upper Provinces for

purposes of commerce. Impoverished, suspected, menaced, and outraged,

they were conscious that neither life, limb, nor liberty were worth a

fortnight's purchase. Many a rich Bengalee within the borders of the

insurrection sat all day behind closed blinds, with a pistol in his

girdle, a bag of jewels in his turban, and a horse ready saddled at the

back door of his garden. And it was not without reason that these men

suffered so cruelly: for they were only less loyal than the English

themselves. The wealthy, industrious, and effeminate denizens of Lower

Bengal had no desire to see the many-headed and irrational despotism

of a Prætorian guard substituted for the mild and regular sway of old

John Company. The conduct of the soldiery rendered them exceedingly

uncomfortable and not a little indignant: and they lost no opportunity

of wreaking their spite upon the turbulent mercenaries who would not

allow honest folks to go about their business in peace. The sepoys who

mutinied at Chittagong and Dacca, both of which stations lie within

the limits of Bengal, met with such hostility from the country-people

that they gave up all thoughts of moving on Calcutta, and endeavoured

to make their way into Assam. Few ever reached the frontier. They

literally rotted away in the jungle. Some died of starvation: some of

fever and ague. The foragers were knocked on the head by the peasantry,

skilled, like all Hindoo villagers, in the play of the quarter-staff.

The stragglers were carried off by wild animals which swarm amidst the

swamps and forests that fringe the great rivers of eastern India. At

length, driven into a corner, they one morning cut the throats of the

women who had hitherto accompanied their march, and dispersed into the

wilderness, to re-appear not even on the gallows. They could not have

fared worse amidst the moors of Yorkshire or Northumberland.

It is painful to remember how we requited the attachment and fidelity

of Bengal. At a time when all good citizens, without distinction of

birth and creed, should have united in one firm front against the

common foe, it was the delight of many among the English residents

in the capital to heap insult and accusation on their dark-skinned

neighbours. Then, in the presence of that portentous danger, every

condition of soul, from the height of magnanimity to incredible

baseness, might be observed in striking and instructive contrast.

While at one end of Northern India stout Sir John was fighting his

province in the interests of the general weal; denuding himself of

British soldiers, and committing his existence and reputation to the

faith of Sikh allies; doing steadfastly in the hour the work of the

hour; remedying the evil which was sufficient unto the day, and, like

a good Christian as he was, leaving to God the things of the morrow:

at the other end a clique of Englishmen, driven insane by terror and

virulence, were plotting how to form themselves into a Committee of

Public Safety, depose the viceroy, seize the reins of the state, and

have their will upon the native population. While at Arrah a handful of

heroes were defending a billiard-room against drought, and hunger, and

cannon, and the militia of a warlike region, backed by three regiments

of regular infantry: in Calcutta heaven and earth were being moved

to eject from the Photographic Society a Bengalee member, who had

given vent to some remarks reflecting upon the habits and tone of low

European loafers.

July had not well set in before the insurgents of Cawnpore showed

symptoms that marked the wilfulness and inconstancy of soldiers

who have once forgotten their duty. Idleness bred discontent, and

discontent speedily ripened into sedition. The honeymoon had not yet

drawn to a close, and already this unnatural connexion between the

Nana and the army was distasteful to the stronger of the contracting

parties. Regiments which had refused to obey such men as Ewart and

Delafosse were not likely to entertain any very profound reverence for

an effete Hindoo rake. The Peishwa evinced an inclination to enjoy for

a while the contemplation of his recent dignity in the retirement of

Bithoor: but the troops had no notion of letting their paymaster out

of sight, and brought him back into their midst by violence which they

hardly cared to disguise beneath the semblance of respect. On the third

of the month a donation was distributed among their ranks, and accepted

with anything but gratitude. Few got as much as, in their own opinion,

they deserved: and all less than they desired. What they had was not in

a portable form. Government silver proved to be an inconvenient burden

for the loins; and, if things went ill, it might procure a still more

unpleasant girdle round the neck. There were disagreeable anecdotes

current regarding certain gentlemen, late of the Company's service, who

had been executed at Allahabad on the discovery about their persons

of some new copper coins, which had never issued from the Treasury by

a regular payment, and which they were suspected of having intended to

put into premature circulation. There accordingly was a brisk demand

for gold. Azimoolah ordered it to be proclaimed in the bazaar by beat

of drum that bankers should supply the mutineers with mohurs at a

minimum price of twenty-one rupees. The Cawnpore exchange, however,

had so little confidence in the star of the maharaja, that these coins

could not be bought for less than twenty-eight rupees, which was an

advance of seventy-five per cent. on their ordinary price. The sepoys,

who were not more acquainted than European privates with the laws

which regulate the money-market, and knew only that they had ended by

pocketing little more than half the cash that they expected, were soon

talking about a fresh change of masters. The Mussulman faction gained

ground rapidly and surely. Men began to recollect how cleverly the

Nunhey Nawab had managed his battery without any prior experience in

gunnery, and drew the conclusion that he might be equally successful

if he could be bribed by an offer of sovereignty to turn his attention

towards the rate of discount.

But military greediness, and Moslem ambition, and the jealousy of the

nobles, and the enmity of the bourgeoisie ceased ere long to occupy

the thoughts of the tyrant. These sources of uneasiness were absorbed

in one great and pressing terror, when, at the first doubtful and

intermittent, but more frequent ever and clearer, came surging up

from the south-west the fame of the advancing vengeance. Couriers

mounted on swift camels were sent down the road, and returned with

the intelligence that the British were certainly approaching by

forced marches, laying a telegraph as they proceeded, and hanging the

inhabitants of the villages within which were found pieces of the old

wire. This information naturally produced a strong effect upon men

whose crimes were not such as to meet with impunity under the new

scale of penalties that seemed to have been adopted by the Sahibs. The

consternation was so deep and universal that the Nana had recourse to

his customary palliative. On the fifth of July he issued the following

proclamation:--

"It has come to our notice that some of the city people, having heard

the rumours of the arrival of the European troops at Allahabad,

are deserting their houses and going out into the districts. Be it

therefore proclaimed in each lane and street of the city that regiments

of cavalry, and infantry, and batteries have been despatched to check

the Europeans either at Allahabad or Futtehpore; that the people should

therefore remain in their houses without any apprehension, and engage

their minds in carrying on their work."

This manifesto was probably considered too tame and brief for such a

crisis. Next day there appeared a truly notable state-paper, which,

to judge from internal evidence, may be attributed to the pen of the

prime-minister. It is regarded as the masterpiece of that author, and

may serve for a model to all Governments that undertake to enlighten

the public mind by means of an official organ.

"A traveller just arrived at Cawnpore from Allahabad states that before

the cartridges were distributed a Council was held for the purpose of

taking away the religion and rites of the people of Hindostan. The

Members of Council came to the conclusion that, as the matter was

one affecting religion, seven or eight thousand Europeans would be

required, and it would cost the lives of fifty thousand Hindoos, but

that at this price the natives of Hindostan would become Christians.

The matter was therefore represented in a despatch to Queen Victoria,

who gave her consent. A second council was then held, at which the

English merchants were present. It was then resolved to ask for the

assistance of a body of European troops equal in number to the native

army, so as to insure success when the excitement should be at the

highest. When the despatch containing this application was read in

England, thirty-five thousand Europeans were very rapidly embarked on

ships, and started for Hindostan, and intelligence of their despatch

reached Calcutta. Then the English in Calcutta issued the order for

the distribution of the cartridges, the object of which was to make

Hindostan Christian; as it was thought that the people would come over

with the army. The cartridges were smeared with hog and cow's fat. One

man who let out the secret was hung, and one imprisoned."

"Meantime, while they were occupied in carrying out their plan, the

ambassadors of the Sultan of Roum" (Turkey) "in London sent word to

his sovereign that thirty-five thousand Europeans had been despatched

to Hindostan to make all the natives Christians. The Sultan (may

Allah perpetuate his kingdom!) issued a firman to the Pacha of Egypt,

the contents of which are as follows: 'You are conspiring with Queen

Victoria. If you are guilty of neglect in this matter, what kind of

face will you be able to show to God?'"

"When this firman of the Sultan of Roum reached the Pacha of Egypt,

the Lord of Egypt assembled his army in the city of Alexandra, which

is on the road to India, before the Europeans arrived. As soon as the

European troops arrived the troops of the Pacha of Egypt began to fire

into them with guns on all sides, and sunk all their ships, so that

not even a single European escaped. The English in Calcutta, after

issuing orders for biting the cartridges, and when these disturbances

had reached their height, were looking for the assistance of the army

from London. But the Almighty by the exercise of his power made an end

of them at the very outset. When intelligence of the destruction of the

army from London arrived, the Governor-General was much grieved and

distressed, and beat his head.

"At eventide he intended murder and plunder.

At noon neither had his body a head, nor his head a cover.

In one revolution of the blue heavens

Neither Nadir remained, nor a follower of Nadir."

"Done by order of his Grace the Peishwa. 1273 of the Heigra."

But the onward march of the English was not to be checked by quotations

from Oordoo poets. It behoved that some weapons besides the eloquence

of Azimoolah and the sign-manual of Dhoondoo Punth should be found,

and found quickly. The rebel chiefs were enjoined to muster their

retainers, and Teeka Singh to beat up the bazaars for sepoys. Reluctant

and dispirited the truants turned out to fight for a sovereign whom

they were scheming to dethrone, and for plunder which had already by

some magical process melted away to half the original value. Baba

Bhut undertook to provide carriage for the stores and ammunition: and

accordingly impounded the conveyances of the town, particularly all

vehicles formerly the property of European gentry: a measure which

caused no small vexation to the mutineers who had been cutting a dash

in the buggies that had belonged to our subalterns. The merchants

received extensive indents for tents and water-proof great-coats: a

most essential article of equipment during the first weeks of the rainy

season. The Ordnance Office reported itself to be short of percussion

caps; and the whole staff of the department was at once set to work

at converting detonating muskets into matchlocks. These preparations

were completed by the ninth of July, on which day Brigadier Jwala

Pershad left the station in the direction of Allahabad at the head of

detachments from three regiments of cavalry and seven of infantry,

together with a strong body of feudal militia: in all some thirty-five

hundred sabres, bayonets, and lances. The column was accompanied

by twelve guns of various pattern and calibre, which the result of

the earliest action enabled General Havelock to describe with minute

accuracy.

They did well to hurry: for the avenger was abroad. Late in May there

landed at Calcutta a wing of the First Madras Fusileers, under the

command of Major Renaud and Lieutenant-Colonel Neill: who, after

securing an order which enabled them to draw upon the Patna Treasury,

proceeded straight to the Terminus situated on the bank of the Hooghly

facing the capital, with the intention of performing the first stretch

of their journey by rail. A train was on the point of starting; and the

stationmaster, jealous, it may be, to obtain his new line a reputation

for punctuality, refused to delay until the rear-guard could be

embarked in the cars. Hereupon Neill, an Indian veteran, who during a

long absence from home had lost what little reverence he ever possessed

for the authority of Bradshaw, clapped the official under arrest in his

own waiting-room, and gave the guards and stokers to understand that he

had constituted himself traffic-manager for the time being. Travelling

in this high-handed style he reached Benares when least expected either

by the English residents, who were waiting to have their throats

cut, or by the native force, which was looking out for an excuse to

mutiny, and which now found a pretext in the arrival of Neill. After

a rough and tumble fight he bundled the insurgents out of the place;

quieted the fears of the European population; and at once began his

arrangements for penetrating to Allahabad, where a feeble garrison,

closely invested by an enormous rebel host, was defending a mile and a

half of wall with scanty prospect of deliverance.

On the evening of the ninth June he sent on in bullock-carts a hundred

and seventeen of his people; despatched thirty-six others in a small

steamer; and packed himself, with two officers and forty-four men, into

such stage-carriages as had shafts and axles. Posting in the East is

never a very expeditious method of locomotion; and at this conjuncture

every stable along the Grand Trunk Road had been plundered more or

less thoroughly. But the agents of the Dawk Company knew their man:

and it may safely be asserted that the grooms were less sleepy than

usual, and the drivers less sulky; that the horses jibbed not quite so

pertinaciously, and the wheels came off at somewhat wider intervals.

No promise of treble gratuities from an embryo member of Parliament,

hurrying up country in search of statistics, ever so surely cut short

a stoppage or an altercation, as did the rattle of the panels of the

foremost van, which betokened that Neill Sahib was awake, and in

another moment would be thrusting out his head to ask what the matter

was. When the animals broke down, strings of peasants were harnessed

to the traces: and by the afternoon of the second day the relieving

army, numbering a short four dozen of exhausted men, had found their

way into the beleagured place. On the following morning the struggle

began in earnest, and continued for a full week. Successive instalments

of Fusileers swarmed in by road and river: while the enemy had soon

consumed most of their courage and all their ball-cartridge, and were

reduced to load with morsels of telegraph wire: a device whereby,

over and above the effect of their fire, they got rid of an article

the possession of which came under the chapter of capital offences in

the Criminal Code as revised by Colonel Neill. That officer by the

nineteenth June had re-conquered the city of Allahabad, and cleared the

district of insurgents. He now found leisure to make some inquiries

into the past, which resulted in a series of executions: not more than

the crisis warranted, (for, though an austere man, he was no savage,)

but quite numerous enough, in the expressive dialect of the day, to

"establish a great funk."

Meanwhile the heat was such as no words can adequately describe. The

Europeans died of sunstroke at an average rate of two a day. Our troops

had outstripped their Commissariat, and could get neither bread, nor

coffee, nor drugs, nor fans, nor screens of moistened grass: appliances

which, known to an English housekeeper as "luxuries" and "comforts,"

in the estimation of those who have spent an Indian June in the tented

field, merit quite another denomination. Unfortunately, though the

larder and the medicine-chest were empty, the cellars of Allahabad

were only too well furnished. They were pillaged by some Sikhs, who,

without applying for a license, at once opened a lively trade: selling

beer, brandy, madeira, and champagne at a uniform charge of sixpence

the bottle. Cholera soon broke out among our poor fellows, living as

they did on wine and spirits without even a halfpenny-worth of bread

in a temperature of a hundred and thirty-five degrees. In the course

of seventy-two hours forty deaths occurred in the ranks of the Madras

regiment. The Colonel bought up and destroyed the whole stock of

liquor; ransacked the neighbourhood in quest of wholesome provisions;

removed his patients to the most healthy quarters which he could

command; and was repaid by seeing the mysterious disease vanish as

suddenly as it had appeared, after carrying off one out of every nine

among his soldiers.

As when a slender rill, ominous to an experienced eye, trickles

through the crack in an embankment behind which is gathered, not long

there to stay, an immense weight of water: so came along the valley

of Ganges this little band, the forerunner of a mighty multitude

of warriors. Every morning brought into Allahabad a fresh batch of

Englishmen, jaded, indeed, and suffering cruelly from the climate,

but eager to be led forward to rescue or revenge. Continental authors

who descant glibly on the stolidity and insensibility of the British

private might have learned a useful lesson could they have overheard

the talk of those pale and sickly lads. By the last day of June Neill

judged himself strong enough to detach towards Cawnpore two guns and

eight hundred men, half of whom were Europeans. The column was placed

under the orders of Major Renaud, who pushed up the road; fighting

as occasion offered; tranquillizing the country by the very simple

expedient of hanging everybody who showed signs of insubordination;

and using all endeavours to procure information concerning the fate of

the Cawnpore garrison. On the fourth July he was met by a report of

the capitulation and the massacre. Corroborated, and contradicted, and

qualified, and again confidently affirmed, rumour insensibly matured

into undoubted fact: but to this day no man ventures to name the

precise hour when he himself became assured that the worst was true.

With July arrived Brigadier-General Havelock, who, after having

employed a week in collecting his resources, moved northwards from

Allahabad with six cannon and a thousand English soldiers. That was not

a joyous expedition. The hearts of all were occupied with forebodings

of evil which they dared not shape into words: and the face of creation

seemed to reflect the universal gloom. As in that fantastic canvas of

old Dürer, whereon the knight is journeying towards an unknown goal in

unhallowed company, so to the fancy of those who were not incapable of

vivid emotion even inanimate and irrational nature partook that shade

of the future that was on every soul. They waded in a sea of slush,

knee-deep now, and now breast high, while the flood of tropical rain

beat down from overhead. As far to right and left as eye could pierce

extended one vast morass: and the desolate scene was enlivened by no

human sound. Nothing was heard save the melancholy croaking of the

cicalas, mingled with an under hum of countless insects. The air was

heavy with the offensive odour of neem-trees. There were no indications

that the column was traversing an inhabited country, except the bodies

which hung by twos and threes from branch and signpost, and the gaunt

swine who by the roadside were holding their loathsome carnival. After

three days of steady toil through the mud and the water Havelock was

made aware that the enemy were ahead, and that Renaud was advancing

unsupported into the teeth of an overwhelming force. Then our troops

hastened forward, and made one march of five leagues and another of

eight beneath a blazing sun; (for at this point the weather cleared,

and they lost the protection of the clouds;) until they caught up the

Major and his detachment, and finally halted in a state of entire

prostration five miles from the town of Futtehpore, where Jwala Pershad

was encamped with all his chivalry.

It was early morning. Our weary people were enjoying their "little

breakfast" of tea, that pleasantest of Indian meals, when the rebel

vanguard came pouring down the causeway. Havelock, who wished earnestly

to give his harassed soldiers rest, resolved to wait until this

ebullition should expend itself. But the affair grew serious; and he

had soon no choice but to accept the challenge and draw up his army. In

front were the guns, protected by a hundred skirmishers armed with that

Enfield rifle which, then a rarity, is now a familiar object to every

other household in Great Britain. The Fusileers and the Seventy-eighth

Highlanders struggled through the swamps on the right. The Sixty-fourth

Regiment went forward in the centre; and the Eighty-fourth on the left,

supported by a battalion of Punjabees. The cavalry moved along some

firm ground which lay on the extreme flank.

Never was there such a battle. "I might say," writes the General,

"that in ten minutes the action was decided, for in that short space

of time the spirit of the enemy was utterly subdued. The rifle fire,

reaching them at an unexpected distance, filled them with dismay;

and, when Captain Maude was enabled to push his guns to point-blank

range, his surprisingly accurate fire demolished their little remaining

confidence. In a moment three guns were abandoned to us on the

_chaussée_, and the force advanced steadily, driving the enemy before

it on every point. Their guns continued to fall into our hands; and

then in succession they were driven from the garden enclosures; from a

strong barricade on the road; from the town wall; into and through, out

of and beyond the town. Their fire scarcely reached us. Ours, for four

hours, allowed them no repose."

In fact it was a mere rout: a memorable triumph of outraged

civilization. The Second Cavalry made a flourish which for a while

checked our onset: but the troopers of that redoubted corps soon

had had enough of English lead, and felt no appetite for a taste of

English steel. Accustomed to deal with feebler adversaries, they were

spoilt for fighting with grown men. By noon nothing was to be seen

of the mutineers within six miles of Futtehpore save their dead,

their accoutrements, and their whole park of artillery. Flying in

irretrievable disorder they spread everywhere that the Sahibs had come

back in strange guise; some draped like women, to remind them what

manner of wrong they were sworn to requite; others, conspicuous by tall

blue caps, who hit their mark without being seen to fire. Our list of

killed and wounded contained not one British name: though a dozen or

so of Sowars, Jemmadars, and Russeldars made it as incomprehensible to

a home reader as an Indian bulletin should ever be. But the bloodless

day was not costless: for twelve of our privates were slain outright

by the sun. Our irregular horsemen, who recognised some comrades in

the hostile ranks, had flatly refused to charge, and were consequently

dismounted and disarmed: a precaution that diminished our cavalry to a

score of volunteers.

When the Nana learned how his soldiers had conducted themselves he

flew into a violent passion, which could be relieved only by vicarious

letting of blood. After attending at the execution of eight ill-fated

couriers, who had been intercepted from time to time with English

despatches in and about their persons, he felt sufficiently composed

to face the emergency. Determined to reserve his own sacred self for

the supreme venture, he sent into the field a Patroclus in the person

of Bala Rao, whose stake in the cause was indeed no light one. Every

available mutineer was equipped and marched down the road, and the

captured pieces were replaced from the magazine. On the morrow the

Peishwa's brother followed his reinforcements, and took up a position

round a hamlet named Aoung, twenty-two miles south of Cawnpore. He

found the rebel mind in high perturbation. The gossip of the camp-fires

ran mainly on the disagreeable sensations produced by strangulation;

and the disquisitions of certain among the sepoys who had witnessed

that operation were so circumstantial and picturesque that many who

had come best off in the partition of the spoil doffed the remains of

their uniforms, and stole away with their riches to the seclusion of

their native villages. The behaviour of those who remained proved that

the army had rather gained than lost in efficiency by the withdrawal of

such as had nothing to acquire and something to enjoy.

Their valour was soon to be tested. At nine in the morning of the

fifteenth up came the English; Maude and his battery leading the way;

with the Fusileers and the sharpshooters of the Sixty-fourth close

at his heels. Shrapnel shells and conical bullets quickly cleared

away everything from our front, and strewed the highway with corpses,

weapons, and abandoned tents and waggons. The Second Cavalry caught

sight of our baggage, which had been left beneath a grove in the

care of a slender guard, and fancied that they discerned an occasion

for distinguishing themselves after their own fashion. But they were

lamentably disappointed. The regiment had to bustle back with empty

pockets and not a few empty saddles, and thenceforward was contented to

rest on the renown of previous exploits.

Bala Rao withdrew his troops behind a stream which crossed the road

a league in rear of the contested village. The water was too deep to

be forded. The bridge was strongly fortified, and defended by two

twenty-four pounders. Our force proceeded to the attack after a slight

tiffin, and a short siesta for all whose nerves were firm enough to

allow them a snatch of sleep between two of the rounds in a fight for

such a prize. Maude raked the hostile cannon, which stood in a salient

bend of the river: while the Fusileers advanced in skirmishing order,

enraged at the fall of gallant Major Renaud, whose thigh had been

broken early in the day. After plying their rifles with deadly effect,

they suddenly closed up, and flung themselves headlong on the bridge.

Bala Rao, to whom cannot be charged the cowardice which a popular maxim

associates with cruelty, had purposed to maintain his post to the last:

but on this occasion he had not to do with a front-rank of seated

ladies and children, and a rear-rank of gentlemen whose hands were

strapped behind their backs. With set teeth, and flashing eyes, and

firelocks tightly clenched, pelted by grape and musketry, our people

converged at a run upon the narrow passage. When they came near enough

to afford the enemy an opportunity of observing on their countenances

that expression which the Sahibs always wear when they do not mean to

turn back, the rebel array broke and fled. The fugitives took with them

their general, who carried off in his shoulder a lump of Government

lead, to which he was most heartily welcome; but did not find time for

the removal of their artillery. There passed into our hands four guns;

which cannot be said to have been dearly purchased at six casualties

a-piece.

Wounded as he was, Bala Rao brought to Cawnpore the tidings of his

own defeat. He went straight to the quarters of his brother, which

were soon crowded with the leading rebels, who came to hear what

had happened, and to impart their apprehensions and suggestions.

The deliberations of this improvised council were at first confused

and desultory. Some were for retiring to Bithoor; some for uniting

their forces with the mutineers of Futtehgur. At length, by a slender

majority of voices, it was decided to make one more stand south of

Cawnpore.

When this resolution had been adopted, Teeka Singh asked whether the

Nana had made up his mind as to what should be done with the prisoners;

and hinted that, in case things went ill, it might be awkward for some

then present should the Sahibs find such a mass of evidence ready

to their hands; nay more, that the chances of a reverse would be

considerably lessened if the captives were once put out of the way.

The British were approaching solely for the purpose of releasing their

compatriots, and would not risk another battle for the satisfaction of

burying them. They would be only too glad of an excuse to avoid meeting

the Peishwa in the field. Dhoondoo Punth was not hard to convince on

such a point. Whenever bloodshed was in question, he showed himself the

least impracticable of men. In the present instance he would never have

required prompting, but for the importunity of the royal widows, his

step-mothers by adoption, who had sent him word that they would throw

themselves and their children from the upper windows of the palace if

he again murdered any of their sex. As a pledge that this was no vain

parade of philanthropy they had abstained from food and drink for many

hours together. In order to anticipate their remonstrances, directions

were given to set about the work forthwith. In fact, for every reason,

'twas well that it should be done quickly. The assembly broke up; but

all who could spare the time stayed for at least the commencement of

such a representation as none could hope to behold twice in a lifetime.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, or between that and five, some of

the Nana's people went across to the house of bondage, and bade the

Englishmen who were there to come forth. Forth they came;--the three

persons from Futtehgur, and the merchant and his son;--accompanied

by the biggest of the children, a youth of fourteen, who, poor boy,

was glad perhaps to take this opportunity of classing himself with

his elders. Some ladies pressed out to watch the course which the

party took, but were pushed back by the sentries. The gentlemen

inquired whither they were going, and were answered that the Peishwa

had sent for them on some concern of his own. But all around was a

deep throng of spectators, the foremost rows seated on the ground, so

that those behind might see: while an outer circle occupied, as it

were, reserved places on the wall of the enclosure. There, beneath

a spreading lime-tree, lounged Dhoondoo Punth, the gold lace of his

turban glittering in the sunshine. There were Jwala Pershad; and Tantia

Topee; and Azimoolah, the ladies' man; and Bala Rao, the twinges of

whose shoulder-blade heightened his avidity for the coming show. When

this concourse was noticed by our countrymen, their lips moved as if

in prayer. At the gate which led into the road they were stopped by

a squad of sepoys, and shot dead. Their bodies were thrown on to the

grass which bordered the highway, and became the sport of the rabble;

who, doubtless, pointed to them in turn, and said: "That Sahib is the

Governor of Bengal; and this is the Governor of Madras; and this is the

Governor of Bombay." Such was the joke which during that twelvemonth

went the round of Northern India.

About half-an-hour after this the woman called "the Begum" informed

the captives that the Peishwa had determined to have them killed. One

of the ladies went up to the native officer who commanded the guard,

and told him that she learned they were all to die. To this he replied

that, if such were the case, he must have heard something about it; so

that she had no cause to be afraid: and a soldier said to the Begum:

"Your orders will not be obeyed. Who are you that you should give

orders?" Upon this the woman fired up, and hurried off to lay the

affair before the Nana. During her absence the sepoys discussed the

matter, and resolved that they would never lift their weapons against

the prisoners. One of them afterwards confessed to a friend that his

own motive for so deciding was anxiety to stand well with the Sahibs,

if ever they got back to Cawnpore. The Begum presently returned with

five men, each carrying a sabre. Two were Hindoo peasants: the one

thirty-five years of age, fair and tall, with long mustachios, but

flat-faced and wall-eyed: the other considerably his senior, short,

and of a sallow complexion. Two were butchers by calling: portly

strapping fellows, both well on in life. The larger of the two was

disfigured by the traces of the small-pox. They were Mahommedans, of

course; as no Hindoo could adopt a trade which obliged him to spill the

blood of a cow.

These four were dressed in dirty white clothes. The fifth, likewise a

Mussulman, wore the red uniform of the Maharaja's body-guard, and is

reported to have been the sweetheart of the Begum. He was called Survur

Khan, and passed for a native of some distant province. A bystander

remarked that he had hair on his hands.

The sepoys were bidden to fall on. Half-a-dozen among them advanced,

and discharged their muskets through the windows at the ceiling of the

apartments. Thereupon the five men entered. It was the short gloaming

of Hindostan:--the hour when ladies take their evening drive. She who

had accosted the officer was standing in the doorway. With her were

the native doctor, and two Hindoo menials. That much of the business

might be seen from the verandah, but all else was concealed amidst the

interior gloom. Shrieks and scuffling acquainted those without that

the journeymen were earning their hire. Survur Khan soon emerged with

his sword broken off at the hilt. He procured another from the Nana's

house, and a few minutes after appeared again on the same errand. The

third blade was of better temper; or perhaps the thick of the work was

already over. By the time darkness had closed in, the men came forth

and locked up the house for the night. Then the screams ceased: but the

groans lasted till morning.

The sun rose as usual. When he had been up nearly three hours the five

repaired to the scene of their labours over-night. They were attended

by a few sweepers, who proceeded to transfer the contents of the house

to a dry well situated behind some trees which grew hard by. "The

bodies," says one who was present throughout, "were dragged out, most

of them by the hair of the head. Those who had clothes worth taking

were stripped. Some of the women were alive. I cannot say how many:

but three could speak. They prayed for the sake of God that an end

might be put to their sufferings. I remarked one very stout woman, an

half-caste, who was severely wounded in both arms, who entreated to be

killed. She and two or three others were placed against the bank of the

cut by which bullocks go down in drawing water. The dead were first

thrown in. Yes: there was a great crowd looking on: they were standing

along the walls of the compound. They were principally city people and

villagers. Yes: there were also sepoys. Three boys were alive. They

were fair children. The eldest, I think, must have been six or seven,

and the youngest five years. They were running round the well (where

else could they go to?) and there was none to save them. No; none said

a word, or tried to save them."

At length the smallest of them made an infantile attempt to get away.

The little thing had been frightened past bearing by the murder of

one of the surviving ladies. He thus attracted the observation of a

native, who flung him and his companions down the well. One deponent is

of opinion that the man first took the trouble to kill the children.

Others think not. The corpses of the gentlemen must have been committed

to the same receptacle: for a townsman who looked over the brink

fancied that there was "a Sahib uppermost." This is the history of

what took place at Cawnpore, between four in the afternoon of one day

and nine in the morning of another, almost under the shadow of the

church-tower, and within call of the Theatre, the Assembly Rooms,

and the Masonic Lodge. Long before noon on the sixteenth July there

remained no living European within the circuit of the station.

But there were plenty at no great distance: for, about the turn of

day, our force, after travelling five leagues, rested for a space in

a hamlet buried amidst a forest of mango groves. A mile to northward

lay the sepoy host, entrenched across the spot where the byway to

Cawnpore branches from the Grand Trunk Road. Seven guns commanded

the approaches, and behind a succession of fortified villages were

gathered five thousand fighting men, prepared to strike a last blow

for their necks and their booty. Havelock resolved to turn the flank

of the Nana: for he was aware that, if an opponent assails a native

army otherwise than as it intended to be assailed when it took up its

position, the general for a certainty loses his head, and the soldiers

their heart. The word was given, and our column defiled at a steady

pace round the left of the hostile line. The Fusileers led, with two

field-pieces in their rear. Then came the Highlanders, and the bulk of

the artillery; followed by the Sixty-fourth, the Eighty-fourth, and the

Sikh battalion. For some time the mutineers seemed to be unconscious

of what was going on: deceived by clumps of fruit-trees, that screened

our movement; and distracted by the sharp look-out which they were

keeping straight ahead. But soon an evident sensation was created

along their whole array. Their batteries began discharging shot and

shell with greater liberality than accuracy; while a body of cavaliers

pushed forward in the direction of our march, and made a demonstration

that did not lead to much. As soon as the enemy's flank was completely

exposed to the English attack, our troops halted, faced, and advanced

in the order wherein they found themselves, covered by two companies

of the Fusileers extended as skirmishers. Colonel Hamilton bade the

pipes strike up, and led the Seventy-eighth against a cluster of houses

defended by three guns. His horse was shot between his legs: but the

kilts never stopped until they were masters of all inside the village.

Three more pieces were captured by Major Stirling and the Sixty-fourth

regiment. The rebel infantry were everywhere in full retreat: for the

last half-hour nothing had been seen of the cavalry: and the battle

appeared to be won.

Our fire had already ceased. The officers were congratulating each

other on their easy victory: the privates were lighting their

cheroots, and speculating on the probability of an extra allowance of

rum: when of a sudden a twenty-four pounder, planted on the Cawnpore

Road, opened with fatal precision upon our exhausted ranks. Two large

masses of horsemen rode forward over the plain. The foot rallied, and

came down with drums beating and colours flying: and the presence of a

numerous staff, in gallant attire, announced that the Peishwa himself

was there, bent on daring something great in defence of his tottering

throne. Meanwhile our artillery cattle, tired out by continual labour

over vile roads and under a burning sun, could no longer drag the

cannon into action. The volunteers did whatever might be done by a

dozen and a half planters mounted on untrained hunters. The insurgents

grew insolent: our soldiers were falling fast: and the British general

perceived that the crisis was not yet over. He despatched his son to

the spot where the men of the Sixty-fourth were lying down under such

cover as they could get, with an order to rise and charge.

They leapt to their feet, rejoicing to fling aside their inaction: and

young Havelock placed himself at their head, and steered his horse

straight for the muzzle of the gun: mindful, perhaps, how, four and

forty years before, a light-haired strippling of his name and blood

showed our allies on the banks of the Bidassoa that an English steed

could clear a French breastwork.[5] But our people were not Spaniards:

and more than one indignant veteran asked in grumbling tones whether

the corps might not be trusted to the guidance of its own officers. Nor

did their major need that any one should show him the way, when once he

had dismounted, and thrown to a groom the bridle of his fidgety little

charger, a shapely bay Arab, on whose back, four months later, he was

shot dead amidst his shattered regiment in a glorious but ineffectual

attempt to retrieve a disastrous day.

And then the mutineers realized the change that a few weeks had wrought

in the nature of the task which they had selected and cut out for

themselves. The affair was no longer with mixed groups of invalids

and civilians, without strategy or discipline, resisting desperately

wherever they might chance to be brought to bay. Now from left to right

extended the unbroken line of white faces, and red cloth, and sparkling

steel. In front of all, the field officer stepped briskly out, doing

his best to keep ahead of his people. There marched the captains,

duly posted on the flank of their companies; and the subalterns,

gesticulating with their swords; and the sober, bearded serjeants, each

behind his respective section. Embattled in their national order, and

burning with more than their national lust of combat, on they came,

the unconquerable British Infantry. The grape was flying thick and

true. Files rolled over. Men stumbled, and recovered themselves, and

went on for a while, and then turned and hobbled to the rear. But the

Sixty-fourth was not to be denied. Closer and closer drew the measured

tramp of feet: and the heart of the foe died within him, and his fire

grew hasty and ill-directed. As the last volley cut the air overhead,

our soldiers raised a mighty shout, and rushed forward, each at his own

pace. And then every rebel thought only of himself. Those nearest the

place were first to make away: but throughout the host there were none

who still aspired to stay within push of the English bayonets. Such as

had any stomach left for fighting were sickened by a dose of shrapnel

and canister from four light guns, which Maude had driven up within

point-blank range. Squadron after squadron, battalion upon battalion,

these humbled Brahmins dropped their weapons, stripped off their packs,

and spurred, and ran, and limped, and scrambled, back to the city that

was to have been the chief and central abode of sepoy domination.

Nanukchund was hanging about the vicinity all the while the conflict

was in progress. "On the fifteenth," he writes, "I perceived some

sepoys and troopers running away in great confusion, and exclaiming

that they would have an easy victory, as the British were few, and

would soon be despatched. I was then sitting in an orchard, when I

observed a shopkeeper running up. He came and seated himself under a

tree near me, and told me that he was hastening to pack up his wife

and children, as the Europeans would arrive shortly, and would spare

nobody. I thought to myself, this must be true, and the gentlemen must

be very savage. I returned to the city, and saw several villagers with

their dresses changed coming along the banks of the Ganges, and I

joined them. The terror in the hearts of all was so great that they

asked each other no questions."

On the morrow, the day of the final struggle, Nanukchund says: "I was

in the streets soon after noon-time. People who have seen the fighting

declare that the rebels are running back, and that the mutineers are

trying to escape from the battle. Intelligence of this sort was brought

from time to time till it got dusk. The bad people are all crestfallen,

and advising each other to quit the town. I saw Kalka, a barber by

caste, who took service as a trooper under the Nana, running in for

his life, and trying to get something to eat from the bazaar. A little

while after it was proclaimed by beat of drum, that the inhabitants

must not get alarmed, as there were only one hundred Europeans

remaining: and that whoever brought in the head of an Englishman should

receive a hundred rupees. But news came that the Sahibs were close upon

the cantonments, and the man who was beating the drum abandoned it and

fled."

At nightfall Dhoondoo Punth entered Cawnpore upon a chestnut horse

drenched in perspiration, and with bleeding flanks. A fresh access of

terror soon dismissed him again on his way towards Bithoor, sore and

weary, his head swimming and his chest heaving. He was not in condition

for such a gallop, the first earnest of that hardship and degradation

which was thenceforward to be his portion. Far otherwise had he been

wont to return to his palace after a visit of state in the English

quarter, lolling, vinaigrette in hand, beneath the breath of fans,

amidst the cushions of a luxurious carriage, surrounded by a moving

hedge of outriders and running footmen. Once again in the home of his

fathers he slept as the wicked sleep, whose sin has found them out;

and, when the morrow's sun had set, he departed in craven trepidation,

and was never after seen among the haunts of peaceful men. But he was

true to himself, even in the crash of his falling dynasty: for, as he

stepped on board the barge that was to transport him to the confines of

Oude, he bethought him of the young mother who was recovering from the

pains of childbirth in the recesses of the female apartments. For the

first time he had practised economy in his enjoyments, and was now well

repaid: for his savings had borne high interest. There were two English

lives to take where a fortnight ago there had been but one. And then,

having filled to overflowing the measure of his guilt, he passed away

like a thief in the night, and left his wealth to the spoiler, and his

halls to the owl and the snake.

Some months subsequently two of our spies, who had been commissioned

to obtain information about Miss Wheeler, passed six days in the

train of the fugitive Nana in the depths of an Oude wilderness. In

the vicinity of his encampment they overtook a sepoy, with whom they

got into conversation. He asked why they had come into the desert.

They represented themselves as desirous of taking service with one of

the Peishwa's eunuchs, and reminded the soldiers that they were old

acquaintances of his own. He seems to have been a good-natured fellow:

for he told them that it was a dangerous neighbourhood for strangers,

but promised, since they had ventured that far, to introduce them as

his fellow-villagers. They found from twelve to fifteen thousand people

collected in the jungles. Everything betokened distress, disorder, and

discontent. Food was scarce and dear. The Maharaja had appropriated

the single pair of tents; so that his followers were fain to bivouack

under the foliage, starving on rice bought at twelvepence a pound;

wringing out their tattered garments, wet with the eternal rain; and

sighing for the curry-pots and tight roofs of the Cawnpore cantonments.

It is interesting to learn that the most poverty-stricken and dejected

of all the mutineers were the troopers of the Second Cavalry. The

horses had been reduced to less than a hundred, and the artillery to

a couple of field-pieces. The Nana, attended by a servant with an

umbrella, went daily to bathe in a river which flowed at the foot of

the hill whereon his pavilion stood. A crowd regularly assembled to pay

their respects as he passed. The two men especially noticed certain

officers of his household: the treasurer and paymaster; the driver

of his bullock-carriage; his chief baker, and chief gardener; his

shampooer, his sweeper, his boatman, and his wrestlers, both Hindoo

and Mahomedan. Bala was there, with the scar of an English bullet on

his shoulder, which he has probably by this time carried to an obscure

grave. The royal brothers were said to be very anxious to get back to

ease and civilization. Their wives were disposed upon an adjoining

range of heights, in company with the widows of Bajee Rao, who deserved

better than to be transported about against their will in the suite of

that unromantic Pretender. The ladies of the court travelled in six

palanquins, and the gentlemen on as many elephants.

Yet a few weeks, and Dhoondoo Punth, stripped of even these relics of

his former affluence and grandeur, escaped across the Nepaulese marches

to a life of suspense, and toil, and privation amidst the Himalayan

solitudes. The end of that man we know not, and may never know.

Perchance, as they hover over some wild ravine or wind-swept peak, the

eagles wonder at the great ruby which sparkles amidst the rags of a

vagrant who perished amidst the snows of a past December. Perchance

another generation will hear, not without a qualm of involuntary

awe and pity, that the world-noted malefactor is at last to expiate

misdeeds already classical. He may have eluded human justice. His hemp

may be still to sow. But his place in history is fixed irreversibly and

for ever. The most undaunted lover of paradox would hardly undertake to

wash white that ensanguined fame.

"In the month of July, a year and a half ago," so deposes a native

tradesman, eighteen months after the massacre, "I was in my house

at Ooghoo, when ten or eleven persons, who had fled from Cawnpore,

came to my shop, and asked for betel-leaf to chew. I showed them new

betel-leaf; when two of them, both Hindoos, told me to fetch good old

betel-leaf, or they would take my head off. I accordingly went to

another seller of betel-leaf, and bought the kind they asked for, and

told them the price of the same, namely ten pice. The two men said

they would only give me two. I replied that the betel-leaf was worth

ten pice, and that they ought at the least to give me eight pice: on

which they said that they would kill me and all my family. I stated I

was a poor man, and had got the betel-leaf from another person. They

then said that they had shown no pity to the ladies and children whom

they had just murdered, and who clung to their feet, and that they

would have no pity upon me. They frightened me greatly, showing me a

naked sword, covered with blood, and said that they would cut off my

head with the same. I wept," says this weak-minded young man, "and my

mother, hearing me cry, came out, and begged of them not to hurt me,

and that she would let them have more betel-leaf. After this they drew

water from a well close to my house, near a temple, and, conversing

among themselves, I heard their companions ask the two men how many

ladies they had killed. They replied that they had murdered twenty-one

ladies and children, and had received a reward of twenty-one rupees;

and added that at first the Nana ordered the sepoys to massacre the

ladies; but they refused; and that they two, with three others, carried

out the Nana's orders."

Another resident of Ooghoo thus tells his story: "The truth is that,

shortly after the Nana fled, I was sitting under a tamarind tree, where

all the men of the village assemble to talk, and was conversing with

a few others about the massacre of the Europeans at Cawnpore. We were

saying that the Nana ought not to have murdered the women and children:

when Souracun, Brahmin, of Ooghoo, who is thirty-five years old, and

has a defect in his eye, stated that the officials sent him to kill

the ladies; that he struck one with his sword, which bent, and he then

felt pity, and did not again strike. He showed us the bent sword." On

this occasion Souracun seems to have sunk the twenty-one rupees: which,

however, must have lasted him a good while if he made all his purchases

at the same rate as he bought betel-leaf. "All the village heard that

he was one of the murderers: but, since the British rule has been

re-established, no one speaks of it for fear he would be hung, and his

death be laid on their head."

There is good reason to believe that Souracun and his fellow met with

their deserts. Mr. Batten, now in high office at Agra, was the first

representative of settled government in the district of Cawnpore after

the troubles began to subside. He had the honour of removing the gibbet

from the ladies' well, and so tempered ferocity with common sense

that those who once railed at him as squeamish have at length come to

approve his conduct in spite of themselves. But he did not bear the

sword in vain. There were brought before him two Hindoos, one advanced

in years, and the other much his junior. These men were found guilty of

having compassed the death of an Eurasian, and doomed to the gallows.

No sooner had their sentence been pronounced than they poured forth

a torrent of foul abuse, and were dragged from the dock shouting, and

kicking, and cursing their judge and all his relatives on the maternal

side.

Now, the Oriental, always polite, becomes doubly courteous when death

is in immediate prospect. Then, more than ever, is he anxious to set

the company at their ease, and to make away with any disagreeable sense

of the false position in which the hangman stands towards the felon.

A civilian at Lucknow was superintending an execution when the rope,

which had doubtless borne more than one such strain, gave way, and the

convict fell to the ground. As he rose, he turned to the Englishman,

and said in the tone wherein men utter social conventionalities:

"Sahib, the rope's broke." He felt that it was incumbent on him to do

what he could towards relieving the general embarrassment arising from

a pause in the proceedings, awkward for all parties, but especially

for the commissioner, who was endowed with sensibility and genuine

refinement.

Batten, than whom no man was more conversant with the native character,

regarded the fury of his two prisoners as an extraordinary phenomenon,

and requested an explanation from the bystanders. He was told that the

pair were piqued at being condemned on so paltry a charge as the murder

of a half-caste, after having taken the principal part in a strange and

note-worthy exploit, at which they hinted in their cups; and that, poor

as they seemed, they rode fine horses, and wore gorgeous shawls, which

they were accustomed to speak of as having been presented to them by

the Nana in token of his esteem and satisfaction.

Few of the Cawnpore mutineers survived to boast of their enterprise.

Evil hunted these violent men to their overthrow. Those whom the halter

and the bayonet spared had no reason to bless their exemption. Many

whom pillage had enriched were slain for the sake of that which they

had about them by banditti who confidently presumed that the law would

not call in question the motives of him who exterminated a sepoy. All

who returned to their villages empty-handed were greeted by their

indignant families with bitter and most just reproaches. They had been

excellently provided for by the bounty of God and the Company. Their

pay secured them all the comforts which a Brahmin may enjoy, and left

the wherewithal to help less fortunate kinsmen. Yet they flung away

their advantages in wilful and selfish haste. They sinned alone and

for their private ends; but alone they were not to suffer. They had

changed the Sahibs into demons, and had conjured up tenfold more of

these demons than had hitherto been conceived to exist. They had called

down untold calamities upon the quiet peasantry of their native land.

And all this misery they had wrought in pursuit of the vision of a

military empire. Let them return to the desert, there to feed without

interruption on the contemplation of their power and pre-eminence.

Such were the taunts with which they were driven forth again into the

jungles: some to die by the claws of tigers on whose lair they had

intruded for refuge, or beneath the clubs of herdsmen whose cattle

they had pilfered in the rage of hunger: others to wander about,

drenched and famished, until amidst the branches of a tree into which

they had climbed to seek safety from the hyænas and the ague, or on

the sandy floor of a cave whither they had crept for shelter from the

tempest, they found at once their death-bed and their sepulchre. The

jackals alone can tell on what bush flutter the shreds of scarlet stuff

which mark the spot where one of our revolted mercenaries has expiated

his broken oath.

Soon after daybreak on Friday the seventeenth July, the English van

was marching across the desolate plain which lay to southward of the

city. Already the magical effect of the tropical rain had clothed

that expanse of parched and dusty soil with luxuriant grass, in which

rustled the feet of our soldiers as they pushed along, now stumbling

over a hidden cannon-ball, and now kicking up the fragments of a sepoy

skeleton. They traversed the deserted line of rebel posts, and halted

beneath the walls of the roofless barracks, pitted with shot and

blackened with flame, and beside the grave at whose mouth are scattered

the bones of our people, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon

the earth. Three Fridays back from that very morning the treaty of

surrender was being attested by a faithless signature, and sworn to

with perfidious vows: and again at a like interval of time the men

of the Second Cavalry were firing their stables, and saddling their

horses, and buckling on the swords that were to be fleshed in unmanly

strife. So much had been done and endured within a period of six weeks

and a space of six miles.

"At half past six A.M." writes Nanukchund, "the British force arrived

in cantonments outside the city. Those of the citizens who were

well-wishers to the Government brought them bread, butter, and milk. A

great crowd of the town's people assembled to see what was going on. I

also, who had not stepped out of my house for a month and a half for

fear of being murdered, now came out and went to cantonments. Generals

Havelock and Neill, and a number of other officers, were standing

there. Fruiterers, milkmen, buttermen, bakers, and other sellers of

provisions, were in attendance with their dollies. Those who were aware

of what was coming had made preparations on the night previous by

having provisions cooked in the bazaar. A little after eight the rebels

who had mined the magazine set fire to the powder, and fled. The report

of the explosion was so terrific, that the doors of city-houses fell

off their hinges."

Our old friend was now in high spirits. His turn had come, and he

showed himself fully equal to the occasion. "I continued," he says,

"to attend on the Sahibs with a view of performing acts of loyalty.

I set to work to find out what men of the city have been loyal, and

which of them disloyal, and how some of the public officers came to

present themselves to the Nana, while others contrived not to present

themselves. I laboured night and day at great personal inconvenience

to learn full particulars about these people. I questioned only

honourable and upright men, and no others." He is especially disturbed

at the assurance of one, Narain Rao, "who, just as I anticipated,

wishes to pass himself off as a well-wisher to the Government. But

there is a great crowd at this moment, and the Sahibs have no time

to spare. It is also very difficult to find witnesses against him by

private enquiries, and I see no chance of filing a complaint about it

before any officer." It seems strange that the Sahibs could not afford

time to pay off an old score that had really been incurred.

After the first outbreak of joy and welcome the inhabitants of Cawnpore

began to be aware that the English were no longer the same men, if

indeed they were men at all. The citizens, with their wives and

children, poured forth into the country by crowds, without stopping

to calculate whether they could establish their innocence. At such an

assize, and in the eyes of such a jury, absence was the only defence

that could avail aught. From noon till midnight, on the Lucknow and

Delhi highway were to be seen immense mobs rushing eastward and

westward in headlong haste. They did well both for their own security

and for our honour. The heat of the climate and the conflict, the

scarcity of food and the constant presence of disease, the talk which

they had heard at Calcutta, the deeds that they had been allowed and

even enjoined to commit during their upward progress, had depraved the

conscience and destroyed the self-control of our unhappy soldiers.

Reckless as men who for many weeks had never known what it was to

be certain of another hour's life,--half starved, and more than half

intoxicated,--they regarded carnage as a duty and rapine as a pleasure.

Havelock, in a report to the Commander in Chief, thus writes: "I have

ordered all the beer, wine, spirits, and every drinkable thing at

Cawnpore, to be purchased by the Commissariat. It will then be guarded

by a few men. If it remained at Cawnpore it would require half my force

to keep it from being drunk up by the other half, and I should not have

a soldier in camp. While I was winning a victory on the sixteenth some

of my men were plundering the Commissariat on the line of march."

And so the general purchased all the liquor. Oh that he could have

bought up the blood also! It was idle to count upon the forbearance

of poor ignorant privates, when the ablest among our officers had

forgotten alike the age in which he lived, and the religion that he

professed. This is an extract from a letter which would that Neill had

never found occasion to indite!

"Whenever a rebel is caught he is immediately tried, and, unless he

can prove a defence, he is sentenced to be hanged at once: but the

chief rebels or ringleaders I make first to clean up a certain portion

of the pool of blood, still two inches deep, in the shed where the

fearful murder and mutilation of the women and children took place. To

touch blood is most abhorrent to the high-caste natives. They think, by

doing so, they doom their souls to perdition. Let them think so. My

object is to inflict a fearful punishment for a revolting, cowardly,

barbarous deed, and to strike terror into these rebels. The first I

caught was a soubahdar, or native officer, a high-caste Brahmin, who

tried to resist my order to clean up the very blood he had helped to

shed: but I made the provost-martial do his duty, and a few lashes

soon made the miscreant accomplish his task. When done, he was taken

out and immediately hanged, and, after death, buried in a ditch at the

roadside."

For a parallel to such an episode we must explore far back into

the depths of time. Homer relates the punishment that befell those

maidservants, who in the palace of Ithaca had been unmindful of what

they owed to their absent lord. First they bore forth from the hall

the dead bodies of their paramours and placed them in the vestibule,

staggering beneath the weight: while Ulysses urged on the work by

word and gesture: and they laboured at the ungrateful task, wailing,

and shedding bitter tears. And afterwards with water and sponges they

washed the tables and the seats: and Telemachus and his henchmen

scraped with spades the floor of the chamber. But, when they had

set the house in order, the women were led out, and cooped up for a

while in a corner of the well-fenced court, in a strait place, whence

escape was none. And then Telemachus slung from the roof the cable of

a dark-prowed ship, and made it fast to a pillar of the colonnade,

stretching it high and taut, so that no foot might feel the ground.

And, as when swift thrushes or doves, making for their nest, have

dashed into a snare which a fowler had planted across the thicket: so

these women were fastened in a row, with a halter round every neck, to

die in unseemly fashion. And their feet fluttered a moment in the air:

but not for long.

It is curious that an act, which the Pagan poet allows an old

moss-trooper and his son to perpetrate in the flush of revenge and

victory, should have been revived by a Christian warrior after the

lapse of twenty-five centuries. And it must be owned that Neill

surpassed his model: for apparently the primary object of Ulysses was

to sweep away the traces of the butchery, and make his refectory clean

and habitable: an unpleasant drudgery, which, as with the simplicity of

a primitive Greek he reflected, might as well be performed by the least

worthy members of his household before they were taken to execution:

whereas the Englishman desired only to wound the sentiments of the

doomed men, and prolong their prospect of death with a vista of eternal

misery. And this, when the rallying-cry of the insurrection was the

preservation of caste:--when in the wide-spread confidence that our

faith did not seek to extend itself by carnal weapons lay the salvation

of the British supremacy!

But there was a spectacle to be witnessed which might excuse much.

Those who, straight from the contested field, wandered sobbing

through the rooms of the ladies' house, saw what it were well could

the outraged earth have straightway hidden. The inner apartment was

ankle-deep in blood. The plaster was scored with sword-cuts: not high

up, as where men have fought; but low down, and about the corners, as

if a creature had crouched to avoid a blow. Strips of dresses, vainly

tied round the handles of the doors, signified the contrivance to which

feminine despair had resorted as a means of keeping out the murderers.

Broken combs were there, and the frills of children's trousers, and

torn cuffs and pinafores, and little round hats, and one or two shoes

with burst latchets, and one or two daguerrotype-cases with cracked

glasses. An officer picked up a few curls, preserved in a bit of

card-board, and marked "Ned's hair, with love:" but around were strewn

locks, some near a yard in length, dissevered, not as a keepsake, by

quite other scissors. All who on that day passed within the fatal doors

agree positively to assert that no inscription of any sort or kind was

visible on the walls. Before the month was out, the bad habit, common

to low Englishmen, of scribbling where they ought not, here displaying

itself in an odious form, had covered the principal buildings of

Cawnpore with vulgar and disgusting forgeries, false in date, in taste,

in spelling, and in fact.

There were found two slips of paper: one bearing in an unknown hand a

brief but correct outline of our disasters. On the other a Miss Lindsay

had kept an account of the killed and wounded in a single family. It

runs thus, telling its own tale:

"Entered the barracks May 21st.

Cavalry left June 5th.

First shot fired June 6th.

Aunt Lilly died June 17th.

Uncle Willy died June 18th.

Left barracks June 27th.

George died June 27th.

Alice died July 9th.

Mamma died July 12th."

The writer, with her two surviving sisters, perished in the final

massacre.

The library of the captives was small indeed: but such books as they

had were to the purpose. The earliest comers discovered among the

vestiges of slaughter a treatise, entitled "Preparation for Death:"

and a bible, which must have travelled in Major Vibart's barge down to

Nuzzufgur and back to Cawnpore, as may be gathered from the following

record:

"27th June. Went to the boats.

29th. Taken out of boats.

30th. Taken to Sevadah Kothi. Fatal day."

Fatal indeed: for that was the day when "the wives sat down, each by

her husband;" when "the sepoys, going in, pulled them away forcibly;

but could not pull away the doctor's wife, who there remained;" when

"one Sahib rolled one way, and one another, as they sat." That bible

was a present from the dead to the dead: for on the fly-leaf appeared

this address: "For darling Mamma, from her affectionate daughter,

Isabella Blair:" the "Bella Blair," whose fate is mentioned in the

letter from young Masters to his father. The list was closed by a

church service, from which the cover had been stripped, and many

pages at the end torn off. Unbound and incomplete, it had fulfilled

its mission: for it opened of itself where, within a crumpled and

crimson-sprinkled margin, might be read the concise and beautiful

supplications of our Litany. It concluded, that mutilated copy, with

the forty-seventh Psalm, wherein David thanks the Almighty for a

victory and a saving mercy:

"O, clap your hands together, all ye people: O, sing unto God with the

voice of melody. He shall subdue the people under us: and the nations

under our feet. God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Lord with

the sound of a trump. God rejoiceth over the heathen: God sitteth on

his holy seat. God, which is very high exalted, doth defend the earth,

as it were with a shield."

Such were the printed lines which, from amidst the rent tresses, and

shivered toys, and the scraps of muslin dyed with the most costly of

all pigments, lay staring up to high heaven in tacit but impressive

irony.

It is good that the house and the well of horror have been replaced by

a fair garden and a graceful shrine. But there let piety stay her hand.

A truce thenceforward to that mistaken reverence which loves to express

sorrow and admiration in guineas, and rupees, and the net product of

fancy bazaars! Too often already have architect and sculptor disguised

the place where a notable thing was done. India still contains some

sacred plots untouched by the art of the decorator,--some shapeless

ruins more venerable than dedicated aisle or stately mausoleum.

Still, amidst the fantastic edifices of Lucknow, hard by a shattered

gateway, rise or lie prostrate the pillars of a grass-grown portico.

Beneath that verandah, in the July evening, preferring the risk of the

hostile missiles to the confinement of a stifling cellar, was dying

Henry Lawrence, the man who tried to do his duty. It was not time and

the weather that made bare of plaster the brickwork of the old gate.

There from summer into winter,--until of his two hundred musketeers he

had buried four-score and five, and sent to hospital three-score and

sixteen,--earning his Cross in ragged flannel trousers and a jersey of

dubious hue, burly Jack Aitken bore up the unequal fray. An Englishman

does not require any extraneous incentives to emotion when, leaning

against the beams of that archway, he recalls who have thereby gone

in and out, bent on what errands, and thinking what thoughts. Between

those door-posts have walked Peel, and Havelock, and gentle Outram, and

stout Sir Colin, heroes who no longer tread the earth. Through the same

entrance passed, but not erect, the form of a tall grey soldier, stern

even in death, with a bullet-wound in the centre of his forehead, whom

the orderlies announced in whispers to be Neill of the Madras army. At

Delhi still, before the police-court in the Street of Silver, may be

seen the platform whereon, naked to the waist and besmeared with dirt

and blood, were exposed to three autumn suns the corpses of the last

descendants of Timour, slain and spoiled by one who knew neither pity

nor scruple. Still, after an evening stroll along the ridge outside the

battlements, as on his return he descends the slope rough with crag

and brushwood, the visitor may come upon a mound of rubbish so beaten

with shot that it is not easy to discern what of it is artificial

rampart, and what is broken ground. The rocks coated with frequent

films of lead, and the wreck of a small temple, testify that this is

the famous post, known in military history as the "Sammy-house picket,"

which Briton, and Sikh, and Ghoorka, fighting shoulder to shoulder,

hardly made good throughout the hundred days of the terrible siege.

On the summit of the tottering dome, at a height of some twelve feet

from the soil, presides a Hindoo idol with an elephant's head. There

he sits, a stupid little god, with arms reposing on his knees, gazing

across the valley at the minarets of the ancient capital, as though he

had never seen any stranger sight than the tourist in his white dress

and dust-coloured helmet, or heard any sounds more wild and maddening

than the chirping of the grasshoppers, and the lowing of the belated

cattle as they stray homeward to their stalls. Not urn, nor monolith,

nor broken column is so fit a monument for brave men as the crumbling

breastwork and the battered wall. And in like manner the dire agony of

Cawnpore needs not to be figured in marble, or cut into granite, or

cast of bronze. There is no fear lest we should forget the story of our

people. The whole place is their tomb, and the name thereof is their

epitaph. When the traveller from Allahabad, rousing himself to learn

at what stage of his journey he may have arrived, is aware of a voice

proclaiming through the darkness the city of melancholy fame,--then

those accents, heard for the first time on the very spot itself

which they designate, recall, more vividly than written or engraven

eloquence, the memory of fruitless valour and unutterable woe.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Napier's "History of the War in the Peninsula." Book xx. Chapter iv.

THE END.

R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL.

Transcriber's Notes

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Inconsistent hyphenation fixed.

P. 8: into the vernadah -> into the verandah.

P. 24: insolence and green -> insolence and greed.

P. 26: A battalian on march -> A battalion on march.

P. 50: paid to this delaration -> paid to this declaration.

P. 65: prophet seem to have been -> prophet seems to have been.

P. 80: their commander had adoped -> their commander had adopted.

P. 84: worst was beter -> worst was better.

P. 116: made night hideous -> made the night hideous.

P. 119: coat of white paster -> coat of white plaster.

P. 124: day week -> day.

P. 139: what they lake in energy -> what they lack in energy.

P. 172: We have been connonaded -> We have been cannonaded.

P. 215: our people though -> our people thought.

P. 236: hord of mutineers -> horde of mutineers.

P. 237: such an autcry -> such an outcry.

P. 291: Bramhin -> Brahmin.