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22
IN TIMES OF PERIL.

CHAPTER II

THE OUTBREAK.

A week after the boar hunt came the news that a Sepoy named Mangul Pandy, belonging to the Thirty-fourth Native Infantry, stationed at Barrackpore, a place only a few miles out of Culcutta, had, on the 29th of March, rushed out upon the parade ground and called upon the men to mutiny. He then shot the European sergeant-major of the regiment, and cut down an officer. Pandy continued to exhort the men to rise to arms, and although his comrades would not join him, they refused to make any movement to arrest him. General Hearsey now arrived on the parade ground with his son and a Major Ross, and at once rode at the man, who, finding that his comrades would not assist him, discharged the contents of the musket into his own body.

Two days later the mutinous Nineteenth were disbanded at Barrackpore. On the 3d of April Mangul Pandy, who had only wounded himself, was hung, and the same doom was allotted to a native officer of his regiment for refusing to order the men to assist the officer attacked by that mutineer, and for himself inciting the men to rise against the government.

"What do you think of the news, papa?" Dick asked his father.

"I hope that the example which has been set by the execution of these ringleaders, and by the disbandment of