Title: The Story of the Indian Mutiny
Author: Moncrieff, A. R. Hope (Ascott Robert Hope)
Language: English
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 THE STORY OF
 THE INDIAN MUTINY

[Illustration: Interior of Well at Cawnpore.

_Frontispiece_]



 THE STORY OF

 THE INDIAN MUTINY


 BY

 ASCOTT R. HOPE

 AUTHOR OF
 "MEN OF THE BACKWOODS," "YOUNG TRAVELLERS' TALES,"
 ETC.


 _WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS_


 [Illustration]


 LONDON
 FREDERICK WARNE AND CO.
 AND NEW YORK
 1896
 [_All rights reserved_]



 Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
 London & Bungay.



PREFACE


The story of the great Indian Mutiny has often been told in whole or in
part. In this book, while historical outlines are carefully preserved,
it is attempted to throw into relief the more picturesque episodes,
and to bring out illustrative incidents of personal adventure likely
to attract young readers. With such a theme, if any reader will only
suffer some needful gravity in the introduction, he may be promised
a narrative of heroism and romance which the dullest treatment could
hardly make unexciting.

 A.R.H.



CONTENTS


 CHAP.                                                      PAGE

 I. INDIA: ITS PEOPLES AND RULERS                            1

 II. THE OUTBREAK                                           24

 III. THE SPREAD OF INSURRECTION                            45

 IV. THE CONFLAGRATION                                      72

 V. THE CITIES OF REFUGE                                    92

 VI. THE FALL OF DELHI                                     138

 VII. THE DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW                               164

 VIII. LORD CLYDE'S CAMPAIGNS                              199

 IX. THE EXTINCTION                                        227

 APPENDIX                                                  241



THE STORY OF

THE INDIAN MUTINY



CHAPTER I

INDIA: ITS PEOPLES AND RULERS


A troubled history has all along been that of the great tongue of land
which, occupying the same position in Asia as Italy in Europe, is equal
to half our continent, with a population growing towards three hundred
millions. Far back into fabulous ages, we see it threatened by mythical
or shadowy conquerors, Hercules, Semiramis, Sesostris, Cyrus; whelmed
beneath inroads of nameless warriors from Central Asia; emerging first
into historical distinctness with Alexander the Great's expedition to
the valley of the Indus, from which came that familiar name given to
dark-skinned races on both sides of the globe. Our era brought in new
wars of spoil or of creed; Tartars, Arabs, Turcomans and Afghans in
turn struggled among each other for its ancient wealth; and India knew
little peace till it had passed under the dominion of a company of
British merchants, who for a century held it by the sword as proudly as
any martial conqueror.

This rich region having always invited conquest, its present population
is seen to consist of different layers left by successive invasions.
First, we have fragments of a pre-historic people, chiefly in the hill
districts to which they were driven ages ago, whose very tribe-names,
meaning _slaves_ or _labourers_, sometimes tell how once they became
subject to stronger neighbours; but behind them again there are traces
of even older aborigines. Next, the open parts of the country are found
over-run by a fair-skinned Aryan race, of the same stock as ourselves,
whose pure descendants are the high-caste Brahmins and Rajpoots of our
day, while a mixture of their blood with that of the older tribes has
produced the mass of the Hindoo inhabitants. Over them lie patches of
another quality of flesh and blood, deposited by the fresh streams of
Moslem inroad, as in the case of our Saxons and Normans. But whereas
with us, Briton, Saxon and Norman are so welded into one nation, unless
in mountainous retreats, that most Englishmen hardly know what blood
runs mingled in their veins, here a very imperfect fusion has taken
place between varied peoples, held jealously aloof by pride of race,
by superstition, by hatred of rival faiths, and still speaking many
different languages, with the mongrel mixture called Hindostani as
the main means of intercommunication. The peculiarity of the latest
conquest, our own, is that the dominant strangers show small desire to
settle for life in the country subject to them, yet we have added a new
element in the half-caste or Eurasian strain, through which, also, and
but slightly by other means, have we been able to affect the religious
belief of this motley population.

Religion may be taken as the keynote of Indian life and history.
While our ancestors were still dark-minded barbarians, their Aryan
kinsmen, migrating to Hindostan, had developed a singular degree of
culture, especially in religious thought. Before Greece or Rome became
illustrious, the hymns of the Vedas bespeak lofty ideas of the unseen,
and the Brahminical priesthood appear as philosophers, legislators and
poets of no mean rank. The first historical notices of India show a
high level, not only of material but of moral civilization, as well as
a manly temper of warriors well able to defend the soil they had won.

This enervating climate, however, with its easy efforts for existence,
has proved an influence of degeneracy, and most clearly so in the
matter of belief. Good seed, which here sprang up so quickly, was
always apt to wither under a too scorching sun, or to run to rank
foliage rather than to fruit. Early Brahminism, itself a marked
growth in thought, after a time began to be choked by the heathenism
it had overshadowed. It sent out a new shoot in Buddhism, a faith of
noble ideals, which to this day surpasses all others in the number of
its adherents. This, in turn, became a jungle of sapless formulas,
and after a thousand years died out on the land of its birth. Then
grew up modern Hindooism, a union of Brahminical dreams of divinity
and Buddhist love for humanity, interwoven with the aboriginal
superstitions, the whole forming a tangled maze, where the great
Hindoo trinity of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Siva
the Destroyer, take Protean shapes as a pantheon of innumerable gods,
amid which higher minds may turn upwards seeking one Almighty Spirit,
but the vulgar crowd fix their attention rather on grotesque idols,
base fetishes, symbols of fear and sensuality, fitly adored with
degrading rites and barbarous observances. All efforts have hitherto
little availed to clear this deeply-rooted wilderness of misbelief.
Enlightened Hindoos, who see the errors of their religion, yet find
it difficult to shake off the mental slavery of the "unchangeable
East." Our missionaries have to deplore the little real success that
attends their efforts. Beneath the sweltering sky of Hindostan,
spiritual life remains a day-dream or a nightmare; reformers are ever
silenced by fanatics; virtues are frittered down into foolish scruples;
harmful customs cumber the ground, hindering the growth of progressive
institutions.

The great encumbrance of Indian life is the system of caste, doubly
fostered by religion and pride of race. Originally the conquering
Aryans became divided into _Brahmins_ or priests, _Rajpoots_ or
warriors, and _Vaisyas_ or husbandmen, still distinguished as the
"twice-born" castes, who wear the sacred thread, badge of this
spiritual aristocracy; while under the common name of _Sudras_ or
serfs, were included all the despised aboriginal tribes. Then the mixed
population, formed by amalgamation between the latter and the lower
ranks of their masters, went on splitting up into other recognized
castes, as the superior classes, who took a pride in keeping their
stock pure, grew themselves divided among separate tribes or castes;
and thus arose a complex segregation of society into countless bodies,
cut off from each other by almost impassable barriers of rank and
occupation. There are now thousands of these castes, marked out by
descent, by calling, or by locality, the members of which cannot
intermarry, may seldom eat together, and must not touch food cooked by
an inferior; even the shadow of an outsider falling upon his meal might
cause a high-caste Hindoo to throw it away and go fasting. Each trade
is a separate caste, each order of servant; and the man who makes his
master's bed would shrink from the touch of the sweeper who cleans out
his bath-room. Yet caste does not always coincide with social position;
a powerful prince may be born of a low caste, and the native officer
who gives orders to a high-caste Brahmin in the ranks, must bow before
him when his sacred character is to be enlisted for the services of a
family festival.

The origin of this organized exclusion becomes illustrated by the
conduct of our own countrymen in India, among whom any penniless
subaltern is apt to display at the best a haughty tolerance for the
high-titled descendants of native kings, while he holds aloof from
Englishmen of inferior station, and openly despises the half-caste
Eurasian, who in turn affects contempt for the heathen Hindoo. We,
indeed, have common sense enough, or at least sense of humour, not
to let our prejudices degenerate into the ridiculous scrupulosity
which forbids a Rajah to dine in the same room with his guests, or a
coolie to set profane lips to his neighbour's drinking vessel. Railway
travelling, military service, association with Europeans, cannot but
do much to break down these burdensome restrictions; and enlightened
natives, in public or in private, begin to neglect them, though it is
to be feared that they too often copy the worse rather than the better
parts of our example. But among the mass of the ignorant people, the
least infringement of the rules of caste is looked upon with horror,
and to become an outcast _pariah_, through any offence against them, is
the ruin in this world which it seems in the next.

Another main barrier to progress here, has long been the slavish
condition of women, not improved by the next creed which came to
modify Hindoo institutions. Buddhism was hardly extinct in India,
when Mohamedan incursions began to put a strain of new blood into the
physical degeneration of the Hindoos, and though the Crescent, except
in parts, has never superseded the symbols of the older religion, these
two, dwelling side by side, could not be without their reaction on
each other's practice. It was the north of the peninsula that became
most frequently overflowed by inroads of its Moslem neighbours, while
Hindooism was left longer unassailed in the south, where also the
aboriginal fetish worships had of old their citadels. Even in the north
the conquests of Islam were long temporary and partial, irruptions of
pirates or mountain-robbers, able to prey upon the wealth of India
only through the want of cohesion among its Rajpoot lords. These early
invaders either returned with their booty, or remained to quarrel over
it between themselves, or were spoiled of it by fresh swarms from
beyond the Himalayas.

By the beginning of the thirteenth century, we find a Mohamedan empire
set up at Delhi by a dynasty known as the Slave Kings, who, before
long, gave place to rival adventurers. The power of the Crescent
now began to extend into Southern India, yet revolts of vassals and
viceroys kept it continually unstable. At the close of next century,
the redoubtable Tamerlane captured Delhi, giving it up to an orgy of
slaughter; but this devastating conqueror retired beyond the mountains
and left India divided between warring princes, Hindoo and Moslem. Four
generations later, Tamerlane's descendant Baber returned to make more
enduring conquests; then it was by his grandson, Akbar, that the Mogul
empire became firmly founded.

Akbar the Great, whose long reign roughly coincides with that of our
Queen Elizabeth, was rarely enlightened for an Oriental despot. By a
policy of religious toleration, he won over the Hindoo princes, while
he reduced the independent Mohamedan chiefs under his authority, and
did much towards welding Northern India into a powerful union of
provinces, ruled through his lieutenants. His less wise heirs, cursed
by self-indulgent luxury and by family discords, added to the splendour
rather than to the strength of this dominion. Its last famous reign
was that of Aurungzebe, covering the second half of the seventeenth
century. A bigoted Mohamedan, he alienated the Hindoos by persecution,
while he spent many years in conquering the independent Moslem kings of
the south, only to ripen the decay of his vast empire. After his death,
it began to go to pieces like that of Alexander the Great. His feeble
successors dwindled into puppets in the hands of one or another artful
minister. Their satraps at a distance, under various titles, asserted
a practical autocracy. And now had sprung up a new Hindoo power, the
warlike hordes of the Mahrattas, whose great leader Sivajee, from his
hill-forts among the Western Ghauts, began to make these ravaging
horsemen feared far and wide, till their raids were the terror of all
India.

Among the quickly-fading glories of the Mogul Empire, almost unnoticed
came the appearance of the new strangers who would inherit it. The
Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive, at the beginning of the
sixteenth century, when all the gorgeous East was still a wonderland
of wealth in Christian imaginations. Then followed the Dutch, who,
however, fixed their chief attention upon the spice islands of the
Archipelago. On the last day of A.D. 1600, the East India Company was
incorporated by royal charter at London, none yet dreaming to what
greatness it would rise. A few years later, an English ambassador, sent
by James I., made his way to the Court of the Great Mogul, and received
assurances of favour and encouragement for trade. About the same
time, our first settlement was made on the Coromandel coast. In 1615
a factory was established at Surat, on the other side of India; then,
half-a-century later, the head-quarters of the enterprise were shifted
to Bombay, ceded by Portugal in 1661, which, being an island, seemed
safe from Sivajee's plundering horsemen.

In the meanwhile, other trading stations had been acquired in
Bengal. At the end of the century, the Company is found taking a
more independent stand, purchasing land, erecting fortifications,
and arming its servants to resist the dangers which threatened trade
in this disordered region. Such was the humble origin of the three
Presidencies of Madras, Bombay, and Bengal, the last of which became
the most important, and its chief station, Calcutta, the residence of
the Governor-General.

Other European nations appeared in the field, but our only formidable
rival here was France, the Portuguese making little of their claim
to monopoly, now represented by the settlements of Goa, best known
as the breeding place for a mongrel race of servants. One more stock
of emigrants must not be omitted from mention. Centuries before a
European ship had touched India, a remnant of Persian fire-worshippers,
flying from Mohamedan persecution, settled upon the west coast, where,
though few in numbers, by their wealth, intelligence, and commercial
enterprise, these Parsees have grown to be an influential element in
the population, excelling, like the Jews in Europe, as traders and men
of business.

The eighteenth century saw the ruin of Aurungzebe's empire going on
apace. Sikhs and Rajpoots threw off its yoke; hereditary kingdoms were
clutched for themselves out of the wreck by its ambitious viceroys; in
1739 the Persian Nadir Shah plundered the treasures of Delhi; after
him came fresh hordes of Afghan horsemen. The greatest power in India
was now the Mahratta Confederacy, under hereditary ministers bearing
the title of Peshwa, who, like the Mayors of the Palace in Old France,
usurped all real power, keeping Sivajee's unworthy heirs in sumptuous
seclusion; a form of government that has often been brought about
in Oriental States. The Peshwas, with their capital at Poona, ruled
over the Deccan, the great tableland of the south; but the Mahratta
incursions were carried as far as Delhi and Calcutta; and throughout
India reigned a lawless disorder, inviting the interference of any hand
strong enough to seize the opportunity.

It was the French who, having failed as traders, first sought to
make political profit out of this confusion. Dupleix, Governor of
Pondicherry, conceived lofty ideas of founding a new empire under the
shadow of the old one, and to this end, began by trying to get rid of
his English neighbours. In 1746 Madras was captured by the French,
to be restored indeed at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle; but though
there came peace in Europe between the two nations, their East India
Companies remained at jealous war. Dupleix, mixing in the intrigues of
native ambition, made himself, for a time, predominant in the south;
and we seemed like to lose all hold here, but for the appearance on the
scene of one who was to prove arbiter of India's destinies.

Every one knows how the young subaltern Robert Clive, by his gallant
defence of Arcot, suddenly sprang into fame, and at once turned the
scale of prestige in favour of his countrymen. The French went on
losing influence, till, in 1761, it was the turn of their settlements
to be conquered. Dupleix died in disgrace with his ungrateful
sovereign, while Clive was heaped with honours and rewards, soon earned
by services in another field of action.

Before the French were fully humbled in the south, he had been summoned
to Calcutta to chastise the despicable Nawab of Bengal, Surajah Dowlah,
for that notorious atrocity of the "Black Hole," where nearly a hundred
and fifty Englishmen were shut up in a stifling den not twenty feet
square, from which few of them came out alive. Following Dupleix's
example, Clive plunged into political intrigue, and undertook to
supplant Surajah Dowlah by a prince of his own choosing. At Plassey,
with three thousand men, only a third of them Europeans, he routed the
tyrant's army, fifty thousand strong--a momentous battle that counts
as the foundation of our sovereignty in India. A new Nawab was set up,
nominally under appointment from Delhi, but really as the servant of
the English Company, who now obtained a considerable grant of land as
well as an enormous sum in compensation for their losses by Surajah
Dowlah's occupation of Calcutta. A few years later their nominee was
dethroned in favour of a more compliant one, who also had to pay
handsomely for his elevation. He ventured to rebel, but to no purpose.
Lord Clive pushed the English arms as far as Allahabad; and henceforth,
with whatever puppet on the throne and with whatever show of homage to
the high-titled suzerain at Delhi, the Company were the actual masters
of Bengal.

All over India spread the renown of Clive's small but well-trained
Sepoy army. His subjugation of the effeminate Bengalees, Macaulay may
well compare to a war of sheep and wolves; but this young English
officer went on to defy the more warlike levies of the north-west. He
seized the Dutch settlements that threatened armed rivalry in Bengal;
he almost extinguished the French ones. A harder task he had in curbing
the rapacity of his own countrymen, who, among the temptations that
beset such rapid ascendancy, bid fair to become the worst oppressors of
their virtual subjects.

The next great ruler of Bengal was Warren Hastings, who organized a
system of administration for the territory conquered by Clive, and
began with collecting the revenues directly through the hands of
English officers. Private greed was now restrained; but the Governor
must justify his policy and satisfy his employers, by sending home
large sums of money, which in the long run had to be wrung from the
unhappy natives; and this necessity led the agents of the Directors
into many questionable acts. It was a great step from the fortified
trading posts of last century to levying taxes and tribute, maintaining
an army and navy, selling provinces and dictating to princes. But by
this time the conscience of the English people was being roused, and
it began to be understood how India, for all its princely treasures,
was the home of a poor and much-enduring population, which our duty
should be to protect rather than to spoil. Returning to England,
Warren Hastings was solemnly impeached before the House of Lords for
his high-handed oppression. That famous trial, in which more than one
English Cicero denounced our pro-consul as a second Verres, dragged
itself out for seven years, and ended in a verdict of acquittal,
which posterity has not fully confirmed, yet with the recognition
of extenuating circumstances in the novelty and difficulty of the
criminal's office.

We now held the valley of the Ganges up to Benares, and were soon
making further acquisitions in that direction. In the Bombay Presidency
we came into collision with the Mahrattas, in Madras with Hyder Ali,
the tyrant of Mysore. The result of these wars proved our arms not
so invincible as in the case of the timid Bengalees, but more than
one gallant action made native princes cautious how they trifled with
our friendship. Fortunately for us, the mutual jealousy of neighbour
potentates prevented them from combining to drive our small armies out
of India, and we were able to deal with them one by one. We had now no
European rival to fear, though more than one Indian despot kept French
troops in his service, or natives trained and officered by Frenchmen.
Napoleon Bonaparte, most illustrious of French adventurers, had an eye
to romantic conquest in the East; but we know how he found occupation
elsewhere, and did not come here to meet the adversary who in the
end proved his master. For it was in India that Wellington won his
first laurels, under his brother, Lord Wellesley, a Governor-General
resolute to make England paramount over the ruins of the Mogul Empire.
The Nizam of Hyderabad was persuaded to dismiss his French guards, and
become the vassal of England, as his descendant still is. Tippoo, Hyder
Ali's son, fell at the renowned storm of his stronghold, Seringapatam,
in the last year of the century. The Mahrattas were attacked in the
Deccan, where Wellington gained the battle of Assaye, while in the
north Lord Lake mastered Delhi and Agra. But the princes of this great
confederacy were not fully humbled till the third Mahratta war in 1818,
under the Governorship of Lord Hastings; before which the Goorkhas of
the Himalayas, and the Pindaree robbers of Central India, had also
been taught the lesson of submission. Presently we were carrying
our arms across the sea, and wresting Assam from the Burmese. The
crowning exploit of this victorious period was the siege of Bhurtpore,
a fortress believed in India to be impregnable, from which in 1805
an English army had fallen back, but now in 1827 its capture went
far to make the natives look on us as irresistible. The once-dreaded
name of the Emperor was a cloak for our power, as it had been for the
Mahrattas', while Calcutta had taken the place of Delhi as capital,
through the primacy of Bengal among the three Presidencies, whose
bounds had stretched to touch each other all across India.

Lord William Bentinck, who now became Governor-General, earned a
different kind of glory by his sympathetic labours for the true welfare
of the millions whom those wide conquests had placed under our rule. He
began to make war on the crimes of barbarous superstition--the burning
of hapless widows, the murders of infants, the secret assassinations
by fanatical devotees. But with his successor opened a new series
of campaigns that were not always illustrious to the British arms.
Russia had taken the place of France as the bugbear of our Indian
predominancy. Alarmed by Muscovite intrigues in Afghanistan, Lord
Auckland entered upon a course of unwise and disastrous interference
with the politics of that country. We succeeded in dethroning the
usurper, Dost Mahomed, of whom we could more easily have made an
ally. But in 1841 the people of Cabul rose against us; our army of
occupation had to retreat in the depth of winter; assailed by hardy
mountain tribes, they perished miserably among the rocks of the Khyber
Pass; and out of thousands only one man reached Jellalabad to tell the
tale. Sale's brave defence of that poor fortress did something towards
retrieving our disgrace, and next year an avenging army returned to
work bootless destruction at Cabul, leaving a legacy of ill-will that
has been dearly inherited by our own generation.

More substantial conquests followed. Scindia, one of the old Mahratta
princes, was brought more effectively under British control. At the
same time, the Moslem Ameers of Scinde were overcome by Sir Charles
Napier. We then stood face to face with the last great independent
power of Hindostan, and the foeman who proved most worthy of our steel.
The Sikhs, a manly race, originally a sect of Hindoo reformers, had
risen from Mogul persecution to become lords of the Punjaub, "country
of the five rivers," which all along has been the great battle-field
of Indian history. Runjeet Singh, their masterful ruler for forty
years, had carefully avoided a struggle with the British, which soon
after his death was brought on by the turbulent bellicosity of the
people, made audacious through our Afghan reverses. The two Sikh
wars of 1845 and 1848 were marked by long and desperate battles;
Sobraon, Chillianwallah, and Goojerat are remembered for the bravery
and the slaughter on both sides, but finally the Punjaub was over-run,
disarmed, and turned into a British province.

Several smaller states also were annexed about this time, through the
failure of legitimate heirs, and our Government's refusal to recognize
the Hindoo custom of adoption. A second Burmese war resulted in the
acquisition of another province beyond the Gulf of Bengal. Lastly, the
King of Oudh, whose incapable tyranny seemed beyond cure, had to submit
to be pensioned off and see his ill-governed dominions pass under
British administration. This signalized the end of Lord Dalhousie's
term of vigorous government, who, while carrying out a policy of
somewhat high-handed annexation, had shown himself not less active in
the construction of roads, canals, railways, telegraph lines, and in
all ways accomplished much to extend, consolidate, and develop what,
partly by accident, partly by force of circumstances, and partly by
far-seeing design, had in less than a century become a mighty empire.
There might well be elephants then alive that had served us when we
were struggling to keep a precarious foothold on the coasts of India.

Such great and rapid changes could not be worked without leaving sore
grudges and dangerous cankers of discontent. Our policy had been so
much dictated by selfish strength, that it is no wonder if the natives
should conceive respect rather than love for us. Even after higher
motives began to come into play, our best intentions were apt to be
misunderstood by those placed under us, or to be foiled by our own want
of sympathy with and our ignorance of their feelings. The strong points
and the weak ones of the two races are almost poles apart, and neither
has proved ready to learn from the other. Our characteristic virtues of
truth and honesty are hardly comprehensible to the slavish Oriental,
who for his part displays a flattering courtesy and gentle kindliness,
with which appears in harsh contrast our frankly blunt masterfulness,
often degenerating into insolence of manner and foolish contempt for
all that is not English. While many of our best officers have shown
a spirit of enlightened and conscientious interest in their duties,
the average Briton, who goes out to India merely to gain money more
easily than at home, is unhappily too seldom the man to conciliate the
prejudices of those whom he treats as contemptible "niggers," knowing
and caring little about their ancient civilization. The very pride
of our superiority seems against us: other conquerors, more willing
to let themselves down to the level of the conquered, have proved
less unsuccessful in winning their good-will. Still, these natives
cannot but come to see the advantage of having rulers whose word may
be trusted. For long, honest efforts have been made to exercise among
all sects and classes an even-handed justice, hitherto little known
in India, the chief hindrance to which lies in the corruption of the
native subordinates, on whom our magistrates have largely to rely for
the details of their administration.

At all events, the mass of the population, broken to the yoke of many
masters, had accepted ours with apparent resignation, even if they
might soon forget the grinding tyrannies from which we had delivered
them. Some fiercer spirits muttered their hatred, but kept silence
before our authorities. Some real grievances, here and there, passed
too much unnoticed, and sufferings brought about by over-taxation or
other injustice worked through the hasty inexperience of officials.
In certain large towns, the suppressed rage of hostile believers
was not always restrained from breaking into riot at the great
religious festivals, but these outbreaks we could easily put a stop
to; and the differences of creed and caste seemed our best security
against any dangerous combination to expel us. Some princes, whose
quasi-independent states were allowed to lie like islands among our
fully-conquered territory, might at times uneasily remember the martial
glories of their predecessors, but knew well how they held their idle
sceptres only on our sufferance, and took care not to neglect any hint
of good behaviour offered them by the British resident at their courts,
as real an authority as the Peshwas or Nizams of the past.

From the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, from Beloochistan to the borders
of China, England was recognized as the Paramount Power of this vast
country, over which at length reigned the _Pax Britannica_, and seemed
little like to be seriously disturbed when, in 1856, Lord Canning came
out as Governor-General.



CHAPTER II

THE OUTBREAK


The almost complete conquest of India had been chiefly carried out
through troops raised among its own natives, drilled and led by
European officers. Here and there, in the course of a century, their
commanders had been forced to repress attempts at mutiny, such as might
take place in any army; but on the whole this Sepoy force had proved
remarkably faithful to the Company in whose service haughty Rajpoot and
warlike Moslem were proud to enlist, and counted for wealth its hire
of a few pence a day. So great was the trust put in our native army,
and so unexpected the outbreak of 1857, that we had then no more than
about forty thousand English soldiers scattered over India, among six
times their number of troops, who looked upon us chiefly as formidable
masters.

Strict officers of the old school judged that the beginning of the
mischief lay in making too much of our native soldiery. They had come
to understand how far England's power in India depended upon them,
while they were unable to form an adequate idea of its resources at
the other side of the world. Changes in organization are accused of
lessening the Sepoys' respect for their regimental officers, the best
of whom, also, were commonly taken away from their military duties to
fill coveted posts in the civil service. Flattery and indulgence had
slackened their discipline at the same time that it came to be tried
by unfamiliar causes of irritation. The main difficulty in managing
these troops lay in the superstitious customs and prejudices which
make so large part of a Hindoo's life. Our rule has been to respect
their ideas of religion; but this was not possible in all the claims
of military service. Sepoys believed their caste in danger, when
called upon to cross the sea to make war in Burma or Persia. Marched
into the cold heights of Afghanistan, they had to be forbidden the
ceremonial daily bathings in which they would have devoutly persisted
at the risk of their lives; and they fancied themselves defiled by the
sheepskin-jackets given them there as protection against the climate.
Through such novel experiences, suspicion began to spring up among them
that the English designed to change their religion by force.

This suspicion grew to a height when, after the Crimean War, a wave of
unrest and expectation passed over our Eastern possessions. In every
bazaar, the discontented spoke ignorantly of the power of Russia as a
match for their conqueror. Our disasters in Afghanistan had already
shown us to be not invincible. An old story spread that the British
rule was fated to come to an end one hundred years after the battle of
Plassey, A.D. 1757. Now, the century having elapsed, secret messengers
were found going from village to village bearing mysterious tokens
in the shape of _chupatties_, flat cakes of unleavened bread, which
everywhere stirred the people as a sacrament of disaffection. For once,
Moslem and Hindoo seemed united in a vague hope that the time was
at hand when they should be able to shake off the yoke of a race so
repellent to both in faith, habits, and manners.

The centre of the agitation was in the north-western provinces of
Bengal, where the recent annexation of Oudh, though meant as a
real boon to the ill-governed people of that fertile country, had
not been carried out without mistakes, wrongs and heart-burnings.
Here also appeared a _Moulvie_, or prophet, like the Mahdi of the
Soudan, preaching a holy war against the infidels, to excite the
ever-smouldering embers of Mohamedan fanaticism, a revival of which has
in our century spread all over the East. The Bengal army was mainly
recruited from this region; and when the civil population were in such
an unquiet state, we need not be surprised to find the Sepoys ripe
for disorder, many of whom, deeply in debt to native usurers, had the
natural desire of "new things," that, before and since the days of
Cataline, has so often inspired conspiracies.

What brought their seditious mood to a head was the famous incident of
the greased cartridges, often given as the main cause of the Mutiny,
though it seems more justly compared to a spark falling upon an
invisible train of explosive material. The Enfield rifle having been
introduced into the native army, it was whispered from regiment to
regiment that the new cartridges were to be greased with the fat of
cows or of swine. Now, a chief point of Oriental religious sentiment is
an exaggerated respect for animal life, carried so far that one sect
of strict devotees may, in certain Indian cities, be seen wearing a
cloth over their mouths, lest by accident they should swallow a fly;
were they familiar with the discoveries of the microscope, they could
only be consistent by abstaining from every drop of water. The cow is a
special object of reverence among Hindoos, who are shocked by nothing
so much as our apparent impiety in eating beef. The pig is held in
detestation by Mussulmen. A majority of the Bengal army were high-caste
Brahmins or Rajpoots, with an admixture of Mohamedans drawn from that
part of India where their creed had taken firmest root. Both alike were
horrified to think that they might be called on not only to handle but
to touch with their lips such pollution as they imagined in animal fat.

It was in vain the Government proclaimed that no unclean matters should
be used in the cartridges issued to them; that they might grease their
cartridges for themselves; that they would be allowed to tear off the
ends instead of biting them, as was the way in those muzzle-loading
days. The suspicion had taken so strong a hold that in more than
one case the new ammunition was mutinously rejected. Religious and
political agitators eagerly seized this chance of fomenting their own
designs. A fable spread among the Sepoys that the English, determined
to destroy their caste as a preliminary to forced conversion, had
ground up cows' bones to mix with the flour supplied to them. At
Lucknow, the simple incident of a regimental surgeon tasting a bottle
of medicine had been enough to raise a tumult among men who were
convinced that he thus designed to pollute the faith of their sick
comrades. Our officers, hardly able to treat such tales seriously, were
forced to pay heed to the spirit underlying them, which through the
early months of 1857 displayed itself ominously in frequent incendiary
fires at the various stations, the stealthy Oriental's first symptom
of lawlessness. Still, few Englishmen estimated aright the gravity
of the situation; and the Government failed in the prompt severity
judged needful only after the event. Two mutineers were hanged;[1] two
insubordinate regiments had been disbanded, to spread their seditious
murmurs all over Bengal; but the danger was not fully realized till,
like a thunderbolt, came news of the open outbreak at Meerut, forty
miles from Delhi.

The scenes of the Mutiny can ill be conceived without some description
of an Indian "station." Usually the Cantonments lie two or three miles
out of the native city, forming a town in themselves, the buildings
widespread by the dusty _maidan_ that serves as a parade-ground. On
one side will be the barracks of the European troops, the scattered
bungalows of officers and civilians, each in its roomy "compound,"
the church, the treasury, and other public places. On the other lie
the "lines," long rows of huts in which the Sepoys live after their
own fashion with their wives and families, overlooked only by their
staff of native officers, who bear fine titles and perform important
duties, but with whom the youngest English subaltern scorns familiar
comradeship. Between are a maze of bazaars, forming an always open
market, and the crowded abodes of the camp-followers who swarm about an
Indian army.

At Meerut, one of the largest military stations in India, the native
lines stretched for over three miles, and stood too far apart from
the European quarters. Here were stationed more than a thousand
English troops of all arms, and three Sepoy regiments, among whom
the 3rd Light Cavalry had in April shown insubordination over the
new cartridges. Of ninety men, all but five flatly refused to touch
them when ordered. The eighty-five recalcitrants were arrested, tried
by court-martial of their native officers, and sentenced to ten
years' imprisonment. On Saturday, May 9th, at a general parade, these
_sowars_, or Sepoy troopers, were put in irons and marched off to jail.

To all appearance, the mutinous feeling had been cowed by this example.
But beneath the smooth surface, where English eyes had too little skill
to read the native heart, were boiling fierce passions soon to take
shape in reckless acts. Next evening, while our people were making
ready for church, a disorderly band of sowars galloped to the jail, and
released their comrades, along with many hundreds of other prisoners.
Here was a ready-made mob of scoundrels, who at once began to plunder
among the bungalows. The excitement quickly spread to the 11th and 20th
native infantry regiments. Several of their officers hastened among
them, trying to calm the tumult. But a cry arose that the European
soldiers were upon them, and this drove the men of the 20th into a
panic of fury. They stormed the "bells of arms," small dome-like
buildings used as magazines, and got hold of their muskets. Colonel
Finnis, commander of the 11th, had more success in quieting his men,
but was shot down by the other regiment.

A murderous uproar broke loose through the Cantonments. The 11th are
said to have refused to fire on their officers, and to have escorted
white women and children out of danger; but their good dispositions
were soon swept away in the torrent of disorder. The Sepoys of the 20th
and 3rd Cavalry fell to shooting and hacking every defenceless European
they met with. A crowd of _budmashes_, "roughs," as we should call
them, poured out of the city to share the congenial work of robbery
and bloodshed, in which they took the foremost part. The thatched
roofs of bungalows were easily set on fire, that the inmates might be
driven out to slaughter. In an hour all was wild riot; and the sun set
upon a fearful scene of blazing houses, shrieking victims and frenzied
butchers, strange horrors of that Sabbath evening, too often to be
renewed within the next few weeks.

The English troops, already assembled for Church-parade, should at once
have been marched to crush this sudden rising. But the General in
command showed himself incompetent. There were delays and mistakes; and
not till darkness had fallen was a force brought up, too late to be of
any use beyond scaring the plunderers. By this time most of the Sepoys
had hurried off towards Delhi, leaving the gleaning of murder and
pillage to the rabble. Our soldiers fell back to their own quarters,
where were gathered for defence the whole Christian community, many of
whom, bereaved and destitute, after barely escaping with their lives,
saw the sky glowing from the conflagration of their ruined houses, and
might be thankful if they had not to shudder for the unknown fate of
husband or child. Eager officers vainly begged the General to spare
them some small force with which the mob of mutineers could have been
pursued and dispersed; at least to let them gallop through the night to
Delhi, and give warning there of what was at hand. The man unluckily
charged with such responsibility did nothing of what might well have
been done--a neglect which was nearly to cost us our Indian Empire.

To both sides, the securing of Delhi was of the highest importance.
This magnificent city, in native eyes, still enjoyed the prestige of
a capital. Its ancient renown and famous monuments made it specially
sacred for the Mussulmen, whose rule had once flourished here. In its
vast palace still lived the descendant of the Great Moguls, a feeble
old man, who, under the shadowy title of king, was allowed, among
thousands of poverty-stricken kinsmen and retainers, to retain in
part the pomp, if not the power, of his haughty ancestors. To keep
up the show of his sovereignty, the English refrained from occupying
the city with their troops, who lay quartered outside, beyond a ridge
overlooking it from the north; and even here there were no English
soldiers. Such was the prize about to fall easily into the hands of the
rebels.

Their secret messengers had already let the discontented within the
city know what might be expected, while the only hint our officers had
was in the breaking of the telegraph wire from Meerut. Still, uneasy
vigilance being the order of the day, the authorities were on Monday
morning startled by the report of a number of horsemen hurrying along
the Meerut road. The magistrate, Mr. Hutchinson, at once galloped out
to the Cantonments to warn the Brigadier in command, then returned
to the city, where the chief civil officials had hastened to their
posts, though hardly yet aware what danger was at hand. But, before
anything could be done to stop them, the van of the mutineers had
crossed the bridge of boats and seized the Calcutta Gate, the guard
of native police offering no resistance; and the way was thus clear
for the main body following not far behind. A second band of troopers
forded the Jumna, and entered the city at another point.

[Illustration: Delhi, from the Outer Court of the Jumma Musjid. Page
34.]

Some of these forerunners made straight for the palace, which should
rather be described as a fortified citadel, forced their way into the
presence of the doting old king, and, with or without his consent,
proclaimed him leader of the movement. A swarm of his fanatical
retainers eagerly joined them; they soon began to wreak their fury
by massacring several Englishmen and ladies who had quarters here.
Others broke open the prison and released its inmates, to swell the
bloodthirsty mob gathering like vultures to a carcase. The main body of
the mutineers, as soon as it arrived, split up into small bodies that
spread themselves over the city for pillage, destruction and murder.
In one quarter, there was a terrible slaughter of the poorer class of
Europeans and of Eurasian Christians, who, in unusual numbers, lived
within the walls of Delhi, not as elsewhere, under protection of the
Cantonments outside. Women and children were ruthlessly butchered.
Clerks, school-masters, printers, were killed at their work; doctors,
missionaries, converts, none might be spared who bore the hated name.
Some, flying or hiding for their lives, only prolonged their agony
for hours or days. A few succeeded finally in making their escape.
About fifty were confined miserably in an underground apartment of the
palace, to be led out and massacred after a few days.

A regiment of Sepoys had been marched from the Cantonments to repress
the disorder. But, as soon as they entered the city, they let their
officers be shot down by the mutineers, and themselves dispersed in
excited confusion. A detachment on guard at the Cashmere Gate held firm
for a time, but evidently could not be depended on. Later in the day,
they too turned upon their English officers. More than one officer was
simply driven away by his men without injury; others were fired upon;
others made their escape by leaping or letting themselves down into the
ditch, as did several ladies who had taken refuge here with the main
guard. These survivors fled to the Cantonments, where for hours their
countrymen had been gathering together in almost helpless anxiety.
No sure news came back from the city; but they could guess what was
going on within from the uproar, the firing, the rising flames--at
length from a sudden cloud of smoke and dust, followed by a terrible
explosion, that marked the first heroic deed of the Indian Mutiny.

The magazine within the walls, on the site of the present post-office,
was garrisoned by only nine Europeans under a young artillery
lieutenant, named Willoughby. Set on his guard betimes, he took
all possible measures for defence, calmly preparing to blow up the
magazine, if it came to the worst. The native gunners soon deserted;
the reinforcement urgently demanded did not appear; he found himself
cut off in a city full of foes raging round his important charge,
which presently, in the name of the King of Delhi, he was summoned to
surrender. For a time this little band stood in trying suspense, while
the insurgents worked up their courage for an attack. It appears that
they expected the English troops to be upon them, hour by hour, and
awaited the return of a messenger who could report the road from Meerut
clear. Then on they came in crowds, storming at the gates, scaling the
walls, to be again and again swept back by the fire of cannon in the
hands of nine desperate men.

Three hours these nine held their post amid a rain of bullets, till
Willoughby saw that he must be overwhelmed beneath numbers. One last
look he took towards the Meerut road, in vain hope to see a cloud of
dust marking the advance of the English troops that still lay idly
there. Then he gave the word. In an instant the building was hurled
into the air, with hundreds of its assailants, and it is said that
five hundred people were killed in the streets by the far-reaching
explosion. The man who had fired the train and two others fell
victims of their courage; six managed to escape over the ruins in
the confusion, poor Willoughby to be obscurely murdered two or three
days later. The rest received the Victoria Cross, so often won, and
still more often earned, in those stirring days. A son of one of these
heroes is author of the well-known novel _Eight Days_, which, under a
transparent veil of fiction, gives a minutely faithful description of
what went on in and about Delhi at that terrible time.

Meanwhile, at the Cantonments, the officers' families and other
fugitives had gathered in the Flagstaff Tower, a small circular
building on the ridge, where, huddled stiflingly together, they
suffered torments almost equal to those of the Black Hole of Calcutta.
Their only sure guard consisted of the drummer boys, who, in Sepoy
regiments, are usually half-caste Christians. These, armed for the
nonce, were posted close round the tower; before it stood two guns
served by native artillerymen to command the road from the city; and
part of two regiments were still kept to a show of duty, but hourly
their demeanour grew more threatening, till, when called upon to
move forward, they at length flatly refused. Two or three gentlemen,
stationed on the roof of the tower, in the scorching sun, held
themselves ready to fire upon the first of their more than doubtful
auxiliaries who should break into open mutiny. The Sepoys, for their
part, under the eyes of the Sahibs, remained for a time in hesitation,
uncertain how to act; and some of them allowed themselves to be
deprived of their bayonets, which were stored away in the tower.

One messenger had ridden out towards Meerut to demand succour, but only
to be shot down by the Sepoys. Another, disguised as a native, made
the same attempt to no purpose. Brigadier Graves, still hoping for
the arrival of European troops from Meerut, would not for a time hear
of retreat. But when it became evident that the handful of band-boys
and civilians were all he could trust to defend the tower packed with
scared women and crying children; when fugitives from the city brought
news that all there was lost; when the Sepoys here began to fire at
their officers, whose orders were hardly listened to; when it became
plain that the guns would not be used against the mutineers, he saw
nothing for it but flight before darkness came on. Towards sunset, the
refugees of the tower went off in disorder, on foot, on horseback,
in their carriages, each as he could, many of the men hampered with
helpless families. The Sepoys did not stop them; some even urged their
officers to save themselves; but the guard of a large powder magazine
refused to allow it to be blown up; and it proved impossible to carry
off the guns.

Through the rapidly falling night, these poor English people scattered
in search of safety, some making for Meerut, some northwards for
Kurnaul, some wandering lost among the roused villages. Yesterday
they had been the haughty lords of an obsequious race; now they were
to find how little love had often been beneath the fear of English
power. In many cases, indeed, the country-folk proved kind and helpful
to bewildered fugitives; not a few owed their lives to the devotion
of attached servants, or to the prudence if not the loyalty of native
chiefs, who still thought best to stand so far on our side. But others,
the news of their calamity spreading before them, fell into the hands
of cruel and insolent foes, to be mocked, tortured and murdered.

Dr. Batson's adventures may be referred to, as one example of many.
It was he, surgeon of a Sepoy regiment, who had volunteered, as above
mentioned, to carry a message to Meerut in the disguise of a fakir, or
religious beggar. Taking leave of his wife and daughters, he stained
his face, hands, and feet to look like a native, and dressed himself in
the costume which perhaps he had already used for some light-hearted
masquerade. Thus arrayed, he made through the city without detection,
but found the bridge of boats broken, houses burning everywhere, and
country people rushing up to plunder the deserted bungalows. Turning
back towards the Cantonments to reach a ferry in that direction, he
excited the suspicion of some Sepoys, who fired at him; then he ran
away to fall into the hands of villagers, who stripped him stark
naked. In this plight, he had nothing for it but to hurry on after
the fugitives making for Kurnaul. Before he had gone a mile, two
sowars rode up to kill him. Luckily, Dr. Batson was familiar with the
Mohamedan religion, as well as with their language; and while they
ferociously cut at him with their swords, he threw himself on the
ground in a supplicating attitude, praising the Prophet, and in his
name begging for mercy, which was granted him as not seeming to be much
of a Christian, or because they could not get at him without taking
the trouble to dismount. Another mile he struggled on, then became
surrounded by a mob, who tied the "Kaffir's" arms behind his back and
were calling out for a sword to cut off his head, when some alarm
scattered them, and he could once more take flight. His next encounter
was with a party of Hindoo smiths employed at the Delhi Magazine. They
stopped him, with very different intentions, for they invited the naked
Sahib to their village, and gave him food, clothes, and a bed, on which
he could not sleep after the strain of such a day.

For several days he remained in this village, the people taking a
kindly interest in him on account of his acquaintance with their
language and customs; and the fact of his being a doctor also told in
his favour. But then came a rumour that all the Englishmen in India
had been killed, and that the King of Delhi had proclaimed it death to
conceal a Christian. On this, his native friends hid him in a mango
grove, feeding him by night on bread and water. Nine days of anxious
solitude he spent here, burned by the sun, scared at night by prowling
jackals, but hardly thought himself better off when a new place of
concealment was found in a stifling house out of which he dared not
stir. It being reported that horsemen were hunting the villages for
English refugees, his protectors thought well to get rid of him under
charge of a real fakir, who carefully dressed and schooled him for the
part. Through several villages they took their pilgrimage, and the
disguised doctor passed off as a Cashmeeree fakir with such success
that he got his share of what alms were going, and seems to have been
only once suspected, through his blue eyes, by a brother holy man, who,
however, winked at the deception. After wandering for twenty-five days,
he had the fortune to fall in with a party of English troops.

Dr. Batson, we see, owed his escape to an intimate knowledge of the
people, such as few Englishmen had to help them. His experience was
that the Mohamedans were much more fierce against us than the mild
Hindoo. But both religions had their proportion of covetous and cruel
spirits, who at such a time would be sure to come to the front.

Like wolves scenting prey, gangs of robbers sprang up along the roads
upon which the unfortunate travellers were struggling on, often under
painful difficulties; and many fell victims whose fate was never
rightly known. Others, wounded or exhausted, lay down to die by the
way. Those who contrived to reach a haven of safety, had almost
all moving tales to tell of adventure, of suffering, of perilous
escape--tales such as, in the course of the next months, would be too
common all over Northern India, and would not lose in the telling.

Many as these atrocities were, they might have been multiplied tenfold
had the rebels acted with more prudence and less passion. So little did
we know of the minds of our native soldiers, that it is still a matter
of debate how far the Mutiny had been the work of deliberate design.
But, at the time, it was widely believed by men too excited to be calm
judges, that the outbreak at Meerut came a mercy in disguise, as it
brought about the premature and incomplete explosion of a deep-laid
plot for the whole Bengal army to rise on the same day, when thousands
of Europeans, taken without warning and defence at a hundred different
points, might have perished in a general massacre.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Mungul Pandy was the first open mutineer executed at
Barrackpore in April, from whose name, a common one among this class,
the Sepoys came to be called "Pandies" throughout the war, a sobriquet
like the "Tommy Atkins" of our soldiers.]



CHAPTER III

THE SPREAD OF INSURRECTION


"The Sepoys have come in from Meerut, and are burning everything.... We
must shut up," had been the last message flashed from Delhi by a young
clerk, who was killed in the act of sending it. This news, kept secret
for a few hours by the authorities, was soon startling the English
stations, north and west, and was put out of doubt by reports of the
fugitives, as they came to spread their dismay from various points.
On this side, fortunately, reigned the energy and foresight which had
so disastrously failed at Meerut. Lahore, the capital of the Punjaub,
swarmed with fierce fanatics, who would willingly have emulated the
deeds of their brethren at Meerut and Delhi. In the Cantonments, a
few miles off, were four regiments of Sepoys, held in check only by a
small force of Europeans. But here Mr. Montgomery, the Commissioner in
charge, showed a prompt mastery of the situation. He at once assembled
a council of the chief civil and military officers; and, not without
doubt on the part of some of his advisers, resolved to disarm the
dangerous regiments before they should be excited to the revolt they
were already conspiring.

Next day, May 12, a ball was to be given at the Cantonments. Lest the
Sepoys should take warning, it went on as if nothing were the matter;
but many of the dancers must have been in no festive mood, at a scene
to recall that famous revelry on the night before Quatre Bras. The
officers had their arms at hand in the ball-room. Dancing was kept up
till two in the morning; then at early dawn, the whole brigade was
turned out on the parade-ground. The native regiments were suddenly
ordered to pile arms. They hesitated in obeying; but the thin line of
English soldiers confronting them fell back to reveal twelve guns,
loaded with grape, behind which the infantry ramrods rang fear into
their doubtful hearts. Sullenly they gave up their arms, 2500 Sepoys
cowed before not one-fourth their number. At the same time, the fort
in the city was made safe by the disarming of its native garrison.
Picquets of Europeans were posted at various points, and arrangements
made for defence against any sudden rising.

Similar bold and prompt measures to secure other stations, forts, and
arsenals of the Punjaub, at once checked the spread of the mutiny in
this direction, and afforded a base of operations for its suppression.
But, on other sides, it ran through the country like wild-fire--here
blazing up into sudden revolt; there smouldering for weeks before it
gathered head; at one place crackling out almost as soon as kindled;
at another resolutely trampled down by vigilant authority; elsewhere
quickly growing to a conflagration that swept over the richest
provinces of India, unchaining the fiercest passions of its mixed
population, and destroying for a time all landmarks of law and order.
Men had to show, then, of what stuff they were made. While some of our
countrymen gave way before the danger, or even precipitated it through
panic or indecision, others stood fast at their posts, and by proud
audacity were able to hold the wavering natives to allegiance, and
still to keep hundreds of thousands overawed before the name of English
rule. Not seldom was it seen how mere boldness proved the best policy
in dealing with a race tamed by centuries of bondage; yet, in too many
cases, gallantry, honour, devotion to duty, fell sacrificed under the
rage of maddened rebels.

It is impossible here to track the irregular progress of the revolt, or
to dwell on its countless episodes of heroism and suffering. Pitiable
was the lot of all English people in the disturbed districts, most
pitiable that of officials who, obliged to expose their own lives from
hour to hour, had to fear for wife and child a fate worse than death.
At their isolated posts, they heard daily rumours of fresh risings,
treasons, massacres, and knew not how soon the same perils might
burst upon themselves and their families. For weeks, sometimes, they
had to wait in sickening suspense, a handful of whites among crowds
of dusky faces, scowling on them more threateningly from day to day,
with no guard but men who would be the first to turn their arms upon
those whose safety was entrusted to them. To many it must have been a
relief when the outbreak came, and they saw clearly how to deal with
false friends and open foes. Then, at a season of the Indian year when
activity and exposure are hurtful to the health of Europeans, for
whom life, through that sweltering heat, seems made only tolerable
by elaborate contrivances and the services of obsequious attendants,
these sorely-tried people had to fight for their lives, pent-up in
some improvised stronghold, wanting perhaps ammunition, or food, or,
worst torment in such a climate, water, till relief came, often only
in the form of death. Or, again, it might be their chance to fly,
sun-scorched, destitute, desperate, skulking like thieves and beggars
among a population risen in arms against the power and the creed they
represented. It should never be forgotten how certain natives, indeed,
showed kindness and pity towards their fallen masters. We have seen
that in some cases the mutinous Sepoys let their officers go unhurt;
occasionally they risked their own lives to protect English women and
children against the fury of their comrades. But one horrible atrocity
after another warned the masterful race how little they had now to
hope from the love or fear of those from whom they had exacted such
flattering servility in quiet times.

Among the natives themselves, the excesses of the Mutiny were hardly
less calamitous. Many, if not most, were hurried into it by panic or
excitement, or the persuasion of the more designing, and their hearts
soon misgave them when they saw the fruit of their wild deeds, still
more when they considered the punishment likely to follow. Anarchy, as
usual, sprang up behind rebellion. Debtors fell upon their creditors;
neighbours fought with neighbours; old feuds were revived; fanaticism
and crime ran rampant over the ruins of British justice. Towns were
sacked, jails broken open, treasuries plundered. Broken bands of
Sepoys and released convicts roamed about the country, murdering and
pillaging unchecked. Tribes of hereditary robbers eagerly returned
to their old ways, now that our police need no longer be feared. The
native police, themselves recruited from the dangerous classes, were
frequently the first to set an example of rebellion. Not a few native
officials, it should be said, gave honourable proofs of their fidelity,
through all risks, while the mass of them behaved like hirelings, or
displayed their inward hostility.

The more thoughtful part of the population might well hesitate on
which side to declare; some prudently did their best to stand well
with both, in case of any event; but those who had much to lose must
soon have regretted the firm rule of our Government. On the whole,
it may be said that the princes and nobles, where not carried away
by ambition or religious zeal, remained more or less loyal to our
cause, having better means than the ignorant mob of judging that our
power would yet right itself, though crippled by such a sudden storm
and staggering like to founder in so troubled waters. But in Oudh and
other recently-annexed districts, where the Zemindars and Talookdars,
or chief landowners, had often been treated with real harshness in the
settlement of revenue, this class naturally proved hostile, yet not
more so than the poor peasants, to whom our rule had rather been a
benefit. The latter, indeed, acted in great part less like determined
rebels than like foolish school-boys, who, finding themselves all
at once rid of a strict pedagogue, had seized the opportunity for a
holiday-spell of disorder; as with the Sepoys themselves, defection
sometimes seemed a matter of childish impulse, and there would come a
moment of infectious excitement, in which the least breath of chance
turned them into staunch friends or ruthless foes. Except in Oudh, it
may be said, the movement was in general a military mutiny rather than
a popular insurrection, while everywhere, of course, the bad characters
of the locality took so favourable an occasion for violence.

To gain some clear idea of what was going on over a region that would
make a large country in Europe, it seems best to take one narrative as
a good example of many. This means somewhat neglecting the rules of
proportion required in a regular historical narrative. It will also
lead to an overlapping of chapters in the order of time. In any case
it must be difficult to arrange orderly the multifarious and entangled
episodes of this story; and the plan of our book rather is to present
its characteristic outlines in scenes which cannot always be shifted
to mark the exact succession of events, but which will roughly exhibit
the main stages of the struggle.

Let us, then, dismount from the high horse of history, to follow
a representative tale of _Personal Adventures_ by Mr. W. Edwards,
Magistrate and Collector at Budaon in Rohilcund, the district lying on
the Ganges between Delhi and Oudh. Almost at once after the outbreak at
Meerut, his country began to show signs of epidemic lawlessness. Just
in time, Mr. Edwards sent his wife and child off to the hill-station
of Nainee Tal; then it was ten weeks before he could hear of their
safety. A British officer, of course, had nothing for it but to stick
to his post, all the more closely now that it was one of danger. The
danger soon began to be apparent. What news did reach him was of
robbers springing up all round, Sepoys in mutiny, convicts being let
loose; and amid this growing disorder, he stood the ruler of more than
a million men, with no force to back him but doubtfully loyal natives,
and no European officials nearer than Bareilly, the head-quarters of
the district, thirty miles off. His best friend was a Sikh servant
named Wuzeer Singh, a native Christian, who was to show rare fidelity
throughout the most trying circumstances.

At the end of the month, he had the satisfaction of a visit from one
of his colleagues, and good news of a small Sepoy force, under an
English officer, on its way to help him. But this gleam of hope was
soon extinguished. For the last time, on Sunday, May 31st, he assembled
at his house a little congregation with whom he was accustomed to hold
Christian services. In the middle of the night, a sowar came galloping
as for his life, to report that Bareilly was up, that the Sepoys there
were in full mutiny, and the roads covered by thousands of scoundrels
released from the jail. His brother magistrate at once dashed off to
his own post. Mr. Edwards thought it his duty to remain to the last,
like the captain of a sinking ship.

In the forenoon a few white men and Eurasians gathered at his house
for poor protection. He wished them to disperse, believing that each
could better escape separately, while their sticking together would
only attract attention; but the others seemed too much overcome by fear
to act for themselves, and refused to leave him. The stifling day wore
on in anxious rumours. In the afternoon, the native officer in charge
of the treasury came to ask Edwards to join the guard there, assuring
him with solemn oaths that the men meant to be faithful. He was about
to start, when Wuzeer Singh earnestly entreated him not to trust them.
He took the advice, and afterwards learned that these men had been
waiting to murder him. They would not come to his house, for fear the
plundering of the treasury might begin in their absence.

About 6 p.m. the mutineers from Bareilly arrived; and tumultuous
shouts announced that Sepoys, police, prisoners and all had broken
loose at Budaon. Now the magistrate might think of himself, all show
of authority being gone. He mounted his wife's horse, that had been
standing saddled all day, and rode off, accompanied by two European
indigo-planters and a Customs officer. His Eurasian clerk and his
family he was obliged to leave, as they had no means of conveyance but
a buggy, and the roads were blocked. All he could do for them was to
consign them to the care of an influential native who happened to come
up; and, as luckily these people were almost as dark as Hindoos, they
succeeded in hiding themselves, at all events for a time.

Mr. Edwards had not ridden far when he met a Mohamedan sheikh, who
proposed to him to take refuge at his house, some three miles in
another direction. He turned with this well-wisher; then, passing his
own bungalow again, saw how in ten minutes the plundering of it had
already begun, his servants being first at the work. Wuzeer Singh and
another faithful follower accompanied him, carrying 150 rupees in their
waist-bands; that was all he had in the world but his watch, revolver,
a little Testament, and a purse which had just arrived from England
as a birthday present, which he kept about him as a dear gift rather
than for use. Such a man in the East is not used to carrying money, but
trusts his servants to act as purse-bearers, who will not cheat him
more than is the custom. A groom had been entrusted with a change of
clothes; but he soon disappeared.

When the party reached the house where they had been promised shelter,
one of the family came out, respectfully informing their leader that
they would not be safe here, but they must go on to a village about
eighteen miles off. Mr. Edwards was much annoyed at this inhospitable
reception, which afterwards turned out a blessing in disguise, for
presently a band of horsemen arrived in search of him, and he would
probably have been murdered, if he had not now been on the way to that
further refuge.

Till midnight the fugitives rode through by-ways and fields, and
villages swarming with armed crowds, who let the Englishmen pass in
silence under the convoy of their chief. He took them to a house of his
in a small village, where, after thanking heaven for their escape, they
lay down to rest on the flat roof. The magistrate, for one, weary and
worn out as he was, could hardly close an eye after the excitement of
such a day. Early in the morning, they were roused up by the sheikh,
who told them they must cross the Ganges at once, as their enemies
would soon be in pursuit. So they did, fired at by an excited crowd
assembled for the plunder of a neighbouring village, whose bullets
luckily did not come near them.

On the other side, they were received by a Mohamedan gentleman, who
was the more civil to them, as he heard that two English officials,
with a large body of horse, were in the neighbourhood to restore order.
Edwards and his party joined their countrymen, but found that the main
body of expected troops had mutinied and made for Delhi, while their
escort of sixty sowars was in such a doubtful disposition, that they
were glad to send most of them off on pretence of guarding a treasury,
which these men at once plundered, and dispersed.

With twenty troopers, whose fidelity they had to trust, the Englishmen
started for Agra, but soon turned back, the road being blocked by
mutineers marching to Delhi. They hardly knew which way to take. A
party of two hundred Sepoys was reported to be hunting them out. Their
escort grew so insolent, that they thought best to dismiss these
fellows to go where they pleased; then, for a moment, it seemed as if
the troopers were about to fall on them, but after a short consultation
turned and rode off. The Englishmen, having been twenty hours on
horseback, came back to the village from which they had started.

But they could not be safe here, and after a day's halt determined
to separate. The other two civilians made a fresh attempt to push on
for Agra. Edwards would not desert his companions, encumbrance as
they were to him, for local chiefs, who might be willing to shelter
Government officers at some risk, in the hope of getting credit for it
on the re-establishment of our power, were unwilling to extend their
services to these private persons. He had received a message asking him
to come back to Budaon, as the mutineers had left it, and things were
comparatively quiet there. He afterwards understood this to be a snare,
the Sepoys being much exasperated against him because less money had
been found in the treasury than they expected. But now he decided to
return with the three who shared his fortunes.

They had first to cross the Ganges. On regaining the house of a
zemindar, who had been a friendly enough host two days before, they met
with a colder reception, for meanwhile this native gentleman had heard
the worst news of the spread of mutiny. He agreed to provide them with
a boat, but it proved too small to carry their horses across. All they
could get out of the zemindar was an evident desire to be rid of them,
and he strongly recommended them to make for Furruckabad, sixty miles
off, where, he said, no mutiny had taken place. Hearing that the other
side of the Ganges was all ablaze with pillage and destruction, they
saw nothing for it but to follow this advice.

They set out, then, by night, and passed by several villages without
being molested. At daybreak they reached a large place, where they
presented themselves to the chief proprietor, who was polite, but
would hardly let them into his house, while a brother of his, drunk
with opium, seemed disposed to shoot them on the spot. The chief did
relax so far as to give them some breakfast, then packed them off under
escort of five horsemen to the care of a neighbour. Before leaving,
he insisted on having a certificate that he had treated them well, a
suspicious sign; and Wuzeer Singh overheard the escort saying that they
were all to be killed. Putting a good face on the chance of having to
fight for their lives, they reached a river-side village, where they
were promised a boat to take them to Futtehgurh, the English station
near Furruckabad. But instead of a boat, about the house in which they
waited for it, a crowd of armed men appeared, with such menacing looks,
that the Englishmen mounted and rode off, to find their way barred by
a body of horse. They turned back. Then the crowd began to fire, and
their escort at once galloped away. So did the Englishmen; but one of
them, who rode a camel, fell into the hands of the mob and was cut to
pieces.

The other three cleared a way for themselves, and rejoined their
escort, who looked rather ill-pleased that they had escaped. Their
leader, however, had shown some traces of pity, and now on Edwards
appealing to him as a husband and a father, he undertook to save their
lives if he could, and conducted them back to his master, who seemed
sorry for what had happened, but would not keep them in the house
beyond nightfall.

Disguised in native dress, their own clothes being burned to conceal
all trace of their visit, they set forth again under the charge of
two guides, and this time were more fortunate. Riding all night, once
chased for their lives, at daybreak they reached the house of Mr.
Probyn, Collector of Furruckabad, from whom they had a hearty welcome,
but little cheering news.

The Sepoys at Futtehgurh had broken out, then had been brought back to
their duty for a time, but could not be depended on. A large number of
the Europeans had gone down the Ganges in boats to Cawnpore; others,
among them Probyn's wife and children, were sheltered in a fort across
the river, belonging to a zemindar named Hurdeo Buksh. Edwards was
for going to Cawnpore, but that very day came the news of the rising
there. After consultation with the officers at Futtehgurh, he agreed
to accompany Probyn to Hurdeo Buksh's fort, where he found a number of
acquaintances and colleagues living in great discomfort, and without
much show of protection, in the dilapidated defences of this native
stronghold.

Uncertainty and doubt reigned among these unfortunate people also. As
the colonel of the Sepoy regiment at the station persisted in believing
it staunch, and as some hopeful news from Delhi seemed calculated to
keep it so, after two or three days most of the refugees returned to
Futtehgurh. Probyn, however, preferred to trust his native friend; and
Edwards, though the others judged him rash, decided to stay with Hurdeo
Buksh. Here he was now joined by the faithful Wuzeer Singh, who had
been separated from him in that riot on the river bank, but had lost no
time in seeking his master out with the money entrusted to him.

When two days more had passed, a band of mutineers arrived from another
station, flushed with massacre, and this was the signal for the
Futtehgurh regiment to rise. The Europeans had taken refuge in the fort
there; outside its walls all was uproar, villagers and Sepoys fighting
for the plunder. Hurdeo Buksh at once assembled his feudal retainers,
a thousand in number, and dug out from various hiding places the guns
which he had concealed on the English Government ordering these petty
chiefs to give up all their ordnance. He explained to his guests that
a body of mutineers was coming to attack the fort, led by a false
report that the two Collectors had several lakhs of treasure with them.
They must at once go into hiding in an out-of-the-way village, as he
could not trust his followers to fight for them. The Englishmen were
unwilling to leave even such doubtful shelter as the fort offered, but
when this Rajpoot chief gave them his right hand, pledging his honour
for their safety, as far as in him lay, they knew he might be trusted,
and consented to go.

Carrying their bedding, arms, and the Probyns' four little children,
they crossed the Ramgunga, and reached the place where their quarters
were to be, a filthy enclosure from which the cattle and goats were
cleared out to make room for them. There at least they remained
undisturbed; but after a few days were startled by sounds of heavy
firing from Futtehgurh, where the Europeans were now being besieged
in the fort. Contradictory rumours kept Probyn and Edwards in painful
suspense, and when trustworthy news did come it was not assuring. The
little force in the fort, some thirty fighting men, with twice that
tale of women and children, could not hold out much longer. But several
days and nights passed, and still the cannonading went on incessantly.

On the morning of the fifth day there was a sudden silence, which
might mean that the attack had been given up, or that the resistance
had been overpowered. Some hours later came fresh sounds of quick and
irregular firing from another quarter, further down the river. While
our miserable refugees were asking themselves what this portended,
a messenger from Hurdeo Buksh came to tell them that the English
had during the night evacuated the fort and fled in boats, only to
be discovered and pursued, so the shots they now heard must be the
death-knells of their wretched countrymen. Still, however, came
conflicting stories. At one time the boats were said to be out of
range, then to have sunk. The firing ceased, to break out again for an
hour towards evening. At last they heard that one boat had escaped to
Cawnpore, but that another had grounded, most of the people on board
being massacred or drowned.

It would take too long to trace all the further perils of Edwards and
the Probyns, who for weeks to come remained hidden in a cow-house
for the most part, owing their safety chiefly to the heavy rains,
that after a time turned their place of refuge into an island. Their
presence here had been betrayed, and the Nawab of Furruckabad kept
pressing Hurdeo Buksh to give them up; but on the whole he proved a
staunch protector, though more than once he seemed ready to get rid
of so compromising guests. At one time, he had started them off by
boat for Cawnpore, to certain death, as they believed; at another,
they were to fly to Lucknow, disguised as natives, but that plan was
frustrated by bad news of how things were going there; then again there
was a design of smuggling them off to the hills; and once it was even
proposed that they should abandon the children and take to the jungle.
They were glad to be allowed to remain in their wretched shelter, where
sometimes they durst not show themselves, or the rain kept them close
prisoners. Poor Mrs. Probyn's baby wasted away for want of proper
nourishment. When it died they had to bury it in the darkness, thankful
to find a dry spot on which to dig a grave. Another of the children had
the same miserable fate. The whole party grew thin and weak on their
poor native fare. Two books they had, which were a great comfort to
them, a Bible and a copy of _Brydges on Psalm cix._ On the fly-leaf
of the latter Edwards wrote a note to his wife at Nainee Tal, and had
the joy of hearing from her that she and his child were safe. The
natives who carried these communications did so at the risk of their
lives; but the severity used to any one caught acting as messenger for
the English, did not prevent more than one letter from reaching the
refugees.

Their native neighbours, on the whole, were kind, at least not showing
any hatred towards them. By and by both Hurdeo Buksh and his dependents
began to exhibit more active friendship, a sign of the advance of
the English troops to reconquer the districts deluged by rebellion.
Finally, at the end of August, their miserable condition was relieved
by a message from General Havelock, who had now reached Cawnpore.
Thither they set out, running the gauntlet of fresh dangers on the
river, and could hardly believe their good fortune when at length they
found themselves safe among British bayonets. The whole story is a most
moving one, and should be read in full in Mr. Edwards' book, to the
interest of which this abridgment by no means does justice, since its
object is rather to show the state of the country than to enlarge on
individual adventures and sufferings.

One passage in his party's obscure experiences brings us back to the
highway of history. More than a month after the fall of Futtehguhr,
there had appeared at their refuge a tall, lean, spectral-looking
figure, almost naked and dripping with water, in whom Edwards with
difficulty recognized a young Mr. Jones, heard of by them as having
escaped from the boats to another of Hurdeo Buksh's villages. There he
had been hiding ever since, and now, in his weak state, burst into
tears at the sight of a countryman again and the sound of an English
voice. From him they learned with horror all the particulars of the
massacre that had been enacted within their hearing.

The little garrison of the Futtehgurh citadel had defended themselves
till their ammunition was almost exhausted as well as their strength,
while the Sepoys had begun to blow down their walls by the explosion of
mines. Hampered by women and children, their only way of escape was the
Ganges, that flowed by this fort. Early in the morning of July 3 they
embarked in three boats to drop down the river. But their flight was
soon discovered, and daylight showed them pursued by the bloodthirsty
Sepoys. The swift current of the Ganges helped them so well that they
might have got off safe but for the shallows that obstruct its channel.
One of the boats soon grounded, and its people had to be transferred to
another under fire. This second boat in turn, on which Jones now was,
stuck fast on another sandbank opposite a village, the inhabitants of
which turned out against it with matchlocks; and two guns opened fire
from the bank. As the men were repelling this attack, and trying in
vain to move off their heavy ark, there drifted down upon them a boat
full of Sepoys, who, after pouring in a deadly volley, boarded the
helpless craft. Most of its passengers, not already killed or wounded,
jumped overboard. What followed, as related by Jones to Edwards, makes
a too true picture of that terrible time.

"The water was up to their waists, and the current running very strong;
the bottom was shifting sand, which made it most difficult to maintain
a footing, and several of those who took to the river were at once
swept off and drowned. Jones himself had scarcely got into the water
when he was hit by a musket ball, which grazed the right shoulder,
without damaging the bone. At the same moment he saw Major Robertson,
who was standing in the stream supporting his wife with one arm and
carrying his little child in the other, wounded by a musket ball in
the thigh. Mrs. Robertson was washed out of her husband's grasp and
immediately drowned. Robertson then put the child on his shoulder and
swam away down the stream. Jones, finding that he could do no more
good, wounded as he was, determined to try to save his own life by
swimming down the river, hoping to reach the leading boat. As he struck
out from the boat, he saw poor Mr. Fisher, the chaplain, almost in
the same position as Robertson, holding his little son, a beautiful
boy eight or nine years old, in one arm, while with the other he
supported his wife. Mrs. Fisher was swaying about in the stream almost
insensible, and her husband could with great difficulty retain his
footing.

"When Jones had got clear of the boat, he continued alternately
swimming and floating for five or six miles, when just as it was
growing dusk, he saw the leading boat anchored for the night. He
reached it, much exhausted by swimming, and by the pain of his wound
and of his back; which, as he was naked to the waist, had been
blistered and made raw by the scorching sun. On being taken on board,
he found that the only casualty which had occurred to this party since
leaving Futtehguhr, was the death of one of the Miss Goldies, who had
been killed by a grape shot from one of the guns on the bank near
Singheerampore.

"Mrs. Lowis--who had maintained her fortitude throughout, and was
indefatigable during the siege in preparing tea and refreshment for
the men--immediately got him some brandy and water and food, and he
was then able to acquaint them with the miserable fate of his own
party, of whom he supposed himself to be the sole survivor. The boat
remained anchored in the same spot all night. Towards morning a voice
was heard from the bank, hailing the boat. It proved to be that of
Mr. Fisher, who, though badly wounded in the thigh, had managed by
swimming a portion of the way, then landing and walking along the bank,
to overtake the boat. He was helped on board more dead than alive, and
raved about his poor wife and son, both of whom were drowned.

"At dawn they weighed anchor and proceeded down the stream; but very
slowly, as there was no pilot or skilful steersman on board, and only
the exhausted officers as rowers. Towards evening they became so
exhausted that they made for a village on the Oudh side of the Ganges,
in hopes of being able to procure some milk for the children and food
for themselves. The villagers brought supplies, and did not show any
ill-will or attempt to attack the party.

"The boat was so crowded with its freight of from seventy to eighty
human beings, that Jones could find no space to lie down and sleep;
he therefore determined, as he was quite exhausted, to go on shore
and endeavour to get some rest. A villager brought him a charpoy, on
which he lay down and fell fast asleep. He was roused by a summons
from Colonel Smith to rejoin the boat, as they were on the point of
starting; but finding himself very stiff and scarcely able to move,
he determined to remain where he was, as he thought he might as well
die on shore as in the boat: in either case he regarded death as
inevitable. He therefore sent back a message that he could not come,
and begged to be left behind. Colonel Smith after this sent him two
more urgent requests to join the boat, which at length departed without
him. He slept till morning, when a poor Brahmin took pity on him and
permitted him to remain in a little shed, where he was partially
sheltered from the sun. There he remained unmolested by the villagers,
and protected by the Brahmin, until he was permitted to join us."

In the absence of other surgery, Jones had a happy thought for treating
his wound, which else might have killed him by mortification. He got a
little puppy to lick it morning and evening, then it at once began to
improve. But he was still in a sorry state when, wading and swimming
all night over the inundated country, he managed to join Edwards' party.

Two of his companions, who had also escaped alive, were hidden in other
villages without being able to communicate with each other. Three
unhappy ladies and a child had been taken back captive to Futtehguhr.
There, three weeks later, by order of the Nawab, who played the tyrant
here for a time, they were blown away from guns or shot down by grape,
along with some scores of native Christians, on whom the Sepoys thus
wreaked the infuriation of their defeat by Havelock's troops. The first
boat's crew had gained Cawnpore, only to be involved in its still more
awful tragedy.

Before coming to that part of the story, let us turn from the provinces
now deluged by rebellion, to see what was being done elsewhere to make
head against such a torrent.



CHAPTER IV

THE CONFLAGRATION


On the second day after the rising at Meerut, Calcutta had been
electrified by a telegram from Agra. The central government seemed at
first hardly to realize the gravity of the crisis. But when further
bad news came in, Lord Canning recognized that our Indian Empire was
at stake, and began to act with an energy, in which his character and
his inexperience of Indian affairs had made him hitherto wanting; and
if to some he seemed still deficient in grasp of such perilous affairs,
it may be said of him that he never lost his head, as did others whose
counsels were more vehement. He looked around for every European
soldier within reach; he called for aid on Madras and Ceylon; he
ordered the troops returning from the war happily ended in Persia, to
be sent at once to Calcutta; he took upon himself the responsibility of
arresting an expedition on its way from England to make war in China,
but now more urgently needed for the rescue of India. Weeks must pass,
however, before he could assemble a force fit to cope with the mutiny,
while every English bayonet was demanded at a dozen points nearer the
capital, and the Government knew not how far to trust its embarrassing
native army.

All was confusion, suspicion, and doubt, when the first measures of
precaution suggested by the danger might prove the very means of
inflaming it. The practical question, anxiously debated in so many
cases, was whether or no to disarm the Sepoys, at the risk of hurrying
other detachments into mutiny, and imperilling the lives of English
people, helpless in their hands. Most officers of Sepoy regiments,
indeed, refused to believe that their own men could be untrue, and
indignantly protested against their being disarmed--a blind confidence
often repaid by death at the hands of these very men, when their turn
came to break loose from the bonds of discipline. But one treacherous
tragedy after another decided the doubt, sometimes too late; and where
it was still thought well to accept the Sepoys' professions of loyalty,
they were vigilantly guarded by English soldiers, who thus could not be
spared to march against the open mutineers.

Paralyzed by want of trustworthy troops, Lord Canning could do
little at present but give his lieutenants in the North-West leave to
act as they thought best--leave which they were fain in any case to
take, the rebellion soon cutting them off from communication with the
seat of Government. But there, most fortunately, were found men fit
to deal with the emergency, and to create resources in what to some
might have seemed a hopeless situation. At the season when the Mutiny
broke out, English officials who can leave their posts willingly take
refuge at the cool hill-stations of the Himalayas. General Anson, the
Commander-in-Chief, had betaken himself to Simla, the principal of
these sanatoriums, lying north of Delhi and of the military station
at Umballa. Here the alarming news came to cut short his holiday.
Naturally reluctant to believe the worst, he yet could not but order a
concentration of troops at Umballa, where he arrived in the course of
three or four days.

A more masterful spirit was already at work upon the scene of action,
if not by his personal presence, through the zealous colleagues
inspired by his teaching and example as a ruler of men. Sir John
Lawrence, Chief Commissioner of the Punjaub, had also been recalled on
his way to the hills, to find himself practically independent governor
of that side of India. At once rising to the emergency, as soon as
he had taken the first measures, already anticipated indeed by his
deputies, for the safety of his own province, he saw that the one thing
to be aimed at was the recovery of Delhi, the very name of which would
be a tower of strength to the mutineers. The Commander-in-Chief's
eyes were mainly open to the difficulties of such an enterprise; and
the staff, fettered by red-tape, cried out upon the impossibility of
advancing in the unprepared state of his army. Lawrence never ceased to
urge that, with or without guns and stores, everything must be risked
to strike an immediate blow at Delhi, which might check the spread of
rebellion by restoring our lost prestige. His tireless subordinates
did the impossible in collecting supplies and means of transport.
Anson, urged to the same effect by the Governor-General as by Lawrence,
doubtfully agreed to lose no time in carrying out their policy of a
march on Delhi. This is not the only instance throughout the Indian
Mutiny where the hesitations and weakness of military men were
happily overruled by the resolute counsels of civilians. The ordinary
precautions of warfare had often to be disregarded in the struggle now
at hand.

The difficulties, indeed, might well have seemed appalling. At
Umballa itself, an abortive attempt at mutiny had taken place on the
fatal 10th. General Anson, who, like some other Queen's officers, had
hitherto been apt to despise the Sepoys, now went to the other extreme
in flattering them, and let their officers hamper him by a promise that
they should not be disarmed. At his back, the fashionable station of
Simla was thrown into panic by a disturbance among the Goorkhas posted
there. Hundreds of English people fled to the woods and mountains in
terror, till it was found that the Goorkhas could easily be brought to
reason. They luckily showed no fellow-feeling with the Bengal Sepoys;
and soldiers from this warlike mountain race served us well throughout
the Mutiny. The native princes of the neighbourhood also gave timely
help of their troops and by furnishing supplies.

Within a fortnight were gathered at Umballa three English infantry
regiments, the 9th Lancers, and twelve field-guns, with one regiment
and one squadron of natives whom it was not safe to leave behind.
Carts had been collected by the hundred, camels and elephants by the
thousand, and a numerous train of camp-followers, without whom an
Indian army can hardly move. Ammunition was brought up from the arsenal
at Philour, one of the Punjaub strongholds, secured just in time to
prevent it falling into treacherous hands. A siege-train, hastily
prepared here, had to be escorted by Sepoys, who might at any moment
break into revolt. The Sutlej, swollen with melting snows, threatened
to break down the bridge by which communication was kept up with this
important point; and, not two hours after the train had passed, the
bridge in fact gave way. Then there were delays through unmanageable
bullocks ploughing over heavy sands and roads deluged by rain. The
first day's labour of twenty hours brought the train only seven miles
on its long route.

Without waiting for it, on May 25, Anson advanced to Kurnaul, the
rallying-point of the Delhi fugitives. But cholera, a feller foe than
the Sepoy, had already attacked his soldiers. One of the first victims
was the Commander-in-Chief, who died on the 27th, broken by ill-health
and the burden of a task too heavy for him. Another kind of General, it
was said by impatient critics, would have been in Delhi a week before.
But this was easier to say than to do, and certainly the destruction of
his small and ill-provided army, hurled forward without due precaution,
might have proved the loss of India.

Anson was succeeded in command by Sir Henry Barnard, an officer of
Crimean distinction, who had been only a few weeks in India. His first
acts showed no want of energy. Leaving the siege-train to follow at
its slow pace, he moved upon Delhi at the end of the month, his men
marching eagerly under the fierce June sun, in burning desire to avenge
the slaughter of their country-people. And now began those cruel
reprisals by which our victory was so darkly stained. Angry suspicion
was all the evidence needed to condemn the natives, guilty and innocent
alike, who, after a hasty show of trial, were often mocked and tortured
before execution at the hands of Christians turned into savages. The
Sepoy regiment which marched with the column from Umballa had to be
sent away, to protect them against the suspicious resentment of their
English comrades, as much as in anticipation of the treachery which
soon displayed itself among them.

A few days' march brought together the main body and Brigadier Wilson's
force from Meerut, which had lain there shamefully inactive for three
weeks, but now did much to retrieve its character by two encounters
under such a burning sun that the exhausted soldiers could not follow
up their victory. The whole army numbered little over three thousand
Englishmen, with whom Barnard pushed forward to where, five miles
north of Delhi, a horde of mutineers lay waiting to dispute his
advance, strongly posted at Budlee-ka-Serai.

Here on June 8th was fought the first important battle of the war.
Nothing could resist this handful of British soldiers, terrible in
their vengeful passion. Blinded by the glare, now choked by dust, now
wading knee-deep in water, through all obstacles, the infantry dashed
up to the rebel guns; the Lancers, having made a stealthy circuit,
charged upon the enemy's rear; the field artillery took them in the
flank; and they fled in confusion, pressed hard by the eager though
jaded victors. On the Ridge without the city the Sepoys made another
stand, but were again swept back from this strong position. After
sixteen hours' marching and fighting, under a sun whose rays were
almost as fatal as bullets, the English soldiers encamped among the
burned quarters of the Cantonment, and from the Ridge beheld the domes
and minarets of that famous city, which already they looked upon as
regained.

But not next day, as they had fondly hoped, nor next week, nor for
weary months, were they to pass the high red wall and heavy bastions
that defiantly confronted them. Even had those walls lain flat as
Jericho's, it were madness to have thrown some couple of thousand
bayonets into the narrow crooked streets of a city swarming with
fanatical foemen, besides a Sepoy garrison many times the number of the
assailants. Open still on all sides but one, Delhi was the rendezvous
of bands of mutineers flocking into it from various quarters; from
first to last it is said to have held forty thousand of them--a strange
reversal of the rules of war, which require that a besieging force
shall at least outnumber the besieged! Still, in the first few days,
Barnard did entertain the notion of carrying the place by a _coup de
main_, but allowed himself to be dissuaded, to the disgust of certain
ardent and youthful spirits.

There was then nothing for it but to remain camped behind the Ridge,
awaiting reinforcements and the coming up of the siege-train. In this
position, the rear defended by a canal, and with a wall of rocky
heights in front, our army was practically besieged rather than
besieging. Their field artillery could make little impression on the
walls, nearly a mile off, while the enemy's heavier guns sent shot
among them night and day. So great was the want of ammunition that
two annas apiece were offered for cannon balls, which natives risked
their lives in picking up to be fired back into the city--balls which
sometimes could hardly be handled by Europeans in the burning heat.
Sunstroke struck them down as by lightning; half the officers of one
regiment were thus disabled in a single day. The over-tasked force
had often to fight all day and to watch all night. The enemy used his
superiority of numbers by continual harassing attacks, in front, in
flank, and at last in the rear. The day was a remarkable one which
passed without fighting. In six weeks, twenty combats were counted. On
the 23rd of June, the Centenary of Plassey, a particularly formidable
assault was made, and repulsed after a long day's fighting, to the
discouragement of the Sepoys, whom false prophecies had led to believe
that this date was to be fatal to us. Now, as always, the skulking
foe could never stand to face British bayonets in the open; but their
stealthy onsets were favoured by the wilderness of tangled ravines,
gardens, walls, ruins, tombs, thickets, and deserted houses, which gave
them cover right up to our entrenchments.

Through the losses of these continual encounters, as well as through
disease and exposure, our scanty force would soon have melted away, if
reinforcements had not begun to come in towards the end of June. But
now also came the rainy season, multiplying the ravages of fever and
cholera. Poor General Barnard was so worn out by the strain of his
almost hopeless task that he could neither eat nor sleep. Early in July
he died, like his predecessor, of cholera. General Reed took up the
command, but at the end of a week, finding the burden too heavy for
his feeble health, gave it over to Brigadier Wilson, who at one time
had almost retired in despair, and would probably have done so if not
cheered and strengthened by one who, at a distance, was all along the
moving spirit of this marvellous siege.

Sir John Lawrence it is, with his lieutenants, Montgomery, Herbert
Edwardes, Neville Chamberlain, John Nicholson, who are on all hands
hailed as foremost among the saviours of our Indian empire. The
Punjaub, where Lawrence bore rule at this crisis, home of the warlike
Sikhs, might have been judged our weakest point, yet he turned it
into a source of strength. Our latest and hardest conquest as it was,
conquerors and conquered had learned to respect one another as worthy
foemen, while its manly population bore a contemptuous ill-will towards
the rebel Sepoys, and, themselves divided between Sikh and Moslem,
did not readily find common cause to make against the English. From
this mingled population, Lawrence quickly began to enlist excellent
soldiers, weeding out also the Punjaub Sepoys from the ranks of their
East-country comrades, to form the nucleus of new corps. Punjaubees,
Afghans, Pathans, all the most martial and restless spirits of the
frontier, eagerly came forward for our service; and thus the very men
from whom we had most to fear became serviceable allies in the time of
need.

The old Sepoy regiments were for the most part disarmed one by one,
some of them disbanded, as opportunity or suspicion counselled, yet
not till more than one had made attempts at mutiny that ended ill for
themselves. Lawrence, earnest in urging mercy when the time came for
it, was resolute in trampling out the early sparks of disaffection.
Forty mutinous Sepoys at once were blown away from the mouths of
guns. The dangerous districts were scoured by a movable column under
Nicholson, a man worshipped almost as a god by his Sikh followers. The
Afghan frontier had also to be watched, lest old enemies there should
take this chance of falling upon us from behind when our hands were so
full of fighting in front. And at the same time it was necessary to
keep a careful eye upon our new levies, lest they in turn should grow
too formidable.

Fortunate it was that the neighbouring native princes proved friendly,
lending the aid of their troops to keep the peace, or giving more
substantial assistance to the representative of that power which they
had learned to look upon as paramount. Lawrence, governing a population
of twenty millions, cut off from communication with his superiors,
was made by force of circumstances dictator of Northern India. Not
for nearly three months did a message from Calcutta reach him by the
circuitous way of Bombay. The generals in the field, though owing him
no formal obedience, gave in to the energy of his character and the
weight of his experience. The well-provided arsenals and magazines of
the Punjaub, saved from the hands of the mutineers by his vigorous
action, became now the base of supplies against Delhi. Thither he kept
forwarding a continual stream of stores, transport, men and money,
which he had to raise by somewhat forced loans among the rich natives.
Thus, in spite of a painful ailment, in spite of his longing for home
and rest, he throughout masterfully maintained the British prestige
within his own boundaries, while ever pressing on the capture of Delhi,
as the blow which would paralyze rebellion all over India. When the
great enterprise seemed on the point of failure, as a last resource he
sent Nicholson's column to the front, leaving himself with only four
thousand European soldiers scattered among the millions of the Punjaub,
for whom that one man's strong hand was equal to a host of fighters.

Still the siege of Delhi dragged on its costly length. We must leave it
for the meanwhile to see what thrilling and momentous scenes were being
enacted in other parts of India, and to follow the preparations made
for attacking the mutiny from the further side.

Calcutta was in a state of bewildered dismay, not to be calmed
by official hopes for a speedy end to the insurrection, and soon
increasing daily with worse and worse news from up-country. From
Allighur, from Muttra, from Bareilly, from Moradabad, from Jhansi, from
other points, one after another, came sickening tales of revolt and
massacre, which would not lose in the telling. The only news of other
places was an ominous silence. The great stations of Agra, Cawnpore,
and Lucknow were presently cut off by a raging sea of rebellion.
Rohilcund, old nursery of warriors, was overflowed, and the Doab, that
fertile region between the Jumna and the Ganges, down whose thickly
peopled valleys poured the irresistible flood of disorder. The tide
rose to the sacred cities of Allahabad and Benares. Beyond, there were
risings in Rajpootana. At Gwalior, the Maharajah's Sepoy contingent,
after a time, broke away to play a considerable part in coming
battles. Everywhere regiments, believed faithful, were going off like
the guns of a burning ship.

The leaven of agitation naturally spread into the two other
Presidencies, where the English officials could have no quiet rest
till the danger in Bengal should be over. But the organization of the
Madras and Bombay armies was not so dangerous for their rulers. Here
men of various creeds and castes were more thoroughly mixed together
in the ranks, which in Bengal had been allowed to consist too much of
fellow-believers, and of cliques of the same family, caste or locality,
turning every company into a clan animated by a common feeling apart
from that of soldierly duty; nor, outside of Bengal, were the regiments
permitted to be accompanied by squalid fakirs, to keep alive their
superstitious zeal.

When Patna and Dinapore gave signs of commotion, not four hundred
miles from Calcutta, the people of the capital might well look to see
peril at their doors. They loudly accused Lord Canning as wanting to
the exigency. He certainly seemed to go too far in trying to allay
alarm by putting a calm face upon his inward anxiety. He forbore, as
long as possible, to show distrust of the Sepoys in Eastern Bengal;
he hesitated about accepting a contingent of Goorkhas offered him
from Nepaul; he delayed in letting the inhabitants arm for their
own defence. Not for a month did he allow them to form volunteer
corps, and at the same time was forced to disarm the Sepoys at the
neighbouring stations of Dum-Dum and Barrackpore. But rumours of what
the Sepoys there had intended were already at work, producing a panic
through Calcutta, where one Sunday in the middle of June a great part
of the Europeans and Eurasians hastened to barricade themselves in
their houses, or fled to the fort and the shipping for refuge from
an imaginary foe, while the poor natives lay hid, trembling on their
own account, expecting quite as groundlessly to be massacred by the
white soldiers. The ludicrous terror of this "Panic Sunday" will long
be remembered as a joke against the Calcutta people, who only towards
evening began to see they had nothing to fear. Next day their restored
confidence was strengthened by the arrest of the King of Oudh, who held
a quasi-state in his palace near the city, and whose retainers were
believed to have been plotting, with the now harmless Sepoys at the
neighbouring stations, for a great Christian massacre.

A day or two later, Sir Patrick Grant, Commander of the Madras army,
arrived to assume command in Bengal. He did not feel himself equal
to taking the field in person, but made the fortunate choice of
Brigadier-General Havelock to advance against the rebels, as soon as
there should be an army ready to lead. The officer, who during the last
months of his life was to burst forth as a popular hero, had passed
obscurely a long life of eastern military service. In India, indeed,
he was well known for the earnest piety which had leavened the ranks
of his comrades. "Havelock's Saints," a name given in mockery, became
a title of honour, when it was found that the little band among whom
he preached and prayed so zealously were the best and most trustworthy
soldiers of the regiment. By his superiors he had been recognized as a
brave and intelligent officer; and he had served creditably in Burma,
in Afghanistan, in the Punjaub, and in Persia, without attracting much
public notice or rising to high command. Now, at length, this saintly
veteran, all his life a careful student of the art of war, had the
chance to show what he was as a general; but not till June 25 could he
leave Calcutta, picking up as he went the scattered fragments of his
force, which had been pushed on to meet immediate needs of succour.

A month earlier, Neill with the 1st Madras Fusiliers had gone on as
forerunner of the help that would by and by be pouring in to the
rescue of our imperilled countrymen. As far as Allahabad he could
travel by railway, yet he did not arrive there for nearly three weeks,
delayed through turning aside to repress mutiny at Benares, and by
making grim examples to teach the cowering natives that the British
_raj_ was still to be feared. At Allahabad he found his presence
sorely needed by a handful of Europeans shut up in the fort along with
a band of hardly controllable Sikhs. The mutiny here had been marked
by painful as well as curious features. The Sepoys at first showed
themselves enthusiastically loyal, giving every sign of affection to
their officers, then rose against them in a sudden fit of cruel fury,
immediately after volunteering, with apparent heartiness, to march
against their comrades at Delhi. Seven or eight boy-ensigns were
murdered by the regiment they had just joined. The rebels bombarded
the locomotives on the new railway, which they took for mysterious
engines of warfare. There were the usual sickening massacres of women
and children. A general destruction had reigned without check, in which
helpless Hindoo pilgrims came off almost as ill as the Christians at
the hands of a Mohamedan mob. This short triumph of disorder was with
terrible and too little discriminating justice chastised by Neill,
stern Scotchman that he was. What between the mutineers and the British
soldiery, the inhabitants of the district had cause to rue these
troubles; and again our civilization was disgraced by a blind fury
of vengeance. Neill was more successful in restoring order among the
populace than in restraining his own soldiers, who gave way to excesses
of drink that fatally nursed the seeds of cholera, when not a man could
be spared from the trying task before them.[2]

By the end of June, Havelock reached Allahabad, to take the head of
an army that hardly numbered two thousand fighters. Nineteen officers
and men made all his cavalry. But such news here met him, he could not
lose a day in flinging this small force among myriads of bitter foes,
at whose mercy lay the lives of many Christian women and children.
Yet it was no horde of undisciplined savages from whom he must wrest
those hapless captives. Throughout the war, our troops had to face,
at enormous odds of number, ranks trained and armed by ourselves,
supplied from our own captured stores, and in a large degree led by the
establishment of native officers whom we had taught how battles should
be won. Never perhaps has it been so well proved, as by the result of
this apparently unequal conflict, what advantage lies in pride and
strength of race!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: One of the severest punishments inflicted on mutineers
was forcing them under the lash, before being hanged, to sweep up the
blood of their supposed victims, so as, in their ideas, to pollute
them to all eternity. A generation later, this General Neill's son was
murdered, it is said, by the vengeful son of a native officer thus
punished.]



CHAPTER V

THE CITIES OF REFUGE


Minor disturbances on the outskirts left out of sight, the stress of
the storm may now be considered as confined to the region between Delhi
and Allahabad, where in Agra, Cawnpore, and Lucknow were still havens
of refuge, that, it was to be feared, could not long hold out against
the turbulent elements surging around and against them.

[Illustration: Taj of Agra, from the Fountain. Page 92.]

At Agra, one of the most magnificent cities in India, and the seat
of the Government of the North-Western Provinces, there reigned
the liveliest alarm among the large Christian community, though
Lieutenant-Governor Colvin at first tried to make too light of the
danger. When the neighbouring stations burst into mutiny, a panic set
in, the Sepoys were disarmed, and by the end of June the Europeans took
refuge within the high red walls of the fort, some mile and a half
in circuit, that enclose a strangely-mingled maze of buildings,
galleries, pavilions, domes, towers, vaults, offices, barracks,
arcades, gardens and lordly halls recalling the Arabian Nights, among
them such architectural wonders as the glittering palace of Akbar
and the exquisite Pearl Mosque, now turned into a hospital for the
nonce. In sight of these monuments of Mogul grandeur, a mile or so up
the Jumna, rise the snowy splendours of the Taj, that Sultana's tomb
praised by some as the most beautiful work of human hands; and on this
side, without the city, were the English homes that must be deserted
as insecure. The citadel of Agra now gave quarters to several thousand
persons, the number increasing as destitute fugitives came slinking in
from the wrecked stations around. There was an English regiment here,
and a small force of volunteers, who, in July, sallied out to meet a
Sepoy army, but had to retire with some loss; then the unfortunate
refugees found themselves forced helplessly to look on at the burning
of their houses without the walls, while thousands of prisoners,
released from the jail, spread over the country in their clanking
chains, and for a few days the _budmashes_ and the rabble had their
way in the city. No vigorous attempt, however, was made to besiege the
Fort, and its inmates got off with the half-serious, half-ludicrous
hardships of an anxious summer spent in marble halls and crowded
palace-chambers, where decorations of mosaic, enamel and coloured glass
ill made up for the lack of substantial comfort.

Poor Colvin, broken down, like so many another leader of that time, by
the burden of a charge too heavy for him, and pained by the quarrels
and murmurs of the pent-up multitude under his too feeble authority,
died in September, yet not till he had seen the motley garrison
venturing forth again, and beginning to restore order in the districts
about. On the whole, the story of Agra was rather a happily prosaic one
for a scene of such picturesque historic grandeur.

At Meerut also, where the Mutiny first broke out, our people got
through its further alarms by standing on anxious guard behind their
entrenchments, while Dunlop the magistrate, at the news of trouble
hurrying back from his holiday in the Himalayas, raised a force of
volunteers that by their bold sallies kept the disaffected in awe for
some way round.

Very different was the case of Lucknow, capital of Oudh, a vast expanse
of hovels and palaces, situated on the banks of the Goomtee, amid a
rich country famed as the garden of India. With its straggling suburbs,
it covered a space six miles long and about half as broad, including
groups of stately temples, palaces and pleasure-gardens. The central
part of the city was densely populated, and the chief streets offered
a lively scene, thronged as they were with natives in the picturesque
costumes of all parts of India, with rich palanquins, with stately
elephants, and camels in gay caparisons, with gorgeously-attired
cavaliers and their swaggering attendants. Every man in those days
went armed, frays and outrages being too common under the weak tyranny
of the lately deposed sovereign; even beggars demanded charity almost
at the point of the sword, and it was a point of prudence as well as
of honour for every dignitary to surround himself with a retinue of
formidable warriors.

Over this swarm of dangerous elements Sir Henry Lawrence now held rule,
worthy brother of the Punjaub administrator. There were four Lawrence
brothers, who all manfully played parts in the Mutiny. Among them Henry
seems to have been the most lovable, distinguished as a philanthropist
not less than as a statesman and a soldier. The institutions which he
founded for the education of soldiers' children in India still attest
his benevolence towards his own people. He had singular sympathy with
and knowledge of the natives, yet there was no sentimentalism in his
earnest desire for their welfare, and when the time came for stern
repression he would not shrink from the uncongenial task. On the
earliest disturbances, he telegraphed to Calcutta asking to be invested
with full powers to deal with them; then, prematurely aged as he was
by hard work and sickness, strained every nerve to meet the emergency,
which seems to have taken him not so much by surprise as in the case of
other high officers.

Discontent was strong in the newly-annexed kingdom of Oudh; and already
had Lawrence had to quell an attempt at mutiny caused by the greased
cartridges, before the native troops raised the standard of rebellion
at Delhi. Foreboding the worst from the news of what had happened on
the Jumna, he exerted himself to calm and conciliate the Sepoys at
Lucknow, and for a time succeeded in preserving an appearance of order,
under which, however, the signs of mischief brewing did not escape his
watchful eye. The Residency, his palatial quarters, with the public
offices and houses about it, stood upon a slight rising ground near
the river, overlooking the greater part of the city. From the first,
Lawrence began to turn this position into a fort of refuge, storing
here guns, ammunition, and supplies, as also in the Muchee Bhawun, an
imposing native fortress not far off. For garrison, part of the 32nd
Regiment, the only English troops he had, were moved in from their
Cantonments outside, and the Christian population soon abandoned their
homes for the asylum of the Residency. Yet at this time it was in no
state for serious defence; even weeks later, few foresaw the hot siege
it would undergo. Before long there appeared cause for actively pushing
on the work. Early in May there was a mutinous demonstration that
luckily could be appeased without bloodshed, but it too plainly showed
the temper of the Sepoys.

By the end of the month, the women and children were all ordered in
from the Cantonments. Business was now at a standstill, and English
people venturing into the streets met everywhere with scared as well as
scowling faces, many of the better class fearing to lose the safety of
our Government, while the turbulent elements of the population eagerly
awaited the signal for general lawlessness.

Sir Henry Lawrence has been blamed because, like other leaders on
whom rested the same responsibility, he delayed to disarm the Sepoy
regiments at Lucknow, fearing chiefly to bring about the mutiny of
others who, at various points in Oudh, still openly obeyed their
officers. Holding to his policy of pretended confidence, on May 30th he
was warned that a general mutiny would break out at evening gun-fire.
He went to dine in the Cantonments, as if no danger were to be feared;
and at the report of the nine o'clock gun, he remarked with a smile
to his informant, "Your friends are not punctual." But scarcely were
the words out of his mouth than a crackle of musketry came from the
lines. Calmly ordering his native guard to load, though for all he knew
it might be to shoot him on the spot, Lawrence hastened to overawe
their mutinous comrades. Only one whole regiment had broken out, most
of whose officers had time to escape with their lives. The Sepoys,
however, shot their brigadier as he tried to recall them to obedience,
and two other Englishmen were murdered, one a young cornet of seventeen
lying sick in his bungalow. For this small bloodshed the mutineers
consoled themselves by burning and plundering the abandoned bungalows,
till Lawrence came upon them at the head of an English detachment,
before whom they soon took to flight, yet not till the firing and
glare had spread wide alarm among the Europeans.

Of the two other Sepoy regiments, some five or six hundred men fell
in under their officers' orders; the rest kept out of the way, or
went off to the mutineers. Next morning, Lawrence followed them on to
the race-course, where they had retreated, and they fled afresh from
the English artillery, though not till the fugitive Sepoys had been
joined by the greater part of a cavalry regiment, for want of whom
effectual pursuit could not be made. In the course of the day there was
an abortive mob-rising within the city, easily put down by the native
police, a number of insurgents being captured and executed.

The English leaders tried to encourage themselves by the thought that
this long-dreaded mine had gone off with so little mischief, and that
now, at least, they knew their friends from their enemies. But they
did not foresee how fast would spread the madness which in so many
cases suddenly affected bodies hitherto faithful even against their
own comrades. A few days later, the police also mutinied and made
off, pursued by artillery, and a force of volunteer cavalry hastily
raised among the Europeans. Still a few hundred Sepoys, who had
stuck to their colours, were stationed beside English soldiers at the
Residency and the Muchee Bhawun; and, on an appeal to their loyalty, a
considerable number of old native pensioners, some of them blind and
crippled, presented themselves to stand by the Government whose salt
they had eaten so long.

Among the reminiscences of that trying time, young readers will
be especially interested in those of Mr. E.H. Hilton, an Eurasian
gentleman still living in Lucknow, to show with pride the carbine
he bore as a school-boy through the siege, and to say _quaeque ipse
miserrima vidi_, if he remember as much from school-books, which may
well have been driven out of his head by the experiences of his last
days at school.

Mr. Hilton, then well on in his teens, was in 1857 one of the senior
boys of the Martinière College, at which his parents held the posts of
Sergeant-Superintendent and Matron. This institution, also known as
Constantia House, from the motto _Labore et Constantia_ inscribed on
its front, is one of the lions of Lucknow. Founded at the beginning
of our century by General Claude Martin, a French soldier of
fortune, it has given a good education to thousands of European and
half-caste boys; nor is this the only educational endowment due to
his munificence. The Martinière, as it is commonly called, a huge,
fantastic, straggling mansion in a pleasant park some mile or two out
of the city, was the founder's residence during his lifetime, and
afterwards his monument and tomb, for he had himself buried in a vault
below the spacious halls and dormitories, now alive with the lads whom
that singular Frenchman had at heart to educate in the English language
and religion. At the time of the Mutiny, there were sixty-five resident
pupils, who had naturally to share the forebodings and alarms of that
terrible spring.

When all the other Christians stood on their guard, Mr. Schilling,
Principal of the Martinière, prepared to defend his charge against
any sudden attack. A small party, first of Sepoys, and when they
could no longer be trusted, of English soldiers, was stationed at the
College. The elder boys were armed with muskets or carbines. Stores
of food and water were collected; and Mr. Hilton tells us how the
first taste his school-fellows had of the trials of the Mutiny was the
frequent bursting of earthen water-jars, which drenched the boys in
the dormitory below. The centre of the building was barricaded with
bricks, sand-bags, boxes of old books and crockery, anything that could
be turned to account. The boys still did their school-work in the long
open wings, but with orders to make for the centre, thus turned into a
citadel, as soon as the alarm-bell rang. One boy always stood on the
look-out; and, as may be supposed, there were several false alarms,
when a troop of grass-cutters' ponies, or the dark edge of a dust-storm
was taken by the nervous young sentinels for an advancing army.

These lads were, indeed, in an exposed position, where they could not
long hope to hold out against soldiers, but might have beaten off a
sudden attack from the rabble of Lucknow. When the bungalows were
burned, young Hilton had nearly seen too much of that night's work. He
had gone, as usual, in charge of a party of his school-fellows, who
acted as choir-boys of the English Church, riding to and fro, it seems,
upon nothing less than elephants!

"We were in the midst of chanting the _Magnificat_, when suddenly the
bugles sounded the alarm. All the officers present quietly rose up and
marched out, and, after finishing the _Magnificat_, the service was
then suddenly brought to a close. The Rev. Mr. Polehampton took the
choir-boys to his house, and gave us the choice of remaining there or
proceeding to the Martinière at once. As our elephants were waiting
ready, I preferred to take the boys home, and we twelve set off on
our moonlight journey of about six miles. Near the Iron Bridge, we
passed a regiment of Sepoys marching with fixed bayonets, but, to our
great relief, they took no notice of us whatever. At the Huzrutgunge
Gate, opposite what is now Eduljee's shop, a sowar, with his sword
drawn, rode up and ordered our _mahout_ to stop. Seeing, however, that
his horse would not come near our elephant, I told the _mahout_ to
go on. After a little colloquial abuse between the two, the _mahout_
went on; the obstructive sowar took his departure with a few farewell
flourishes of his naked sword, and we arrived at the Martinière without
further molestation. There we found every one on the top of the
building looking at the far-off flames of the burning bungalows in the
Cantonments, and we received the hearty congratulations of all on what
they considered our providential escape."

After the mutiny of the police, a flying skirmish took place in view of
the Martinière, eagerly watched by the pupils, who were eager to join
in the fray, but had to remain on guard over their buildings. Their
Principal made a narrow escape, meeting the rebels as he drove through
the College-park, and getting away from them by the speed of his horse.
There is another story, perhaps a distorted version of the same, that
one of the teachers did fall into the hands of some stragglers, who
seemed inclined to shoot him, but contemptuously let him go as "only a
school-master!" These school-masters, and some of the school-boys too,
were to play the warrior before long.

Next morning, Mr. Schilling was ordered to abandon the College, and
move his boys into the Residency. A party of the 32nd leading the
way, and the elder lads with their muskets bringing up the rear, they
marched through the streets lined with sullen faces, where several
natives were seen going armed, but no one offered them any opposition.
At the Residency they were quartered uncomfortably enough in the house
of a native banker within the lines, and there went on with their
lessons as best they could for two or three weeks longer.

All our people had now to take shelter behind the still imperfect
defences. Large stores of food, fodder, and fire had been laid in.
Fortunately there were wells of good water within the Residency
entrenchment. Gunpowder and treasure were buried underground for
safety. Much against his will, Lawrence gave orders for demolishing
the houses around that might afford cover to assailants, but, ever
anxious to spare the feelings of the natives, he desired that their
holy places should be left untouched, so that the adjacent mosques
remained to be used as works for the besiegers. The preparations,
within and without, of the garrison were far from complete by the end
of June, when cholera and small-pox appeared among them, to add to the
gloom of their prospects. The buildings about the Residency were now
crowded with people, not only the whole English population of Lucknow,
but refugees from out-stations, who kept coming in for their lives. The
worst tidings reached them from all hands. No sign of help cleared the
threatening horizon. It was still open to Lawrence to abandon the city,
retreating under protection of his one European regiment and his guns.
But he took the boldest for the best policy, and kept the British flag
floating over its capital when all the rest of Oudh was in unrestrained
rebellion.

He even judged himself strong enough, or was unluckily persuaded,
to strike a blow outside his defences. Hearing that the vanguard of
a Sepoy army had reached Chinhut, a few miles from Lucknow, on the
last day of June, he marched out against them with some seven hundred
men, hoping to scatter the mutineers before they could enter the
city. But, unexpectedly, he found himself assailed by overwhelming
numbers, for he had been deceived through false information, and it
was a whole army, not their mere advance guard, with which he had to
do. The European soldiers could not long hold out under a burning sun,
when the native cavalry and gunners either fled or went over to the
enemy. The retreat became a shameful rout. The broken band was almost
surrounded, and owed its escape to the gallant charge made by a handful
of mounted volunteers, most of whom here saw their first battle. The
water-carriers, such indispensable attendants in this climate, having
deserted, our men suffered agonies from thirst, and many more might
have perished if the inhabitants had not come out to offer them water,
showing that we had still some friends left. But as Lawrence galloped
on, heavy-hearted, to break the bad news to those left behind in the
Residency, already he found the native population in hasty flight; and
soon an ominous silence made the streets outside our entrenchments like
a city of the dead. It grew lively enough later in the day, when the
victorious Sepoys came pouring in, and then began the long misery of
the defence of Lucknow.

But that renowned episode shall be treated of in a chapter apart.
For the present we pass on to Cawnpore, where another wretched crowd
were already undergoing the horrors of a siege, and had earnestly
begged from Lucknow the help it could not spare. Their sufferings and
fate should be fully told, as an epitome of the Mutiny's most painful
features.

Cawnpore, though no such splendid historic city as Delhi or Lucknow,
was an important military station, with a force of some three hundred
English soldiers, counting officers and invalids, to ten times as many
Sepoys. At Bithoor, about twelve miles up the Ganges, was the palace
of that wily and cruel Hindoo who, under the title of Nana Sahib,
became so widely known as the villain of a great tragedy. Adopted
son of the dethroned Mahratta potentate entitled the Peshwa, and
left a rich man by inheriting his wealth, he had a grievance against
our Government in its refusal to continue to him the ample pension
paid to the late Peshwa, whose heir by adoption, by foul play if all
stories are true, was, however, recognized as Maharajah of Bithoor, and
allowed to keep up a sumptuous court among some hundreds of idle and
insolent retainers. To ventilate his wrongs, Nana Sahib sent to England
a confidential agent named Azimoolah, a low-born adventurer like
himself, who by dint of shrewdness and impudence made an extraordinary
impression on London society. This part of his career reads like a
comic romance, and seems indeed to have suggested to Thackeray the
Rummun Loll of _The Newcomes_. But, though petted and flattered by
English fine ladies, Azimoolah could get no satisfaction from men in
office; then returned to his employer, during the Crimean War, with a
report that England was likely to be humbled by Russia.

The Nana dissembled his resentment, and appeared to have given himself
up to a life of pleasure, in which degrading Oriental sensualities were
strangely mixed with an affectation of European tastes. Yet, while
pretending friendship with the English, and leading them to think him a
good-natured, jovial fellow, whose main ambition was to cultivate their
society, this dissembler, it seems, secretly nursed the blackest hatred
against his neighbours and frequent guests, biding a time when he might
satisfy the grudge he bore against their race.

That startling news from Meerut had found our people at Cawnpore
engaged in the tedious round of duty, and the languid efforts to kill
time, which make the life of Anglo-Indians not lucky enough to get away
for the hot weather to bracing hill-stations. Henceforth, they could
not complain of any want of excitement. They had plenty of time for
preparation to meet the danger, for three weeks passed before it was
upon them.

The General in command here, Sir Hugh Wheeler, was an Indian veteran of
the older school, who could speak to the Sepoys in their own language,
and, like some other officers of his generation, had become so much one
of themselves as to marry a native woman. Such a man would naturally
be slow to believe his "children"--_babalogue_ the affectionate word
was, that came now to be used rather in scornful irony--capable of
being untrue to their salt. Yet when the demeanour of the Sepoys,
agitated as much by fear and unreasoning excitement, perhaps, as by
deliberate intention to revolt, became too plainly threatening, while
still expressing confidence, Wheeler ordered an entrenchment to be
thrown up and provided with stores, as a refuge for the Europeans in
case of need. So great was his trust in the Maharajah of Bithoor, that
he did not doubt to accept the Nana's assistance. A detachment of his
ragamuffin troops was actually put in charge of the treasury; and there
was some talk of the ladies and children being placed for safety in
the palace of this traitor, already plotting their ruin. Every night
now they slept within the entrenchment; but the officers of Sepoy
regiments had to show true courage by staying among their men, who
were not so much impressed by this forced show of confidence as by the
distrust of them evident in the preparations for defence.

At length even Sir Hugh began to take a gloomy view of the situation.
Many of those under him had done so from the first; and most pathetic
it is to read the letters written by some English people to their
friends at home by the last mail that got down to Calcutta--farewell
messages of men and women who felt how any hour now they might be
called on to face death. Before long the roads were all stopped, the
telegraph wires were cut, and almost the only news that reached this
blockaded garrison of what went on around them, was the grim hint
conveyed by white corpses floating down the sacred river, like an
offering to cruel Hindoo gods.

On the night of June 4 came the long-expected outbreak. Part of the
Sepoys gave themselves up to the usual outrages, breaking open the
jail, plundering the treasury and the magazine. The rest remained quiet
for a time, and one regiment was even falling in upon the _maidan_ to
obey its officers, when, with ill-starred haste, Sir Hugh Wheeler had
them fired on from the entrenchment, at which they ran away to join
the mutineers. About eighty, however, were found obstinately faithful.
More than one of the native officers also risked his life in trying
to restrain his men; but others sided with the revolt, among them a
Soubahdar named Teeka Singh, who became its general, the Nana Sahib
being adopted as a figure-head. He at once consented to lead them to
Delhi, and the whole disorderly crew had marched off on the road, when
his crafty counsellor, Azimoolah, is understood to have persuaded him
that instead of going to swell the triumph of a Moslem king, it would
be more to his glory and profit to exterminate the English at Cawnpore,
and set up a Brahmin power of his own. The Nana, in turn, won over
the Sepoys to this view, and next morning they marched back upon the
entrenchment at Cawnpore.

The English here had been fondly hoping the danger past with the
running away of their Sepoys, and congratulated themselves that, no
longer tied by duty, they would now be able to make their escape down
the river. What was their consternation when that trusted friend of
theirs unmasked himself by sending in to General Wheeler a note,
bidding him to expect an immediate attack! At hasty notice, they fled
within the entrenchment, some just in time; others, lingering or
trusting to concealment, were butchered by the desperadoes, who soon
filled the streets to make themselves a terror to respectable natives
as well as to Europeans. The strength of the disorder here was among
the Hindoos, at whose hands the Mohamedans were like to come ill-off;
and if they had not been united by a common hatred, they would probably
before long have taken to cutting one another's throats.

After spending the forenoon in pillage, murder, and arson, the rebel
army came forward to the bombardment of that weak entrenchment, which
was to endure a siege seldom surpassed for misery and disaster. Sir
Hugh Wheeler is judged to have made a fatal mistake in not possessing
himself of the magazine, a strong position, which, with all its
contents, he abandoned, rather than irritate the Sepoys by taking it
out of their hands, and thus, perhaps, drive them into revolt. He
seems not to have reckoned on any serious attack. The fortress he had
provided was the buildings of a hospital and some unfinished barracks,
surrounded by a low mud wall, standing out in the open plain, and
commanded on all sides by substantial edifices, at a few hundred
yards' distance, to give cover for the besiegers, who soon surrounded
it with batteries of our own heavy guns, while the defenders had
mounted only a few nine-pounders. Within such slight defences were
huddled some thousand Christian souls, four hundred of them fighting
men. They had plenty of muskets and rifles, but sorely needed every
other means of defence.

For now broke over these poor people a storm of cannon-balls and
bullets, pouring upon them all day like the slaughtering rays of the
sun overhead, and hardly ceasing by night, when they must steal forth
in wary silence to hide away their dead. At first every crashing shot
called forth shrieks of alarm from the women and children; but soon
they grew too well accustomed to the deadly din. In two or three days
all the buildings which gave them shelter were riddled through and
through. There was no part of the enclosure where flying missiles and
falling brickwork did not work havoc, as well as upon the thin circle
of defenders exposing themselves behind the wretched walls. By the
end of a week all the artillerymen had been killed or wounded beside
their ill-protected guns. But the sick, too, were put out of pain, in
whatever corners they might be laid. Children fell dead at play, their
mothers in nursing them. One shot struck down husband, wife and child
at once. Another carried off the head of General Wheeler's sick son,
before the eyes of his horrified family. Two men and seven women were
the victims of a single shell. An important out-work was the unfinished
barrack, garrisoned by less than a score of men, few of whom ever left
that post unhurt. Yet all did their duty as manfully as if not robbed
by continual alarms of their nightly rest, with brave hearts tormented
night and day by fear for their patient dear ones.

Foremost among so many heroes was Captain Moore of the 32nd, who
seems to have been looked on as the soul of the defence, ever present
at the sorest need, and never seen but to leave "men something more
courageous, and women something less unhappy." We recognize another
Greatheart of a different order in Mr. Moncrieff, the chaplain,
unsparing of himself to cheer the living and soothe the dying with
words to which none now could listen in careless ease. Few and short,
indeed, were the prayers which that Christian flock could make over
their dead, stealthily buried by night in an empty well without the
rampart. Another well within proved more perilous than that of
Bethlehem, from which David longed to drink. This was the garrison's
one supply of water, and the ruthless enemy trained guns upon it,
firing even by night as soon as they heard the creaking of the tackle.
When the Hindoo water-carriers had all been killed, or scared away,
soldiers were paid several rupees for every pail they drew at the risk
of their lives. A brave civilian named Mackillop, declaring himself no
fighting man, undertook this post of honour, held only for a few days.
In the heat of June, on that dusty plain, no fainting woman or crying
child could have a drink of water, but at the price of blood. Washing
was out of the question--a severe hardship in such a climate.

Water was not the sole want of our country-people, to many of whom the
Indian summer had hitherto seemed scarcely endurable through the help
of ice, effervescing beverages, apartments darkened and artificially
cooled. After a week, the thatched roof of their largest building was
set on fire by night, its helpless inmates hardly saved amid a shower
of bullets poured on the space lit up by the flames. With this was
destroyed the store of drugs and surgical instruments, so that little
henceforth could be done for the sick and wounded. Another time the
wood-work of a gun kindled close to the store of ammunition; then young
Lieutenant Delafosse, exposing himself to the cannon turned upon this
perilous spot, lay down beneath the blazing carriage, tore out the
fire, and stifled it with earth before it could spread.

Many of that crowd had now to lie in the open air, or in what holes and
corners they could find for shade, exposed to the sun, and threatened
by the approach of the rainy season. A plague of flies made not the
least of the sufferings by which some were driven mad. They found
the stench of dead animals almost intolerable. Their provisions soon
began to run short; they were put on scanty rations of bad flour and
split-peas. Now and then, sympathizing or calculating townsfolk managed
to smuggle to them by night a basket of bread or some bottles of milk,
but such god-sends would not go far among so many. A mongrel dog, a
stray horse, a vagrant sacred bull, venturing near the entrenchment,
was sure to fall a welcome prey. But no expedient could do more than
stave off the starvation close at hand for them. Worst of all, the
ammunition was not inexhaustible. Such balls as they had would no
longer fit the worn-out guns. Then the ladies offered their stockings
to be filled with shot. But guns failed before cartridges. At length
there were only two left serviceable, when a quarter of the defenders
had perished, and still the foe rained death all around the frail
refuge, of which one who saw it a few weeks later says: "I could not
have believed that any human beings could have stood out for one day in
such a place. The walls, inside and out, were riddled with shot; you
could hardly put your hand on a clear spot. The ditch and wall--it is
absurd to call it a fortification--any child could have jumped over;
and yet behind these for three weeks the little force held their own."
This is the report of Lady Inglis, herself fresh from the perils of
Lucknow, which she judged slight in proportion.

Several times dashing sorties were made to silence the most troublesome
batteries, or drive away the marksmen who swarmed like rats in adjacent
buildings. Thrice the enemy emboldened themselves to an assault, which
was easily repulsed, though under the shelter of cotton-bales, pushed
before them, a number of Sepoys contrived to advance close up to the
entrenchment. They were better served by their spies, who let them
know how losses and starvation must soon give the garrison into their
hands without any cost of onslaught. One after another of our men stole
out in disguise, vainly commissioned to seek help from Allahabad. Most
of these emissaries were caught and ill-treated. More than one native
messenger did get through to Lucknow; but with a sore heart Sir Henry
Lawrence had to deny the appeal of his beleaguered countrymen, knowing
by this time that it was all he could do to hold his own. The only
reinforcement that reached Cawnpore was one young officer, who came
galloping through the fire of the enemy, and leaped the wall to bring
the news how his comrades had failed to make the same lucky escape.
Other fugitives, seeking this poor place of refuge, were murdered on
the way. Meanwhile, the ranks of the besiegers were daily swollen by
all the scoundrelism of the district and by the followers of rebellious
chiefs, eager to avenge the wrongs of their subjection to British rule.

Yet with them also things went not so smoothly as at first. The booty,
over which they were apt to quarrel, began to be exhausted. The Sepoys
could hardly be brought to face the wall of fire that ever girdled
their desperate victims. The dissensions among rival believers grew
strong. Their leader, jealous and suspicious of the increasing power
of the Moslem party, was impatient to seal his authority in the blood
of those stubborn Christians. Force failing so long, he fell back on
treachery. When the siege had lasted three weeks, the garrison received
a grandiloquent summons from Nana Sahib, proposing surrender on
condition of receiving a safe passage to Allahabad.

General Wheeler was inclined to scorn this offer; but Moore and others,
who had well earned the right to advise prudence, urged that no
chivalrous pride should prevent them considering the inevitable fate
of so many non-combatants. Their provisions were almost at an end.
Trust in such an enemy might be doubtful, but it was the one hope of
life for the women and children, if no relief came, and whence could it
come? Had they only themselves to care for, these officers might have
cut a way through their mutinous Sepoys. As it was, they stooped to
negotiate, and on June 26th agreed to deliver up their battered works
and guns, the Nana consenting that they should march out under arms,
and promising means of conveyance and victuals to carry them down the
river. The only difficulty was a demand on his part to take possession
the same night; but when the English plenipotentiaries threatened to
blow up their magazine rather, he gave in to let them wait till next
morning. Through the night he was busy with his cruel counsellors, and
to one named Tantia Topee, afterwards better known as a rebel general,
he committed the execution of the blackest plot in this dark history.

That night our country-people slept their first quiet sleep for long,
which to most of them was to be their last on earth. To some this
strange stillness seemed disquieting after the din of three dreadful
weeks. Early in the morning, gathering up what valuables and relics
of the terrible sojourn could be borne away, they left their ruined
abode with mingled emotions, on litters, carriages, and elephants, or
marching warily in front and rear of the long train, were escorted
down to the river by soldiers, now the Nana's, lately their own, amid
a vast crowd of half-scowling, half-wondering natives. The Ghaut, or
landing-steps, lay nearly a mile off, approached through the dry bed
of a torrent lined at its mouth with houses and timber. About this
hollow way Tantia Topee had concealed hundreds of men and several guns.
As soon as the head of that slow procession reached the river-side,
a bugle sounded, a line of Sepoys closed the head of the ravine to
cut off retreat, and from every point of cover there broke forth a
murderous roar as thousands of balls and bullets were hailed upon the
entrapped crowd below.

The embarkation had already begun; the foremost of the English had
laid their arms in the boats, and taken off their coats to the work;
the wounded and children were being lifted on board and placed under
the thatched roofs of these clumsy vessels. But at that signal the
boatmen had all deserted, after setting the thatch on fire, and some
unhappy creatures were burned to death, while others plunged into the
water, vainly seeking escape from the balls splashing around them. On
land also a fearful slaughter was going on. Some of the Englishmen
tried to return the fire; some laboured to push off the boats, which
had purposely been stuck fast in the sand. Only three were launched,
one of which drifted across to the opposite bank, and there fell into
the hands of another band of slaughterers. The second appears to have
made a little way down the river before being disabled by a round
shot. The third got off clear, floating along the sluggish current, a
target for ambushed cannon and musketry, through which swam several
brave men, some to sink beneath the reddened stream, some to reach that
sole ark of deliverance. The rest remained at the traitor's mercy.
After most of them had been shot down, their false escort of troopers
dashed into the water to finish the bloody work, stabbing women and
tearing children in pieces. The General was butchered here, with his
young daughter, unless, as would appear from some accounts, Sir Hugh
survived in a dying state on board the escaped boat. Here died the
chaplain, beginning a prayer. A whole girls' school and their mistress
perished wretchedly. Nearly five hundred in all must have fallen on the
banks or in that fatal ravine, when a messenger arrived from the Nana,
ordering to kill the men, but to spare such women and children as still
survived. A hundred and twenty-five, half dead with terror, drenched
with mud and blood, were collected from the carnage and brought to
Cawnpore.

The one boat which had escaped was crowded with about a hundred
persons, dead and living, including some of the chief heroes of the
defence. There is no more thrilling tale in fiction than the adventures
of that hopeless crew. They had no oars; their rudder was soon broken
by a shot. Paddling with bits of plank, they slowly drifted down the
Ganges, fired at from either bank. More than once they stuck fast in
the sand, and at night the women had to be disembarked before the
cumbrous craft could be got off. By daylight they had come only a few
miles from Cawnpore. Again were they attacked from the bank, and found
themselves pursued by a boat filled with armed men. The torrential
rains of an Indian summer burst upon them. They were obliged to tear
off the thatched roof of the boat, as the enemy had tried to set it on
fire. The second night found them helplessly aground; but a hurricane
came to their aid, and the boat floated off before morning, only to
drift into a backwater. There they grounded once more, and the enemy
soon gathered about them in overpowering numbers.

Some dozen men, under Lieutenant Mowbray Thomson, waded on shore to
beat back the assailants, while the rest made an effort to shove off
the boat. This little party, sent out on what seemed a forlorn hope,
in the end furnished the only survivors; their leader was one of four
who lived to tell the tale. Desperately charging the mob of Sepoys
and peasants on the bank, they drove them back for some distance, but
soon found themselves surrounded by overwhelming numbers. Without the
loss of a man, however, though not without wounds, they cut their way
back to the shore, to find the boat gone. Expecting to catch it up,
they pushed on down the stream, but could see nothing of it, and had
to shift for themselves as best they could. Spread out in open order
to give less mark for bullets, they held together, loading and firing
upon the rabble that pressed at their heels, yet not too near, like a
cowardly pack of wolves. When the hunted Englishmen had toiled some
two or three miles barefoot over rough ground, a temple appeared in
the distance, for which the officer shaped his course. Mowbray Thomson
himself, in his _Story of Cawnpore_, describes the last stand made here
by this remnant of its garrison.

"I instantly set four of the men crouching in the doorway with bayonets
fixed, and their muskets so placed as to form a _cheval-de-frise_ in
the narrow entrance. The mob came on helter-skelter, in such maddening
haste that some of them fell or were pushed on to the bayonets, and
their transfixed bodies made the barrier impassable to the rest, upon
whom we, from behind our novel defence, poured shot upon shot into the
crowd. The situation was the more favourable to us, in consequence of
the temple having been built upon a base of brickwork three feet from
the ground, and approached by steps on one side....

"Foiled in their attempts to enter our asylum, they next began to dig
at its foundation; but the walls had been well laid, and were not so
easily to be moved as they expected. They now fetched faggots, and from
the circular construction of the building they were able to place them
right in front of the doorway with impunity, there being no window or
loop-hole in the place through which we could attack them, nor any
means of so doing, without exposing ourselves to the whole mob at
the entrance. In the centre of the temple there was an altar for the
presentation of gifts to the presiding deity; his shrine, however,
had not lately been enriched, or it had more recently been visited by
his ministering priests, for there were no gifts upon it. There was,
however, in a deep hole in the centre of the stone which constituted
the altar, a hollow with a pint or two of water in it, which, although
long since putrid, we baled out with our hands, and sucked down with
great avidity. When the pile of faggots had reached the top of the
doorway, or nearly so, they set them on fire, expecting to suffocate
us; but a strong breeze kindly sent the great body of the smoke away
from the interior of the temple. Fearing that the suffocating sultry
atmosphere would be soon insupportable, I proposed to the men to sell
their lives as dearly as possible; but we stood until the wood had
sunk down into a pile of embers, and we began to hope that we might
brave out their torture till night (apparently the only friend left
us) would let us get out for food and attempted escape. But their next
expedient compelled an evacuation; for they brought bags of gunpowder,
and threw them upon the red-hot ashes. Delay would have been certain
suffocation--so out we rushed. The burning wood terribly marred our
bare feet, but it was no time to think of trifles. Jumping the parapet
we were in the thick of the rabble in an instant; we fired a volley and
ran a-muck with the bayonet."

One by one, making for the river, most of the poor fellows were shot
down, some before reaching it, some while swimming for their lives.
Most thankful was Mowbray Thomson now that a year or two before he
had spent a guinea on learning to swim at the Holborn Baths. Only he,
Lieutenant Delafosse, and two Irish privates escaped both the yelling
crowd that thronged the bank, and not more cruel alligators that
lurked here in the blood-stained water. Stripping themselves as they
went, they swam on for two or three hours, the current helping to carry
them away till the last of their pursuers dropped off; then they could
venture to rest, up to their necks in water, plunging into the stream
again at every sound. At length, utterly exhausted by fatigue and want
of food, they saw nothing for it but to let themselves be dragged out
by a band of natives, whose professions of friendliness they hardly
credited, yet found them friends indeed. These four sole survivors of
our force at Cawnpore were sheltered by a humane rajah till they could
be safe in Havelock's ranks.

"When you got once more among your countrymen, and the whole terrible
thing was over, what did you do first?" Thomson came to be asked, years
afterwards; and his answer was, "Why, I went and reported myself as
present and ready for duty."

Their less fortunate comrades in the boat, captured after such
resistance as could be offered by its famished and fainting crew,
had been taken back to Cawnpore. The men were ordered to be shot.
One of the officers said a few prayers; they shook hands all round
like Englishmen; the Sepoys fired, and finished the work with their
swords. The women had to be dragged away from their husbands before
this execution could be done. To the number of about thirty, including
children, they were added to that band of captives in the Nana's hands,
which presently became increased by another party of hapless fugitives
from Futtehgurh, hoping here at last to find safety after an ordeal of
their own, as we have already seen.

The fate of these prisoners is too well known. Some two hundred in
all, they were confined for more than a fortnight within sight of
the house where the Nana celebrated his doubtful triumph, under the
coveted title of Peshwa, which he had now conferred upon himself. In
want and woe, ill-fed, attended by "sweepers," that degraded caste
whose touch is taken for pollution, they had to listen to the revelry
of their tyrant's minions, and some were called on to grind corn for
him, as if to bring home to them their slavish plight. Still, the
worst was delayed. Probably the Nana had once meant to hold them as
hostages. But as his affairs grew more disquieting, through the hate
of rival pretenders, and the defeat of his troops before Havelock,
perhaps enraged to fury perhaps rightly calculating that the British
were urged on to such irresistible efforts by the hope of rescuing his
captives, he resolved on a crime, for which the chief ladies of his own
household, the widows of the adopted father to whom he owed everything,
heathen as they were, are said to have called shame upon him, and
threatened to commit suicide if he murdered any more of their sex.

The avenging army was now at hand, not to be frightened away by the
roar of the idle salutes by which the Nana would fain have persuaded
himself and others that he was indeed a mighty conqueror. Before going
out to meet it on July 15th, he gave the order which has for ever
loaded his name with infamy.[3] A few men, still suffered to live among
the prisoners, were summoned forth. With them came the biggest of the
boys, a lad of fourteen, fatally ambitious not to be counted among
women and children. These were soon disposed of. Soon afterwards, a
band of Sepoys were sent to fire into the house packed with its mob
of helpless inmates; but the mutineers, who had done many a bloody
deed, seem to have shrank from this. Half-a-dozen of them fired a few
harmless shots, taking care to aim at the ceiling. Then were brought
up five ruthless ruffians, fit for such work, two of them butchers by
trade. By the quickly gathering gloom of Indian twilight, they entered
the shambles, sword in hand; and soon shrieks and entreaties, dying
down to groans through the darkness, told how these poor Christians
came to an end of their sorrows. Proud, delicate English ladies, dusky
Eurasians, sickly children, the night fell upon them all, never to see
another sun.

One day more, and these unfortunates might have heard the guns of their
advancing deliverer. After a succession of arduous combats, toiling
through deep slush and sweltering air, Havelock had come within a few
miles of Cawnpore, to find Nana Sahib waiting to dispute the passage
with more than thrice his own numbers drawn up across the road. Very
early in the morning, the British soldiers had been roused from their
hungry bivouac in the open air. What their chief had to tell them
was how he had heard of women and children still alive in Cawnpore;
his clear voice broke into a sob as he cried, "With God's help, men,
we shall save them, or every man of us die in the attempt!" The men
answered with three cheers, and needed no word of command to set out
under the moonlight.

The sun rose upon the hottest day they had yet had to struggle through.
A march of sixteen miles, that in itself was a trying day's work for
India, brought them in sight of the enemy. Taken in flank by a careful
manœuvre, the Sepoys were rolled up before the onrush of the Rossshire
Buffs, and not now for the first or last time, had terror struck to
their hearts by the fierce strains of the Highland bagpipe. Twice they
rallied, but twice again our men drove them from their guns, to which
English and Scots raced forward in eager rivalry. The blowing up of
the Cawnpore magazine proclaimed a complete defeat. When night fell,
the cowardly tyrant was flying amid his routed troops, and the weary
Britons dropped to sleep on the ground they had won, cheered by hopes
that the prize of the victory would be the lives of their country-folk.

It is said that on the night of this battle of Cawnpore, Havelock
himself learned how he had come too late; but, in any case, his
thousand men or less were not fit to be led a step further. Next day,
when they entered the deserted city, their ranks began to be saddened
by vague rumours of the tragedy they had toiled and bled to avert.
But they could not realize the horror of it, till some Highlanders,
prowling in search of drink or booty, came upon the house where their
shoes plashed in blood and the floor was strewn with gory relics,
strips of clothing, long locks of hair, babies' shoes and pinafores,
torn leaves of paper, all soaked or stained with the same red tokens of
what had been done within those walls. The trail of blood led them to
a well in the court-yard, filled to the brim with mangled corpses--a
sight from which brave men burst away in passionate tears and curses.

Over that gruesome spot now stands a richly-sculptured monument, where
emblems of Christian faith and hope seem to speak peace to the souls of
the victims buried beneath its silent marble. But who can wonder if,
by such an open grave, our maddened soldiers then forgot all teachings
of their creed, swearing wild oaths--oaths too well kept--to take
vengeance on the heathen that thus made war with helpless women and
children! Yet more worthy of our true greatness are the words of one
who has eloquently chronicled the atrocities of Cawnpore, to draw from
them the lesson, that upon their most deep-dyed scenes each Englishman
should rather "breathe a silent petition for grace to do in his
generation some small thing towards the conciliation of races estranged
by a terrible memory"--alas! by more than one such memory.

Having reached Cawnpore too late, in spite of their utmost exertions,
our small army had now before it the greater task of relieving Lucknow,
believed to be in the utmost straits. But inevitable delays bridled
their impatience. The Nana's troops were still in force not far off.

Even far in Havelock's rear, within a day's railway journey from
Calcutta, there was an outbreak which had to be put down by the
reinforcements hurrying up to his aid. Before we return to the siege
of Delhi, a minor episode here should be related as one of the most
gallant actions of the Mutiny, and yet no more than a characteristic
sample of what Englishmen did in those days.

On July the 25th the Sepoys at Dinapore mutinied, and though stopped
from doing much mischief there by the presence of European troops,
managed to get safe away, as at Meerut, through the incapacity of a
General unfit for command. Marching some twenty-five hundred strong
to Arrah, a small station in the neighbourhood, they released the
prisoners, plundered the treasury, and were joined by a mob of
country-people, at the head of whom placed himself an influential and
discontented nobleman named Koer Singh.

But here the few Europeans were prepared for the trial that now came
upon them. The women and children being sent out of danger, a small
house belonging to Mr. Wake, the magistrate, had been put in a state
of defence, and stored with food and ammunition. It was an isolated
building of one large room, used as a billiard-room, with cellars and
arches below, and a flat roof protected by a parapet. Into this, the
Englishmen, not twenty in number, betook themselves, with some fifty
faithful Sikhs; and, almost all the former being sportsmen, if not
soldiers, they kept up such a fire as taught the enemy to be very
careful how they came too near their little stronghold.

The siege, however, was hotly pushed. A rain of balls fell, day and
night, on the defences, behind which, strange to say, only a single
man was seriously wounded, though the Sepoys fired from a wall not
twenty yards off, and from the surrounding trees and the ditch of the
compound. Two small cannon were brought to bear on the house, one from
the roof of a bungalow which commanded it. An attempt had first been
made to carry it by storm, but the defenders were so active at their
loop-holes that the assailants did not care to try again. Other means
failing, they set fire to a heap of red pepper on the windward side,
hoping to smoke out the garrison. A not less serious annoyance was
the stench of dead horses shot underneath the walls. But Wake and his
brave band held out doggedly, and would not listen to any proposal for
surrender.

Meanwhile, their friends at Dinapore were eager to make an effort for
their relief. With some difficulty, the consent of the sluggish General
was won, and over four hundred men steamed down the Ganges to land at
the nearest point to Arrah. By bright moonlight they struck out over
the flooded country. But the night-march was too hurried and careless.
The relieving force, fired on from an ambush, fell into disastrous
confusion, turned back, fighting their way into the boats, and got away
with the loss of half their number. Yet, in that scene of panic and
slaughter, some fugitives so distinguished themselves that two Victoria
Crosses were earned on the retreat.

The besieged soon learned how their hopes of succour had been dashed
down, and might well have given themselves up to despair. When the
siege had lasted a week, it appeared not far from an end. The enemy
were found to be running a mine against them. Water had luckily been
dug down to under the house, but their food began to fail. Then,
looking out on the morning of August 3, expecting perhaps to see the
sun rise for the last time, to their astonishment they discovered
no one to prevent them from sallying forth and capturing the sheep
which had been feeding in the compound under their hungry eyes. The
beleaguering Sepoys had unaccountably vanished.

Help was indeed at hand from another side. Vincent Eyre, a hero of
the Afghan war, had been moving to their relief with not two hundred
men and three guns. Though on the way he heard of the repulse of the
Dinapore detachment, more than twice his own strength, he did not turn
back. Making for an unfinished railway embankment as the best road to
Arrah, he encountered Koer Singh's whole force of two or three thousand
Sepoys and an unnumbered rabble, who crowded upon the little band,
and must soon have swept them away by the mere weight of bullets. But
the Englishmen charged into the thick of the crowd, and this time it
was the enemy's turn to fly in dismay. Next day, the garrison of that
billiard-room joyfully hailed the friends who had thus marvellously
relieved them; and it is hard to say which had more right to be proud
of their feat of arms. Koer Singh, beaten away from Arrah, nevertheless
long held the field, and did his side good service by keeping the
country in disorder, that helped to delay the advance of our troops to
the fields on which they were so urgently needed.

Now has to be recorded a curious trait, very characteristic of
Englishmen in India. While Havelock was waiting on the scene of that
woeful massacre, till he should be able to advance, with such saddening
memories fresh about them, with such deadly trials still before them,
the officers kept up their spirits by organizing the "Cawnpore Autumn
Race Meeting," which their pious General thought right to attend.
The fawning or scowling natives, who now were fain at least to make
some show of loyalty, must have thought the ways of Englishmen more
unaccountable than ever.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: It is only fair to say that an attempt has been made so
far to whitewash this hated name by representing the Nana as a dull,
feeble tyrant, who, in this as in other actions, was the servant rather
than the master of his ferocious soldiery.]



CHAPTER VI

THE FALL OF DELHI


Three months the British army lay upon the Ridge running obliquely from
the north-west angle of Delhi--that abrupt height two miles long, whose
steep and broken front formed a natural fortification, strengthened
by batteries and breast-works, among which the prominent points were
at a house known as Hindoo Rao's, on the right of the position, and
the Flagstaff Tower on the left, commanding the road to the Cashmere
Gate of the city. The rear was protected by a canal that had to be
vigilantly guarded, all the bridges broken down but one. The right
flank was defended by strong works crowning that end of the ridge; the
left rested on the straggling sandy bed of the Jumna, over-flooded by
summer rains. The whole army, after the arrival of reinforcements in
June, numbered not six thousand fighting men, a force barely sufficient
to maintain such an extended line, even if a fifth of them had not
been in hospital at once. Yet they not only held their own, but pushed
their outposts far across the debatable plain between them and the
city, seizing on the right an important point in the "Sammy House," the
soldiers' slang name for a temple, and on their left recovering the
grounds of Metcalf House, a splendid mansion that for weeks had been
given up to the destructive hands of the rebels, who here spoiled one
of the finest libraries in India.

As already pointed out, this was a complete reversal of the ordinary
conditions of warfare. An army far inferior in numbers to its enemy
attacked one corner of a city, six miles in circumference, open on all
other sides to supplies of every kind, while the besiegers had much
ado to keep up their own communications through a disturbed country,
besides defending themselves against almost daily sallies of the
nominally besieged. They were sorely tried by sickness, by deadly heat,
then by wet weather that turned the river into an unwholesome swamp,
and by a plague of flies swarming about the camp, with its abundant
feast of filth and carrion. They were ill-provided with the means to
carry on their urgent enterprise. Their lines were filled with spies
among the native soldiers and camp-followers, who, at the best, only
half wished them well. Everything they did, even what was designed in
secret, seemed to be known presently at Delhi, so that the garrison
were found prepared for all our movements; and thus the fresh plan of
an assault in July had to be given up.

Even the irregular cavalry, judged for the most part more trusty than
the foot Sepoys, came under strong suspicion when, by its connivance,
as was believed, a band of the enemy's horse one day broke suddenly
into the camp, causing a good deal of confusion, but were driven out
before they could do much mischief. Other faithless servants were
caught tampering with the artillery. But, in spite of all difficulties
and discouragements, Lawrence's energetic support kept General
Wilson sticking like a leech to his post, cautiously standing on the
defensive, restoring the somewhat impaired discipline of his harassed
ranks, and waiting till he should be strong enough to strike a decisive
blow. The last thing to be thought of was retreat, for that signal
of our discomfiture would have run like the Fiery Cross throughout
Hindoostan.

We, too, had our spies, through whom we knew that those within the
city were not without their troubles. There were quarrels between the
devotees of the two hostile creeds, and between ambitious rivals for
command. The old king, a puppet in the hands of his turbulent soldiery,
might well sigh for peace. He wrote plaintive poetry describing his
gilded woes; he talked of abdicating, of becoming a humble pilgrim,
of giving himself up to the English; it is said that he even offered
to admit our men at one of the gates, but this chance may have seemed
too good to be trusted. The princes of his family began to think
of making terms for themselves with the inevitable conquerors. The
inhabitants were spoiled and oppressed by the Sepoys, vainly clamouring
for the high pay they had been promised. Different regiments taunted
one another's cowardice; but after one or two trials found themselves
indisposed again to face our batteries without the walls.

When by the end of July, the fugitives from Cawnpore and elsewhere came
dropping into Delhi with alarming accounts of Havelock's victories--of
strange, terribly-plumed and kilted warriors, never seen before;[4]
of mysterious Enfield rifle-balls that would kill at an unheard-of
distance--the mutineers lost heart more and more, and in turn went on
deserting from their new service; though there would still be a stream
of reinforcements from those broken bodies which no longer cared to
keep the open country.

To make up for want of real success, their leaders strove to inflame
them by lying proclamations of victory and incitements to their
superstitious zeal. The beginning of August brought in one of the great
Mohamedan festivals, and this opportunity was taken to work up their
enthusiasm for a fierce onslaught against our positions, from which,
however, Sepoy and sowar once more rolled back disheartened, though one
party had succeeded in pushing up almost to our left works, yelling out
their religious watchwords, "Deen! Deen! Allah! Allah Achbar!" that
could not silence the resolute British cheers. Another grand attack was
attempted at the rear, but heaven seemed on our side rather than that
of the Moslem fanatics, for an opportune deluge of rain swelled the
canal to a torrent and swept away their attempts at bridging it. Every
effort on their part was foiled, while to the right we made progress
in mastering the Kissengunge suburb, and on the left pushed forward
half-a-mile from Metcalf House to seize the enemy's guns at a building
called Ludlow Castle, formerly the Commissioner's residence, which lay
almost under the city walls.

On August 7 a powder-magazine blew up on the further side of Delhi,
killing hundreds of men. This disaster was the more appalling to the
rebels when they learned that a heavy siege-train was advancing to
remount our feeble batteries. Six thousand men sallied forth, making
a circuit far to our rear in hope to cut off the train. But their
movements had been watched. They were followed and defeated with
heavy loss, the first exploit of Nicholson, who arrived with his
Punjaub column about the middle of August to put new vigour into the
attack. This officer, still young for command, had years before won a
reputation far beyond his age; and now, as soon as he appeared on the
scene of action, seems to have made himself felt as its moving spirit,
so much so, that in the story of it, his eager vehemence stands out
as too much throwing into the shade the caution supplied by General
Wilson, unduly disparaged by Nicholson' admirers. We had need at once
here of prudence and of valour in the highest degree.

At length the slow siege-train, drawn by a hundred elephants, after so
long, literally, sticking in the mud, came up on September 3rd. On the
Ridge all was ready for it. Works sprang up like mushrooms, and in a
few days forty heavy guns began playing upon the northern face of the
city. Batteries were pushed forward to almost within musket-shot; then,
day by day, the massive walls and bastions were seen crashing into
ruins at several points. Formidable as they were in older warfare, they
did not resist modern artillery so well as less pretentious earthworks
might have done.

By the 13th two breaches seemed practicable. That night four young
engineer officers, with a few riflemen, stole up through the jungle
to the Cashmere Bastion, passing behind the enemy's skirmishers. They
dropped into the ditch unseen, and had almost mounted the broken wall
when discovered by its sentries, whose random shots whizzed about them
as they ran back to report that a way was open for the stormers.

[Illustration: PLAN OF DELHI

Page 144.]

The assault was at once ordered for three o'clock of that morning,
September 14. Under cover of darkness, the troops eagerly advanced in
four columns, the first, led by Nicholson, against the breach near the
Cashmere Bastion; the second directed upon another breach at the
Water Bastion; the third to storm the Cashmere Gate, after it had been
blown up; while the fourth, far to the right, should attack the Lahore
Gate, through the Kissengunge suburb.

A reserve followed the first three columns, ready to follow up their
success; and the 60th Rifles, scattered through wooded ground in front,
were to keep down the fire of the enemy from the walls. The cavalry
and horse artillery, under Sir Hope Grant, held themselves ready for
repulsing any sortie to which our ill-guarded camp would now lie
exposed.

The whole army numbered under nine thousand men, rather more than
a third of them English soldiers. There was a contingent of native
allies from Cashmere, who did not give much assistance when it came to
fighting. Our Punjaubee auxiliaries, however, proved more serviceable,
burning for the humiliation and spoil of this Moslem Sanctuary, against
which the Sikhs bore an old religious grudge.

Unfortunately there came about some delay, and daylight had broken
before the three left columns were ready to advance from Ludlow Castle,
under a tremendous artillery fire from both sides. The advantage of a
surprise was thus lost. Suddenly our guns fell silent, a bugle rang
out, and forth dashed the stormers upon the walls manned to receive
them with fire and steel. Nicholson's column found that something had
been done to repair the breach; and so thick was the hail of bullets
to which they stood exposed in the open, that for several minutes they
could not even gain the ditch, man after man being struck down in
placing the ladders. But, once across that difficulty, they scrambled
up the breach, where the raging and cursing rebels hurled its fragments
down upon them, but, for all their shouts of defiance, did not await a
struggle hand to hand. They fled before the onset, and our men poured
in through the undefended gap.

The same success, and the same losses, attended the second column,
making good its entry at the Water Bastion. A way for the third had
been opened by a resounding deed of heroism, which struck popular
imagination as the chief feature of this daring assault. The Cashmere
Gate, that from first to last plays such a part in the story of Delhi,
must be blown up to give the assailants passage into the bastion
from which it faces sideways. Lieutenants Home and Salkeld, of the
Engineers, with three sergeants and a bugler, formed the forlorn hope
that dashed up to the gate, each loaded with 25 lbs. of powder in
a bag. The enemy were so amazed at this audacity that for a moment
they offered no opposition as the gallant fellows sped across the
shattered drawbridge, and began to lay their bags against the heavy
wood-work of the inner gate. But then from the wicket and from the top
of the gateway they found themselves fired at point-blank, resolutely
completing their task. Home, after his bag was placed, had the luck to
jump into the ditch unhurt. Salkeld was shot in two places, but handed
the portfire to a sergeant, who fell dead. The next man lighted the
fuse at the cost of a mortal wound; and the third sergeant did not save
himself till he saw the train well alight. A bugle-note calling forward
the stormers was drowned in the roar of a terrific explosion, as the
52nd, held in leash for this signal, eagerly sprang on to pour through
the smoking ruins. Thus all three columns, about the same time, had
lodged themselves within the defences.

While the third column pushed forward into the heart of the city, and
the supporting parties moved up to occupy the points taken, the rest of
the assailants turned to their right by a road which ran at the back
of the ramparts, clearing them as they went, and mastering the Mori
and Cabul Gates from behind; then tried to make their way towards the
Lahore Gate where they hoped to join hands with the fourth column.
But this, repulsed by a slaughterous fire and its leader wounded, had
alone failed in the errand assigned to it. Here, too, the routed Sepoys
rallied within their walls, and brought guns to bear down a narrow lane
in which the progress of Nicholson's column was fatally arrested. The
young General himself, the foremost hero of that day, fell shot through
the body while cheering on his men, and with his life-blood ebbed for
a time the tide of victory that had swept him on hitherto without a
check. He was carried away to die in the camp, yet not till he knew
Delhi to be fully won. His force had to fall back to the Cabul Gate,
and for the meanwhile stand upon the defensive.

The third column, under Colonel Campbell, had met less opposition in
penetrating straight into the city, guided by Sir Thomas Metcalf,
who, though a civilian, had all along made himself most useful by his
thorough knowledge of the localities. Charging through lanes, bazaars,
and open spaces, they crossed the palace gardens, forced a passage over
the Chandnee Chouk, "Silver Street," the main commercial thoroughfare
of Delhi, and threaded their way by narrow winding streets right up to
the Jumma Musjid, or Great Mosque, whose gigantic steps, colonnades
and cupolas tower so majestically over the centre of the Mogul's
capital. But here they were brought to a stand before solid walls and
gates, having neither guns nor powder-bags to break their way further,
while from the buildings around the enemy poured destruction into the
chafing ranks. They had to withdraw to an enclosure, which was held for
an hour and a half under hot fire; and when Colonel Campbell learned
how the other column could not get beyond the Cabul Gate to support
him, he saw nothing for it but to retire upon the ruined English Church
near the Cashmere Gate, as did a party he had detached to occupy the
police office.

The result of the first day's fighting, then, was that, with a dear
loss of nearly twelve hundred killed and wounded, our soldiers had
ensconced themselves along the north side of the walls, where, throwing
up hasty defences, they prepared to be in turn attacked by a host of
still resolute warriors.

England's glory was now mingled with England's shame. The crafty foe,
knowing our men's besetting sin, would appear to have purposely strewn
the emptied streets with bottles of wine, beer, and spirits, the most
effectual weapons they could have used, for on them the parched Saxons
fell with such greedy thirst that by next morning a large part of the
army was, in plain English, helplessly drunk, and it seemed hopeless to
attempt any progress that day. Our Sikh and Goorkha auxiliaries, for
their part, thought less of fighting than of securing the long-expected
loot of a city so famed for riches. Had the enemy been more active, he
could have taken such an opportunity of turning victory into ruin by
a resolute diversion in the assailants' rear, two or three miles as
they now were from their slightly guarded camp and base of supplies.
General Wilson, trembling to think that even yet he might have to make
a disastrous retreat, ordered all liquor found to be destroyed, and
took steps to restrain the licence of plundering, which is always a
temptation to disorder for a storming army as well as a cruel terror
for the inhabitants.

Thanks to his measures, Wednesday the 16th found the force more fit to
follow up its success, and that day ended with a considerable advance
in regaining the city, point after point, against a resistance growing
daily feebler. The arsenal was captured with a great number of guns.
Next day again, still further progress was made; then up to the end of
the week the assailants went on winning their way, street by street,
to the Royal Palace and the Great Mosque. These spacious edifices, as
well as the long-contested Lahore Gate, were easily carried on Sunday,
the 20th, the mass of the rebels having fled by night through the gates
beyond, leaving desolate streets, where the remnant of panic-stricken
inhabitants durst hardly show their faces.

[Illustration: Tomb of Humayoon, Delhi.]

[Illustration: Ruins of old Delhi. Page 150.]

Everywhere now prevailed ruin and silence over the captured city. For
our soldiers, that Sunday afternoon might at length be a time of rest,
their hard and bloody week's work done when the British flag flew once
more over the palace of the Grand Mogul, and the Queen's health was
triumphantly drunk upon his deserted throne. A wild riot of pillage and
destruction ran through the famous halls, on which is inscribed what
must have now read such a mockery: "If on earth there be a Paradise, it
is here!" To this monument of Oriental splendour, the last monarch of
his race was soon brought a humble captive.

The old king, who cuts such a pitiful figure throughout those tragic
scenes, refusing to follow the flying troops, with his wife and
family had taken sanctuary in one of the vast lordly tombs that rise
over the buried ruins of old Delhi, stretching for leagues beyond
the present limits of the city. Time-serving informers hastened to
betray his refuge to one who had neither fear of peril nor respect for
misfortune. Hodson of Hodson's Horse, a name often prominent in this
history, an old Rugby boy of the Tom Brown days, was a man as to whose
true character the strangest differences of opinion existed even among
those who knew him best; but no one ever doubted his readiness when any
stroke of daring was to be done. The city scarcely mastered, he offered
to go out and seize the king, to which General Wilson consented on the
unwelcome condition that his life should be spared.

With fifty of his irregular troopers, Hodson galloped off to the tomb,
an enormous mausoleum of red stone, inlaid with marble and surmounted
by a marble dome, its square court-yard enclosed in lofty battlemented
walls with towers and gateways, forming a veritable fortress, which
had indeed, in former days, served as a citadel of refuge. That Sunday
afternoon the sacred enclosure swarmed with an excited multitude,
among whom Hodson and his men stood for two hours, awaiting an answer
to their summons for the king's surrender. Cowering in a dimly-lit
cell within, the unhappy old man was long in making up his mind; but
finally, yielding to the terrified or traitorous councils of those
around him, he came forth with his favourite wife and youngest son,
and gave up his arms, asking from the Englishman's own lips a renewal
of the promise that their lives should be spared. In palanquins they
were slowly carried back to his gorgeous palace, where the descendant
of the Moguls found himself now a prisoner, treated with contempt, and
indebted for his life to the promise of an English officer--a promise
openly regretted by some in the then temper of the conquerors.

A more doubtful deed of prowess was to make Hodson doubly notorious.
Learning that two of the king's sons and a grandson were still lurking
in that tomb of their ancestors, he went out again next day with a
hundred troopers, and demanded their unconditional surrender. Again
the crowd stood cowed before his haughty courage. Again the fugitives
spent time in useless parley, while, surrounded by thousands of sullen
natives, Hodson bore himself as if he had an army at his back. At
length the princes, overcome by the determination of this masterful
Briton, came forth from their retreat, and gave themselves up to his
mercy. They were placed in a cart, and taken towards the city under
a small guard, Hodson remaining behind for an hour or two to see the
crowd give up its arms, as they actually did at his command; then he
galloped after the captives, and overtook them not far from the walls
of Delhi.

Thus far all had gone well; but now came the dark feature of the story
that has given rise to so much debate. Hodson's account is that the
mob, which he had hitherto treated with such cool contempt, became
threatening when he had almost reached the Lahore Gate, causing a fear
that the prisoners might even yet be rescued. His accusers assert
that he let himself be overcome by the lust for vengeful slaughter
which then possessed too many a British heart. Riding up to the cart,
he ordered the princes to dismount and strip. Then, in a loud voice
proclaiming them the murderers of English women and children, with his
own hand he shot all three dead. The naked bodies, thus slain without
trial or deliberation, were exposed to public view in the Chandnee
Chouk, as stern warning of what it was to rouse the old Adam in English
nature.

Wilson's army might now draw a deep breath of relief after successfully
performing such a critical operation, the results of which should
be quickly and widely felt. Like a surgeon's lancet, it had at last
been able to prick the festering sore that was the chief head of
far-spread inflammation. The fall of the Mogul's capital was a signal
for rebellion to hide its head elsewhere. Doubtful friends, wavering
allies, were confirmed, as our open enemies were dismayed, by the
tidings which let India's dusky millions know how British might had
prevailed against the proudest defiance.

At the seat of war, indeed, this good effect was not at once so
apparent as might have been expected; the result being rather to let
loose thousands of desperate Sepoys for roving mischief, while even
hitherto inactive mutineers now rushed into the field as if urged by
resentful fury. But immediate and most welcome was the relief in the
Punjaub, where our power seemed strained to breaking-point by the
tension of delay in an enterprise for which almost all its trustworthy
troops had been drawn away, leaving the country at the mercy of any
sudden rising, such as did take place at two or three points among the
agitated population. But the fear of that danger was lost in the good
news from Delhi, as soon as it could be trusted.

Not the least trouble of our people in those days was the want of
certain news, to let them know how it stood with their cause amid
the blinding waves of rebellion. The mails were stopped or passed
irregularly. Native messengers could not be depended upon, magnifying
the danger through terror, or dissembling it through ill-will; truth
is always a rare commodity in India. Many a tiny letter went and
came rolled in an inch of quill sewed away in the bearer's dress, or
carried in his mouth to be swallowed in an instant, for, if detected,
he was like to be severely punished. Officers were fain to correspond
with each other by microscopic missives written in Greek characters,
a remnant of scholarship thus turned to account against the case of
their falling into hostile hands. The natives, for their part, though
often ill-served by their own ignorance and proneness to exaggeration,
were marvellously quick to catch the rumours of our misfortunes, which
spread from mouth to mouth as by some invisible telegraph. They did not
prove always so ready to appreciate the signs of a coming restoration
of our supremacy, once the tide had turned. All over India the eyes of
white men and black had been fixed eagerly on Delhi; then while English
hearts had become more than once vainly exalted by false rumours of
its fall, when this did take place at length, the population, even of
the surrounding country, showed themselves slow to believe in the
catastrophe.

General Wilson at once followed up his success by sending out a column
under Colonel Greathed to pursue the Sepoys who were making for Oudh.
All went smoothly with this expedition, till Greathed had letters
urgently begging him to turn aside for the relief of Agra, believed to
be threatened by the advance of another army of mutineers from Central
India. By forced marches the column made for Agra, where it arrived on
the morning of October 10, and was received with great jubilation by
the crowd pent up within the walls. But to the end it seemed as if the
drama enacted on that gorgeous scene was destined to have tragi-comic
features. The Agra people, under the mistaken idea that their enemies
had fallen back, gave themselves to welcoming their friends, when
mutual congratulations were rudely interrupted by the arrival, after
all, of the Sepoys, who had almost got into the place without being
observed. Sir George Campbell, so well-known both as an Indian official
and as a member of Parliament, describes the scene of amazement and
confusion that followed. He was at breakfast with a friend who had
ventured to re-occupy his house beyond the walls, when a sound of
firing was heard, at first taken for a salute, but soon suggesting
something more serious. Sir George got out his horse, borrowed a
revolver, and galloped down to the parade, on which he found round shot
hopping about like cricket-balls.

"It turned out that the enemy had completely surprised us. Instead of
retreating, they had that morning marched straight down the metalled
high-road--not merely a surprise party, but the whole force, bag
and baggage, with all their material and many guns, including some
exceedingly large ones; but no one took the least notice of them.
There was a highly-organized Intelligence Department at Agra, who got
unlimited news, true and false, but on this occasion no one brought
any news at all. The only circumstance to favour the advance was that
the high millet crops were on the ground, some of them ten or twelve
feet high, and so the force marching down the road was not so visible
as it would have been at another time. They reached the point where
the road crossed the parade-ground quite unobserved. They probably had
some scouts, and discovering our troops there, arranged themselves and
got their guns in position before they announced themselves to us. The
first attack was made by a few fanatics, who rushed in and cut down two
or three of our men, but were not numerous enough to do material harm.
If the enemy's real forces had made a rush in the same way, when no
one expected them, there is no saying what might have happened; but,
fortunately, as natives generally do, they believed in and stuck to
their great guns, and instead of charging in, they opened that heavy
fire which had disturbed us at breakfast."

The Sepoys, in fact, had also been surprised, not knowing that a
European force had reached Agra before them. Our soldiers at once
got under arms; then a battery of artillery, the 9th Lancers, and a
regiment of Sikhs were first to arrive on the ground. The rest came
up before long, at first in some doubt as to who was friend or foe. A
charge of the enemy's cavalry had almost been taken for our own people
running away. Then these troopers, broken by a charge of the Lancers,
"were galloping about the parade and our men firing at them as if it
were a kind of big battue." Some of the routed sowars got near enough
to the lines to cause a general panic there; and the way to the scene
of action was blocked by men wildly galloping back for the fort,
some of them, it is said, on artillery horses which they had stolen.
"Everybody was riding over everybody else."

Once the confusion got straightened out, however, the hardened
Delhi troops were not long in repelling this unexpected attack. A
tumbrel blew up among the Sepoys, and that seemed to be a sign of
disheartenment for them. They began to give way, making a stand here
and there, but soon fled in complete rout, leaving their baggage and
guns to the victors, who chased them for several miles.

Sir George Campbell, though a civilian, has to boast of more than one
amusing exploit on this battle-field. In the heat of pursuit, his
horse ran away with him, and, much against his will, carried him right
towards a band of Sepoys hurrying off a train of guns. All he could do
was to wave his sword and shout, partly to bring up assistance, and
partly in the hope of frightening the enemy. It is said that the battle
of Alma was perhaps decided by the accident of Lord Raglan rashly
straying right within the Russian position, when the enemy, seeing an
English general officer and his staff among them, took it for granted
that all must be lost. So it was with these Sepoys, who forthwith ran
away, leaving three guns, which Sir George could claim to have captured
by his single arm, but did not know what to do with them. It occurred
to him to shoot the leading bullock of each gun-team, to prevent the
rest getting away, while he went to seek for assistance; then he found
that his borrowed pistol would not go off. In the end, the three
guns were brought back to Agra in triumph, and probably form part of
the show of obsolete artillery and ammunition exhibited to travellers
within the walls of its vast fortress.

"One more adventure I had which somewhat detracted from my triumph
with the guns. I overtook an armed rebel, not a Sepoy, but a native
matchlock-man; he threw away his gun, but I saw that he had still a
large powder-horn and an old-fashioned pistol in his belt; my blood was
up, and I dealt him a mighty stroke with my sword, expecting to cut
him almost in two, but my swordsmanship was not perfect; he did not
fall dead as I expected; on the contrary, he took off his turban, and
presenting his bare head to me, pointed to a small scratch and said,
'There, Sahib, evidently God did not intend you to kill me, so you may
as well let me off now.' I felt very small; evidently he had the best
of the argument. But he was of a forgiving disposition, and relieved my
embarrassment by cheerful conversation, while he professed, as natives
do, that he would serve me for the rest of his life. I made him throw
away any arms he still had, safe-conducted him to the nearest field,
and we parted excellent friends; but I did not feel that I had come
very gloriously out of it. I have never since attempted to use a sword
as an offensive weapon, nor, I think I may say, attempted to take the
life of any fellow-creature."

Such amusing episodes come welcome in this grimly tragic story. But,
indeed, it is remarkable to note how our countrymen, at the worst,
never quite lost their sense of humour. Some singular proofs of Mark
Tapleyish spirit, under depressing circumstances, are supplied by
Mr. J.W. Sherer's narrative, incorporated in Colonel Maude's recent
_Memoirs of the Mutiny_. Mr. Sherer, like Edwards, had to run from his
post, and came near to sharing the same woes, but while the latter's
book might be signed _Il Penseroso_, the other is all _L'Allegro_.
Looking over Indian papers of that day, among the most dismaying news
and the most painful rumours, one finds squibs in bad verse and rough
jokes, not always in the best taste, directed against officers who
seemed wanting in courage, or stations where the community had given
way to ludicrous panic without sufficient cause. Some unintended
absurdities appear, also, due no doubt to native compositors or to
extraordinary haste, as when one newspaper declares that a certain
regiment has "covered itself with _immoral_ glory!"

On the whole, however, editors were more disposed to be bloodthirsty
than facetious. After forty years have put us in a position to look
more calmly on that welter of hate and dread, one reads with a smile
how fiercely the men of pen and ink called out for prompt action, for
rapid movements, for ruthless severities--why was not Delhi taken
at once?--why were reinforcements not hurried up to this point or
that?--what was such and such an officer about that he did not overcome
all resistance as easily as it could be done on paper? The time was now
at hand, when these remonstrances could be made with less unreason. The
rebellion had been fairly got under with the fall of Delhi; and the
rest would mainly be a matter of patience and vigilance, though at one
point the flames still glowed in perilous conflagration.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: When the Highlanders first appeared in India, a report
is said to have spread among the natives that English men running
short, we had sent our women into the field; but the prowess of the new
warriors soon corrected that misapprehension.]



CHAPTER VII

THE DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW


The focus of the insurrection was now at Lucknow, where ever since the
end of June the Residency defences had been besieged by the rebels of
Oudh, and thus most serviceably kept engaged a host of fighters, who
might else have marched to turn the wavering scale at Delhi. Apart from
its practical result, the gallantry displayed, both by the much-tried
garrison and by two armies which successfully broke through to their
aid, has marked this defence as one of the principal scenes of the
Indian Mutiny and one of the most stirring episodes in modern history.
Some of the closing scenes of the war, also, long after the Residency
had been gloriously abandoned, came to be enacted round the same spot,
for ever sacred to English valour.

[Illustration: City of Lucknow.

Page 164.]

There is no Englishman's heart but must thrill to behold those patches
of blackened and riddled ruin, half-hidden among gorgeous Eastern
flowers, where idle cannon stand now as trophies by the battered walls,
and brown-limbed gardeners water the smooth turf-lawns once drenched
with so brave blood. Set in a beautiful garden, the remnants of the
Residency buildings are preserved no less reverently than the tombs
and monuments of their defenders, over which rises the flowery mound
that bears aloft a white cross sacred to the memory of the Christian
dead, famous and nameless, lying side by side around. Pillars and
tablets carefully record the situation of this and that post, house,
or battery, some hardly traceable now, some mere shells, or no more
than names; but the ground has been so much changed by the clearing
away of _débris_ and the demolition of adjacent structures, that it
is difficult for us to realize the scene, some of the chief actors in
which, years afterwards, found themselves not quite clear as to all its
original features. A model, however, preserved in the Lucknow Museum,
presents the localities restored as far as possible to their original
state, according to the best authorities, giving us some idea of what
this frail fortress was, and exciting our amazement that it held out
for a single day.[5]

We must not, then, imagine a citadel enclosed by solid walls like those
of Delhi or the palatial fort at Agra, but a group of buildings widely
scattered round the tower of the Residency, the outer ones turned each
into a defensive work, with its own separate garrison, the gaps between
filled up as means or accidents of situation best allowed. Mud walls,
banks, hedges, ditches, lanes, trees, palisades and barricades, were
all put to use for these irregular and extemporary fortifications,
composed among other materials of carriages, carts, boxes, valuable
furniture, and even a priceless library that went to stop bullets. It
would take too long to give a full description of all the points made
memorable by this siege, such as the Bailey Guard Gate, the Cawnpore
Battery, the Sikh Square, Gubbins' House, the Church Post, the Redan,
which formed the most salient features of the circle marked out for
defence. The hastily thrown-up bastions were not finished when that
rout of Chinhut made them so needful. A bolder enemy might have
carried the lines at once with a rush. The half-ruined buildings
outside gave the assailants cover within pistol-shot of the besieged;
while indeed the latter were thus to a large extent shielded against
artillery fire, as had been Lawrence's design in not completing his
work of destruction here. Some of the rebel batteries played upon the
works at a range of from fifty to a hundred yards. On one side, only a
dozen yards of roadway separated the fighters; and from behind their
palisades the loyal Sepoys could often exchange abuse, as well as
shots, with the mutineers, who would steal up at night, tempting them
to desert, as many did in the course of the siege, yet not so many as
might have been expected under such trying circumstances.

[Illustration: PLAN OF LUCKNOW

Page 160.]

This entrenchment was occupied by nearly a thousand soldiers,
civilians, clerks, traders, or travellers turned by necessity into
fighting-men, with a rather less number of staunch Sepoys, as well as
about five hundred women and children, shuddering at the peril of a
fate so fearful that English ladies kept poison ready for suicide in
case of the worst, and loving husbands promised to shoot their wives
dead, rather than let them fall alive into hands freshly blood-stained
from the horrors of Cawnpore. As there a girls' school were among the
victims, so at Lucknow the motley garrison included the boys of the
Martinière College, whose experiences have been already mentioned.
In all, counting some hundreds of native servants, not far short of
three thousand persons must have been crowded within an irregular
enclosure about a mile round, where on that disastrous last day of
June the enemy's bullets began to fly across a scene of dismay and
confusion--men hardly yet knowing their places or their duties; women
wild with fear; bullocks, deserted by their attendants, wandering
stupidly about in search of food; horses, maddened by thirst, kicking
and biting one another, in the torment which no one had time to
relieve. The siege had come to find these people too little prepared
for its trials, or for the length to which it was protracted. Some
thought they might have to hold out a fortnight. Few guessed that their
ordeal would endure nearly five months.

When, on June 30th, the city fell into the hands of the rebels, we
still occupied another position not far from the Residency, the old
fortress of Muchee Bhawun, which, though more imposing in appearance,
was not fit to resist artillery, nor, after the losses of Chinhut, were
there men enough to defend both points. On the second day of the siege,
therefore, Colonel Palmer, commanding here, was ordered by semaphore
signals from the Residency tower, to bring his force into the other
entrenchment, spiking the guns, and blowing up what ammunition he could
not carry away. At midnight he marched silently through the city,
without attracting any notice from the enemy, who were perhaps too
busy plundering elsewhere. They had hardly joined their comrades, when
a terrific explosion announced the destruction of the Muchee Bhawun,
blown up by a train set to go off in half-an-hour. One soldier had been
accidentally left behind, who, strange to say, escaped unhurt from the
explosion, and next morning walked coolly into the Residency, meeting
no one to stop him, perhaps because he was quite naked, and the people
took him for a madman or a holy man!

It was sad news that awaited Colonel Palmer. His daughter, while
sitting in an upper room of the Residency, had been wounded by a shell,
one of the first among many victims. She died in a few days, by which
time the besieged had to mourn a greater loss. The Residency building,
elevated above the rest, was soon seen to be a prominent mark for the
enemy's fire, and on the first day, after a shell had burst harmlessly
in his own room, Lawrence was begged to move into less dangerous
quarters. With characteristic carelessness of self, he put off doing
so; then next morning, July 2, was mortally wounded while lying on
his bed. Two days later he died, visited by many weeping friends, of
whom he took leave in the spirit of an earnest Christian. Well known
is the epitaph which, amid the din of shot and shell, he dictated for
his grave: "_Here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty. May
the Lord have mercy on his soul!_" He nominated Major Banks as his
successor in the Commissionership and Brigadier Inglis to command the
troops. The latter had his wife with him throughout all, to whose
recently published reminiscences we owe one of the most interesting
narratives of the siege.

Gloom fell upon the garrison when they came to learn this heavy loss.
Every man had so much to do at his own post, that he hardly knew what
went on a few hundred yards off, and some days seem to have passed
before it leaked out to all how their leader had been buried "darkly
at dead of night," in the same pit with less distinguished dead. A
common grave had to be dug each night, the churchyard being exposed
to fire. Every day now had its tale of deaths, soon from fifteen to
twenty, once the enemy had got the range and given up wild firing at
random--an average which grew smaller as the besieged were taught to
be more cautious in exposing themselves. Six weeks passed before
the diary of the chaplain's wife can record, for once, a day without
a single funeral. Death was busy everywhere in various forms. Men
were more than once buried beneath the ruins of houses crushed by the
storm of shot. Delicate women panted for air in crowded cellars, and
sickened amid the pestilential stenches that beset every corner of the
entrenchment, or despairingly saw their children pine away for want
of proper nourishment. The poor sufferers in hospital would sometimes
be wounded afresh or killed outright by balls crashing among them. An
amputation was almost certain death in that congregation of gangrened
sufferers, increased hour by hour. There were daily duties to be done
always at the peril of men's lives, and spots where no one could show
himself without the risk of drawing fire. "Many a poor fellow was shot,
who was too proud to run past places where bullets danced on the walls
like a handful of peas in a fry-pan." One building, called "Johannes'
House," overlooking the defences as it did, was long a thorn in the
side of the besieged, from the top of which a negro eunuch, whom they
nicknamed "Bob the Nailer," was believed to have shot down dozens of
them by the unerring aim of a double-barrelled rifle that gave him
such grim celebrity.

The native servants soon began to desert, adding to the troubles of
masters whose pride and practice had been to do nothing that could
be helped for themselves. Then the younger Martinière boys were told
off to take their place in the cramped households, set to perform the
menial services looked upon as belonging to the lowest caste. They
attended the sick, too, and were of especial use in defending them
against an Egyptian plague of flies which assailed the entrenchment,
as well as in pulling punkahs to cool fevered brows. All these
school-boys, whose terrible holidays began so unseasonably, took their
turns in washing, grinding corn, bringing wood and water, besides
general fetching and carrying at various posts, while some dozen of
the oldest stood guard, musket in hand, or helped to work the signals
on the tower--a service of no small danger, as the movements of the
semaphore drew a hot fire; and, what with the clumsiness of the
apparatus and the cutting of the ropes by shot, it took three hours to
convey the order for evacuation of the Muchee Bhawun.

Though their post seems to have been an exposed one, just opposite
Johannes' House, where that black marksman stationed himself, and
where the enemy were literally just across the street, the school-boys
had throughout only two of their number wounded, while two died of
disease. Mr. Hilton, whose narrative has been already quoted, can
tell of more than one narrow escape, once when a spent cannon-ball
passed between his legs; again when a fragment of shell smashed the
cooking pot from which he was about to draw his ration; and another
time he was assisting to work the semaphore on the roof, when a shell
burst so near as to disgust him with that duty. He did manage to get
hurt in a singular manner. A badly-aimed shell from one of their own
batteries fell into the court-yard where he was sitting, and in the
wild stampede which ensued he stumbled over his sister and cut his knee
on a sharp stone. This wound ought to have healed in a few days, but
constant hardship had thrown him into such a bad state of health, that
it festered and kept him in pain for more than two months, under the
terrible warning that his leg might have to be amputated if he did not
take care of it.

Before this accident he had entered into his duties as a soldier with
rather more zeal than discretion. The boys trusted with arms, used, it
seems, to take ten or twenty rounds to the top of the house, and fire
through the loop-holes at whatever seemed a fair target. Fed on stews
of tough beef and coarse _chupatties_, the hand-cakes of the country,
their mouths watered at the sight of pumpkins and other vegetables
growing in Johannes' garden, just beyond the line of their defences, so
near yet so far out of reach; for the Sepoy marksmen were always on the
watch to shoot any one who exposed himself here. Seeing they could not
get these gourds for themselves, the lads found amusement in shooting
at them to spoil them at least for the enemy. But this sport was soon
interfered with. One boy having been wounded by a rebel lurking in
the sheds opposite, Hilton and a comrade, named Luffman, went up to
the roof to get a shot at the fellow. While they were firing from a
loop-hole protected by a basket full of rubbish, another boy came out
to join them with a fresh supply of ammunition; then their attention
being for a moment diverted to him, the Sepoy over the way saw his
chance for an aim. His bullet struck Luffman's musket, glanced along
the barrel, and lodged in the lad's left shoulder. This accident drew
on the young marksmen a severe reprimand from the Principal, and their
supplies of ammunition for promiscuous shooting were henceforth cut off.

Mr. Hilton makes no complaint on his own account; but Mr. Rees, an
ex-master of the Martinière, who has also given us an account of the
siege, says that the boys were rather put upon in his opinion. He
describes them as going about "more filthy than others, and apparently
more neglected and hungry." Up till the end of June they had been able
to draw supplies of food and clean clothes from the college. Now they
were reduced to what they had on their backs, a serious trial in the
Indian climate, and had to do their washing for themselves as best
they could. The Martinière was in the hands of the mutineers, who
had wreaked their wrath by digging up poor General Martin's tomb and
scattering his bones.

One honourable charge these youngsters had. There was a store of wines
and spirits in the garrison, which some of the soldiers broke into, and
were once found helplessly drunk when called to arms on a sudden alarm.
After that, the liquor was guarded in the Martinière post, till it
could be disposed of so as to do least mischief.

The women, who in private houses or in the underground vaults of the
Residency were kept out of danger as well as possible, had their share
of toils, to which some would be little used. Many found enough to
do in looking after their own ailing families. Others distinguished
themselves by zeal in tending the sick and wounded. The wonder is that
the diseases which had broken out from the first did not sweep off the
whole community, pent up in such unwholesome confinement. Fortunately,
in the course of a few days, a heavy shower of rain fell to wash away
the filth that was poisoning them. This was the opening of the rainy
season, on the whole welcome, yet not an unmixed blessing. The climate
of India runs always to extremes; so glare and dust were exchanged only
for the enervation of a perpetual vapour-bath.

In heat and wet, by night and day, every able-bodied man must take
weary spells of watching and working, and at all hours be ready to
run to his post on the first sign of danger. Nearly fifty guns had to
be served. Officers and men, civilians and soldiers, black and white,
laboured side by side, a tool in one hand, it may be said, a weapon in
the other. At the quietest intervals, they had to be repairing their
defences, shifting guns, carrying stores, burying the bodies of putrid
animals. Constant false alarms kept them harassed before they had
completed their works. For hours together the enemy sometimes went on
shouting and sounding the advance, without showing themselves, so that
all night the defenders, exhausted by the day's toil, might still have
to stand on guard. Yet, overwrought as they were, small parties would
here and there dash from their lines to spike a gun or drive away the
occupants of some annoying outpost.

On our side there were many instances of daring prowess, but few of
cowardice and shirking, as is testified by Lady Inglis. "As an example
of brilliant courage, which to my mind made him one of the heroes of
the siege, I must instance Private Cuney, H.M. 32nd. His exploits were
marvellous; he was backed by a Sepoy named Kandial, who simply adored
him. Single-handed and without any orders, Cuney would go outside our
position, and he knew more of the enemy's movements than any one else.
It was impossible to be really angry with him. Over and over again
he was put into the guard-room for disobedience of orders, and as
often let out when there was fighting to be done. On one occasion he
surprised one of the enemy's batteries, into which he crawled, followed
by his faithful Sepoy, bayoneting four men, and spiking the guns. If
ever there was a man deserving the V.C., it was Cuney. He seemed to
bear a charmed life. He was often wounded, and several times left his
bed to volunteer for a sortie. He loved fighting for its own sake.
After surviving the perils of the siege, he was at last killed in a
sortie made after General Havelock's arrival."

Three weeks passed thus before the besiegers, swarming soon in tens of
thousands around them, took courage for a general assault. The signal
was an ineffectual explosion of a mine against the Redan battery;
then from all sides they came pouring up to the works under cover
of their cannon. But here every man was at his post to receive them
desperately, many believing that their last hour was come. Some of the
wounded had staggered out of hospital, pale and blood-stained, to lend
a weak hand in the defence. The whole enclosure became quickly buried
in sulphureous smoke, so that men hardly saw how the fight went in
front of them, and still less knew but that their comrades had been
overwhelmed at some other point, as well they might be, and whether at
any moment the raging foe might not break in upon their rear. Again and
again the Sepoys were urged on, to be mowed down by grape and musketry.
Here they got right under our guns, driven away by hand grenades,
bricks toppled over upon them, and whatever missiles came to hand;
there they brought ladders against the walls, but were not allowed to
make use of them. At one point, led on by the green standard of Islam
in the hands of a reckless fanatic, they succeeded in bursting open a
gate, only to block up the opening by their corpses. Four hours the din
went on, under the fatal blaze of a July sun; but at length the enemy
fled, leaving some thousands fallen round the unbroken walls, within
which a surprisingly small number had been hurt.

This repulse put new heart into the victors, so much in need of
cheering; and their spirits were soon raised still further by news
of Havelock's army on its way to relieve them. They were not without
communications from the outside world. An old pensioner named Unged
several times managed to slip through the enemy's lines, bringing back
messages and letters which were not always good news. Thus they had
learned the fate of their kinsmen at Cawnpore; and their own temporary
elation soon passed away under continued sufferings and losses.

The day after the assault, Major Banks was shot dead. Others who
could be ill-spared fell one by one, every man placed _hors de
combat_ leaving more work to be done by his overstrained comrades.
Then there were dissensions among the remaining leaders. The English
soldiers, made reckless by peril, sometimes gave way to a spirit of
insubordination, or disgraced themselves by drunkenness. The Sepoys
could not be fully trusted. The enemy, there was reason to fear, had
spies within the place to report its weak points and the embarrassment
of its defenders. A proof of this was that they had ceased firing on
the hospital when some native dignitaries, held as prisoners, were
quartered there in the lucky thought of making them a shield for the
sick. It was hard on those hostages, who had to take their share of the
general want and peril. The rations of coarse beef and unground grain
were found insufficient to keep the garrison in good case; and before
long these had to be reduced, while the price of the smallest luxury
had risen beyond the means of most. If a hen laid an egg it came as a
god-send; a poor mother might have to beg in vain for a little milk for
her dying child. What the English soldiers missed most was tobacco;
and when some of the Sikhs deserted, they left a message that it was
because they had no opium. The priceless Crown Jewels of Oudh, and the
public treasure guarded in the Residency, were dross indeed in the eyes
of men longing for the simplest comforts. How yearningly they fixed
their eyes on the green gardens and parks blooming among the towers of
Lucknow! And Havelock did not come to fulfil their hopes, soon dashed
by news that he had been forced to fall back on Cawnpore, to recruit
his own wasted forces.

At the beginning of August, our people had heard heavy firing and the
sound of English music in the city, which brought them out cheering and
shaking hands with each other on the tops of the houses, eager to catch
the first sight of their approaching friends. That night they slept
little, and rose to be bitterly disappointed. The rebels tauntingly
derided this short-lived joy, shouting over the cause of yesterday's
commotion. They had been saluting the boy crowned as puppet-king of
Oudh. Their bands, indeed, were often heard playing familiar tunes,
taught them in quieter days, and always wound up their concerts with
"God Save the Queen!" which must have sounded a strange mockery in
those English ears. Once it was the turn of the English to make a
joyful demonstration, firing off a general salute on a report of the
fall of Delhi, which turned out false, or at least premature.

On August 10, the Sepoys delivered another assault, but were more
easily beaten off this time. It began by the explosion of a mine,
which threw down the front of the Martinière post, ruining also
some fifty feet of palisading and other bulwarks on each side. The
assailants wanted boldness to master the breach thus made; but they
lodged themselves in an underground room of this house, from which
they had to be expelled by hand-grenades, dropped among them through a
hole in the floor, and they got no further within the quickly-restored
defences. At first, it is said, they could have walked in through an
open door, which Mr. Schilling and his boys had the credit of shutting
in their faces. The School would all have been blown up, but for the
good fortune of having just been called in to prayers in an inner room.
Three soldiers had been hurled by the explosion on to the enemy's
ground, but ran back into the entrenchment, unhurt, under a shower of
bullets.

The Sepoys' fire was kept up as hotly as ever, though at times they
seemed to be badly off for shot, sending in such strange projectiles as
logs of wood bound with iron, stones hollowed out for shells, twisted
telegraph wires, copper coins and bullocks' horns; even the occasional
use of bows and arrows lent a mediæval feature to the siege.

Their main effort now seemed directed to the destruction of the walls
by mining. Here they were foiled, chiefly through the vigilance of
Captain Fulton, an engineer-officer, who took a leading part in the
defence, only to die before its end, like so many others. In the ranks
of the 32nd, he found a number of old Cornish miners, with whose help
he diligently countermined the subterranean attacks. Now the burrowing
Sepoy broke through into an unsuspected aperture, to find Fulton
patiently awaiting him, pistol in hand. Again, a deep-sunk gallery
from within would be pushed so far, that our men blew up not only the
enemy's mine, but a house full of his soldiers. The garrison had always
their ears strained to catch those muffled blows, which announced new
perils approaching them underground; then, as soon as the situation and
direction of the mine could be recognized, Fulton went to work and the
dusky pioneers either gave up the attempt or came on to their doom.

Once, however, they did catch the watchers at fault. At the corner of
the defences called the Sikh Square, the warning sounds were mistaken
for the trampling of horses tied up close by--a mistake first revealed
by an explosion which made a breach in the works, overwhelming some of
its defenders and hurling others into the air, most of whom came off
with slight hurt. The Sepoys rushed on, but did not venture beyond the
gap they had made, while some time passed before our men could dislodge
them. One native officer was shot within the defences, the first and
last time they were ever penetrated till they came to be abandoned.
Of nearly forty mines attempted, this was the only one that could be
called a success.

Several unhappy drummers, buried among the ruins, cried lamentably for
assistance; but the risk of going to their assistance under fire was
too great. A brave fellow did steal forward, and with a saw attempted
to release one of the men held down by a beam across his chest, but the
Sepoys drove him back when they saw what he was at. These half-buried
lads had all died a miserable death of suffocation or thirst, if not
from their injuries, when towards nightfall a party of the 32nd,
shielding themselves behind bullet-proof shutters, advanced to
recapture the lost ground at the point of the bayonet, which they not
only did, and barricaded the breach with doors, but, while they were
about it, made a dash forth to blow up some small houses that had given
cover to the enemy.

This was one of several gallant sorties, in another of which Johannes'
House was blown up, and the redoubtable "Bob the Nailer" killed in the
act of exercising his deadly skill from the top of it. But his place
as a marksman was taken by a brother negro of scarcely less fatal
fame; and the enemy always expressed their resentment for these attacks
by fresh bouts of more furious bombardment. Once, they had nearly
destroyed a vital point of our line by piling up a bonfire against the
Bailey Guard Gate; but Lieutenant R.H.M. Aitken, the burly Scot who
held this post with his Sepoys, rushed out and extinguished the flames,
under a rain of bullets, before much mischief could be done.

By this time the inmates of the Residency, from looking death so
hard in the face, had grown strangely callous both to suffering and
to danger. Men now showed themselves indifferent before the most
heart-rending spectacles, while they coolly undertook perilous tasks
at which, two months ago, the boldest would have hesitated. Children
could be seen playing with grape-shot for marbles, and making little
mines instead of mud-pies. Women took slight notice of the hair-breadth
escapes that happened daily with them as with others. "Balls fall
at our feet," says Mr. Rees in his journal, "and we continue the
conversation without a remark; bullets graze our very hair, and we
never speak of them. Narrow escapes are so very common that even
women and children cease to notice them. They are the rule, not the
exception. At one time a bullet passed through my hat; at another, I
escaped being shot dead by one of the enemy's best riflemen, by an
unfortunate soldier passing unexpectedly before me, and receiving the
wound through the temples instead; at another, I moved off from a place
where, in less than the twinkling of an eye afterwards, a musket-ball
stuck in the wall. At another, again, I was covered with dust and
pieces of brick by a round-shot that struck the wall not two inches
away from me; at another, again, a shell burst a couple of yards away
from me, killing an old woman and wounding a native boy and a native
cook, one dangerously, the other slightly--but no; I must stop, for I
could never exhaust the catalogue of hair-breadth escapes which every
man in the garrison can speak of as well as myself."

Still, their hearts could not but grow heavy at times, especially as
the feast of the Mohurrem drew near, when Moslem zeal might be expected
to stimulate its votaries to more desperate fury. Desertions went on
fast among the servants, and it was feared that, if relief came not
soon, the Sepoys would go over to their mutinous comrades, who daily
tried to seduce them with threats and promises. Some native Christians
and half-castes, of whom better might have been expected, did run away
in a body, only to be butchered by the fanatics among whom they so
faithlessly cast their fortunes. A third of the Europeans had perished;
the rest were worn with sickness and suffering, but they had not lost
an inch of ground.

It was no fault of Havelock if he still lay at Cawnpore, forty miles
away. Once and again he had advanced, beating the enemy every time
they ventured to face him; but after two pitched battles, in which
this fearless General had already had six horses killed under him, and
several minor combats, the country-people rising up about him in fierce
opposition, cholera also decimating the ranks, his losses were so heavy
that he could not yet hope to force a way to Lucknow, much less through
the narrow streets, where every house might be found a fortress.

Now reinforcements were being pushed up from Calcutta; and at the end
of August, the besieged had a letter promising relief in twenty-five
days. "Do not negotiate," was Havelock's warning to them, "but rather
perish, sword in hand." So they meant to do, if it came to that, rather
than fall alive into the power of such a cruel and treacherous foe.
Meanwhile, there was nothing for it but to hold out doggedly till their
deliverer could gather strength to reach them.

On September 5 the enemy tried another assault, which was more of a
failure than ever. Evidently, on their side, they were losing heart.
And at last, on the night of the 22nd, Unged, the trusty messenger,
rushed into the entrenchment under fire, with news that Havelock and
Outram were at hand. The latter's noble generosity here is one of his
best titles to fame. He came to supersede the General who had so long
strained every nerve in vain; but, knowing how Havelock had at heart
the well-deserved honour of relieving Lucknow, the "Bayard of India,"
for the time, waived his own right to command, serving as a volunteer
till this task should have been accomplished. In this, Sir James Outram
afterwards judged himself to have done wrong, as putting sentiment
before duty.

Two days of suspense followed, every ear within the Residency bent
to catch the sound of the cannon of the advancing army. On the third
day, the welcome din drew nearer, clouds of smoke marked the progress
of a hot battle through the streets, and, as a hopeful sign, routed
natives could be seen flying by hundreds, their bridges of boats
breaking down under a confused mob of horsemen and foot-passengers,
camels, elephants, and carriages. Havelock had forced the Char Bagh
bridge of the canal, and was working round by its inner bank, to turn
along the north side of the city, the ground here being more open.
But all that long day lasted the doubt and the fear, as well as the
joy, for our troops, their entrance once won into Lucknow, had to make
a devious circuit about the most thickly-built quarters, and after
all blunderingly fought their way, inch by inch, through the streets
into a narrow winding road that led to the Residency. It was not till
nightfall those strained eyes within could, by flashes of deadly fire,
see the van of their countrymen struggling up to the riddled buildings,
where--

  "Ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew."

The struggling progress of the column is described, in a letter home,
by Mr. Willock, a young civilian, who had volunteered to share its
perils.

"The fire from the King's Palace, known as the 'Kaiser Bagh,' was so
severe that we had to run double-quick in front of it, as hard as we
could; and a scene of great confusion ensued when we halted--guns and
infantry mixed up, soldiers wandering in search of their companies, and
the wounded in the dhoolies carried here and there without any orders.
We had been there about half-an-hour when the Second Brigade joined
us, passing in front of the palace, emerging from a narrow lane close
to it. Here they had to pass under the very walls, while the rebels on
the walls hurled down stones and bricks, and even spat at our fellows,
a fierce fire being kept up from the loop-holes. After a little time
order was re-established, and after a fresh examination of the map, the
column was drawn up, and we started again. It was cruel work--brave
troops being exposed to such unfair fighting. What can men do against
loop-holed houses, when they have no time to enter a city, taking house
by house? In fact, we ran the gauntlet regularly through the streets.

"After we passed the Palace, our men were knocked down like sheep,
without being able to return the fire of the enemy with any effect.
We passed on some little way, when we came to a sudden turning to the
left, with a huge gateway in front, and through this we had to pass,
under a shower of balls from the houses on each side. The Sikhs and 5th
Fusiliers got to the front, and kept up a steady fire at the houses
for some time, with the hope of lessening the enemy's musketry fire,
but it was no use. Excited men can seldom fire into loop-holes with
any certainty, and we had to make the best of our way up the street,
turning sharp round to the right, when we found ourselves in a long,
wide street, with sheets of fire shooting out from the houses. On we
went, about a quarter of a mile, being peppered from all sides, when
suddenly we found ourselves opposite to a large gateway, with folding
doors completely riddled with round-shot and musket-balls, the entrance
to a large enclosure.

"At the side of this was a small doorway, half blocked up by a low mud
wall; the Europeans and Sikhs were struggling to get through, while the
bullets were whistling about them. I could not think what was up, and
why we should be going in there; but after forcing my way up to the
door, and getting my head and shoulders over the wall, I found myself
being pulled over by a great unwashed hairy creature,[6] who set me on
my legs and patted me on the back, and, to my astonishment, I found
myself in the 'Bailey Guard!'"

The scene then ensuing has been often described--the garrison pressing
forward with cheers of welcome and triumph--the rough Highlanders
suddenly appearing through the darkness among the ruins they had fought
so many battles to save--their begrimed faces running with tears in
the torchlight, as they caught up in their arms the pale children, and
kissed their country-women, too, in that spasm of glad emotion; even
the ladies ready to hug them for hysteric joy--the gaunt, crippled
figures tottering out to join in the general rejoicing, now that for a
moment all believed their trials at an end. That picturesque incident
of a Highland Jessie, first to catch the distant strains of the
bagpipes, appears to be a fiction. But bagpipes were not wanting; and
one of the defenders, strolling over as soon as he could leave his own
post, hardly able to believe the good news true, tells us how he found
dancing going on to the music of two Highland pipers--a demonstration,
however, soon put a stop to by Havelock's orders.

Havelock had cause to think this no time for dancing. While the common
soldiers might exult over their melodramatic victory, the leaders
knew too well at what a cost it had been won, and what dangers still
encompassed them. Not all the little army of two thousand five hundred
men had pushed through on that memorable evening. Nearly a fifth part
of them were lost in the attempt. Neill had been shot dead, with the
goal already in sight. Outram himself was hurt. It had been necessary
to leave most of the wounded on the way, many of whom, deserted by the
natives who bore their litters, suffered a horrible fate, massacred
or burned alive while their comrades were making merry within the
works. Part of the relieving force bivouacked all night on the road
outside, where in the confusion a lamentable affair occurred, some of
our faithful Sepoys at the Bailey Gate being attacked in mistake by the
excited new-comers.

Only two days later, the rear-guard, hampered by the heavy guns,
could join its commander at the Residency; and even then a force, in
charge of baggage and ammunition, was left besieged in the Alum Bagh,
a fortified park beyond the city, which henceforth became an isolated
English outpost.

The relieving army had been hurried on at all risks, under a mistaken
belief that the garrison was in immediate straits of famine. It turned
out they had still food to last some weeks, even with so many more
mouths to fill, an unreckoned store of grain having been found heaped
up, by Lawrence's foresight, in the plunge-bath below the Residency.
Means of transport, however, were wanting; and Outram, who now assumed
command, could not undertake to fight his way out again with the
encumbrance of a long train of non-combatants. Much less was he in a
position to clear the city, still occupied by the enemy in overwhelming
numbers. All he could do was to hold on where he was, awaiting the
arrival of another army now on the march.

It was a relief and not a rescue over which so much jubilation had
been spent. It came just in time, now that the fall of Delhi had set
free a swarm of Sepoys to swell the ranks of the Lucknow besiegers.
The mere sight of their countrymen, and the sure news they brought,
was enough to put fresh spirit into the defenders, who, by the help of
such a reinforcement, no longer doubted to hold the fortress that had
sheltered them for three miserable months, with the loss of more than
seven hundred combatants by death and desertion.

Here, then, the siege entered upon a second period, the characteristic
of which was an extended position occupied by the garrison. Now that
they had plenty of men, they seized some of the adjacent palaces, and
pushed their lines down to the river-bank. Like men risen from a long
sickness, they stretched their legs on the ground that for weeks had
been raining death into their enclosure. There must have been a strange
satisfaction in strolling out from their own half-ruined abodes, to
examine the damage they had wrought among the enemy's works, at the
risk of an occasional shot from his new posts, as the Martinière boys
found when they let curiosity get the better of caution.

Some of these youngsters soon managed to run into mischief. A few
days after the relief, being sent out to pick up firewood among the
_débris_, they stole a look where still lay the mutilated corpses of
Havelock's wounded men murdered so basely, then rambled into one of
the royal palaces--a labyrinth of courts, gardens, gateways, passages,
pavilions, verandahs, halls, and so forth, all in the bewildering style
of Eastern magnificence, where it was difficult not to lose one's way.
Here a general plunder was going on, and our people, even gleaning
after the Sepoys, could help themselves freely to silks, satins,
velvets, cloth of gold, embroideries, costly brocade, swords, books,
pictures, and all sorts of valuables. In some rooms were nothing but
boxes full of gorgeous china, ransacked so eagerly that the floors
soon became covered a foot deep with broken crockery. Others of the
besieged pounced most willingly upon articles of food, especially on
tea, tobacco, and vegetables, which to them seemed treasures indeed.
For their part, the Martinière boys ferreted out a store of fireworks,
and must needs set off some rockets towards the enemy. One of these
dangerous playthings, however, exploded in their hands, kindling others
and setting fire to the building. The boys scampered out without being
noticed, and took care to hold their tongues about this adventure, so
that it was not ascertained at the time, though strongly suspected, on
whom to lay the blame of a conflagration that went on for several days.
The former King of Oudh who built this costly pile, little thought
how one day its glories were to perish by the idle hands of a pack of
careless school-boys.

The trials of the garrison were by no means over. Sickness continued
to make havoc among them for want of wholesome food, especially of
vegetables, the best part of their diet being tough artillery bullocks.
The smallest luxury was still at famine price. The cold weather
drawing on found many of these poor people ill-provided with clothing.
One officer had gained asylum here in such a ragged state, that he
was fain to make himself a suit of clothes from the green cloth of
the Residency billiard-table. All were heartily sick of confinement
and anxiety. Yet nearly two months more had to be passed in a state
of blockade, the enemy no longer at such close quarters, but still
bombarding them with his artillery, and keeping them on the alert by
persistent attempts to mine their defences.

They were now, however, able to do more than stand on the defensive,
making vigorous sallies, before which the Sepoys readily gave way, and
held their own ground only by the weight of numbers. Good news, too,
cheered the inmates of this ark of refuge. All round them the flood
of mutiny seemed to be subsiding. Delhi had fallen at length, while
they still held their shattered asylum. Sir Colin Campbell was coming
to make a clean sweep of the rebel bands who kept Oudh in fear and
confusion. The heroes of Lucknow knew for certain that they were not
forgotten by their countrymen. They could trust England to be proud of
them, and felt how every heart at home would now be throbbing with the
emotion, which the Laureate was one day to put into deathless verse.

 "Men will forget what we suffer and not what we do. We can fight--
 But to be soldier all day and be sentinel all through the night!
 Ever the mine and assault, our sallies, their lying alarms,
 Bugles and drums in the darkness, and shoutings and soundings to arms;
 Ever the labour of fifty that had to be done by five;
 Ever the marvel among us that one should be left alive;
 Ever the day with its traitorous death from the loop-holes around;
 Ever the night with its coffinless corpse to be laid in the ground.

        *       *       *       *       *

 Grief for our perishing children, and never a moment for grief;
 Toil and ineffable weariness, faltering hopes of relief;
 Havelock baffled, or beaten, or butchered for all that we knew.
 Then day and night, night and day, coming down on the still shattered walls,
 Millions of musket bullets and thousands of cannon balls--
 But ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: The author has gone over the ground, noting its features
on the spot; but for refreshing his memory and making all the positions
clear, he has to acknowledge his obligation especially to the pictures
and plans in General McLeod Innes' _Lucknow and Oude in the Mutiny_.]

[Footnote 6: This "great unwashed hairy creature" appears to have
been "Jock" Aitken, in whom, as his kinsman, the author must own to a
special interest. A monument to him now stands by the post he guarded
so well.]



CHAPTER VIII

LORD CLYDE'S CAMPAIGNS


Sir Colin Campbell, soon to earn the title of Lord Clyde, had arrived
at Calcutta in the middle of August, as Commander-in-Chief of an army
still on its way from England by the slow route of the Cape. He could
do nothing for the moment but stir up the authorities in providing
stores and transport for his men when they came to hand. All the troops
available in Bengal were needed to guard the disarmed Sepoys here, and
to keep clear the six hundred miles of road to Allahabad, infested
as it was by flying bands of mutineers and robbers. But if he had no
English soldiers to command, there was a brigade of sailors, five
hundred strong, who under their daring leader, Captain William Peel,
steamed up the Ganges, ahead of the army, to which more than once they
were to show the way on an unfamiliar element.

In the course of next month, arrived the troops of the intercepted
China expedition, a detachment from the Cape, and other bodies coming
in by driblets, who were at once forwarded to Allahabad, part of the
way by rail and then by bullock-trains. A considerable force of Madras
Sepoys, more faithful than their Bengal comrades, was also at the
disposal of the Government, and helped to restore order in the country
about the line of march, still so much agitated that reinforcements
moving to the front were apt to be turned aside to put down local
disturbances. Sir Colin himself, hurrying forward along the Grand Trunk
Road, had almost been captured by a party of rebels.

On November 1, he was at Allahabad, from which his troops were already
pushing on towards Cawnpore, not without an encounter, where the Naval
Brigade won their first laurels on land. Two days later, Sir Colin
reached Cawnpore, and at once had to make a choice of urgent tasks.
To his left, the state of Central India had become threatening. The
revolted Gwalior Contingent Sepoys, in the service of Scindia, had
long been kept inactive by their nominal master; but after the fall of
Delhi, they marched against us under Tantia Topee, the Mahratta chief
who had carried out the massacre at Cawnpore, and now comes forward as
one of the chief generals on the native side. This army, swollen by
bands from Delhi, approached to menace the English communications on
the Ganges, if it were not faced before our men turned to the right for
the relief of Lucknow. The question was, whether or not to deal with
Tantia Topee at once. But Sir Colin, misled like Havelock by a false
estimate of the provisions in the Residency, decided at all risks to
lose no time in carrying off the garrison there, even though he must
leave a powerful enemy in his rear. Over and over again in this war,
English generals had to neglect the most established rules of strategy,
trusting to the ignorance or the cowardice of their opponents. Yet
Tantia Topee showed himself a leader who could by no means be trusted
for failing to improve his opportunities.

Leaving behind him, then, five hundred Europeans and a body of Madras
Sepoys, under General Windham, to hold the passage of the Ganges at
Cawnpore, the Commander-in-Chief marched northwards to join Sir Hope
Grant, awaiting him with a column released from Delhi; and the combined
force moved upon the Alum Bagh, still held by a detachment of Outram's
force. From this point they were able to communicate with the Residency
by means of a semaphore telegraph erected on its roof, worked according
to the instructions of the _Penny Cyclopædia_, which happened to be in
the hands of the besieged. Native messengers also passed to and fro,
through whom Outram had generously recommended the relieving army to
attack Tantia Topee first, letting his garrison hold out upon reduced
rations, as he thought they could do till the end of November. He
had thus furnished Sir Colin with plans of the city and directions
that would be most useful to the latter as a stranger. But it seemed
important to give him some guide fully to be trusted for more precise
information as to the localities through which he must make his attack.
A bold civilian, named Kavanagh, volunteered to go from the Residency
to the camp, on this dangerous errand, by which he well-earned the
Victoria Cross.

In company with a native, himself dyed and disguised as one of the
desperadoes who swarmed about Lucknow, Kavanagh left our lines by
swimming over the river, re-crossed it by a bridge, and walked through
the chief street, meeting few people, none of whom recognized him for
a European. Outside the city, the two companions lost their way, but
were actually set right by a picket of the rebels, who here and there
challenged them or let them pass without notice. Before daybreak they
fell in with the British outposts, and at noon a flag on the Alum Bagh
informed the garrison of their emissary's safe arrival.

On November 12, Sir Colin reached the Alum Bagh, where he spent one
more day in making final arrangements; then, on the 14th, he set out
to begin the series of combats by which he must reach a hand to our
beleaguered countrymen. His army, with reinforcements coming up at the
last moment from Cawnpore, numbered some five thousand men and fifty
guns, made up in great part of fragments of several regiments, the
backbone of it the 93rd Highlanders, fresh from England, and steeled by
the Crimean battles in which they had learned to trust their present
leader. These precious lives had to be husbanded for further pressing
work; and in any case he naturally sought a safer road than that on
which Havelock had lost a third of his force.

One looking at the map of Lucknow might be puzzled to explain the
circuitous route taken by both generals from the Alum Bagh to the
Residency, which stand directly opposite each other on either side
of the city, some three or four miles apart. Running a gauntlet of
street-fighting was the main peril to be avoided. Then, not only should
the approach be made as far as possible through open suburbs, but while
the Residency quarter is bounded by the windings of the Goomtee to
the north, the south and east sides are defended by the Canal, a deep
curved ravine, in the wet season filled with water. Instead of forcing
his way, like Havelock, over its nearest bridge, Sir Colin meant to
make a sweep half-round the city on the further side of this channel,
taking the rebels by surprise at an unexpected point, as well as hoping
to avoid the fire of the Kaiser Bagh, a huge royal palace, which was
their head-quarters, and commanded the usual road to the Residency.

His first move was to the Dilkoosha, a hunting palace with a walled
enclosure, which he fortified as a depôt for his stores and for the
great train of vehicles provided to carry off the women and children.
The same day he seized the Martinière College close by, and pushed
his position towards the banks of the Canal, from their side of which
the enemy made hostile demonstrations. Next day was spent in final
arrangements and in repelling attacks. By ostentatious activity
in that direction, the Sepoys were led to believe that they would be
assailed on the English left; but on the morning of the 16th Sir Colin
marched off by his right, crossed the bed of the Canal, dry at this
point, gained the bank of the river, and penetrated the straggling
suburbs upon the enemy's rear, with no more than three thousand men,
the rest left posted so as to keep open his retreat. A small force
this for a week's fighting, under most difficult circumstances, against
enormous odds, where a way must again and again be opened through
fortified buildings!

[Illustration: The Kaiserbagh, Lucknow.]

[Illustration: Ruins of the Residency, Lucknow.

Page 204.]

The line of march lay along narrow winding lanes and through woods and
mud walls, that for a time sheltered our troops from fire. The first
obstacle encountered was the Secunder Bagh, one of those walled gardens
which played such a part in the operations about Lucknow and Delhi.
Its gloomy ruins stand to-day to tell a dreadful tale. The approaches
had first to be cleared, and the walls battered by guns that could
hardly be forced up a steep bank under terrible fire. In half-an-hour,
a small hole had been knocked through one gate, then, Highlanders and
Sikhs racing to be foremost in the fierce assault, the enclosure was
carried, where two thousand mutineers were caught as in a trap. Some
fought desperately to the last; some threw down their arms begging
for mercy, but found no mercy in hearts maddened by the remembrance of
slaughtered women and children. "Cawnpore!" was the cry with which our
men drove their bayonets home; and when the wild din of fire and sword,
of shrieks and curses, at length fell silent, this pleasure-garden ran
with the blood of two thousand dusky corpses, piled in heaps or strewn
over every foot of ground. We may blame the spirit of barbaric revenge;
but we had not seen that well at Cawnpore.

The advance was now resumed across a plain dotted by houses and
gardens, where soon it came once more to a stand before the Shah
Nujeef, a mosque surrounded with high loop-holed walls, that proved a
harder nut to crack than the Secunder Bagh. For hours it was battered
and assaulted in vain, the General himself leading his Highlanders to
the charge. In vain the guns of Peel's Naval Brigade were once brought
up within a few yards of the walls, worked as resolutely as if their
commander had been laying his ship beside an enemy's. In vain brave
men rushed to their death at those fiery loop-holes, while behind
them reigned a scene of perilous confusion, the soldiers able neither
to advance nor retreat among blazing buildings and deadly missiles.
The narrow road had become choked up by the train of camels and other
animals, so that ammunition could scarcely be forced to the front. From
the opposite side of the river, the enemy brought a heavy gun to bear
upon the disordered ranks. Our batteries had to be withdrawn under
cover of a searching rocket-fire.

For a moment Sir Colin feared all might be lost. Yet, after all, what
seems little better than an accident put an easy end to this desperate
contest. At nightfall, a sergeant of the 93rd, prowling round the
obstinate wall, discovered a fissure through which the Highlanders tore
their way, to see the white-clad Sepoys flitting out through the smoke
before them. Our men could now lie down on their arms, happy to think
that the worst part of the task was over.

Next morning, the same laborious and deadly work went on. Other large
buildings had to be hastily bombarded and a way broken through them,
in presence of a host strong enough to surround the scanty force.
But this day the amazed enemy seemed to have his hands too full to
interfere much with our progress. Parties had been thrown out towards
the city, on Sir Colin's left, to form a chain of posts which should
cover his advance and secure his retreat. Meanwhile, also, the garrison
of the Residency were busy on their side, with mines and sorties,
pushing forward to meet the relieving army, who spent most of the day
in breaching a building known as the Mess House. This was at length
carried, as well as a palace beyond, called the Motee Mahal, by gallant
assaults, foremost in which were two of our most illustrious living
soldiers, Lord Wolseley and Sir Frederick Roberts.

Between the relievers and the defences of the Residency there now
remained only a few hundred yards of open space, swept by the guns of
the Kaiser Bagh. Mr. Kavanagh appears to have been the first man who
reached the garrison with his good news; then Outram and Havelock rode
forward under hot fire to meet Sir Colin Campbell on that hard won
battle-field, over which for days they had been anxiously tracing his
slow progress.

This relief may seem to fall short of the dramatic effect of
Havelock's, though it has grand features of its own, and from a
military point of view is a more admirable achievement. To many of the
beleaguered it brought a sore disappointment, when they learned that
their countrymen had come only to carry them away, and that, after all,
they must abandon this already famous citadel to the foe they had so
long kept at bay by their own strength--the one spot in Oudh where the
English flag had never been lowered throughout all the perils of the
rebellion. Inglis offered to go on holding the place against any odds,
if left with six hundred men and due supplies; but Sir Colin, while
admiring his spirit, was in no mind for sentiment, aware that not a
man could be spared to idle defiance. At first he had been for giving
them only two hours to prepare their departure. A delay of a few days,
however, was won from or forced upon him by the circumstances to be
reckoned with--days to him full of anxious responsibility, and for his
men of fresh perils.

On Nov. 19, a hot fire was opened against the Kaiser Bagh, the enemy
thus led to believe in an assault imminent here. Under cover of this
demonstration, the non-combatants were first moved out in small groups
behind the screen of posts held through the suburbs, all reaching
the Dilkoosha safely. At midnight of the 22nd the soldiers followed,
the covering posts withdrawn as they passed, and the whole force
was brought off without the loss of a man, while the Sepoys blinded
their own eyes by continuing to bombard the deserted entrenchment.
The garrison were naturally loth to leave it a prey to such a foe,
who could neither drive them out nor prevent them from marching away
before his face. They had to abandon most of their belongings to be
plundered, the army being already too much hampered by its train.
The public treasure, however, was carried off, and the Sepoys so far
disappointed of a prize they had striven in vain to wrest from these
poor works. The guns also had been saved or rendered unserviceable. It
was trying work for the women, their road being at some points under
fire, so that they had to catch up the children and make a run for it;
then, once behind safe walls again, they must wait two or three days in
suspense for husbands and fathers, who might have to cut their way out,
if the Sepoys became aware what was going on.

Among the first to leave were the Martinière boys, whom we have left
out of sight for a time. Some of these juvenile heroes, however, had
been too eager about getting away. The elder ones, who carried arms,
forgot that they were numbered as soldiers, and must wait for orders
before retiring. Next day they had a sharp hint of this in being
arrested and sent back under escort to the Residency, where a bold face
of defence was still maintained, the enemy to be kept in ignorance of
our proposed retreat. We may suppose that the young deserters were
let off easily; and, on the day after, Hilton and another boy, having
satisfied military punctilio, obtained an honourable exit by being
sent off in charge of two ponies conveying money and other valuable
property belonging to the College. On the way they came under fire of
an enemy's battery across the river, and a shot whizzed so near that
the ponies ran off and upset their precious burden; then the boys,
helped by some of Peel's sailors, who were replying to the Sepoy fire,
had much ado in picking up the rupees and catching their restive
beasts; but, without further adventure, once more reached the camp
at Dilkoosha, where, with plenty to eat, and the new sense of being
able to eat it in safety, they could listen to the roar of guns still
resounding in the city.

The final scene is described for us by Captain Birch, who had
throughout acted as aide-de-camp to Inglis:--"First, the garrison
in immediate contact with the enemy, at the furthest extremity of
the Residency position, was marched out. Every other garrison in
turn fell in behind it, and so passed out through the Bailey Guard
Gate, till the whole of our position was evacuated. Then came the
turn of Havelock's force, which was similarly withdrawn post by
post, marching in rear of our garrison. After them again came the
forces of the Commander-in-Chief, which joined on in the rear of
Havelock's force. Regiment by regiment was withdrawn with the utmost
order and regularity. The whole operation resembled the movement of a
telescope. Stern silence was kept, and the enemy took no alarm. Never
shall I forget that eventful night. The withdrawal of the fourteen
garrisons which occupied our defensive positions was entrusted to
three staff-officers--Captain Wilson, assistant Adjutant-General; the
Brigade-Major, and myself, as aide-de-camp. Brigadier Inglis stood at
the Bailey Guard Gate as his gallant garrison defiled past him; with
him was Sir James Outram, commanding the division. The night was dark,
but on our side, near the Residency-house, the hot gun-metal from some
guns, which we burst before leaving, set fire to the heap of wood
used as a rampart, which I have before described, and lighted up the
place. The noise of the bursting of the guns, and the blazing of the
rampart, should have set the enemy on the _qui vive_, but they took no
notice. Somehow, a doubt arose whether the full tale of garrisons had
passed the gate. Some counted thirteen, and some fourteen; probably two
had got mixed; but, to make certain, I was sent back to Innes' post,
the furthest garrison, to see if all had been withdrawn. The utter
stillness and solitude of the deserted position, with which I was so
familiar, struck coldly on my nerves; I had to go, and go I did. Had
the enemy known of our departure, they would ere this have occupied our
places, and there was also a chance of individuals or single parties
having got in for the sake of plunder; but I did not meet a living
soul. I think I may fairly claim to have seen the last of the Residency
of Lucknow before its abandonment to the enemy. Captain Waterman, 13th
Native Infantry, however, was the last involuntarily to leave; he fell
asleep after his name had been called, and woke up to find himself
alone; he escaped in safety, but the fright sent him off his head for
a time. As I made my report to the commanders at the gate, Sir James
Outram waved his hand to Brigadier Inglis to precede him in departure,
but the Brigadier stood firm, and claimed to be the last to leave the
ground which he and his gallant regiment had so stoutly defended. Sir
James Outram smiled, then, extending his hand, said, 'Let us go out
together;' so, shaking hands, these two heroic spirits, side by side,
descended the declivity outside our battered gate. Immediately behind
them came the staff, and the place of honour again became the subject
of dispute between Captain Wilson and myself; but the former was weak
from all the hardships and privations he had undergone, and could not
stand the trick of shoulder to shoulder learned in the Harrow football
fields. Prone on the earth he lay, till he rolled down the hill, and I
was the last of the staff to leave the Bailey Guard Gate."

On the 23rd all were united at the Dilkoosha; but here the successful
retreat became overclouded by a heavy loss. Havelock, worn out through
care and disease, died before he could know of the honours bestowed
upon him by his grateful countrymen, yet happy in being able to say
truly: "I have for forty years so ruled my life that, when death came,
I might face it without fear." Under a tree, marked only with a rudely
scrawled initial, he was left buried at the Alum Bagh, till a prouder
monument should signalize his grave as one of the many holy spots
"where England's patriot soldiers lie."

There was no time then for mourning. Leaving Outram with a strong
detachment at the Alum Bagh, to keep Lucknow in check, Sir Colin
hurried by forced marches to Cawnpore, where his bridge of boats
across the Ganges was now in serious danger. As the long train of
refugees approached it, they were again greeted by the familiar sound
of cannon, telling how hard a little band of English troops fought
to keep open for them the way to safety. The city was in flames, and
a hot battle going on beyond the river, when Sir Colin appeared upon
the scene, not an hour too soon, for his small force here had been
driven out of its camp into the entrenchment covering the bridge. "Our
soldiers do not withdraw well," an observer drily remarked of this
almost disastrous affair.

Next day, he crossed the Ganges to confront Tantia Topee with less
unequal force. Before doing anything more, he must get rid of his
encumbering charge, some of whom had died in the haste of that anxious
march. On December 3, the non-combatants were sent off towards
Allahabad, on carriages or on foot, till they came to the unfinished
railway, and had what was for many of them their first experience
of railroad travelling. As soon as they were well out of danger, on
December 6, was fought the third battle of Cawnpore, which ended in a
disastrous rout of the rebels.

This victory could not be immediately followed up, owing to want
of transport, the carriages having been sent off to Allahabad. But
Sir Colin now felt himself master of the situation, with also the
"cold weather," as it is called by comparison, in favour of English
soldiers, and laid his plans for thoroughly reconquering the country,
step by step. We need not track all his careful movements, which lasted
through the winter, and indeed beyond the end of next year; it would be
a too tedious repetition of hopeless combats and flights on the part
of the enemy, hiding and running before our forces, who eagerly sought
every chance of bringing them to bay. The dramatic interest of the
story is largely gone, now that its end becomes a foregone conclusion.
So leaving Sir Colin and his lieutenants to sweep the Doab, we return
next spring to see him make an end of Lucknow, which all along figures
so prominently in these troubles. It was here that the rebellion died
hardest, since in Oudh it had more the character of a popular rising,
and not of a mere military mutiny.

The Commander-in-Chief would have preferred to go on with a slow and
sure conquest of Rohilcund, letting Lucknow blaze itself out for the
meanwhile; but the Governor-General urged him to a speedy conquest of
that city, for the sake of the prestige its mastership gave, so much
value being attached to the superficial impressions of power we could
make on the native mind. As it was, Sir Colin thought well to wait,
through most of the cold weather, for the arrival of reinforcements,
in part still delayed by the task of restoring order on the way.
Then also he was expecting a slow Goorkha army under Jung Bahadoor,
the ruler of Nepaul, who, having offered his assistance, might take
offence if the siege were begun without him. The newspapers and other
irresponsible critics attacked our general for what seemed strange
inaction. Indeed, he was judged over-cautious by officers who with a
few hundreds of English soldiers had seen exploits accomplished such as
he delayed to undertake with thousands. He at least justified himself
by final success, and none have a right to blame him who do not know
the difficulty of assembling and providing for the movements of an army
where every European soldier needs the services of natives and beasts
of burden, and every animal, too, must have at least one attendant.

It was not till the beginning of March that he set out from Cawnpore
with the strongest British force ever seen in India--twenty thousand
soldiers, followed by a train fourteen miles long; camels, elephants,
horses, ponies, goats, sheep, dogs, and even poultry, with stores and
tents; litters for the sick in the rear of each regiment; innumerable
servants, grooms, grass-cutters, water-carriers, porters, traders and
women--a motley crowd from every part of India; and over all a hovering
cloud of kites and vultures, ready to swoop down on the refuse of this
moving multitude and the carnage that would soon mark its advance. As
it dragged its slow length along, moreover, the army now unwound a
trail of telegraph wire, through which its head could at any moment
communicate with his base of operations, and with Lord Canning, who had
made Allahabad the seat of his Government, to be nearer the field.

Yet such a force was small enough to assail a hostile city some score
of miles in circuit, holding a population estimated at from half a
million upwards, and a garrison that, with revolted troops and fierce
swashbucklers, was believed to be still over a hundred thousand strong.
Their leaders were a woman and a priest--the Moulvie, who at the outset
became notorious by preaching a religious war against us infidels, then
all along appears to have been the animating spirit of that protracted
struggle; and the Begum, mother of a boy set up as King of Oudh. This
poor lad got little good out of his kingship; and even those in real
authority about him must have had their hands full in trying to control
his turbulent subjects.

But there was some military rule among the rebels, and during the
winter they had been diligent in fortifying their huge stronghold. A
high earthen parapet, like a railway embankment, had been thrown up
along the banks of the Canal, itself a valuable defence, now rendered
impassable where Sir Colin crossed before, with trenches and rifle-pits
beyond; inside this a line of palaces connected by earthworks formed
a second barrier; and the citadel was the Kaiser Bagh, a vast square
of courtyards crowned by battlements, spires and cupolas, gilt or
glaringly painted--a semi-barbaric Versailles. This, though it had
no great strength in itself, was put in a position of defence. The
chief streets were blocked by barriers or stockades, and the houses
loop-holed and otherwise turned to account as fortifications wherever
the assailants might be expected to force their way. Still, after the
exploits again and again performed by handfuls against hosts, there was
no one in our army who now for a moment doubted of success.

As they approached that doomed city, the English soldiers were greeted
by the cannon of the Alum Bagh, where all winter Outram, with four
thousand men, had coolly held himself in face of such a swarm of
enemies. On March 4th, Sir Colin was encamped in the parks about the
Dilkoosha, from the roof of which he surveyed the wide prospect of
palaces and gardens before him, while his outposts kept up a duel of
artillery and musketry with the Martinière opposite, where the rebels
had established themselves. He soon saw the weak point in their scheme
of defence. They had omitted to fortify the city on its north side,
supposing this to be protected sufficiently by the river, the two
permanent bridges of which were a long way up, beyond the Residency,
and approached on the further bank through straggling suburbs. Here,
then, the enemy not being prepared, was the best place to attack; and
though before more resolute and skilful opponents, it would be counted
rash to separate the two wings of an army by a deep river, under the
circumstances, this was what Sir Colin resolved to do. A pontoon-bridge
was thrown across the Goomtee, by which, on the 6th, Outram crossed
with a column of all arms, to encamp near Chinhut, the scene of our
reverse under Sir Henry Lawrence.

The next two days were spent in pushing back the enemy, who had soon
discovered Outram's movements; and by the morning of the 9th, he had
established himself on the left side of the river, with a battery
enfilading the rear of the first defensive line running from its right
bank. Just as the guns were about to open fire, it appeared that the
rebels had not stayed for any further hint to be off. On the opposite
side could be seen a detachment of Highlanders waiting to carry the
abandoned wall. Shouts and gestures failing to attract their attention,
a brave young officer volunteered to swim over the river to make
certain how matters stood; and presently a dripping figure was seen on
the top of the parapet, beckoning up the Highlanders, who rushed in to
find the works here abandoned to them without a blow. The Martinière,
close by, was carried with almost equal ease, the Sepoys swarming out
like rats from a sinking ship; and thus quickly a footing had already
been gained in those elaborate defences. Before the day was over, we
held the enemy's first line of defence.

For another two days, the operations went on without a check, Outram
advancing on the opposite side as far as the bridges and bombarding
the works in the city from flank and rear, while Sir Colin took and
occupied, one by one, the strong buildings, some of which, already
familiar to his companions in the former attack, were found still
tainted by the corpses of its victims, but this time gave not so much
trouble. Jung Bahadoor now arrived with his Goorkhas, enabling the line
of assault to be extended to the left. Two more days, Sir Colin sapped
and stormed his way through fortified buildings on the open ground
between the river and the city, choosing this slow progress rather
than expose his men to the risk of street-fighting. On the 14th, the
third line of works was seized, and our men pressed eagerly forward
into the courts and gardens of the Kaiser Bagh, which at once fell into
their hands with some confused slaughter.

This rapid success came so unexpectedly, that no arrangements had been
made for restraining the triumphant soldiery from such a wild orgy
of spoil and destruction as now burst loose through that spacious
pleasure-house. The scene has been vividly described by Dr. Russell,
the _Times_ Correspondent, who was an eye-witness--walls broken down,
blazing or ball-pitted; statues and fountains reddened with blood; dead
or dying Sepoys in the orange-groves and summer-houses; at every door
a crowd of powder-grimed soldiers blowing open the locks, or smashing
the panels with the butt ends of their muskets; their officers in vain
trying to recall them to discipline; the men, "drunk with plunder,"
smashing vases and mirrors, ripping up pictures, making bonfires of
costly furniture, tearing away gems from their setting, breaking open
lids, staggering out loaded with porcelain, tapestry, caskets of
jewels, splendid arms and robes, strangely disguised in shawls and
head-dresses of magnificent plumes. Even parrots, monkeys, and other
tame animals were made part of the booty. One man offered Dr. Russell
for a hundred rupees a chain of precious stones afterwards sold for
several thousand pounds; another was excitedly carrying off a string
of glass prisms from a chandelier, taking them for priceless emeralds;
some might be seen swathed in cloth of gold, or flinging away too
cumbrous treasures that would have been a small fortune to them. This
wasteful robbery broke loose while the din of shots and yells still
echoed through the battered walls and labyrinthine corridors of the
palace. Then, as fresh bands poured in to share the loot, white men and
black, these comrades had almost turned their weapons on each other
in the rage of greed; and, meantime, without gathered a crowd of more
timid but not less eager camp-followers, waiting till the lions had
gorged themselves, to fall like jackals upon the leavings of the spoil.
To this had come the rich magnificence of the kings of Oudh.

Amid such distraction, the victors thought little of following up
their routed enemy, whose ruin, however, would have been overwhelming
had Outram, as was his own wish, now crossed the nearest bridge to
fall upon the mass of dismayed fugitives. Sir Colin had given him
leave to do so on condition of not losing a single man--an emphatic
caution, perhaps not meant to be taken literally; but Outram, whom
nobody could suspect of failing in hardihood, interpreted it as keeping
him inactive. Thus a great number of rebels now made their escape,
scattering over the country. Many still clung to the further buildings,
which remained to be carried. Even two days later some of them had
the boldness to sally out against our rear at the Alum Bagh, and the
Moulvie, their leader, did not take flight for some days. But, after
the capture of the chief palace, the rest could be only a matter of
time.

By the end of a week, with little further opposition, on March 21,
we had mastered the whole city, to find it almost deserted by its
terrified inhabitants, after enjoying for almost a year the doubtful
benefits of independence.

The British soldiers were now lodged in the palaces of Oudh, and might
stroll admiringly through the ruins of that wretched fortress which, in
the hands of their countrymen, had held out as many months as it had
taken them days to overcome the formidable works of the enemy. Their
victory was followed up by a proclamation from the Governor-General,
that in the opinion of many seemed harsh and unwise, since, with a few
exceptions, it declared the lands of Oudh forfeit to the conquering
power. The natural tendency of this was to drive the dispossessed
nobles and landowners into a guerilla warfare, in which they were
supported by the rebels escaped from Lucknow to scatter over the
country, taking as strongholds the forts and jungles that abound in it.
Nearly a year, indeed, passed before Oudh was fully pacified.

After sending out columns to deal with some of the most conspicuous
points of danger, Sir Colin moved into Rohilcund, his next task being
the reduction of its no less contumacious population. On May 5th, a
sharp fight decided the fate of Bareilly, its capital. Then he was
recalled by the Oudh rebels, growing to some head again under that
persistent foe the Moulvie. But, next month, the Moulvie fell in a
petty affray with some of his own countrymen--a too inglorious end for
one of our most hearty and determined opponents, who seems to have had
the gifts of a leader as well as of a preacher of rebellion.

Again may be hurried over a monotonous record of almost constant
success. The troops had suffered so frightfully from heat, that they
must now be allowed a little repose through the rainy season. With
next winter began the slow work of hunting down the rebels, in which
Sir Hope Grant took a leading part. By the spring of 1859, those still
in arms had been driven into Nepaul, or forced to take shelter in the
pestilential, tiger-haunted jungles of the Terai, while throughout
Hindostan burned bungalows were rebuilding, broken telegraph-posts
replacing, officials coming back to their stations; and the machinery
of law and order became gradually brought again into gear, under the
dread of a race that could so well assert its supremacy.



CHAPTER IX

THE EXTINCTION


It has been impossible to note all the minor operations in this
confused war, and the isolated risings of which here and there we have
caught glimpses through the clouds of smoke overhanging the main field
of action--a mere corner of India, yet a region as large as England.
Thrills of sympathetic disaffection ran out towards Assam on the one
side, and to Goojerat on the other; up northwards into the Punjaub, as
we have seen, then through the Central Provinces, down into Bombay, and
to the great native state of Hyderabad, where the Nizam and his shrewd
minister Salar Jung managed to keep their people quiet, yet reverses on
our part might at any time have inflamed them beyond restraint.

Among the protected or semi-independent Courts of Rajpootana and
Central India there were serious troubles. Scindia and Holkar, the
chief Mahratta princes, stood loyal to us; but their soldiery took the
other side. The most remarkable case of hostility here was that of the
Ranee or Queen of Jhansi, a dispossessed widow, who had much the same
grievance against the British Government as Nana Sahib, and avenged it
by similar treacherous cruelty. She managed to blind the small English
community to their danger till the Sepoys broke out early in June with
the usual excesses; then our people, taking refuge in a fort, were
persuaded to surrender, and basely massacred. After this version of the
Cawnpore tragedy on a smaller scale, the Ranee had seized the throne of
her husband's ancestors, to defend it with more spirit than was shown
by the would-be Peshwa.

The whole heart of the Continent remained in a state of intermittent
disorder, and little could be done to put this down till the beginning
of 1858, when columns of troops from Madras and Bombay respectively
marched northward to clear the central districts, and rid Sir Colin
Campbell of the marauding swarms that thence troubled his rear. The
Bombay column, under Sir Hugh Rose, had the harder work of it. Fighting
his way through a difficult country, he first relieved the English who
for more than seven months had been holding out at Saugor; then moved
upon Jhansi, a strongly fortified city, with a rock-built citadel
towering over its walls.

The Ranee was found determined to hold out, and on March 22nd a siege
of this formidable fortress had to be undertaken by two brigades of
European soldiers and Sepoys. At the end of a week, they in turn
became threatened by over twenty thousand rebels, under Tantia Topee,
advancing to raise the siege. Fifteen hundred men, only a third of them
Europeans, were all Sir Hugh Rose could spare from before the walls,
but with so few he faced this fresh army, that seemed able to envelop
his little band in far-stretching masses. Again, however, bold tactics
were successful against a foe that seldom bore to be assailed at an
unexpected point. Attacked on each flank by cavalry and artillery,
the long line of Sepoys wavered, and gave way at the first onset of
a handful of infantry in front. They fell back on their second line,
which had no heart to renew the battle. Setting fire to the jungle in
front of him, Tantia Topee fled with the loss of all his guns, hotly
pursued through the blazing timber by our cavalry and artillery.

Next day but one, April 3rd, while this brilliant victory was still
fresh, our soldiers carried Jhansi by assault. Severe fighting took
place in the streets round the palace; then the citadel was evacuated,
and the Ranee fled to Calpee, not far south of Cawnpore. Sir Hugh
Rose followed, as soon as he could get supplies, defeating Tantia
Topee once more on the road. Our most terrible enemy was the sun,
which struck down men by hundreds; the commander himself had several
sunstrokes, and more than half of one regiment fell out in a single
day. Half the whole force were in the doctor's hands; hardly a man
among them but was ailing. The rebels knew this weak point well, and
sought to make their harassing attacks in the mid-day heat. The want of
water also was most distressing at times; men and beasts went almost
mad with thirst, when tears could be seen running from the eyes of
the huge elephants sweltering on a shadeless plain, and the backs of
howling dogs were burned raw by the cruel sun.

But the work seemed almost done, and in confidence of full success Sir
Hugh Rose did not wait for the Madras column, which should now have
joined him, but could not come up in time. At Calpee, the arsenal of
the rebels, were the Ranee and Rao Sahib, a nephew of the Nana. This
place also was a picturesque and imposing fortress that might well have
delayed the little army. But the infatuated enemy, driven to madness
by drugs and fanatical excitement, swarmed out into the labyrinth of
sun-baked ravines before it, to attack our fainting soldiers; then they
met with such a reception as to send them flying, not only from the
field, but from the town, and their arsenal, with all its contents,
fell an easy prey to the victors. This march of a thousand miles,
though so briefly related, was distinguished by some of the finest
feats of arms in the whole war.

The Madras column, under General Whitlock, had meanwhile had a less
glorious career. After overthrowing the Nawab of Banda, it marched
against the boy-Prince of Kirwi, a ward of the British Government,
who was only nine years old and could hardly be accused of hostility,
though his people shared the feelings of their neighbours. His palace
fell without a blow. Yet its treasures were pronounced a prize of the
soldiery, and the poor boy himself became dethroned for a rebellious
disposition he could neither inspire nor prevent. This seems one of the
most discreditable of our doings in the high-handed suppression of the
Mutiny.

Leaving Whitlock's men with their easily-won booty, we return to Sir
Hugh Rose, who now hoped to take well-earned repose. At the end of May
he had already begun to break up his sickly force, when startling news
came that the resources of the rebels were not yet exhausted. Tantia,
Rao Sahib, and the Ranee had hit on the idea of seizing Gwalior, and
turning it into a nucleus of renewed hostility. Scindia marched out to
meet them on June 1, but a few shots decided the battle. Most of his
army went over to the enemy, who seized his capital with its treasures
and munitions of war, and proclaimed Nana Sahib as Peshwa. The alarming
danger was that under a title once so illustrious, a revolt might
still spread far southwards into the Deccan through the whole Mahratta
country.

Without waiting for orders, broken in health as he was, Sir Hugh Rose
lost no time in starting out to extinguish this new conflagration. By
forced marches, made as far as possible at night, he reached Gwalior
in a fortnight, not without encounters by the way, in one of which
fell obscurely that undaunted Amazon, the young Ranee, dressed in
man's clothes, whom her conqueror judged more of a man than any among
the rebel leaders; the Indian Joan of Arc she has been called, and
certainly makes the most heroic figure on that side of the contest.
On June 19, her allies made a last useless stand before Gwalior. The
pursuers followed them into the city, and next day its mighty fortress,
famed as the Gibraltar of India, was audaciously broken into by a
couple of subalterns, a blacksmith, and a few Sepoys. The character of
the war may be seen, in which such an exploit passes with so slight
notice; and these rapid successes against mighty strongholds are a
remarkable contrast to the vain efforts of the mutineers to wrest from
us our poor places of refuge.

Tantia Topee was followed up beyond Gwalior, and once more defeated
with the loss of his guns, a matter of one charge, over in a few
minutes. But that by no means made an end of this pertinacious rebel,
who for the best part of a year yet was to lead our officers a weary
chase all up and down the west of Central India. Through jungles and
deserts, over mountains and rivers, by half-friendly, half-frightened
towns, running and lurking, doubling and twisting, along a trail of
some three thousand miles, he found himself everywhere hunted and
headed, but could nowhere be brought effectually to bay. Here and there
he might make a short stand, which always had the same result; and the
nature of these encounters may be judged from one in which, with eight
thousand men and thirty guns, he was routed without a single casualty
on our side.

The great object was to prevent him getting south into the Deccan and
stirring up the Mahrattas there to swell his shrivelled ranks, and
this was successfully attained. As for catching him, that seemed more
difficult. But at length he grew worn out. Such followers as were left
him slunk away to their homes, or split up into wandering bands of
robbers; the toils of the hunters closed round their slippery chief,
fairly driven into hiding. Betrayed by a rebel who thus sought to make
his peace with our Government, he was at length laid hands on in the
spring of 1859, to be speedily tried and hanged, the last hydra-head of
the insurrection.

For murderers like those of Cawnpore there was no pardon. But English
blood ran calmer now, and wise men might talk of mercy to the misguided
masses. The Governor-General had already earned the honourable nickname
of "Clemency Canning," given in bitterness by those not noble enough
to use victory with moderation. At the end of 1858, the Queen's
proclamation offered an amnesty to all rebels who had taken no part
in the murder of Europeans. This came none too soon, for the ruthless
severity with which we followed our first successes had been a main
cause in driving the beaten enemy to desperation, and thus prolonging a
hopeless struggle.

It must be confessed with shame, that not only in the heat of combat,
but in deliberate savagery excited by the licence of revenge, and with
formal mockeries of justice, too many Englishmen gave themselves up
to a heathen lust for bloodshed. Hasty punishment fell often on the
innocent as well as the guilty, meted with the same rough measure to
mutinous soldiers and to those whose crime, as in Oudh, was that of
defending their country against an arrogant and powerful oppressor. The
mass of the natives could hardly help themselves between one side and
the other; and if they did sympathize with their own countrymen, was it
for the descendants of Cromwell, of Wallace, of Alfred, to blame them
so wrathfully?

Heavy could not but be the punishment that visited this unhappy land.
Not a few of the mutineers were spared in battle to die by inches in
some unwholesome jungle, or slunk home, when they durst, only to meet
the curses of the friends upon whom they had brought so much misery,
and to be at a loss how to earn their bread, pay and pension having
been scattered to the winds of rebellion. The sufferings of the civil
population, even where they had not risen in arms, were also pitiable;
and if hundreds of homes in England had been bereaved, there would be
thousands of dusky heathen to mourn their dear ones. The country was
laid waste in many parts; towns and palaces were ruined; landowners
were dispossessed, nobles driven into beggary among the multitude of
humbler victims, whose very religion was insulted to bring home to them
their defeat. A favourite mode of execution was blowing prisoners away
from the mouth of guns, through which they believed themselves doomed
in the shadowy life beyond death; and where they came to be hanged,
the last rude offices were done by the eternally profaning touch of
the sweeper caste. The temples on the river-side at Cawnpore had been
blown up, as a sacrifice to the memory of our massacred country-people.
The mosques and shrines of Delhi were thrown open to the infidel.
Immediately after its capture, there had even been a talk of razing
this great city to the ground, that its magnificence might be forgotten
in its guilt.

The old king had paid dearly for that short-lived attempt to revive the
glories of his ancestors. Tried by court-martial, he was transported
to Rangoon, where he soon died in captivity. Certain other potentates
were punished, and some rewarded at their expense, for varying conduct
during a crisis when most of them had the same desire to be on the
winning side, but some played their game more skilfully or more luckily
than others. Nana Sahib, the most hateful of our enemies, escaped the
speedy death that awaited him if ever he fell into British hands. He
fled to the Himalayas with a high price on his head, and his fate was
never known for certain; but the probability is that long ago he has
perished more miserably than if he had been brought to the gallows.

The Power which had set up and pulled down so many princes became
itself dispossessed and abolished through the upheavings of the
Mutiny. In England, it was felt on all hands that such an empire as
had grown out of our Eastern possessions, should no longer be left
under the control of even a so dignified body as the East India
Company. The realm won by private or corporate enterprise was annexed
to the dominions of the British Crown; and on Nov. 1, 1858, the same
proclamation which offered amnesty to the submissive rebels, declared
that henceforth the Queen of England ruled as sovereign over India.

In 1877, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress at Delhi, amid an
imposing assemblage both of actual rulers and of gorgeous native
potentates bearing time-honoured titles, who thus fully acknowledged
themselves vassals of the Power that in little more than a century had
taken the place of the Great Mogul.

Our rule in India has now become marked by a feature almost new
in the history of conquerors. We begin to recognize more and more
clearly that we owe this subjugated land a debt in the elevation of
her long-oppressed millions. With this duty comes a new source of
danger. By the very means we take here to raise up a sense of common
welfare, and through the destruction of those petty tyrannies that
hitherto held apart the elements of national life, we are teaching the
agglomeration of races to whom we have given a common name to look on
themselves as one people, still too much differing from us in interests
and sympathies; and it is to be feared that their growth in healthy
progress does not keep pace with the hot-headed and loud-tongued
patriotism of some who, in the schools of their rulers, have learned
rather to talk about than to be fit for freedom. Though such noisy
discontent is chiefly noted among the classes least formidable in arms,
while the more warlike seem not unwilling to accept our supremacy,
if ever another rebellion took place, we should have to deal with a
less unorganized sentiment of national existence, and perhaps with the
deeper and wider counsels, for want of which mainly, we have seen how
the Mutiny miscarried, that else might have swept our scanty force out
of India. On the other hand, in such a future emergency, we should have
the advantage both of the improved scientific arms, so decisive in
modern warfare, the use of which we now take more care to keep in our
own hands, and of those better means of communication with the East,
gained within the lifetime of our generation. In less than a month, we
could throw into India as many English soldiers as, in 1857, arrived
only in time to stamp out the embers of an almost ruinous conflagration.

In any case, the conscience of England has set up a new standard to
judge its achievements--by the good we can do to this great people, and
not by the gain we can wring from them, the honour of our mastery must
stand or fall.

The work of education may well be longer and harder than that of
conquest. The conduct of our countrymen here causes yet too much shame
and doubt in thoughtful minds. But when we see the spirit in which many
of India's rulers undertake their difficult task--the patient labours
of officials, following the pattern of men like Outram, Lawrence,
Havelock, the devotion to duty that often meets no reward but an early
grave--we take hope that their work may after all weld into strength a
free, prosperous, and united nation. And though we wisely forbear to
force our faith upon these benighted souls, it rests with ourselves
in time, through the power of example, to win a nobler victory than
any in the blood-stained annals of Hindostan. Missionary teachings can
little avail, if Christians, set among the heathen in such authority
and pre-eminence, are not true to their own lessons of righteousness.
Standing beside that proudly-mournful monument which now crowns the
ridge of Delhi, and raises our holiest symbol over the once-rebellious
city, every Englishman should be inspired to a braver struggle than
with armed foes, that, mastering himself, he may rightly do his part
towards planting the Cross--not in show alone, but in power--above the
cruel Crescent and the hideous idols of an outworn creed!



APPENDIX

CHIEF DATES OF INDIAN HISTORY


   Alexander the Great's Invasion of India                B.C. 327

   Slave Kings of Delhi                               A.D. 1206-90

   Tamerlane's Invasion                                       1398

   Vasco de Gama's Voyage                                     1498

   Baber founds the Mogul Empire                              1526

   Akbar's Reign                                         1556-1605

   East India Company Incorporated                            1600

   Sivajee becomes King of the Mahrattas                      1674

   Death of Aurungzebe                                        1707

   Nadir Shah plunders Delhi                                  1739

   Clive's Defence of Arcot                                   1751

   Battle of Plassey                                          1757

   War with Hyder Ali                                         1780

   Trial of Warren Hastings                                1788-95

   Storming of Seringapatam                                   1799

   Battle of Assaye                                           1803

   Overthrow of the Mahrattas                                 1818

   First Burmese War                                          1824

   Capture of Bhurtpore                                       1827

   Lord William Bentinck's Governorship                       1829

   Disasters in Afghanistan                                   1841

   Conquest of Scinde                                         1843

   First Sikh War                                             1845

   Second Sikh War                                            1848

   Conquest of Pegu                                           1852

   Annexation of Oudh                                         1856

   The Sepoy Mutiny                                           1857

   Outbreak at Meerut                                   May 10

   The Mutineers seize Delhi                            May 11

   General Anson marches against Delhi                  May 25

   Mutiny at  Lucknow                                   May 30

     "    "   Cawnpore                                  June 4

     "    "   Jhansi                                    June 5

     "    "   Allahabad                                 June 6

   Battle of Budlee-Ka-Serai                            June 8

   Panic Sunday at Calcutta                            June 14

   Mutiny at Futtehgurh                                June 18

   Massacre at Cawnpore                                June 27

   Sir H. Lawrence defeated at Chinhut                 June 30

   English Retreat into Agra Fort                       July 5

   Havelock advances from Allahabad                     July 7

   Nana Sahib routed before Cawnpore                   July 16

   Mutiny at Dinapore                                  July 25

   Storming of Delhi                                  Sept. 14

   Surrender of the King                              Sept. 21

   Havelock's Relief of Lucknow                       Sept. 25

   Sir Colin Campbell marches to Lucknow                Nov. 9

   Residency of Lucknow evacuated                      Nov. 22

   Tantia Topee defeated at Cawnpore                    Dec. 6

                                                              1858

   Lucknow finally taken                              March 21

   Taking of Jhansi                                    April 3

   Battle of Bareilly                                    May 5

   Battle before Calpee                                 May 22

   Scindia defeated by the Rebels                       June 1

   Gwalior taken                                       June 19

   The Queen's Proclamation                             Nov. 1

                                                              1859

   Tantia Topee taken                                 April 15

   The Queen proclaimed Empress of India                      1877


THE END


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