and at the same moment he saw his brave and only remaining soldier
companion go down, shot through the head. Then he kicked in the head of
a barrel of powder he had taken the precaution to have brought up, and
passing his arm round Blanche’s waist he was about to fire his revolver
into the powder, when he suddenly changed his mind, and said hurriedly:
‘Darling, I believe we can escape and find safety in the fort.’
‘Where you go, I will go,’ she answered.
Hurriedly fixing a few feet of slow match to the powder barrel he
lighted the loose end; then taking Blanche’s hand they hurried down
the stairs, revolvers in hand. They gained the back door, which led
into the garden, and by almost superhuman effort they removed the
barricading of the door and rushed out and cleared the garden before
their escape was discovered. But at that moment there was a tremendous
explosion, and the house they had just left crumbled to ruins. For some
minutes the mutineers were scattered by the shock, and it seemed as if
the brave Shelton and the equally brave Blanche would gain shelter.
But they were seen, and a swarm of mounted soldiers sped after them.
Placing Blanche against a wall Shelton stood in front of her, and
emptied his revolver at the advancing horsemen, and two of their number
pitched from their saddles, but the next moment the faithful lovers
fell, clasped in each other’s arms, and riddled with bullets. In life
they had loved and hoped, and in death they were not divided; their
hopes would become fruition in a better and a brighter world.
In the meantime how fared it with the brave defenders of the fort?
Baffled in their attempt to obtain possession of the house the
mutineers rushed to the magazine with their rallying cry of ‘Deen,
deen!’ Willoughby and his noble band were prepared for them. They had
concentrated their nine-pounder guns, and behind them had piled up as
much ammunition as they had had time to procure. A few yards away was a
heap of powder, and a train carried from it into the magazine itself,
where the heads had been knocked out of many of the barrels and the
powder scattered, with loaded shells placed in it. There were tons of
powder, shells, and explosives of all kinds; and when further defence
was found to be impossible the train was to be fired.
While the howling troopers on horse and foot were speeding to the fort,
mounted messengers were sent from the king to demand from Willoughby
the surrender of the place.
‘Back to your royal master, slaves,’ was the haughty and defiant
answer, ‘and tell him to come himself and we will surrender the ruins,
together with our corpses, to him.’
The messenger made known this defiant answer to the mutineers, who were
now clamouring round in a surging, jostling mass, and a determined
rush was made for the gate. But they fell back as a withering storm
of grape shot tore through them. That storm was most destructive in
its effects; but the soldiers and the rabble that had joined them from
the slums and dens of the city were too strongly bent on slaying the
Feringhees to allow themselves to be defeated by the slaughter of some
of their number. So gathering themselves together again, they howled
‘Deen, deen!’ and made another rush, but once more they were hurled
back by the blast of fire and shot.
Seldom in the annals of warfare has there been a more stubborn, more
heroic, defence made by a handful of men against a host of trained
soldiers than was made by Willoughby and his comrades; for, be it
remembered that they were fighting regiments of soldiers who had been
trained and drilled in the art of warfare by the English themselves,
and, as often proved before and since, the Sepoy makes almost as good
a fighting-man as his white brother, although he perhaps lacks in that
stubbornness and unconquerable determination which are peculiarly
characteristic of the Englishman. But in the case we are dealing with
the Sepoys were stubborn enough. They knew, indeed, that it was death
or victory with them. And they quite believed that if they could but
obtain the immense accumulation of ammunition stored in the Delhi
arsenal, not only could they hold the city of the Moghuls against all
the armies of England, but that they could actually conquer India.
For it was big guns and shot and shell they wanted, and from nowhere
else could they obtain them save Delhi. It was, therefore, their only
hope, and it may safely be asserted that not one amongst them deemed
it possible that the stores would not fall into their hands, as it was
well known that only nine men held the fort. But what they did not know
was that those nine men were unconquerable.
It is no disparagement of the rest to say that Willoughby, by his
magnificent example, inspired the others to greater deeds of valour.
When on the evening of the 1st of May, as he sat on the verandah of
the colonel’s bungalow at Meerut, he had stated that he would blow the
magazine up rather than surrender it, he made no idle boast. But his
belief was, as he and his noble companions worked the guns and kept
the howling foe at bay, that the necessity to destroy the magazine
would not arise, since they would be able to hold out till succour
reached them from Meerut. For not knowing the extent of the disaster
which had overwhelmed that station, he naturally expected some portion
of its strong garrison would immediately be despatched to Delhi’s
relief. But, alas! when the hoofs of the mutinous troopers’ horses rung
upon the bridge that spanned the Jumna before Delhi, they sounded the
death-knell of every British resident in the city, with some three or
four exceptions.
There is an expressive Hindostanee word, _lachar_, which means helpless
and something more; and at this awful crisis in our Indian rule the
English were certainly lachar. They might slay many of their foes, but
they could not save their lives or property. Such as were soldiers
knew that it was one of the risks attending their profession of arms
that they might be called upon at any moment to fight for and lay down
their lives. But it was hard, it was pitiable, it was maddening, that
the dear women and sweet children should fall a prey to the brutal and
tiger-like ferocity of the revolted soldiers, and there is no doubt
that the thought of their loved ones nerved many an arm to fight with
the heroism of desperate despair.
For five long hours did Willoughby keep the host at bay; and often and
often during those dreadful hours did he rush to the bastion on the
river face and turn his gaze in the direction of Meerut, hoping to see
the succour he expected coming in the shape of a regiment of English
soldiers speeding on with all the speed their chargers were capable of.
But the plain was misty with dust and heat; and not a living thing was
in sight beyond the river save some vultures that hovered lazily in the
heated air as if waiting patiently for the feast they knew would soon
be theirs.
And during those five hours the mutineers charged again and again at
the gate which was so ably defended, but each time they recoiled,
leaving a heap of their dead. No accurate record has come to us of the
number of their slain on that awful day, but it has been computed at
thousands, for mingling with the soldiers was an immense gathering
of civilians who had armed themselves with all sorts of weapons,
and poured forth to assist in massacring the English. But still the
enormous number of their dead did not deter them. Indeed, the sight
only served to frenzy them still more. Horses and men--soldiers and
civilians--encumbered the ground, victims to the grape and canister
belched forth by the nine-pounders. And the constantly accumulating
heaps made it difficult for the living to reach the gate which they
hoped to batter in. At last, however, they bethought themselves of
ladders. The marvel is that they had not thought of them before. Scores
of ladders were soon procured when once they had been suggested, and
then with shouts and cries that rent the very air the mutineers began
to swarm up the walls.
And now brave Willoughby felt that the supreme moment had come at last.
Never had soldier more nobly, more devotedly, and more heroically done
his duty. But he saw, alas! that his efforts were useless. For the
last time he rushed to the bastion. One more look--a long, anxious
look--over that great plain that was all a quiver with the fierce
heat of the unchecked sun. But not a sign was there of the hoped-for
succour. Meerut had failed them, and there was nothing left now but to
die. Then the splendid hero went back to his guns.
‘Comrades,’ he said, ‘we are abandoned to our fate. Meerut has not
sent, perhaps could not send, us help. But though we are defeated we
are not conquered. We have as soldiers done our duty, and defended
to the last the stores committed to our care. Further defence is
impossible, and there is but one more thing to do, and that is to die.’
He raised his sword as the prearranged sign, word was then passed by
one of his lieutenants to Scully, who stood ready. Scully lit his match
and fired the train.
There was an awful pause. The minarets and domes of the wonderful city
glittered in the sunlight, and the face of heaven was without a cloud.
Nature was peaceful and at rest; but men were striving to tear their
fellow men to pieces, and there was a Babel of fierce, discordant
cries. The walls of the fort were black with hundreds of soldiers and
civilians who were struggling with each other as to who should be
first to cut down the Englishmen. Between the sweltering crowds on the
walls and the thousands below the scaling ladders formed a connecting
link, and they were black, too, with the writhing masses of men trying
to work their way up. Beyond the closely-wedged crowd that extended
from the walls outwards for something like fifty yards was a fringe of
rabble; the scouring of the gaols and the contributions of the places
of infamy with which the city abounded. And in this fringe was a large
percentage of women and young people of both sexes; though there wasn’t
one there but was athirst for the Feringhees’ blood. And when it was
seen that the rebel Sepoys had gained the summit of the surrounding
walls of the fort there arose from thousands of lips an exultant roar,
for it seemed that the Englishmen were at last in the power of the mob.
But suddenly that roar ceased with a quick and paralysing accession of
fear that struck the human mass dumb, for something had happened--a
convulsion of nature, as it seemed. The sun was darkened; the firm
earth rocked, and shook, and rose and fell, and concurrent with these
things was a compact, sullen, solid boom, that expanded and stretched
out as it were until it became a mighty and stupendous volume of sound.
Where a few seconds before the walls had stood black with hundreds
of fierce men on murder intent was a heap of ruins; and all around
not hundreds but thousands of human beings were hurled to the ground
maimed, shattered, and slain. And of those who had presence of mind to
turn and flee, some were overtaken and stricken senseless with flying
masonry, masses of iron, or baulks of timbers; while others fell dead
from fright, and others again went raving mad; and some rushed to the
river and threw themselves in, desperate with despair, for it seemed
as if their own god Shiva had turned upon his votaries and was bent
on wiping them off the face of the earth. The effects of this great
explosion were remarkable. The whole city was shaken. Ponderous houses
reeled and tottered, and buildings miles away were rent and split.
Every tree within a radius of a couple of hundred yards was blasted and
withered. Huge masses of masonry were hurled high into the air. Heavy
guns were tossed away as if they had been toys caught by a strong wind.
The six-feet walls of solid masonry were shattered to crumbling ruins,
burying many hundreds of natives, while hundreds more were blown up
into the air like wisps of straw. The destruction of the war material
was complete. Not a pound of powder, not a shell, not a gun, remained
for the natives to use against the white men. To that fact probably we
owe our ultimate success over the rebels. For if all that ammunition
and all those guns had fallen into the hands of the mutineers at that
moment, there is no telling what they might have accomplished.
Willoughby had indeed nobly done his duty. To their disgrace, however,
be it said, there were those at home--the fireside politicians, the
little Englander and carpet-slipper travellers--who censured him for
the act. But Englishmen at heart admire courage and devotion to duty.
Generations yet unborn, when they read the pathetic story of Shelton
and Blanche Merton, will draw a sigh of pity, while around the memory
of Lieutenant George Willoughby will ever shine a halo of glory, and
Englishmen will refer to him with a sense of swelling pride as the Hero
of Delhi, who with fire and death helped to save India.
NOTE.--Curiously enough Willoughby and a comrade, Lieutenant Forrest,
escaped from the fiery blast that scattered such ruin and death around.
Willoughby, however, was much burnt, and Forrest was severely wounded,
having been shot in the arm. The brave Scully who fired the train
must have been blown to atoms. It was estimated that 2,000 mutineers
at least were killed by the explosion, and as many perhaps had been
previously shot down by grape and canister which the heroic little
garrison poured forth with such deadly effect.
IX
THE SPECTRE OF RISLIP ABBEY
[The particulars of this story have been supplied by a well-known
member of Parliament from his own experience. The story is told
almost in his own words. He is the owner of a broad and fair estate
in central England, and has gained an enviable reputation for his
high intelligence, his administrative ability--which on more than one
occasion has been of great advantage to his party--as well as for his
princely hospitality.]
Up to about twenty years ago I was a comparatively poor man, and had
to supplement my income by literary work, which, being of a scientific
character, had not a very wide market. However, at that time, I
succeeded to a snug patrimony, which freed my mind at once from all
anxiety about the future. I had been married for seventeen years, and
had two daughters, Cynthia and Phyllis, aged thirteen and fifteen
respectively. My wife was an invalid, and our medical attendant had
frequently told me that her restoration to health depended to a large
extent on her living in the country, and indulging in country pursuits.
But want of adequate means had prevented our giving effect to this
advice, for circumstances rendered it important that I should reside
in London, and my wife resolutely refused to leave me. Consequently,
we had been living in a modest flat, and made the best we could of its
inconveniences and drawbacks.
It was not surprising, therefore, that one of my first cares as soon as
I was in possession of my fortune was to seek for some suitable country
residence. We were all fond of the country, and my tastes inclined to
the life of a gentleman farmer. I therefore called one morning on my
friend, the late Mr. George R----, the well-known West-End auctioneer
and estate agent. He had a connection all over Great Britain, and I
knew that if anyone could find me the place I wanted he could. After
we had chatted for some time, and I had made known my requirements, he
began to discuss the pros and cons of several estates he had on his
books, but against all there was some objection to urge as far as I was
concerned, until at last he exclaimed with a chuckle:
‘By Jove, I have it. Rislip Abbey, that’s the place for you.’ Then,
calling his head clerk, he desired him to bring the printed particulars
of Rislip, which were read out as follows:--
‘Rislip.--Containing about three thousand acres arable land, five
hundred acres pasture, one thousand timber (mostly oak and beech), the
rest park and ornamental grounds. The house is a quaint, old-fashioned,
turreted mansion, believed to have been built about the end of the
reign of Henry VIII. The place is without any historical interest. Most
of the land lies well. The house stands high, and commands splendid
views, but is in a dilapidated condition, not having had a tenant for
the last thirty years. The property has been the subject of litigation,
but the rightful ownership has now been determined.’
The foregoing were the crude particulars, so to speak, in outline, and
having listened to them I questioned my friend further, and asked him
if he had personally surveyed the property.
‘I have,’ he answered.
‘And what is your opinion about it?’
‘Well, at present it is a wilderness, and the house is well nigh a
ruin. Chancery, as you know, is like a blight and a curse--it ruins
every property it has anything to do with, as well as breaks the hearts
of men and women. Of course, the lawyers have done well while Rislip
has been going to decay, and now the owners are too poor to spend
any money on it, nor can they sell any portion of it for the next
twenty-five years. But they would grant you a lease for that period for
a merely nominal rent, and give you the option of purchase. It would
want a good deal of money laid out on it in the first instance, but my
opinion is you could soon bring the land under cultivation, and make
it profitable. Anyway, go down and see the property. I’ll go with you,
if you like. You will soon see if it is likely to suit you, and, of
course, you can get the ghost and all thrown in.’
‘Ghost!’ I exclaimed, with a laugh.
‘Oh, yes. I understand there is a real, genuine ghost, according to
local tradition. The yokels swear that the place is haunted. But I
should say the only spirits you will find there are bats and owls.’
I laughed at the ghost idea. I was pleased to think myself a
hard-headed man, and my disposition was to view most things from
a severely critical and scientific point of view; while as for
spiritualism, I had nothing but contempt for those who professed to
believe in it.
Now, the result of my interview with my friend the auctioneer was that
a week later we journeyed down to Rislip together, and spent three or
four days in examining the estate. It was certainly not an exaggeration
to call it a wilderness, while the house itself was crumbling to decay;
but I saw at once the potentialities of the place, and as the situation
of the house would have been hard to beat, while the rental asked was
little more than nominal, I secured the refusal of the property for a
fortnight. During that time I consulted my lawyers, took my wife and
daughter down to Rislip, and as they confessed themselves charmed, and
I found I could secure it almost on my own terms, I lost no time in
closing, and at once proceeded to get estimates for putting the house
in habitable condition.
As may be imagined, I was very busy for the next three months, and
by means of a liberal expenditure and ample labour, a very different
aspect was imparted to the erstwhile wilderness, and the house was
ready for occupation by the early part of November. Though the prospect
of moving at such a period wasn’t very pleasant, we faced it boldly,
and by the end of the month were comfortably installed in our new
quarters. In carrying out the repairs and alterations in the house
I had been careful not to interfere in any way with its structural
arrangements, as its quaintness and rambling character appealed very
forcibly to my antiquarian instincts. One of the features of the house
was most certainly the dining-room. It was a room of really noble
proportions, unusually lofty for a building of that date, with three
straight windows on one side, and at one end a very deep bay, from
which there was a view second to none in the country.
The floor, which had been laid with oak, was as level as a billiard
table, and in a perfect state of preservation. The walls were all
wainscoted from floor to ceiling, and as some of this had decayed, it
had been found necessary to restore it during the process of renovating
the house. In the course of this work the men discovered a sliding
door so artfully let in as a panel that anyone unacquainted with its
existence would never have found it out. Behind the sliding panel was
a narrow passage, leading to a flight of stone steps that descended to
a second passage, closed by a door. This door gave access to a short
tunnel that had its exit in the grounds, near a lake of considerable
dimensions.
Romantic no doubt as all this may seem, there was really nothing very
remarkable in it, as very few country houses were built in Henry
VIII.’s time, and, indeed, for long after his reign, without a secret
passage, the object being to afford the occupants a means of escape in
case of need. The contractor who carried out the work for me suggested
that the passage should be blocked up, to this I would not give my
consent, but insisted on its being left in its original state, and in
this decision I was supported by my wife and daughters. I ought to add
that running parallel with the dining-room, and communicating by a
doorway, was another room of smaller dimensions, but so conveniently
situated and well lighted that I at once appropriated it as a library,
as I had a valuable collection of books.
By the middle of December we had quite settled down, and all felt
charmed with our new home, then we began to send out invitations very
freely to our friends and relatives for Christmas, as we were desirous
of having a good house-warming.
Of course, during the short time I had been in possession I had heard
much gossip and gathered a good many interesting anecdotes about the
property. The fact of its having at last changed hands aroused a great
deal of interest and curiosity over a very extended area, for the
history of Rislip was pretty well known, and the story of the Chancery
suit and the ruin it had brought about had caused general regret, as it
was regarded as a shame that so good a property should be allowed to
run to waste. I found that there was a very curious belief that Rislip
had its familiar spirit--in other words, that it was haunted. I tried
to find out the foundation for this belief, but, as is usually the
case, I was met with the reply--
‘Oh, I’ve never seen anything myself, but I’ve heard of people who
have.’
When I tried to find out these people who, by common account, had had
occular demonstration of the existence of disturbed spirits, I need
scarcely say I failed. It is always so. Neither my wife nor I attached
the slightest serious importance to the current stories. We were amused
by them, and possibly there was just a tendency on our part to regard
people who expressed belief in the supernatural as being far from what
is generally termed ‘strong-minded,’ to use a mild term.
But now, to come to the strangest part of my narrative. I had been
dining one night with my family, and we had had a neighbouring
gentleman and his wife as guests. They had departed, and my wife and
the girls had retired. I had remained to indulge in a final cigar,
and enjoy the comfort of the brightly burning fire and the warm room.
Outside the weather was murky, cold, and dismal. My butler had been
to inquire if I wished for anything more, and my wants having been
attended to, he bade me good-night and went to his room. After that I
fell into a reverie. Possibly I may have dozed. Anyway, I was aroused
to a sense of things mundane by a cold draught of air blowing upon me,
and glancing round I saw, to my amazement, that the secret door or
panel in the wall to which I have already alluded was wide open. Then I
was still further amazed--I might almost say dumfounded--by _seeing a
hand_, only a hand, slowly draw the panel into its place again.