On to the Rescue: A tale of the Indian Mutiny/Book II

by William Gordon Stables

BOOK II.

Chapter I. "YOUR BIG BROWN BROTHER JACK."

STURDILY steaming onwards south and south went the good ship Mauritius, and life on board went on much the same.

But it seemed to have become a standing joke both fore and aft to ask one's neighbour the question : "Any signs of the BdL&ide?"

The Belleisle was a sailing ship, a strong old seventy or eighty gun ship, and one that had made her mark in the hull and masts of many a foe in the brave old days of Nelson. And this craft had started about ten days before the steamer with the other three companies of the 93rd.

" Good morning," the doctor would say to the sailing master, " seen anything of the old Bdleisle ? "

" Good morning," the soldier officers would say, when they came into breakfast, " sighted the JBelleisle yet ? " The fact of the matter is that the captain of the Mauritius had told the first lieutenant, who had told it in confidence to the paymaster, who had whispered it to the clerks, who had "blabbed" it to the gun-room stewards, who had given it to the marines, and therefore to all the ship's crew, sailors and soldiers, that he, the captain, was not going to permit that jolly old tub of a Bdleisle to reach the Cape of Good Hope before him, although they had handicapped him by giving her a ten days' start.

"We'll come up to her south of the line, you'll see," he said. " Come up with her hand over hand, and overhaul her about ten south. Mark my words for that."

the Mauritius lay in with letters at Madeira, and everybody asked that question, " Seen the old Bdl&isle ? " And when they reached the Cape de Verdes the self- same question was repeated or something like it, " Any- body seen the old Bdleisle ? "

But lo and behold for once in his lifetime, if only for once, the bold captain of the Mauritius had reckoned without his host, and they never saw the old Bdleisle till they steamed into Simon's Bay in the dusk of the evening, and heard the bugle-call of the 93rd sounding cheerily over the water. So the old Belleisle had won the race.

But the old Belleisle was very glad indeed to meet the Mauritius, as she brought the last letters and the last news from home.

It was now the 12th of August, 1857, and sad indeed was the news that had awaited the Belleisle, and was now communicated to the Mauritius.

The terrible Indian Mutiny had broken out, the Sepoys had revolted, had murdered their officers and every European (so said report) they could lay hands upon men, women, and helpless children.

Though it turned out to be only too true, the news was not at first credited. Only it had the effect of changing the destination of the gallant 93rd. Instead of sailing for China therefore, both ships were ordered to take additional drafts of men that had been intended for the squadron in the far eastern seas, and to make the best of their way forthwith to Calcutta and the Granges.

When Willie Saunders bade farewell to his native glen, and went south to join his regiment at Dover, one of his last requests to his mother and a very earnest one it was referred to his unfortunate attachment to Annie Lindsay, and his strained relations with Jack Morrison.

" I am going away, mother dear," he said ; " it is partly because I want to see the world, to see other faces than those in our glen, and other hills than those that hem it in. But I am also going away because I want to forget. Dear mother, you must help me to forget, and whatever should happen at Balaklava Lodge, or to Jack or Annie, I must know nothing at all about it. Do you promise, mother ? "

" I promise, boy," said Mrs. Saunders, and right faith- fully she had kept her promise.

Then as Willie had no correspondent at all in the glen save her, the glen was virtually dead to Mm, and had been so for a whole year.

If he thought of Jack and Annie at all, they rose up before his mind's eye as a wedded pair, living perhaps at Jack's father's, or even at the Lodge. What cared "Willie now ? To think of Annie would be a sin, though his love for her had darkened his life, and why should he think of Jack since he could not yet forgive him for what he considered his rank duplicity. His main object in life for a whole year back had been to forget. But often and often of late in his dreams by night, when far away on the lone, dark sea, he met Jack Morrison ; and always he was the same, always standing silently by his brown mare's shoulder, with that big red hand of his extended, and that look of wonder and sadness on his innocent almost boyish face.

Now, reader, I do not know what you may be, but brought up as I have been in the silence of a far northern part of the country, and coming as I do of a race of Celts, I am just a trifle superstitious, and to some extent a believer in dreams. However, I do not desire that my beliefs should influence yours in the slightest degree.

It was somewhat strange, nevertheless, that just two days before the Mauritius steamed into Simon's Bay he should dream once more of his old friend Jack, a dream so vivid and startling that he awoke trembling and bathed in perspiration.

Jack Morrison was not standing by his mare's shoulder this time, but under a palm-tree, not a tall one ; it was but little more than a bush, and there were others near it, but the glare of tropical sunshine outside the green of these trees was so great that Jack appeared to be in a cave. Yet a broad stripe of light revealed his whole form and countenance. He was kneeling beside something that the dreamer scarce could see, but it looked like a doubled-up or slain corpse.

Jack's arms were extended as if in supplication ; his face was worn and white, his eyes sunk deep in his head, and a thin line of blood seemed trickling down from a wound above the temple.

" Willie, Willie ! " pleaded Jack, " come out and help us."

Willie Saunders slept no more that night, and he was almost afraid to fall asleep next night, lest the same terrible vision might once again present itself.

But it did not.

• But now comes the strange part of this dream-tale.

Among the letters brought by a steamer from England a day before the Mauritius sailed was one in Jack's well- known hand.

At first Willie felt half inclined to tear it .up and throw it away. "Why, he said to himself, "should I open up old sores that are just beginning to heal over ?"

But then he remembered his dream "Willie, Willie, come out and help us !"

He went farther forward with the letter in his hands and leant over the bows. If there was anything in it to displease or annoy him he meant to drop it into the sea.

Much to Willie's surprise the letter was dated from India, and seeing the address his heart gave an uneasy throb.

" Heaven help me," he thought, " is Jack out there, and Annie too, murdered by this time perhaps."

There was no likelihood of Willie's throwing away the letter now, he would read it to the end, however bitter that end might be.

But March 31st, 1857, was the date of the letter, and Agra was its postal town. It must have been delayed long in transmission.

" DEAR OLD FRIEND," (it began)

" I know you will be surprised to hear from me after the strange and unaccountable way we last parted. I would not be writing now, dear old man, but for the fact that something has only just occurred that tends to clear matters up between us, and explains to me your treatment of me when I met you, as I rode down the glen from Balaklava. Though it was unfortunate that you did not give me a chance to finish my sentence, and tell you that I wished you to rejoice with me over a success I had in Aberdeen in obtaining a splendid appointment in India, and which I had deferred mention- ing to you till I was certain, still, Willie, I do not wonder at you cutting me dead as you did, under the belief that I had deceived you and acted the part of a man who is more a fiend than a friend. But I had not done so, I never made love to Annie Lindsay, I never breathed a word of love to her, though I have always looked upon her as almost a sister. Nor did she ever love or care for me otherwise than as a friend or brother.

"But, Willie, you were haughty with me that day. There seemed to blaze in your eyes all the bitterness of hate.

"Do you remember how you even struck poor Bruce, because the dear fellow fawned on me as usual ? "

Willie Saunders groaned aloud at this reminiscence, and his eyes grew misty with tears.

"So, Willie, although I could not understand your conduct nor understand you, I fell back on my Highland pride and tried hard to forget you.

" I even stopped people in the midst of a conversation if they ever mentioned your name.

" And now as to my reason for now writing you. It is this : I have just received a letter from a young lady in Scotland who used to live in our glen. It seems that you had, innocently enough no doubt, given her some cause to think you were not indifferent to her. But your evident regard for Annie Lindsay, which, on the evening of the ball you took small pains to hide, stirred up in her mind the demon jealousy, and with a friend of hers she formed a plan to be revenged on you, and this was carried out in the conservatory.

" It was a brutal and a cruel act, and I wonder much that anyone could have done it. I enclose her letter to me, which you will see is a full confession. She is evidently penitent, and full of remorse and grief that the words she meant you to hear in the conservatory should have had the effect of banishing you from your native land, and of destroying the brotherly love and friendship that has existed 'twixt you and me since

" ' We baith did run aboot the braes, And pu'd the gowans fine.'

"Willie, Willie, I know already that the cloud is dispelled, and that we are true friends again as of yore. I feel as I write the warm grasp of your hand, and see the happy smile upon your face. Friends again! Oh, how happy I am !

" A word about myself farther on, but first a word about Annie. Believe me then, lad, when I tell you that I feel certain she cares for you. I would be the last to raise in your honest heart one single ray of hope that was likely in future to be quenched in disappointment ; but, Willie, I know nothing of woman's heart if Annie's is not all yours. But you must pardon me for adding, Willie, that you are a laggard in love, though I'll wager my head you will prove no dastard in war. Why, man, didn't you press your suit, instead of going off with your heart in your mouth to become a soldier ?

" Enough then, I have given you hope. Write to the lassie, whose letter I enclose. Be a Christian, and forgive her. Write to me, and write to the Lindsays, one and all.

" Now just a word about myself. I will tell you far more when next I write.

" I am in India, you know. India is the j oiliest place out by a very long long chalk, Willie, and it seems to suit me all to pieces. My work is responsible work, but it is not hard. I live with my employer, who is a magistrate ; but I have plenty of time to read and keep my journal, and plenty of time for sport. I have already killed a tiger or two, and have sent Annie the skins, to show the prowess of this big brown brother of hers. Yes, I 'm brown ; indeed, brown is no word for it. In a contest for colour bricks wouldn't have the ghost of a chance beside either my cheeks or my brow.

" Hullo ! here comes a servant with an order for me to start up country at once on an important mission. So I 'm off. I shall have a whole cavalcade of servants and horses, and five faithful Sepoys to guard me, though the country, despite some ugly rumours concerning disaffection, is as safe as our dear old glen.

" Good-bye, Willie. Isn't it jolly just that we are now as good friends as ever, and that the ugly dark cloud that hid us from each other has blown quite away ?

"God bless you, Willie!

" Your big brown brother,

"JACK."

The letter almost fell from Willie's hands as he finished reading it.

" What a fool I have been ! " he said, " and what a brute to Jack ! Yes, yes, dear brother mine, the cloud has gone. We are to each other now as we were in days of yore brothers still !

" And Annie dear girl ! is it possible that Jack could have read her heart better than I? Is it possible that she cares for me ? "

The thought was a very pleasing one.

But next moment Willie's face changed. He looked at the postmarks on the letter. Why, poor Jack must be in the very thick of the Mutiny !

Then he thought of his dream " Willie, Willie, come out and help us ! "

" Oh, Jack, Jack ! " he exclaimed half -aloud, " what rf we shall be too late ? What if you are already among the slain ? Oh, Jack, my brother, my brother ! "

Chapter II. LIFE ON INDIAN SHORES.

WE must once more leave the gallant ships Mauritius and the old Belleisle, and betake ourselves to Indian shores. We know well that all that sailors can do will be done on board to speed the passage, and that, arrived on shore, all that brave soldiers can do will be done to rescue beleaguered garrisons, and bring health and safety to helpless women and children.

Here we are then " on India's coral strand," as the poet calls it. It is towards the end of autumn in 1856, and the Mutiny has not yet broken out. Jack Morrison has just come out from England, and is here by the sea, where he remains for a few weeks before going up country, at the house of a brother of the magistrate to whose office he will soon be attached.

How different is everything here from that to which we have been accustomed in Scotland north! Here no crimson heath or purple heather clothes the hills, no scarlet poppies peep up through rising corn, no dewy-eyed bluebell, no modest primrose, glints through the grass's green by covert or hedgerow. But a bluer, brighter sky gleams over us ; above us burns a fiercer sun, the groves of orange and citron and plantain look foreign though beautiful to the eye; the forest trees themselves are strange ; strange forms of insect life fill the air with musical hum, and brilliantly-plumaged birds flit from bough to bough. Those birds may be lovely, one thinks ; but why do so few of them sing, as do our linnets and larks at home ? I can tell you the why, reader. Up in yonder tree hides many a hawk and bird of prey, so the little birds must sing their love songs so low that only the birds they are addressed to can hear them even the snakes and reptiles that lurk beneath the fairest flowers would find them out if they did not woo in silence.

Out yonder towards the south and east, if we cast our eyes, we shall look upon an ocean far brighter and more pellucid in its waters than any we have ever dreamt of ; and in tiny ripples its wavelets are now breaking musically upon a snowy beach of coral sand. Were the brightness of the day to tempt us to bathe we might swim or wade for miles from the land without getting beyond our depth, and if naturalists or lovers of nature we could hardly help wishing we might live for ever in that bright and sunlit sea. For down there beneath lie submarine gardens more beautiful by far than Arab's dream of paradise. Describe them, did you say. Would that I could, and yet they rise up before my mind's eye even now as I write, and I have but to shut my eyes to see them once again, their bright- ness scarcely dimmed by the lapse of years ; see them, as I often have, as I leant over the gunwale of my skiff lying entranced mayhap for hours.

But the English language is singularly destitute of words truly descriptive of beauty, and I, at all events, can find none that are capable of giving a stranger to these regions an idea of even half the loveliness that waves on coral sands 'neath Indian seas. " Waves " is just the word, for every branchlet, every twig, every stem and flower, ofttimes clad in more than rainbow brightness of colour and sparkling with light, seems instinct with half-animal power of life and motion, and even in weather so calm that there is not so much as a ripple upon the ocean's breast, we may see them gently moving to and fro.

But beautiful though these gaily-tinted coral algre be, let us hasten back to the beach, nor tempt a swim in the deeper water; for where the shore suddenly shelves, where we lose sight suddenly of our sea flowers, and the water grows dark around us, we may catch glimpses deep down, of monstrous forms that may haunt our dreams for many a day.

So we hasten back to the shore, and here in some cool grotto await the day's decline. And now come gentle breezes, fanning our heated brows, and almost wooing us to sweetest slumber. But even at eventide scenes of beauty are still before us. Look ! Away over the ocean yonder, towards the distant and now fading horizon, a solitary light gently rising and falling on the billows. "Tis a homeward bound steamer, perhaps a little world in itself, afloat on the deep filled with its own fears, cheered with its own hopes. Care and sorrow, joy and gladness, all are there a little city on the sea. Let us pray God to speed her, and turn our eyes towards the east. There, from an emerald-tinted sky, gleams out the evening star the star of love, the bright-eyed happy, gloaming star. Be- hind us, if we look, low towards the ground, we shall see many other stars less bright, it is true, but rest- less, moving, gliding, flitting, dancing around every bush, and wheeling in fiery flight among the feathery palm trees. Fire-flies these.

But there, we have stayed long enough out on the beach; for, sweet and cool as the evening breeze may be, the night winds in these latitudes often bear clammy death upon their wings. Walk inland then, for from above the distant forest-clad mountains the moon is already shedding her silvery beams over the land and over the seas. The pathway is broad, but brown not green, as our woodland walks at home are wont to be. Perhaps we stop soon to wonder what lies yonder right in our path. It is as large and round as a small footstool, dark and glistening in the moon's rays. We have room to avoid it, and we do so, wisely, for its bite is deadly. It is the black snake, or water-snake, coiled up and asleep. By-and-by he will measure all his length on the ground, creep off to find a frog or lizard, and then back to his evil cave in some dark and damp recess.

Yes, there are sounds enough in the forest here to frighten any novice. The yelping bark of the jackal, the sullen, roaring boom of wilder beasts than he. Hark! What was that spirit-like shriek? Is it a warning cry ? Again we hear it " Go back ! Go back ! Go back !" Yet is it but the voice of a harmless bird.

And strange birds often emit more terrible ear-splitting sounds by night in jungle or forest than all the wild beasts that dwell therein.

The sudden, uncanny yell, for instance, close in the bush beside you, is not the war-whoop of painted savages, but the voice of a bird. So too is that wild, unearthly laugh that ever and anon rises swelling on the night air. The silence of a few minutes may be suddenly broken by screams and shrieks from some dark thicket, as of a poor mortal in pain or agony shrieks loud, prolonged, and dying away in mournful cadence. But these also proceed from birds holding their nocturnal revels.

I have given you, then, a brief peep at life by the sea in the province where Jack Morrison spent his first few weeks. All was fresh and new to him, but all was very delightful. He felt indeed as if he had taken a new lease of life, and, if the truth must be told, he felt too that he would rather laze and lounge than work.

But life is made for work, especially young life. And so Jack was not altogether sorry when he left his southern home, and started up country to take up his appointment, and perform whatever duties devolved upon him.

And when we next meet Jack he is standing in the compound of a large and beautiful bungalow. A hale and hearty man in the very prime of life is shaking hands with him. In the doorway of the bungalow stands Mrs. Mayne herself, while two beautiful children, a girl of ten and a boy about eight, are playing in the gardens with a tame mongoosa

Life on Indian Shores. 125

Mr. Mayne, I need hardly tell the reader, was the magistrate Jack Morrison had come out to serve, and the bungalow was, situated on the outskirts of Agra.

" Well, Mr. Morrison, we are truly glad to see you, and will try to make you as happy as possible. Come in out of the glare. The servants and we have plenty of them will see to your traps."

Jack advanced towards the porch, lifting his hat to the lady as he did so.

"My wife, Mr. Morrison; Mr. Morrison, our new secretary, my dear."

" We are plain people, Mr. Morrison, although, as you see, we have a very large house, and beautiful gardens, and servants galore, as you say in Scotland. Indeed, my wife often says we have too many; but, you see, every one of them has his duties to perform, light though they may be, and the very man who brushes your boots will not be allowed to place them on the mat at your bedroom door ; the servant that places water in your room would scarce demean himself by emptying your shaving water. Well, you see, we can afford them, and the fellows are faithful, and very fond of us."

Jack had been shown into a large room with green waving jalousies or blinds before the great open case- ment windows, but coming in out of the bright sunshine for a time he could see nothing. Gradually, however, he began to observe things as if in a sort of twilight, and presently his sight was quite restored.

The apartment he could now observe was furnished with great elegance and luxury, but everything almost was Oriental, with the exception of course of the musical

126 On to the Rescue.

instruments. That piano, for instance, had come from a celebrated London maker, that harp was an Erard.

The walls were painted and gilded instead of being papered, and Jack, fresh from England, thought it strange to see unsightly-looking small lizards gheckoes crawling thereon stalking flies or moths. The rugs that lay every- where on the polished floor were chiefly skins of wild beasts, of tigers, lions, leopards, and hyaenas. Skins lay about too on sofas and ottomans, while many a huge bronze vase stood here and there, the use of which was at present a mystery to the new-comer. There were books in profusion, and arms apparently from every country under the sun.

A huge punkah depended from the roof of the room, moved by invisible hands, and the odour of orange blossom was everywhere.

"Will my secretary drink or eat?" said Magistrate Mayne.

" I think, sir, I would rather drink now."

" Wine ? We have the best to be had. We have even beer. How would that suit? No? Well I shall let Saka here prescribe for you."

Saka was a tall and very handsome brown-skinned native, who wore a dress of clean white linen and a gilded turban. His dark hair hung in massive ringlets down behind, and depended quite to his waist. Saka retired for a minute or two to give orders, and soon returned marshalling in no less than three dark-skinned little native boys, each bearing a tray, which he held in front of him quite on a level with his head.

" Ice ? " cried Jack. " What a luxury ! "

Life on Indian Shores. 127

" Oh, we never want ice ! We have it with every meal"

" And between meals too," said Mrs. Mayne with a pleasant smile.

Mrs. Mayne was dressed with almost a studied negligence, but she was possessed of a beautiful figure and an intellectual face, and her every movement was graceful She looked extremely good-natured too, and it was evident that she was not only proud of her husband but very fond of him also.

"What strange fruits," said Jack. "I don't think I shall attempt to eat any but the small ones."

"Why, my lad?"

"Well, because I am sure I do not know how to eat the large one. I should be afraid to cut that big thing, for example. It may be hard and need slicing, or it may be pulpy and require a spoon. No, I shall study the anatomy of all of these in private, then I shan't make a mistake."

But there were fruits there that Jack could tackle, as he termed it inwardly, and the iced syrup-water was truly delightful. It not only cooled and refreshed him, but calmed his nervous system, and caused him to feel perfectly at home.

By-and-by, accompanied by their ayah, a delicate- looking but pretty Indian girl, the children came in.

" There you are, then ? " said a voice in a distant corner. It seemed that of some cracked-voiced old lady. " So there you are. Delighted, I 'm sure ! Delighted . Delighted ! Give us a nut."

It was only a parrot, though one of a species Jack had never seen before.

128 On to the Rescue.

The boy lay down with his mongoose in his arms on a lion's skin. A mina in a cage began to sing plaintively and sweetly, and Jessie, the girl, stood shyly by her father's side, with her hand in his, looking at the new arrival.

It occurred to Jack then that he had never seen a happier or more contented family in his life. And subsequent events did prove that every member of it was devoted to all the rest.

• Now, Mr. Secretary," said Mr. Mayne that day after

dinner, as Jack sat opposite to him making anatomical experiments on various kinds of fruit that he had never seen before, "I am going to propose that you live here with us in our large house. If, however, you would prefer to have a small bungalow of your own there will be no difficulty about the matter."

" I shall take your advice, of course, sir, and do what- ever you may consider best."

"Thank you. Well, I look at it from perhaps a somewhat selfish point of view. You see we are virtually living all alone here, and although our life is a very pleasant one, still, except when strangers drop in, or we give a little durbar, as Jessie grandly terms our garden parties, we don't see a deal of society. What I miss most is somebody to chat with and exchange ideas with after dinner. Mrs. Mayne is a capital hand af exchanging ideas," he continued, smiling, " but she prefers dress to politics, and a copy of a Lady's Pictorial to the Law Times. You see?"

Life on Indian Shores. 129

" I follow you, sir."

" Well, if you are living in the house, you would help to make life more shortsome, as you call it in Scotland."

" I 'll do my best."

"From your own standpoint, however, the place possesses some advantages. You see you are here as my secretary, though your position is really not much better than that of a head clerk."

" Good enough for me," said Jack.

" Nonsense, lad, nonsense ! You must be ambitious. Why, you ma y be Governor of Agra yet, or even Governor of India."

Jack laughed lightly, and stuck his knife into a mango.

" Ah ! there is no laughing about it. When I say ' must be ' I mean ' must be.' Well, it may surprise you to know that I knew Colonel Lindsay long ago, and when I got his letter, so highly recommending you, I said to Mrs. Mayne, " I hope that Morrison has a pleasant face and manner, if so he shall stay in the house, and I 'll do all I can for him."

Jack blushed a little, and bowed over his mango.

" I 'm pleased with your looks, boy, and I 'm pleased with your manners, and if you stay here "

" I shall with much pleasure."

"You will be always at hand to consult with or to consult me. But this isn't all ; there are dozens of good appointments to be picked up in India, but mind you this, these appointments are becoming in a great measure competitive. Letters of recommendation and pleasing manners, willingness to work, good health, and all that

130 On to tJte Rescue.

are all very well in their way, but you want knowledge as well."

" Certainly."

" Very well, I have as capital a library as anyone of my status in India can possess. It is at your service, if you care to study, and all knotty points I shall be most pleased to smooth over for you."

" A thousand thanks, I 'm sure."

"Now if you have completed your investigations in natural history, as far as fruit is concerned, let us go to the drawing-room. We all study music here. Do you play anything ? "

" The fiddle. A little, that is."

" Good ! I play the piano, so does my wife. Jessie is a capital harpist for her age ; and Teddie is content as yet with the tambourine or triangles. Come ! "

==Chapter III.

A CLOUD NO BIGGER THAN A MAN'S HAND.

IX weeks had passed away, and that too right pleasantly. The more Jack knew of his life and duties the better he liked them ; the more he knew of the Maynes the better he loved them. Mr. Mayne was always brusque, jolly, and straightforward. He was a man indeed who carried his heart on his sleeve, and if you didn't like it, why you were not com- pelled to ; you could turn your head the other way, and not look at it.

Mrs. Mayne was always good-natured and pleasant. She had the utmost confidence in her large retinue of servants, and they all seemed to like her. The little ayah, indeed, appeared to worship the very ground she trode on.

Jessie Stopford Mayne she always would throw in

the Stopford, with emphasis too, when asked to tell her

name continued a trifle shy and thoughtful, but was

upon the whole often a charming little companion to

I 131

132 On to the Rescue.

Jack in his rambles, which otherwise might at times have been somewhat solitary.

Teddie came too. A little romp of a rascal he was. When asked his name he told you boldly enough " Teddie Mayne," and added, " Without any bothering Stopford ! "

When Teddie got tired walking during a ramble he mounted " cockertycoosie " on Jack's broad shoulders. This didn't interfere with the young man's progress in the slightest degree ; but as Teddie always insisted upon taking the mongoose up also, and spreading it longways in front of him and half-way round Jack's neck, Jack sometimes felt uncomfortably hot at that particular spot.

Jessie often came to keep the secretary company when he was hard at work in his writing-room. But this was no hindrance to him, but rather gave him the sensation of companionship.

" Go on with your work, Mr. Morrison," she would say. " Don't mind me. I 'll just curl up in a corner with my dollies, only sometimes I 'll look at you."

But Mr. Morrison had by this time become " Jack " to Mr. Mayne, and this was much more pleasant, even in office, than the stilted, stand-offish "Mr"

Mr. Mayne, despite the colour of his hair for India and Africa often bleach the locks of quite young men could walk well, and could ride well also. Duty often called him far away across his district, and even entailed visits to distant towns or cities, such as Muttra, Meerut, or Delhi

On these excursions Jack always accompanied him, or nearly always ; and they had, moreover, a fairly large retinue of armed retainers ; for even at this early date

A Cloud no Bigger than a Hand. 133

January, 1857 a cloud, though no bigger than a man's hand, was rising on the eastern horizon, and there was a calm in the air that might or might not presage a storm.

Not everyone could see this little cloud, and but few of those who did so considered that it boded anything worthy of a moment's uneasiness.

It is evident that Lord Dalhousie was not of this easy- going party, for when he resigned his Governorship in the beginning of the year he thought it right to speak a word of warning to his countrymen in India. "They were not to fall asleep," he said, "for at any moment, and even when least expected, a storm may burst and violence be committed of a nature too dreadful to con- template."

Lord Canning, the new Governor-General, believed that danger existed, as we may gather from the speech he delivered at a dinner given by the Court of Directors before his departure to take up his appointment.

" May my office be one of peace," he said. " Peaceful I wish it to begin, peaceful to end. And yet I cannot conceal from myself the seeming truth that in the sky of India, blue, calm, and serene though it now appears, a tiny cloudlet may arise no larger at first than a man's hand, but which growing larger and larger may threaten at last to burst in fearful storm and overwhelm us with

I wish my young readers now to take with me a glance at India as it then was, before the outbreak of the terrible

MAP OF INDIA.

A Cloud no Bigger than a Hand. 135

storm that Canning told the British nation might possibly arise.

From my own experience of school life I happen to know that history, if couched in big words and technical phraseology, is just about as distasteful to boys in general as politics itself, or any of the " ologies," and as to dates I am quite of their way of thinking, namely, that the best sort are those you can eat, not those you have got to remember and may get " ploughed " for.

But those who have read my writings will have perfect confidence in my not pestering them with anything disagreeable or dry-as-dust, and indeed I believe that after all the best writers of history are not your blue- faced, prim, prigmatic men who delight in long sentences and ponderous verbiage, but men like the great Macaulay and Dr. Russell, whose works have about them all the charm of a well-written romance, although while reading them we know and feel there is truth in every line.

The first glance I want you to take of India then, dear young readers, is a glance at the map itself. I have had one specially prepared for this book. And a word in confidence. I have made it an easy one. I don't think you will find the name of a single place or river or bay therein that is unnecessary.

Glance at the boundaries. Thibet in the north and east ; farther to the west is Kashmir, where the pretty shawls and things come from, you know. West of that again is Afghanistan, where our British soldiers have so often covered themselves with glory. Then run right south from Afghanistan through Beloochistan and you tumble right into the Arabian Sea. That insures you of a

136 On to the Rescue.

wet jacket anyhow, but then the water is so delight- fully warm, and the sky above so blue and sunny, that there isn't the slightest chance of your catching a severe cold.

Only now that we are in the sea we may as well order a boat or a beautiful and expensive yacht. The expense does not signify, because we won't be called upon to pay.

Ah, this is truly delightful! No better way of studying a map and seeing a bit of the world can be devised. And this yacht we are now on board of is a second Sunbeam. Just look how taut and trim she is, how saucily the masts rake, how neat the rigging, and how nattily the men are dressed.

The sun is hot to be sure, but there is an awning spread, and as we lounge on the clean white deck in our chairs we can keep cool enough as we listen to the string band, by sipping iced sherbet and using a fan.

We sail south with a trifle of east in it. We hug the shore, that is we go as near to it as we safely can, but are never close enough to pitch a ball of spun-yarn on to the beach. That is the Gulf of Cutch away up yonder on the lee bow, but we shan't go in, but continue our voyage by the green coast of the province of Kathiawar. India, you will observe, is all divided into provinces, and although I don't insist on it, still it would do you no harm now, nor in after life, if you could acquaint yourselves with the names and bearings and boundaries of these. For instance, we often hear of Assam about tea-time, or when we go to our grocers to order the wherewithal to make the cup that cheers, but does not inebriate.

A Cloitd no Bigger than a Hand. 137

" Where in all the world is Assam ? " a question we 've heard.

" Oh, somewhere in India !" the answer.

This would not do for me if I were your teacher. But here is my map ; find it, please.

Southward still in our yacht. But now the land recedes, and presently we see none at all. Have we altered our course ? Oh no, we are but sailing past the entrance to the Gulf of Cambay ! I could tell you a story about this bay that would make your flesh creep. Not to-day though.

And here we are at Bombay. We all knew from our very infancy that Bombay was on Indian shores, but lots of us did not know it was on the west coast. At the time of the Mutiny Bombay was a walled town, but the walls have since been pulled down a good thing too, for they were practically useless^ and they kept the air out. Fresh air was much needed in Bombay, especially in the old town.

We leave the harbour and city of Bombay, the former crowded with ships of all nations under the sun, and go silently sailing along by the coast of Malabar till we reach the most southerly point of India or Hindu- stan, and double the Cape.

What stories and tales crowd into my memory as I look upon the mere outline of that Malabar coast stories it would take a whole long lifetime to write.

But here we are in the Gulf of Manar, and heading away north and east now, because it is no part of our purpose to touch at Ceylon. That great and lovely island lies on the east and south of us. Perhaps you

138 On to the Rescue.

and I, reader, may visit it together some day in a voyage of the mind. But now that we have doubled the Cape we have formed some conception of the vast extent of even the west coast of our splendid Empire of India, and the eastern shores are quite as long. On the coast of Coromandel, that sailors so often sing about for indeed there is a musical ring about the very name we find the city of Madras. Higher up, a very long way, is the city of Masulipatam, which was once destroyed about twenty years ago I think by a great storm and sea-wave, thirty thousand lives being lost in one terrible night.

But northwards we sail, and now we reach the mouths of the sacred river Ganges, and Calcutta itself, which lies but a little way south of the tropic of Capricorn.

If, instead of sailing up to Calcutta, we should change our course and sail directly east, we should come to Chittagong. In there, you know, is Burmah, where the rubies come from, and where the sacred white elephant was said to live. We conquered and annexed the country, found the ruby mines, and captured the white elephant, which wasn't white after all, and Burmah is now British territory. We can't go any farther east without going right out of my map, so we will return to Calcutta, and leave our yacht there. Yet I trust our little cruise has not been altogether unprofitable.

If you please we will now go up the Ganges, but first and foremost just take one wide bird's-eye glance at the provinces of India as a whole.

There are a few of them that you ought to, and must know the situation and bearings of.

A Cloud no Bigger than a Hand, 139

Sind lies away in the west, to the north of Cutch. It is a very historic country.

Rajputana is very large, and to the east and north of Sind. You have often heard of this country.

The Central Provinces are easy to think of and to bear in mind. So too are the dominions of the Nizam.

But Oudh, or Oude, is a province of which I want you to take particular notice, because I shall probably have to mention it more than once in my story.

And now, if starting from Calcutta, you follow the course of the great river Ganges, beginning with the Hoogley, one of its mouths, you will have no difficulty in finding out or spotting, as you may term it, the principal towns in and around which the great rebellion raged its fiercest and its cruellest.

I do not want to cram your beautifully elastic memory with the names of all of these, but you must look out Dinapur, Benares, and Allahabad. You will note that about here the river Jumna joins the Ganges. Glance up the Ganges, and you will easily find Cawnpore, where the fiendish massacre took place. To the east of this lies Lucknow, while a long way to the west you find Gwalior. Having stumbled upon Gwalior, you can take train to Agra, where Jack Morrison's home was. Some distance north is Muttra; still farther north of that is Delhi. And having found this, you will have no difficulty at all in getting the bearings of Meerut, the station at which the Mutiny really com- menced.

India taken altogether is therefore, you will observe, a land of immense areas. Says Major- General Sir Owen

140 On to the Rescue.

Burne*: "The single Lieutenant-Governorship of Lower Bengal is as large as France; Madras exceeds Great Britain; Bombay equals Germany; the North- Western Provinces and Oude cover as much space as Great Britain, Belgium, and Holland ; the size of the Punjab is that of Italy ; while the native States put together have an area equal to Great Britain and Ireland, Germany, and France combined."

The population of India at present, reader mine, is over rather than under 300,000,000, and our beloved Queen is Empress of the whole.

The Sepoys are the native-trained soldiers. It was these who mutinied, about one hundred thousand of them, and these were joined of course by riff-raff of every description, from towns and villages and country hamlets, among whom were the fiendish prisoners let loose from the gaol, all burning for revenge and loot and murder grim.

Of the Bengal Native Infantry seventy regiments in all forty-five mutinied, twenty were disarmed, three were disbanded, and only six remained true to their salt. Sir Owen Burne says : " The bulk of the vast population of India may be conveniently divided into Hindoos and Muhammadans, inasmuch as these two classes inhabit in greater or less numbers every one of its provinces, and figure almost exclusively in the events of the Mutiny. The typical Hindoo is quiet, industrious, and tolerant in religious matters unless provoked to excitement. As a soldier he is obedient and patient, although warped by

Rulers of India, the Clarendon Press.

A Cloud no Bigger than a Hand. 141

those caste prejudices which have always given the Brahmans special control over comrades and subordinates. These qualities were strongly marked in the mutinous Sepoys. The Muhammadan on his part is by nature restless, fanatical, and ready for any adventure that may come to hand. In Northern India he is, as a rule, a born soldier, and even in the south he still retains in some measure the martial instinct which inspired his fore- fathers."

We, in governing this great country, as the General points out, "laboured under the disadvantage of being separated from these Muhammadans and Hindoos by blood, religion, and character, and had to contend against the almost insuperable- difficulty of ignorance as to the under current of public feeling."

The storm did not break without warning.

"Months before the actual outbreak of the mutinous Sepoys, an idea had taken hold of a large number of persons within range of Hindoo and Muhammadan influence, that a crisis in the world's history was near at hand; that great events were pending, and that the British Government was bent on departing from its ancient principles of non-interference with the customs, traditions, and religions of its Indian subjects.

" Englishmen were warned by native friends to be on their guard, and written prophecies were spread broad- cast through the land, foretelling the downfall of British power after the centenary of Plassy.

"Notwithstanding these indications of ill-feeling and imminent disaster, the attitude of the people of India generally during this eventful period was one of neutrality

142 On to the Rescue.

. . . the principal assistance given to the rebel Sepoys came from a small number of disaffected nobles and deposed officials, who, in their turn, found support only from the lawless and restless spirits of their neighbour- hood, no longer restrained by a powerful government.

"The Mutiny was thus primarily a military rising, aided and abetted to a limited extent by a proportion of the hereditary criminal classes, and confined in a great measure to the Sepoys of the Bengal Regular Army.

"At this particular juncture, too, the proportion of British to native troops in India was dangerously small. The warnings given by Dalhousie had been neglected, and owing to the paucity of European troops the prin- cipal arsenals and military posts of India notably that of Delhi were garrisoned by disaffected Sepoys."

You have seen, reader, in your time, no doubt, patches of withered furze on a hillside that a single lighted match applied to would set in flames from end to end. To such furze we may liken the Indian Army in the latter end of 1856 and beginning of the terrible year of 1857, ripe for the fires of rebellion, only awaiting the one little spark that should set all ablaze.

That spark was kindled, and all too soon.

==Chapter IV.

DUM-DUM AND THE STORY OF THE GREASED CARTRIDGES.

VEE hear the story of Dum-Dum and the greased cartridges, reader ? It is a very brief one, but very suggestive.

Once upon a time, long before you were born, I suppose, Dum-Dum, a military station or garrison about eight miles from the city of Calcutta, was the head-quarters of the Bengal Artillery, and had been so for many years. Here most of the officers of that distinguished army corps had received their first real military education their initiation in the mysteries of the art of war. But finally the artillery were removed high up the country to Meerut, and Dum- Dum garrison became a manufactory and store-house, or series of store-houses, for small arms ; and as, some time before the mutiny, the Enfield rifle was beginning to supersede the old Brown Bess, so famous in the history of this country, Dum-Dum became also a school of musketry to instruct soldiers and their officers in the use of the new weapon.

144 O n t the Rescue.

When 1 myself first joined the service, though it was many years after the Mutiny, this Enfield was still in use among our red Marines ; and well do I remember that this muzzle-loader had five motions to the introduction of the cartridge.

(1) You tore off the top of the cartridge with the finger and thumb of the left hand, which encircled the rifle at the end of the muzzle; (2) you poured in the gunpowder ; (3) you reversed the cartridge, inserting that part of it that carried the bullet; (4) you tore off the loose protruding paper; and (5) you used the ramrod to send the bullet home.

I remember that in my first brush with the Arabs, a Marine who was sitting next to me in the boat, when the order was given to load with ball-cartridge, forgot in his excitement motion No. 4. He tried to get home the bullet, paper, and all, and so stuck his ramrod in the gun. He and I got it out with great difficulty, and I loaded the next time. An assistant -surgeon thus became musketry instructor to a red Marine; but then I knew all about it, having been for years a full private in the Aberdeen Volunteers.

There were at Dum-Dum, as there are at all garrisons, as well as on board P. and 0. mail-boats, low-caste working men called Lascars. In fact, I do not think that these men are supposed to have any caste at all. I know that Hindoos and Mahommedans alike look upon them as but half a remove above the brutes.

Well, one broiling hot day in the month of January, 1857, a poor Lascar, who had been working naked almost, till his mouth was parched and his body dripping with

The Story of the Greased Cartridges. 145

sweat, met a high-caste Sepoy carrying a lotah* of cool water. The Lascar approached the Sepoy, addressing him in words of which the following is a mere paraphrase :

"For the love of heaven, let me have a little water to drink, for I die of thirst ! "

The Sepoy lowered his brows, and drew himself up to his full height. He drew himself away too from the Lascar as if he had been a loathsome beast.

" Give you water to drink from my lotah ! Perish the thought ! Think you I would break my caste by having my drinking-vessel contaminated by the lips of a low Lascar ? Away ! "

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Lascar, now aroused to anger by the haughtiness of this gay soldier, "what need it matter to you? But a little longer, and you will have no caste at all. How then ? "

" What mean you ? "

" I mean what I say."

He was turning away, but the Sepoy now eagerly detained him.

" Explain ! " he cried, " explain ! "

" Why," the Lascar replied, " the British Government are using the fat of swine and cows to grease the new cartridges for the Enfield rifles. These will soon be served out to the whole army. You will have to touch the accursed fatf with lips and teeth. How then about your caste ? Ha, ha ! "

• A drinking-vessel made of brass.

t The Sepoys bit off the tops of their cartridges instead of using their fingers.

146 On to the Rescue.

"You lie, you dog."

"I speak the truth."

Away went the tired and weary Lascar, the Sepoy gazing after him aghast. Would he return and confess to having been joking or lying?

But the Lascar disappeared without even looking round.

Now there was but slight foundation for what the Lascar had said. Nevertheless his words formed the torch, that commenced the most awful military con- flagration and revolt that ever took place in the world.

The Sepoy hurried off to his mess and told of his adventure with the Lascar to his fellows, and it would be difficult indeed to describe in words the horror with which the story was received.

They thought that the British Government had long tried to introduce Christianity into their midst, and being but partially successful they had devised this mean expedient, whereby, while pretending to place in the hands of the Sepoy a new and more destructive rifle, they could entirely destroy his caste. That was their belief now.

I may tell you, reader, that such destruction of caste would signify to a Sepoy that he was to be deprived of all spiritual happiness and comfort in this world, and doomed to the loss of all hope for the next. The Sepoys, or Indian soldiers, were made up of Hindoos and Mahom- medans alike. And to both these the pig is an unclean animal while the cow is sacred.

The story of the greased cartridges spread throughout India with the speed of wildfire, and it was turned to

The Story of the Greased Cartridges. 147

good account by the preachers of sedition all throughout the North-West Provinces.

It was not long before this, remember, that Oude had been annexed to the British territory and its king of course deposed. He was at this time living at Calcutta, and had friends there and everywhere else, for he still retained the hope that his house would yet be restored to the throne. His agents, it goes almost without saying, made the very most of the tale of Dum-Dum and the greased cartridges.

There are two names you cannot help hearing when reading of the mutiny, nay, even three, as Solomon says.

I. The terrible Nana Sahib. This fellow was an adopted son of deposed Maratha Peshwa petty kings in India who had no issue were in the habit of adopting sons Nana Sahib was allowed to inherit his adoptive father's personal effects, and also a large estate that lay near to Cawnpore, but had been refused the con- tinuance of a pension, and on this account he now became one of the most active agents in the spread of disaffection and mutiny.

II. The titular King of Delhi. This man was naturally enough our bitter enemy. He and his family lived at Delhi, in the ancient palace of the Moguls ; there he himself did all a lazy man could to stir up strife and fan the flame of insurrection, while for years his bold sons had been preaching sedition throughout the land.

III. The Ranee of Jhansi. Her husband had died without an heir, and, rightly or wrongly, I cannot say which, the British had quietly annexed his territory.

Tantia Topee is another name you may have heard of.

148 On to the Rescue.

He was a great friend and companion of Nana Sahib, and probably the best and ablest general in the rebel army.

This fiend incarnate had been brought up in the same house as Nana Sahib, so that there is no wonder that he took up arms for him, even at the very first outbreak of the terrible Mutiny.

This Tantia Topee is said not to have been brave or daring. I think this is wrong. At last, however, he seems to have been a convert to the opinion that dis- cretion is the best part of valour, and that

" He who fights, and thus gets slain, Will never live to fight again ; While he who fights and runs away s Will live to fight some other day."

Anyhow, Tantia Topee's nine months' flight from Gwalior, after the capture of that city, was quite a masterly one, and as it is quite historical I trust I shall have space briefly to tell you the strange story in a future chapter.

It would seem, from what I have just told you, that the origin of the Mutiny was in some degree the outcome of a political conspiracy, at the head of which were the King of Oude, the King of Delhi, and Nana Sahib, all three candidates for kingdoms.

There seems to be truth in this. We find Lord Lawrence, while making a speech to a large assembly in Glasgow, in the year 1860, giving utterance to the following opinions :

" The annexation of Oude had nothing to do with the Mutiny in the first place, though that measure did add to the number of our enemies after the Mutiny commenced.

The Story of the Greased Cartridges. 149

"The old government of Oude was extremely obnoxious to the mass of our native soldiers of the regular army, who came from Oude and the adjacent province of Behar, and with whom the Mutiny originated. These men were the sons and kinsmen of the Hindoo yeomen of the country, all of whom benefited more or less by annexation; while Oude was ruled by a Mohammedan family, which had never identified itself with the people, and whose government was extremely oppressive to all classes except its immediate creatures and followers.

"But when the introduction of the greased cartridges had excited the native army to revolt, when the mutineers saw nothing before them short of escape on the one hand, or destruction on the othsr, they and all who sympathised with them were driven to the most desperate measures. Then all who could be influenced by love or fear rallied round them. All who had little or nothing to lose joined their ranks, all that dangerous class of religious fanatics and devotees who abound in India, all the political intriguers who in peaceful times can do no mischief, swelled the number of the enemy, and gave spirit and direction to their measures.

"Besides, India is full of races of men who from time immemorial have lived by service or by plunder, and who are ready to join in any disturbance which may promise employment or loot.

"Oude was full also of disbanded soldiers who had not had time to settle down. Our gaols furnished thousands of desperate men let loose on society. The cry throughout the country, as cantonment after canton- ment became the scene of triumphant mutiny, was, ' The

150 On to the Rescue.

English rule is at an end. Let us plunder, kill, and enjoy ourselves.'

"The industrious classes all over India were on our side, but for a long time feared to act. On the one hand they saw the few British in the country shot down or flying for their lives, or at the best standing on the defensive and sorely pressed ; on the other side they saw summary punishment in the shape of plunder and destruction of their houses dealt out to those who aided us. But when we evinced signs of vigour, when we began to assume the defensive and vindicate our authority, then many of those people came forward and identified them- selves with our cause."

Jack Morrison's life continued to be a very pleasant one at the house of his kindly employer at Agra. In fact it seemed all one long picnic. He had long ere January, 1857, become thoroughly acclimatised, in fact he had become an East-Indian out and out, for not only had he become accustomed to the climate, but to the creepie-creepies also. Do not smile, reader, please ; I can assure you that while an ordinarily healthy European or Britisher may become inured to the heat of the weather, and to the climate generally, in about six weeks, it takes one a year or more to get used to the creepie-creepies, be they deadly or simply annoying. The heat of the summer combined with the attacks of insects, costs us many a British life in India, for it is the insects, be they mosquitoes or bugs, that keep one awake at night, and

The Story of the Greased Cartridges. 1 5 1

without good sleep one cannot long remain well in a tropical country. Snakes are bad enough, and they may be met with in one's garden or compound often enough, or in the thatch, but for the simple reason that they are more numerous, if not so deadly, the loathsome centipedes are even worse. Cockroaches are troublesome, but the flying bug is a dreadful nuisance ; he gets into everything, into your milk and your sugee that you are having for supper, and into your hair or moustache if you are going to a ball, when, if you are unfortunate enough to bruise him, a shampoo, and a good one, is the only thing that will remove the revolting smell he emits.

Then we have lizards of all kinds, and flying things and crawling things too, so that on the whole I think my hero Jack was a true man to get over his fear of them, and to be able to sleep as he often did, and had to, without a mosquito curtain.

With the commencement of the year came ugly rumours of an impending crisis, but it did not affect the spirits of anybody at Mr. Mayne's bungalow. Not even the story of the greased cartridges. The subject indeed was scarcely ever mentioned. We cannot wonder at this if we remember that even among the European population of Meertit, until the very day that the Mutiny burst over the station like a bolt from the blue, people were laughing and talking and jesting about each other's fears or doubts, holding garden-parties, going to church, marrying and giving in marriage. And yet Agra itself became some time after this one of the centres of the awful Mutiny.

" Jack," said Mr. Mayne one day, " I 'm going to give you a treat."

152 On to the Rescue.

This was in the month of April.

" Well, sir," said Jack, " you have given me so many already, that I should feel ashamed to have any more."

" 0, but this is a special one. I want you to go to Muttra and to Delhi."

" ! papa," cried Teddie, " you mustn't send Mr. Jack away. Jessie and I and Goosie can't spare him 'deed, indeed we can't."

Jessie came, in her fond, half-shy little way, and stood by Jack with her hand in his.

" If you please, dad," she said, " couldn't Teddie and I go too?"

"No, darlings; but I'm sure Jack will bring you something very nice from Delhi"

"That I will," said Jack.

"When will you be able to start?"

"To-morrow morning."

"Bravo! And the treat is this, that I'm going to make you travel, not on horseback, but in a palkee" (palanquin).

"How luxurious."

"Yes; you may imagine yourself an Indian rajah. You know you told me you were going to write a book about your Indian experiences. Well, palkee travelling will form a chapter."

"I'm sure you are very kind."

"Heard any more word about the expected out- break ? " said Mrs. Mayne.

"Nothing fresh, dear. Only the old, old stories re- peated over and over again. Why Jackson, the indigo merchant, told me only to-day that he seemed to hear

The Story of the Greased Cartridges. 153

already the low muttering of thunder on the horizon that ever precedes a terrible storm. 'Very likely,' I replied ; ' but, Jackson, we often hear such mutterings, and the storm never comes.'"

It was in the forenoon that Mr. Mayne had spoken to his young secretary, and the latter spent the rest of the day getting ready.

But towards eventide he went out for a drive with the children, and the everlasting mongoose. Jack never forgot that evening. The sun was brightly blue; a purple haze half hid the greenery of the country; the weird-like beauty of all around was very impressive.

Teddie was full of prattle about all the fine things he expected that Jack would bring him from Delhi; but poor Jessie seemed listless and low, and more than once the tears trembled on her eyelashes, when Jack drew her nearer to him and spoke kindly to her.

They got back to the compound and the beautiful house just as the sun had set, for twilight is very brief indeed in these latitudes.

That night after dinner, and after Jack had kissed the children and wished them good night, Mr. Mayne and he sat long out in the verandah, looking at the bright moonlight that bathed and beautified everything, and even dimmed the light of the fireflies that danced and flitted from bush to bush.

The country all around was very still, and if now and then the murmur of the distant city seemed to wax louder, or the yap-yapping of a jackal fell upon their ears, there were few other sounds to break the solemn, the impressive stillness. So silent indeed was

154 On to the Rescue.

the night that they could now and then hear the rustle of the wings of a tailor-bird, that had built its nest betwixt two broad leaves only a few yards from the verandah.

"Well, Jack," said Mr. Mayne at last, "if you won't have another cigar, I think you had better go to bed. I have given you your letters and all your orders, so there will be no bother in the morning. Good night, dear boy."

"Good night, sir."

Jack got his candle, and went gliding away through the drawing-room and vestibule to his beautifully- furnished and home-like bedroom.

Little did he think that this would be the last time that ever he should sleep in that room, or that the very roof above him would soon be given to the flames.

==Chapter V.

THE OUTBREAK OF THE FEARFUL STORM.

I

jjHEKE is perhaps no more pleasant way of

travelling in India than that by palanquin. It is however unusual to adopt such a method for long journeys, and the distance from Agra to Muttra is about thirty-three miles. But then Mr. Mayne thought that having worked very hard, Jack had really earned an easy holiday, and in the "palkee" he certainly would have time to look about him and to think as well

He had a good retinue of armed servants, as well as those who relieved each other every hour in bearing the palanquin along. And these servants were on horseback. I wish I had time to describe fully, to linger over as it were, that delightful palkee journey to Muttra and far beyond in the direction of Delhi. Jack travelled only in the early morning and in the evening, indulging in a siesta during the very hottest part of the day. It must not be imagined however that he permitted himself to be carried all the way. He was too young and strong for that. He felt life in every limb, sturdiness and strength

156 On to the Rescue.

in every sinew. But he was the sahib for the present, and to have walked much instead of lounging with Oriental indolence in his beautiful palanquin, would have been to lowei himself in the eyes of his Sepoy servants and his Lascar bearers as well

Have you ever seen a palanquin, reader ? Perhaps not, but you must have seen illustrations of the old Sedan chair. Well a palkee might be called a Sedan sofa, that is, instead of sitting as in the old fashion chair-conveyance, you lie in a palkee at full length. There is an opening prettily curtained and upholstered at each side, and as the bearers trot along with you, you can gaze with half shut eyes at the lovely panorama that is drifting past on either side. Woods and wilds, hills and dales, rippling streams and roaring cataracts. Sometimes you are winding along on a steep mountain side, with, far beneath you, the precipice that bounds a deep defile through which perhaps there goes meandering and winding along a silvery thread of a river with green banks at each side, but so far beneath you that meadows or gardens look no larger than tablecloths, and human dwellings like tiny dolls'-houses so high indeed may the brae below you be that tall trees point up to you ; you would have to fall a long way before you even touched their tops, and birds that you know to be eagles or vultures seem no larger than flies.

Now and then you cross a rustic bridge, and terribly insecure some of those appear. High above rocky canons they may be, and you look from your palkee window, right down upon a white and foaming torrent that spends its whole existence in trying to dislodge or wear away the

The Outbreak of the Fearful Storm. 157

black boulders that lie here and there in its midst. At times you are passing over wide and arid wastes, and anon through jungles so dense and dark you cannot but believe wild beasts and horrid snakes abound, but even these are beautified here and there with a wealth of trailing and climbing flowers that dazzles the eye, and seems to steep the senses in a languorous pleasure that is born of their bright colouring, their strange and wondrous shapes, and the perfume from them that fills the air around. In such spots as these there is no lack of bright winged birds, butterflies like floating painted fans, and droning beetles of every size and form. As you pass along you cannot help saying to yourself "What a glorious place for a picnic!" and probably there rise up before your mind's eye visions of happy picnics spent long ago in your own loved native land. The scenery that surrounded those could not compare with this in grandeur, but ah ! the picnic is ever to be remembered nevertheless, and you sigh as your palkee passes on, and some other picture in this grand panorama is spread out before you.

I think, indeed I am sure, that Jack Morrison some- times fell asleep as he was borne along, nor do I wonder, for the weather was heavenly, just sufficient breeze to send a soft whisper through the trees that, mingling with the hum of insect life, and the twittering song of birds, was enough to lap the soul in somnolence.

Did the thought ever occur tb Jack during this journey that there might after all be some truth in the strange rumours that filled the city air of Agra, that murder and mutiny were already raising their gaunt forms, and

158 On to the Rescue.

preparing to strike, that here was he a Christian and therefore "an infidel dog," according to his guards and bearers alone and unprotected, except by the very men who would perhaps gladly see every European floating dead along the Ganges to form food for slimy eels and alligators ? Yes, such thoughts did cross his mind more than once ; but in his well and luxurious-furnished palkee he carried revolvers not that these could have protected him very long, though he would have fought to the last, and sold his life dearly. But as soon as such thoughts arose Jack did all he could to banish them, as unworthy of him, and a crime against the gentle, kindly fellows who formed his guard. If the thoughts did not leave his mind at once, he reached for a book, and commenced to read, and as likely as not reading ended in sleep. This sleep was something of such a gentle nature that he could hardly believe he had dropped off at all, till one of his men came smiling up and restored to him his book that had fallen out of the palkee, with some such remark as, " The sahib have sleap for two hour, but I not disturb till he have waked."

At Muttra he stayed for several weeks. The Europeans here were very kind to him, and besides there was much to be seen. The city of Muttra is very large and very picturesque, especially as viewed from the river Jumna. It is a city of palaces and temples, it is the Mecca or the Jerusalem of the Hindoos. The temples are not by any means very imposing structures, or rather, I should say, the temple may be but part and portion of a house or shop ; but if you can secure entrance to the temple's interior, which is as much like a small theatre as any-

TJie Oiitbreak of the Fearful Storm. 159

thing else, then the dim religious light, the curtained alcoves, the elevated stage, the shrine, the wild, unearthly, but sometimes pleasant music all these may impress the mind; but after all it is only a form of heathen worship.

The main street of this great city is imposing in the extreme, and seems indeed to be the work of fairy fingers.

There are many beautiful gardens about Muttra, but there are many loathsome places in it also the home of the wild dog, the swine, and men of the lowest caste.

But Jack left Muttra at last with many a kindly word and wish ringing in his ears, and pursued his way onwards for Delhi.

"We must leave Jack Morrison for the present slowly moving northwards, while we go further north and west than even Delhi.

And here we find ourselves at the great military station of Meerut, which you can easily find on the map, reader.

At this place at the time of the outbreak were stationed two regiments of Native Infantry, the llth and 20th, besides the 3rd Native Cavalry. This was a large con- tingent of natives ; but it must be remembered that the British had for their protection, if need be, a battalion of the 60th Eifles, besides Horse and Foot Artillery and a regiment of Dragoons.

The station at Meerut was a very large one, and was divided in two by a deep ditch. On the north side of this ditch were a number of officers' bungalows, and then

160 On to the Rescue.

came the barracks of the European infantry and the cavalry barracks, with the English church between.

When you crossed the ditch you came to acres of bazaars or streets, and at quite a long distance from these were the native lines.

The best authorities agree with me in stating that the plan of Meerut was a mistake, and that so great a distance should not have existed between the British and the native soldiery.

Be this as it may, Meerut became the scene of the first outbreak of the great Mutiny.

It will soon be seen, however, that this was neither planned nor premeditated, and that it was really the story of the greased cartridges that hurried affairs onwards.

And here is the best place to say that long before the outbreak a somewhat strange thing had happened at Mr. Mayne's bungalow. This was, I think, early in February. On coming in to breakfast, Jack Morrison, who had been first down, found that a little native cake, or choopattie, had been placed by each plate. Jack thought it was some little game of Teddie's; but when Mr. Mayne himself came in and saw these, he evinced some slight degree of displeasure.

" How came these things here ? " he said, " and why ? " he asked a servant.

The servant shrugged his shoulders.

" I not know why," he answered, " but one good man bring him."

" Well, take them away."

The servant obeyed, just a little sullenly.

The Outbreak of the Fearful Storm. 161

When he had gone, and Jack was alone with his master, he said anxiously, " You do not think they were poisoned, sir ? "

" No, no, no, Jack, not that ; but I have been told that before an outbreak these choopatties are distributed. It was well to have them removed, for Mrs. Mayne is nervous, and so too is poor little Jessie."

That same week news had come to Agra of the distribution of choopattie cakes all over India.

And the following evidence given by a native will explain the mystery, while showing at the same time how it had been planned and intended that the Mutiny should be carried out

"A night was to have been fixed on which, without risking anything, the whole of the European officers were to have been killed and the treasuries plundered. The magazines were to have been captured wherever possible and blown up; but it was never intended to injure women or children. Nearly all the men in the different regiments were of the same mind on this point It is not the Brahmins and great men that have destroyed helpless children and poor ladies. It was the intention to kill your men, but it was villagers and savages who destroyed your women and children. Nana Sahib, though always a worthless fellow, could never have ordered the murder of women and children. Had they no mothers or sisters ? Had they no heart for them ? I heard of what happened with sorrow. We object to your raj (rule). It is true that under it all men have peace and freedom, such freedom as we never enjoyed before, but we sorrow for our caste. I am speaking of Brahmins.

1 62 On to the Rescue.

Brahmins love good food and ease. The Company does not give it for nothing, and we wish for a return of that raj which will enable us to retain it.

"The choopattie cakes in question were a jadoo (a charm), which originated with Dassa Bawa, who told Nana Sahib that he would make a jadoo, and as far as these magic cakes should be carried, so far would the people be on his side."

Well, when the story of Dum-Dum and the greased cartridges reached Meerut the excitement was very great, and although the officers tried to assure their Sepoys that there was scarcely a word of truth in the tale, confidence was not restored nor was the excite- ment allayed.

On the 24th of April Colonel Smyth, who com- manded the native cavalry, ordered a parade and a distribution of cartridges, which the men were in- formed need not be bitten with the teeth, but torn with the fingers. Only five men, however, would re- ceive them. The others sullenly refused.

It was nonsense, they said to each other, if not to their officers, to tell them that the cartridges could be torn instead of bitten. If they possessed those cart- ridges at all, custom would assert itself, and in moments of forgetfulness they would bite the end off. Then would they be defiled body and soul, and all caste be at an end.

Colonel Smyth ordered a court of enquiry to be held on these men, and in the end a court-martial condemned them to ten years' imprisonment.

Colonel Smyth, it may be observed, was a somewhat

The Outbreak of the Fearful Storm. 163

hard and strict service man, and therefore very far indeed from being popular.

Meanwhile the growing storm asserted itself in a new phase, and incendiary fires were almost of nightly occurrence.

The sentence of the court-martial was on the 9th of May rigorously and ruthlessly carried out.

The morning broke fair and beautiful, but soon heavy and ominous clouds began to darken the sky and hide the sun. There was a boding gloom over the whole of this great military camp. This, however, did not prevent all hands, ladies gay and children merry, from turning out to the general parade.

The felons were marched into the centre, and here their uniforms were roughly stripped off, and although they shrieked for mercy, for sake of their wives and children, blacksmiths riveted the chains upon their arms and legs, and they were led away shouting curses, loud and long, upon the British, and upon Colonel Smyth in particular.

Ladies put their fingers in their ears to keep out the sound of those fearful curses, and innocent chil- dren wonderingly asked their mothers what it all meant.

Had Smyth gained a victory? The sequel will answer the question.

All that day the Sepoys were unusually obedient to command, and even the most tender-hearted women admitted that though the punishment was a sad one it was just, and must do good.

On the Sunday everything seemed as usual on the

1 64 On to the Rescue.

European side of the ditch; but foul mutiny was being preached and hatched beyond.

The chaplain was preparing for evening service at sunset when one of his female servants begged and prayed of him to stay at home if he valued his life.

The clergyman laughed at her, and drove off to church. He soon found, however, that the woman's earning was not the result of a delusion, for as he approached the sacred edifice he could hear in the distance the sharp rattle of musketry fired in volleys, and sparks and smoke and flames arising from burning houses, and rolling away to leeward on the evening breeze.

Whether or not the Sepoys had intended to strike a blow that night I am not certain; but if so the church parade of the European soldiers precipitated matters, and the cry was raised that the Rifles and Artillery were on their way to disarm the native troops.

On hearing this startling yell the Sepoys ran quickly back from the streets towards their lines.

Wild war had commenced in earnest.

The native cavalry naturally were the first to take action. Had they not stood on the parade but a day back, and seen their companions rivetted with chains, and led off to gaol without their being able to strike a blow on their behalf, and that too amid the jeers of the Europeans, the ladies even smiling their approbation of the terrible injustice?

Hurrah ! They would be revenged.

They spurred on their horses now at a mad gallop towards the gaol, locks and bolts gave way before them,

The Outbreak of the Fearful Storm. 165

doors were smashed and fell in pieces, and soon they reached their comrades' cells, and relieving them of their chains brought them forth to the fresh air and to freedom.

The Infantry had armed themselves on reaching their lines.

Several European officers had rushed thither in the hope of pacifying them, among them being Colonel Finnis, the commander of the llth.

He was shot almost at once, but not, it is believed, by his own men.

The thirst of the mutineers for the blood of Christians was only stimulated, Holmes tells us, by the slaughter of Finnis.

1 The convicts let loose from the gaols, and fraternising with the native police, and the increasing swarms of budmashes, joined in the bloody work. Gangs of these marauders, armed with swords and clubs, roamed about the station, hurled showers of bricks upon every European that crossed their path, burst into peaceful dwellings, murdered the inmates, and poured forth again laden with plunder; and the terrified witnesses of this dreadful scene heard mingling with the roar that leapt up from the burning houses, the savage voices of Mahom- medans shouting " Ali! Ali!"

But why, it may be asked, did not the white regiments at once fly to the rescue of those poor victims ? The answer seems to be that the commander of the British forces, General Hewitt, whose age could be his only excuse for he was both infirm and old seemed quite to lose his head, and did nothing

1 66 On to the Rescue.

Wilson, the Brigadier, might have acted more quickly and energetically than he did.

Even the mutineers themselves felt certain that the British would speedily be upon the scene of action, and so raised the cry, " Quick, brothers, quick ! To Delhi ! to Delhi!"

When therefore Wilson reached the lines with his Artillery there were few Sepoys left to engage, and these quickly betook themselves to the jungle, whence they could defy General Wilson to dislodge them.

Meanwhile the mutineers were flying in the direction of Delhi, sure enough in their own minds that they were being hotly pursued by the British troops.

But though the night was now bright and clear, with moon as well as stars shining above, Wilson neglected to follow them up, and thus left Delhi to their mercy.

That was a fearful night in Meerut.

Says Holmes: "The baffled Europeans encamped on their own parade-ground, but did nothing to assist the suffering people for whose protection they had been retained, though the sullen roar of a thousand fires might have warned them to be up and doing."

It is pleasant to know, reader, that although the European troops, or rather their incapable leaders, did nothing to save the lives of the poor civilians who were being murdered in some cases even burned alive there were faithful servants among the natives themselves who behaved far more like heroes.

One of the servants for example, Golab Khan to name, saved his master Greathead and his wife from a fearful death. When the ruffians broke into his house, armed

The Outbreak of the P earful Storm. 167

with their blood-dripping knives, they had taken refuge on the roof, and their burning building would have become their funeral pile had not Golab enticed the murderers away under pretence of showing them the hiding-place of his master.

Nor was this the only instance of heroism.

Craigie's own Sepoys posted themselves outside his bungalow, and protected his wife from the savagery of the horrible mob.

Lieutenant Miiller of the llth besought General Hewitt to permit him that night to ride alone to Delhi and warn the inhabitants of the approach of the mutineers. His request was refused point-blank.

" Give me," cried Captain Eosser of the Dragoons, "but a few guns and one squadron of my regiment, and I will pursue the Sepoys and stop their retreat."

" No," was the reply, " we cannot spare the men. Meerut must be held."

And yet, reader, it is the opinion of the greatest authorities on the Indian Mutiny, that Hewitt might easily have sent one half his Europeans for the defence of Delhi. A blow struck at once, and struck hard, has saved many a kingdom ere now.

The same gallant officer, Miiller, mentioned above, had justice done, however, on a mutineer who had cruelly slain a brother officer's wife. Single-handed he tracked him to his lair, made him prisoner, and marched at the revolver's point to the camp, and there he was summarily tried and hanged.

General Hewitt then, it will be seen, to say nothing of Brigadier Wilson, seemed perfectly paralysed by the

1 68 On to the Rescue.

outbreak at Meerut, and even next day remained inactive > passive.

And when daylight had returned terrible indeed was the scene presented to view.

Meerut was wrecked, everywhere stood the blackened ruins of what had but a day before been smiling bungalows, and in the gardens and compounds lay piles of broken furniture, pictures, and all the charming nick- nackery that helps to make home so homely. And, alas ! among the ruins could be seen many a knifed and mangled corpse, their sightless eyeballs seeming to stare upwards at the morning sky.

Chapter VI. FIGHTING AND MASSACRE AT DELHI HOW A BRITISH BOY DID HIS DUTY.

HAVE no desire, in this o'er true tale of mine, to paint any of the sad scenes and the incidents that occurred during the terrible Mutiny in language too graphic. I wish but to tell the plain unvarnished truth, and not even the whole of tnat. But it is a tale that all British boys and girls should be told at least once during their lives, if only to prove to them how brave our British men and women can be; nay, but I will go further and say that in some places, such as Lucknow and Cawnpore, there was almost a holiness in their heroism and in their unselfish display of courage and endurance, which, if one attempts to portray, he finds the language at his command is far too feeble and inadequate even to trace.

In the last chapter we left the British general at

Meerut, although commanding bold and courageous

troops, completely paralysed at the great misfortune that

had fallen upon the military station, though not a man under him but would, with the greatest alacrity, have gone in pursuit of the flying rebels and meted out to them such a punishment as would have caused Sepoys all over India to think twice ere they deserted their flag, and might have gone far to extinguish the rising flames of mutiny before it could reach the summits mons of our power and sway in India. And we left the rebel Sepoys not yet satiated with blood and slaughter, but flying fearfully onward to Delhi in the silence of night, their rear guard often stopping to listen for the footsteps of pursuing cavalry.

And what a whirlwind of blood and cruelty that was, now sweeping on to burst upon Delhi. It is sad indeed to read of villages in the far and beautiful interior of Africa being captured at the dead of night by Arab hordes of slavers, their old men and women ruthlessly murdered, their helpless children speared or tossed into the raging flames, the young men struck down and borne bleeding coastwards, never to see their homes again. But here at Delhi matters seem to us to have been infinitely worse, because the defence- less whites were our own dear people, bearing our names and having all the customs and traditions, the language, the love, and the religion of our own dear native land, and because the tragedy enacted was on a far, far larger scale.

Delhi was even then a large and well-fortified city, high up on the banks of the Jumna, with its walls and ramparts, its gates and fosses, its king's palace, its public buildings, and its maze of bazaars and narrow streets.

It stands about forty miles from Meerut, but never-

Fighting and Massacre at Delhi. 171

theless the mutineers had accomplished the whole of that long journey during the dreadful night of the 10th of May. Indeed, one might say that the blood of their innocent victims was hardly dry on their hands and fingers ere they were once more waving their murder- steeped knives and tulwars in Delhi itself.

Everyone in the city was taken completely unawares. If anyone had an inkling of what was about to happen, and of the terrors that soon would reign in the devoted city, it must have been the Sepoys themselves; but even they could not have known of the complete and easy victory their brethren in arms had accomplished at Meerut, for morning parade passed by and they gave no sign, and their officers, talking, laughing, and chaff- ing, were sitting at breakfast.

The day had begun at Delhi as usual in every way. The bazaars were crowded, the merchants there were excited, but only in the same bullying or wrangling way they ever are when driving a bargain. In the low caste slums swine and wild dogs ran about quarrel- ling over the offal; strange, gaunt birds, with an immensity of bill the adjutants went stalking about performing their duties of scavenging; and the swarms of blue-bottle flies had already cleaned up the blood in European abattoirs. Here and there, tossing her proud little head aloft, a sacred cow might be seen walking alone by herself, or staying for a minute or two here and there to feed on the fruit of the bread- nut tree, while religious devotees piously touched her brow and then their own, muttering words of prayer as they did so.

172 On to the Rescue.

And high over all, the sun shone hot in a blue and almost cloudless sky, his beams reflected from many a mosque and dome and from the broad waters of the Jumna itself.

But listen. While the magistrates or judges are busy trying cases, and trying to understand the bearing of speeches thereon made by many a gesticulating and excited witness, suddenly messengers arrive to report that a cloud of dust is visible on the high road from Meerut, and that armed men on horseback are sweeping onwards to the city.

Before word could be sent to the cantonments, where Graves was General, and to the magazine to warn Willoughby, the Lieutenant in charge, the Meerut mutineers had already succeeded in entering Delhi.

I can only compare the sudden inrush of these murdering fiends to that of a Highland mountain stream, which, after a storm among the distant hills, comes down in roaring spate a perfect wall of brown water, madly tumbling on and on, bearing before it, and mixed with its froth and spume, trees and branches, boulders and sods, and even drowned cattle or sheep.

The chief body of the insurgent band effected an entrance at the Eajgat gate.

This gate might easily have been defended had the Sepoys inside been true to their flag.

Far from being so, they threw off their allegiance at once.

They opened the gate to the Meerut men.

They fraternised with them, welcomed them wildly

Fighting and Massacre at Delhi. 173

tossed their arms high in the air, even foamed at the mouth in the madness of their excitement.

Backwards now rush these Sepoys.

The carnage, the murder, the fiendish cruelty and fire, have commenced in earnest.

Brave Captain Douglas, who was in charge of the palace guards, has been trying to urge these men to remain faithful and true; but his appeal, and that of Fraser the Commissioner, are alike in vain.

While the terrible work is going on, and tragedies are being enacted at every European house or bungalow, Douglas, fearfully wounded by leaping into the moat, is borne by natives into the palace and into his apart- ments. But Fraser still attempts to harangue the mob in a courtyard. Alas ! he is cut down at last, and the guards, the very men that ought to have protected him, stab him to the heart.

Now upstairs the murderers rush, with awful yells and shouts, to the room where the sorely wounded Douglas lies weltering in his blood, surrounded by his distracted friends, among whom were the chaplain and two ladies.

In vain they try to barricade the door; it is forced in, dashed in, and next minute all inside are slam, and the room presents a sight that it is best to draw a veil across, lest it should haunt our dreams at night.

All this was done, and a dozen deeds far more cruel and vile, by the first party of horsemen that had arrived. Then the infantry from Meerut came pouring in and joined them, and the work of death received fresh impulse.

Still another portion of the mutineers attacked the

174 On to the Rescue.

public buildings. The manager of the bank here, shoulder to shoulder with his wife, made a gallant stand, but both were soon overpowered and slain ; and all Christians, no matter to what country they belonged, fell beneath the knives or tulwars of the mutineers.

The church itself did not protect them, for this was stormed and desecrated.

As to the Eurasian Christians and converts, who lived in the low part of the town, although they barricaded their lanes, and did all they could to defend themselves, they were butchered everywhere as if they had been pigs. A few, however, were taken prisoners, but only to meet with a far worse fate. They were immured in stifling, slimy, vermin-haunted dungeons, and after starvation and ill-treatment for five days, they were hauled forth and executed amidst the shouts and jeerings of the mutineers, who afterwards pitched their bodies into the Jumna.

A very affecting and tragical episode connected with the first portion of the dreadful attack upon Delhi is thus related by Holmes, though taken from Cave- Browne's report:

" In the telegraph office hard by the church a young signaller was standing with his hand upon the signalling apparatus. The mutineers were almost upon him, and more and more plainly he heard them yelling as they swept along. Still he went on with his work.

"Click, click," sounded the instrument, click, click, click, click; while nearer and nearer came those awful yells.

" Flashed up the wires to Umballah, to Lahore, to Rawal

Fighting and Massacre at Delhi. 175

Pindee, and to Peshawur, this message warned the authorities in the Punjaub : ' The Sepoys come in from Meerut. Burning everything. Murdering all whites and Christians. Todd dead. Many others. Must shut up.' "

The mutineers burst in, the last click died away, and in the performance of his duty the signaller was slain.

It must not be supposed, however, that no defence was made. As soon indeed as Graves, the Brigadier-General at the cantonment, had received the message from the magistrate he commenced to act, and as speedily as possible Captain Kipley marched with a portion of his regiment to the Cashmere Gate, the rest was to follow up with two guns under the command of Major de Taisser. But at this gate they were met by a body of the rebel troopers, and no less than six of the officers of the 54th fell under their pistol fire. The Sepoys of this regiment, when ordered to fire, fired in the air, then at once rushed up and bayoneted their Colonel.

All the force now at the command of Brigadier Graves was a few companies of the 38th, 74th, and a score or so of artillerymen.

The cantonments, I should have said, were fully two miles to the northward and west of the city, so that much of the mischief was done before De Taisser's guns came on. The murderers fled at their approach, and the guns were placed at the main guard.

Hard work indeed had the Brigadier to keep his mutinous men in charge all that terrible afternoon, during which they waited, but waited in vain, for assistance from Meerut.

176 On to the Rescue.

A brave young Briton volunteered to ride to that city for assistance. Had he succeeded doubtless it would have been denied him. But woe is me ! he was speedily discovered and killed by the mutinous 38th.

Meanwhile Graves was not idle. He had collected all the women and children he could find and placed them in a small room in the flagstaff tower, a room which, we are told, was even smaller than the Black Hole of Calcutta.

" There huddled together," says a writer, " was collected a great company of every age and class, frightened children crying and clinging to their not less frightened ayahs, women weeping and bewailing the deaths of husbands and brothers, while others were bearing up against heat, discomfort, and anxiety, and busily un- fastening cartridges for the men.

Graves and his company could only guess the awful work that was going on in the interior of the city.

I have mentioned Lieutenant Willoughby, who was in charge of the magazine. A more gallant young fellow he was little more than a boy, and a shy and youthful- looking boy he was surely never stepped in shoe leather.

His post was one of the utmost difficulty and danger but not for one moment did he flinch from it.

His guards he knew were but waiting the chance to join the other mutineers. And his whole European force were in number how many think you, reader ? Why only eight.

Now listen and hear how a British boy can do his duty in the hour of trial and emergency.

Young Willoughby had barricaded the outer gates of

How a British Boy did his Duty. 177

the magazine, and then determined to wait with patience the reinforcements which he, like the Brigadier, thought would surely soon arrive from Meerut.

Was that barricade sufficient to keep out the murdering mutineers ? Alas, no ! They could at any moment crash through it, and assassinate all within, and their hesitation was no doubt owing to the fact that their king feared as yet to join the rebels.

That young hero, however, determined that when, or if they did break through, they should meet with a warm and terrible reception.

There grew a tree in the yard of the magazine, and from this tree a train was laid to the powder store, and a brave man Conductor Scully volunteered to fire this train from the tree as soon as Willoughby should give the signal.

That was act first in this fearful tragedy of defence. Act second commences when the King of Delhi, certain at last that no help could come to the British from Meerut, and feeling joyful with the prospect that his dynasty would now soon be restored at last, joined the mutineers, and demanded the surrender of the magazine.

The little garrison answered never a word. That is they did not answer immediately, and the mutineers, with dreadful shouts and yells, prepared to storm the, place. Ah! then came the answer an iron hail from the mouth of every gun.

No guns were ever better handled despite the fact that the men who worked them that brave little band of Englishmen were exposed to a rather hot fire of musketry from the mutineers.

178 On to the Rescue.

For hours young Willoughby fought on. For hours he hoped and hoped that assistance would come. But he saw now that the end could not be far away.

One last longing look he took down the Meerut road. The afternoon sun was blazing over the woods. Slowly and sullenly flowed the river past the bastion, but no help or faintest sign of help was visible. The time has come, and the last act of the tragedy arises before our mental vision.

We see the youthful, boyish form of Willoughby silhouetted against the evening sky, we see him wave his hat.

It is the signal, and Scully fires the train. Next moment the whole city is shaken to its very foundations by the roar and thunder of that terrible explosion, and amidst dust and dbris t and masses of timber and masonry, over a thousand mutineers are hurled high in the air arms, legs, and heads drop here and there a few moments afterwards in the most distant streets and bazaars, and scores are killed outside by the bursting of shells.

In the dread silence and awful confusion that followed Willoughby escaped, and also Lieutenants Eaynor and Forest, with Conductors Buckley and Shaw, and Sergeant Stuart.

Poor Scully, the man who had so bravely fired the train, was dreadfully wounded, and fell and died by the tree.

I wish I could tell the reader that brave young Willoughby lived, as did the others who escaped, to wear the Victoria Cross. He did not, however, for

How a British Boy did his Duty. 179

he was afterwards murdered while going towards ileerut.

The sound of the explosion startled the Brigadier and those with him at the gate. Eor a time they could not understand whether it were caused by accident or not. But they found out all too soon.

And now the 38th at the main-guard threw off every vestige of their pretended allegiance, and at once com- menced to shoot their officers.

Three fell dead at the first volley, two more leaped from a bastion, but when the rest were about to follow them fell upon their ears the screams of the women.

Could they desert them, do you ask ?

I will answer the question by another.

"'Did Englishmen or Scotchmen or Irishmen ever desert women and children in distress ? "

Beader, the answer to my question is the answer to yours.

Chapter VII. THE FLIGHT FROM DELHI STRANGE ADVENTURES OF JACK MORRISON.

THE truth concerning the fearful explosion spread like wildfire, and with it came the news that the king of Delhi had thrown in his lot with the mutineers.

The raj of the British was at an end then, the prophecy was true, and the rejoicing among all classes of the community was now ecstatic. But a terrible way they took to give expression thereto. There was no disguise now. Every Sepoy at once threw off the cloak of allegiance to his old flag. These mutineers were a band of brothers, a band of furies, and religious fanaticism knew neither bounds nor limits. The cry that resounded through every street or bazaar was, " Kill, kill, kill" And in every case murder was combined with the most revolting cruelty, and followed by wholesale plunder.

To save the women, however, was now the endeavour of the European officers. The poor creatures gazed fearfully down into that awful ditch of three and thirty feet depth, and shuddered as they clung to their would-be rescuers, but these were busy making ropes of their clothing and belts, and now as shot began to fall around them there was no more hesitation, and men and women made the dangerous descent. Then there was the ascent to be made on the other side; and, after struggles to which terror lent strength, all were got to bank.

The women and children were also got out of their hot and horrible prison in the Flagstaff Tower. When the Brigadier had reached the cantonments with these the Sepoys of the 74th deserted, after gruffly warning the British to fly if they valued their lives.

They were advised to fly. Fly they must, for already they could see the sparks and flames leaping up in clouds of smoke from their burning bungalows, the homes in which but a day before they had been so happy, and hear the howling of the savages who, thirsting for Christian blood, had already taken up the pursuit.

They had one friend left, only one, and this was the darkness. So with night closing around them the unhappy fugitives took their way towards forest and jungle, leaving the bands of mutineers to wreck their vengeance upon the cantonments.

It is hardly possible to conceive of a more dismal plight than that these poor people now found themselves in. Men and gentlemen there were among them who, if left to themselves, might have made a bold push for somewhere ; but hampered as they were in their flight by the women and children many of them had been

1 82 On to tkv Rescue.

delicately nurtured and reared in the lap of luxury all they could do was to trust in God to protect those in their charge in every way they could, and when the worst came to the worst sell their lives dearly and die.

It would take volumes to describe one half the suffer- ings those fugitives endured, not only physically but mentally; for by the villagers, who at times gave them food or water begrudgingly, they were looked upon as inferior animals, but little raised above the beasts of the fields.

It goes without saying that the majority of them succumbed to their sufferings.

We read of their being driven to hide in jungles or morasses from the bands of despicable villains that the Mutiny had let loose to wander over the country in search of adventure and plunder ; of their being robbed by these, and even tied to trees to be beaten and scourged ; of their being entrapped by villagers with promises of assistance, only to be ill-treated and stripped of the best portions of their clothing; of their being exposed nearly naked to the blazing sunshine and the burning winds ; cf their ranks being thinned while fording rivers ; of their being devoured by alligators, bitten by snakes in the jungles in which they hid, falling dead by the wayside of exhaustion and starvation, in some instances being left by sorrowing friends under the shade of trees to die.*

But there is just one ray of sunshine to lighten this dark picture, though only in parts ; for those who at last, weary and worn and dejected, managed to escape, had to

HOLMES and many other sources.

Strange Adventures of Jack Morrison. 183

tell of instances of real kindness at the hands of some of the natives, of their having been hidden for weeks from those who sought their lives and tenderly nursed and fed. There is something good in human nature after all, reader, and the very blackest pages of our history reveal this fact.

We must return for a short time to Jack Morrison, whom we left journeying on towards Delhi. What a pleasant and happy life he had led for weeks past, in this tour of his. Contrast it, if you will, with that which the fugitives had to lead in their headlong flight from the same city.

Well, one is a picture of peace, the other of war, in its most awful form.

But clouds soon began to rise on Jack's horizon. One day while halting for refreshments in a small mud village, situated amidst the most charming scenery, he noticed a half-naked budmash creep out of his hovel and address Jack's servants, all of whom, with the exception of the Lascars, had been Sepoys, and had served in the regular army.

This budmash was neither over nice nor over polite in his remarks. He talked too fast for Jack to understand what he said, for his knowledge of any dialect of Hindoo- stan was very limited. Nevertheless there were many words understood by him : those made his heart beat high with a nameless dread.

The budmash talked not only fast but most excitedly, and his words were received at first with signs of in-

184 On to the Rescue.

credulity by the servants, then with interest, and at last they appeared to catch a deal of the excitement evinced by the speaker.

This fellow finally turned towards the palkee, drew his dirty hand across his throat, and spat upon the ground.

The story he had told the Sepoy servants was a garbled account of the outbreak of the mutiny at Meerut and at Delhi.

What was to be done ? Could the story be true ? Considering everything, and the confidence Mr. Mayne had all along exhibited in the peaceful state of the country, he came to the conclusion it was not. His servants, however, looked doubtful as he gave them the orders to proceed as if nothing had happened. They shook their heads, however, as they glanced back to the spot where the evil-minded budmash still stood raving excitedly, making gestures that meant murder if he could have had his will, and spitting on the ground.

That same afternoon, however, it became all too apparent that what the budmash had said was virtually true. Towards sunset they were journeying quietly onwards along the rough, foot-beaten path, when suddenly, at a bend of the road, they were con- fronted by a band of cavalry Sepoys. They were about fifteen in all, and under the command of a jemadar. Those men had probably come from Delhi, and had taken part in the mutiry and massacre there. Be this as it may, their presence created something very like a panic in the ranks of Jack's little company ;

As for the Lascars, they dropped the palkee forth- with, and fled incontinently to the woods.

Strange Adventures of Jack Morrison. 185

Jack sprang out as quickly as he could, sword and revolver in hand.

At the same time his Sepoys were peremptorily ordered to give up their prisoner.

" But prisoner he is not," was the bold reply ; and from that moment Jack was confident his fellows would be true to him.

The attacking party, or rather their sergeant, now called on Jack to surrender.

"I am the bearer of a message to Delhi, and I am going on there," was Jack's reply. "If you or your men dare to stop me you will rue it."

"Delhi is no longer the residence of the vile dogs of British. They are all slain, they and their pigs of women and children. Surrender!"

Now Jack Morrison was, as we already know, a powerfully-built young fellow. And he had also learned the art of self-defence by fists alone. More- over he was a fairly good swordsman.

Oh, there was no nicety about Jack's swordsmanship. He possessed not the easy grace of a mattre d'armcs. You may have seen a Scotch peasant threshing corn with a flail. That was the style Jack went in for. And there is something to be said for it after all. More than once have I seen our sailor Jacks or blue- jackets beat down the guards of Arabs in this flail fashion, and break their heads at the same time.

Thinking that his victory would be an easy one, the jemadar had dismounted.

"Surrender, you beast?" cried Jack. "Take that."

It was a beautiful left-hander, straight from the

1 86 On to the Rescue.

shoulder, and landed "skrunch" between the jemadar'a eyes. He went down as if shot.

Two more saddles were emptied in a moment. Emptied by five shots. Two to five, and that isn't bad practice.

Now Jack cleverly mounted the jemadar's horse. From being a mere infantry soldier he suddenly became a cavalryman, and a dashing one too.

His men had retired a little way, but seeing how gallantly their young master went for that band of murderers they fired a volley, and with a wild shout came on at the charge.

The battle was decided almost at once, and those who did not fall fled.

Three of the attacking party were killed outright. Four were wounded; while so quick had been the onslaught of Jack's men that not one was hurt.

Their blood was up, however, and quickly dismount- ing, and before Jack could interfere to prevent them, they had dispatched the wounded men.

" How could you be so cruel ? I am cross and angry."

" Sahib must not be angry. These men are murderers ; deserve all they got. Now we fight for you once, we fight for you always"

That these men deserved their fate Jack Morrison soon had sad and fearsome evidence.

They had not gone above two miles after leaving the palkee where it was, exchanging it, we may say, for three horses, for the Lascars did not return ere they came upon a sight that almost froze the marrow in Jack's bones.

Here on the road lay three women, two children about

"The battle was decided almost at once, and those who did not fall, fled ' p. 186.

Strange Adventures of Jack Morrison. 187

the ages of Jessie and Teddie, and two men, evidently all British, and all dead and fearfully mutilated. The men were almost naked, the women partially so, and wearing the loose cloaks of the dead officers, who had evidently struggled hard to protect them, as their bodies, covered with blood and dust, and the trampled condition of the pathway amply proved. Two or three of the attacking party had been killed, and one horse lay over his dead rider.

With thoughts that may be 'better imagined than described, Jack begged the assistance of his Sepoy servants, and together they dragged the bodies into the jungle, placed them side by side, and covered them with leaves and branches. A strange burial, but sufficient ants and other insects would do all the rest.

It was necessary now, however, for Jack to consider what he should do. To go further in this direction would be folly. However he knew his bearings well, for on horseback he had travelled all over the country.

Instead, therefore, of going back upon Muttra, which he considered would by this time be in the hands of the mutineers, he decided to take a bridle path to. the right. This, he remembered, would lead him towards the river Ganges, and there was more than one small town on its banks to which it was unlikely the Mutiny had yet spread. He knew merchants who lived there, and who, he felt certain, would give him safe convoy down the river as far as Cawnpore, which was douldess held by British troops.

He explained to his Sepoys what he intended to do, and they quite approved of the scheme.

1 88 On to the Rescue.

The pathway was very narrow, and as no wind could reach it owing to the trees, it was also insufferably hot.

But it was to all appearance safe.

Safe and silent as silent as the grave to-day. The very lizards and insects seemed to feel the heat, and beautiful birds sat in the shade of green boughs with open bills panting.

They had not gone above a mile till they heard dogs barking in the distance.

"'Twill be as well, sahib," said Jack's chief man, "to keep away from the village."

He pointed in the direction from which the barking came as he spoke.

Jack signified his assent by a nod, and still riding in single file, they now entered what was a jungle indeed. So dense was it that they were frequently obliged to dismount and lead their horses. This was a safe plan for another reason, because snakes hung from many of the branches. Very pretty snakes some of them were, but very poisonous nevertheless. It is disagreeable, to say the least and I speak from experience to find something that you have taken to be a branch of a climbing flower-stem dart quickly round and hiss in your face.

About a mile farther on they came to a stream, what we in this country would call a river. However, it was easily fordable, and now the jungle became an open wood, and the party remounted.

Jack was getting tired now, and a halt was called for rest and refreshments.

The woods around continued very silent, and so soft

Strange Adventures of Jack Morrison. 189

was the ground beneath the trees that a footstep could not be heard.

Suddenly one of the spare horses neighed, and all the party immediately started to their feet and grabbed their pistols.

No need, however, to be alarmed. The ragged and wretched-looking figure that came wearily towards them was far too weak to hurt anyone, even had he been a foe. But he was only a fugitive, an Englishman of the name of Frank Wood.

" Thank God," he said as he extended his thin yellow hand to greet Jack, " you are a countryman and a friend. My sister may live. Oh," he added, and the tears born of debility and suffering ran down his cheeks, " how brave poor Lily has been ! "

" But where is your sister ?" cried Jack.

" A little way from here, hidden in the bush. I went to look for fruit, and God in his mercy sent me in your direction."

Lily was soon one of the party. Not more than sixteen was she, but so haggard and worn that she looked thirty, only her soft brown eyes retained their brightness. But her hair was tangled and roughly bound up with the root of a trailing plant.

She smiled through her tears as Jack took her hand.

Then Frank Wood told all the terrible story of Delhi, and as far as he knew it of Meerut also.

"We must save ourselves now," he said, "as best we can, and I think your plan is a good one. But I believe I can improve upon it."

Jack had already told him of his own recent adventures

On to the Rescue.

" First and foremost," the stranger said, " we must hark back some distance, for we must rob the dead."

" Rob the dead ?"

"Yes," and Frank smiled faintly, "we must rob the very Sepoys you and your brave fellows so conveniently killed. You see," he explained, "we can never hope to escape as Englishmen."

" I see now."

" Sahib," said Jack's chief man, " what this English officer speak is true. But no time to lose. I will take me two fellows and ride back and bring the dress. Else more Sepoy may come up the main road from Delhi and quickly take away the clothes."

" I can trust you," said Jack ; " go."

In less than an hour he was back.

"And now to make up," cried Wood almost merrily. " Lily, you must imagine we are going on the boards of our little theatre at the cantonments. Mind you, Morrison, I and Lily can talk and look like natives, but you must be dumb."

" I can assist the mem-sahib," said Jack's head man.

• I can do her hair-dress."

"Alas!" said Lily laughing, "I know what that means, I must have it all cut off. And poor aunt used to admire it so."

Again her eyes filled with tears. The aunt had been murdered.

In a very short time, however, Lily's head-dress was finished, and then she retired into the bush to exchange her own rags for the clothes of a young Sepoy. Luckily they fitted her, then her brother stained her skin and

Strange Adventures of Jack Morrison. 191

Jack's with the juice of a nut, and soon the disguises of all were complete and as perfect as could be expected.

That night they slept in the forest, but they did not retire till far on towards morning, for the moon shone very brightly, and they wished to make the best of their way eastwards and south towards the river.

The sun had risen, and all the woods around them were one noisy babel, with the voices of birds and beasts and the sound of insect life.

Xot far off was a little brawling burn, and here Lily and her brother performed their ablutions, while Jack went a little farther off.

Washing, however, removed a considerable portion of the stain from their faces, and this had to be replaced. After this they sat down to breakfast, which was a substantial one, for Jack's Sepoys had not lost any of the stores.

It was then that Frank Wood told Jack of many more harrowing scenes that he and his brave young sister had been witnesses to in Delhi and during their flight.

One portion of his sad story he almost whispered, it was concerning a tragedy that had taken place. Poor

Mrs. S had killed her two children while raving mad,

then shot herself with her husband's revolver.

"Ah! lucky for the husband he did not see it," said Frank Wood.

" He was absent then ? " said Jack.

" Yes ; he was dead. His wife from a window had seen him clubbed and murdered in the street."

No wonder the poor lady had gone mad.

Chapter VIII. JACK AND HIS PARTY FLY TO LUCKNOW HENRY LAWRENCE.

HIS was indeed a strange flight, but a far more fortunate one than that of most of the other fugitives.

Luckily for Jack and his companions the Sepoys remained faithful and true, else, at any moment, they might have been over- powered and slain.

They travelled as much by night as possible, and gave most of the villages a wide berth.

Sometimes, however, they were compelled to enter a small town or village after cautiously reconnoitring it, to obtain additional supplies of food or water, or even to enquire the way.

In hardly any of these, however, did they find Sepoys. They were mostly carrying on the work of death, destruction, and robbery in the larger towns.

The party cantered dashingly into the villages, and as often as not demanded an interview with the chief man 192

Jack and /its Party Fly to Lucknow. 193

or little rajah! Some of these little rajahs thought themselves individuals of no small importance.

But they did not scare bold Frank Wood nor his sister, and Jack could not help admiring the plucky way in which in the name of the King of Delhi Frank demanded food and refreshment, and didn't pay for the obligement. The Sepoys, Jack's servants, were all eagerly questioned as to the doings in Delhi, and the young Scotsman was quite astonished at the coolness with which they spun their yarns, graphically describing to the wondering villagers all the glories and splendours of the new court that surrounded the old King of Delhi.

After hearing such stories as these the villagers were proud and pleased to let the jemadar Frank Wood have anything he desired, and seemed sorry when the party once more rode on.

Several times, however, Jack had found himself the object of very undesirable scrutiny in some of these villages, and more than once it had been hinted that he was a European in disguise.

The fact is, honest, gentle Jack did not bear himself with the easy grace of a dashing Sepoy, and his eyes were as brightly blue as the sky above him. This was a drawback that nearly ended in a disaster. They had crossed the canal, and had nearly reached the banks of the Ganges, determining now, as their fortune seemed to favour them, to push on to Cawnpore by land instead of venturing on water as Jack had first proposed, and that too by the main trunk road, for they had now become somewhat foolhardy, owing to their success.

It was near sunset. The day had been peculiarly

194 O H to the Rescue.

bright and cool for the season, though clouds lying low on the southern horizon presaged a gathering storm, svhich soon might burst upon them with a fury that is unknown in more temperate climes.

They had struck the great trunk road that forenoon, and resolved to stick to it if nothing untoward should take place. And now, save for the low singing of some birds in the groves and thickets near to them, there was scarcely a sound to break the silence. Jack was riding by Frank Wood, his sister but a little way behind, and after him came the Sepoy servants. It was getting near halting-time, and as the horses were rather fatigued but little progress was being made.

Jack and Frank were talking too loud for safety's sake, for woods as well as walls have ears.

Suddenly they became aware that a strange horseman was by their side.

Jack and his friend glanced uneasily round, but the newcomer, who had evidently been in the forest, so that they had really met him, saluted Jack with a smile and the words " Salaam Sahib."

The fellow's horse seemed fresh, and he immediately after gave him his head. He trotted on at a fair pace, but as soon as out of sight, at the bend of the road, it was evident from the sound of his feet that the horse had been put to the gallop.

A consultation was hastily held.

It was evident enough that the fellow had suspected that all was not right, perhaps he even knew all the truth. What should they do ? To go on meant getting into a trap. That mounted Sepoy was doubtless one of

Jack and his Party Fly to Lucknow. 195

a party, and was reconnoitring. But to go back was worse. So Jack said, for, like most Scotsmen, he con- sidered retrogression somewhat unlucky.

At all events they must take to the forest, and keep well out of sight.

This they now did, and after riding on some distance with great difficulty, for the boughs hung close overhead, they found themselves in a thicket, and here they deter- mined to wait.

The sun went lower and lower down towards the west, and they were beginning to think after all that their alarm had been needless, when suddenly the sound of distant hoofs fell upon their ears.

In a moment, after looking to their arms, every Sepoy sprang to his horse's head, and Jack and his companions, did the same. Their object was to prevent the animals from neighing, for, although completely hidden, they were in dangerous proximity to the road.

Nearer and nearer the galloping horsemen came, and soon were abreast. The horses of Jack's party evinced great restlessness, but soon it was all over, and the danger was past.

Frank now ran out of the bush to look after the squad. They were mutineers without doubt, who had come probably from Cawnpore, and were scouring the country in pursuit of human game, or to stir up allies to their cause. In number they could not have been less than fifty.

" Thank God," said Frank, embracing his sister, " that danger has been averted."

They now boldly took to the road again. This was

196 On to the Rescue.

risky certainly, but to lie in the forest all night might have been even more so.

There was no more thoughts of halting for a time.

They took the precaution, however, of sending two of their number on ahead, as a kind of vanguard, for safety's sake.

By-and-by these men rode back, and reported lights ahead. It was evidently a village, and they must not pass through it, for if their pursuers rode back after going northwards some distance, it would certainly be at this village they would halt, to enquire if any mounted party had ridden through. To avoid the hamlet, there- fore, was their very best chance of putting the mutineers off the scent.

Luckily the woods were open here, and they had no difficulty in making the detour, despite the fact that night had fallen.

On reaching the road once more they rode quite a long distance before they came to another village. And this they swept round just as they had the first.

They now felt comparatively safe, but as no one was very tired, and the moon had now arisen, they still continued to advance.

Soon they came to a branch road, which seemed to lead towards the river, and after some further conversation they determined to trust their fortunes to this.

About a mile along they halted, and resolved to rest for a time, for some of the horses were very fagged indeed, and more than one was lame.

They were really now in flight, however, and the rest could not be a very long one.

Jack and his Party Fly to Lucknow. 197

In about three hours' time a hand was laid on Jack's shoulder, and he sat up at once.

It would be now about three in the morning, and the moon shone very brightly indeed.

Somewhat to Jack's surprise he found his chief servant standing by his side, his horse's bridle thrown over his arm. The horse was wet in hide.

Jack jumped up.

" You have been riding then ? "

"I have been reconnoitring. Have call at one house too. Suppose the sahib have gone he quickly be found out. But I no."

" And have you got any information, my good fellow ? "

"Much. Much. Cawnpore is in the hands of the Sepoy mutineers. Much murder. Much fira No good go that way."

Jack found out afterwards that was not the truth, for it was not yet the end of May, and it was the first week in June before the Mutiny really broke out in Cawnpore. However in these days the very intentions of the mutineers were magnified into actions fought and won.

"Lucknow still safe," continued this faithful Sepoy. " We go there, Sahib ? "

" Well, but there is the river to cross."

"Five miles from here that we can do in boat. One ford you call him."

"No, one ferry."

"One ferry so."

Jack now awoke Frank Wood, and after a hurried conversation it was determined to have some refreshment,

198 On to ike Rescue.

then mount at once and make for the ford. They might meet those in their way who would be the reverse of friendly if they found out who they were, but there was less risk of the discovery of their identity if they travelled in the moonlight.

In an hour's time they had reached the ferry, and now they determined to carry matters with a bold and high hand.

Few were awake in the place, but it was a proof of the unsettledness of the times, that they were barely at the village before they were challenged by a sentry, and found themselves confronted by a gate.

" Ho, fellow ! " cried Frank in Hindoostani, " open the gate quickly in the name of the King of Delhi ! "

The sentry replied by turning out the guard. Frank nourished some papers.

"We are bearers of important dispatches," he cried, " for Oude. Do not detain us, but open the gate quickly."

The officer on guard was taken unawares. He seemed indeed to be but half awake, but he managed to ask some questions as to the state of Delhi.

"The raj of the infidel dogs of English is at an end" was Frank's reply. "Not one remains alive in the city, the king is reinstated on his throne. The dynasty is restored."

At these words the gate flew open as if by magic, and there was no further trouble.

In two hours' time the party were safe across the broad ferry, and cantering on towards Lucknow.

Jack and his Party Fly to Lucknow. 199

Although the actual conflagration of mutiny first broke out in Meerut, passing thence in one night's time to Delhi, the Sepoys had long before this exhibited a spirit of insubordination in Lucknow.

That fiend incarnate Nana Sahib had passed through the city early in spring. He and his emissaries were doubtless even then sowing the seeds of disaffection in the minds not only of the Sepoys themselves, but of the native princes.

The time had come, the very year of prophecy the anniversary of Olive's battle of Plassey and victory was sure and certain. That was the text of their sermons, which, it is needless to say, were not preached in public like the harangues of our anarchists on Tower Hill.

In ancient times, in Scotland, before a raid was to be made on the Lowlanders by the more warlike High- landers, the fiery cross was carried from glen to glen to call the clans together. In India no actual fiery cross was carried, but N"ana Sahib's very presence in the different towns he passed through had been enough to convince the natives that a change was soon to come, and that their deliverance from what they termed the tyranny of the infidel dogs of English was nigh at hand.

At the time that the Sepoys of Lucknow had first shown signs of insubordination, early in April of this year, Lawrence was doing his best to quieten the dis- affected at Oude, and was in a great measure successful, though the Sepoys remained sullen.

At Umballah, far ,in the north, the excitement had been great even in March, and incendiarism rampant;

2OO On to the Res cite.

and it was reported to the Governor that the men of the native regiments had sworn to burn down every bungalow out of revenge for the greased cartridges, and it is said that within three months after the affair at Dum-Dum the Lascar's story had become an article of faith among nearly the whole of the Sepoys in Northern India.

But strangely enough even the Sepoys at this time respected, if they did not actually like, Henry Lawrence, and to the mass of the people he was looked upon as a friend.

HENRY LAWRENCE.

Let me tell you very briefly, reader, a little about this brave man's character. Although, then, he commenced his career as lieutenant in the Bengal Artillery, he was more ambitious to become a civil servant than to stick to the sword and cannon. His talents were recognised, and he soon found employment.

"The happiest years of his life," says Holmes, "were spent in the companionship of a wife whose character must be known and honoured by all who would know and honour his. With her to share his sympathies and his aspirations he laboured on year after year in different districts and at different occupations, but always with a single-minded desire to promote the welfare of the people, among whom his lot was cast, and to do his part towards realising his high ideal of the duties of the imperial race."

Nor, reader, were the people slow to find out that he had "in reality their welfare at heart, and no wish or desire to rule with a rod of iron."

Later on we find him writing thus to Lord Canning:

Henry Lawrence. 201

"I have struck up a friendship with two of the best and wealthiest of the chiefs, and am on good terms with all."

"In his labours," continues Holmes, "as well as in the formation of opinions regarding the problems of Anglo-Indian life, he allowed himself to be guided by sentiment as much as by reason, for his temperament was emotional, imaginative, and actively responsive to poetical influences. But that which gave special character to his benevolent toil was the passionate religious en- thusiasm that inspired it. He was continually inflamed with a fervent desire to grow better every day. His religion was the religion of a plain Christian man, knowing nothing of doctrinal subtleties, but solving his simple doubts by a living faith in God. It was in the strength of this faith that he laboured to subdue his roughness of manner, his violent temper, his im- patience to incompetent authority, his morbid sensi- tiveness to real or fancied slights, and trained and chastened almost to saintly perfection the many noble qualities with which his nature had been endowed.

"But no mere enumeration of his virtues would give a just idea of the strength and beauty of his character. To understand it aright the reader must follow him through the toils, the triumphs, and the disappoint- ments of his life. He must picture him as a school- boy, ever ready to acknowledge his faults, ever ready to stand up for the weak, and to do battle when called upon for the strong. He must accompany him on his surveying expeditions through the jungles, and note the thoroughness with which he does his

2O2 On to the Rescue.

work. He must watch him trying to bring the bless- ings of civilisation into the Punjaub, and labouring, not in vain, to inspire that little knot of disciples, who owed everything to him, with his lofty conceptions. He must listen to him pleading the cause of the fallen sirdars with his colleagues at Lahore. He must read his loving letters to his wife and children, and not shut his eyes to his querulous letters to Dalhousie. He must think of him as he knelt with his wife at his bedside, pouring his whole soul in prayer to God on behalf of the brother that had been preferred to him, and the people whose destinies had been removed from his control.

"He must think of him when, a few years later, he had lost the helpmeet of his life, and was nerving himself again by prayer to endure to the end of his pilgrimage. From that moment, although he could not wholly banish the bitterness of disappointed am- bition, though he could never wholly banish the sense of desolation, the most glorious epoch of his life began. He was dead to the world now, though he never ceased to work for it. Thus, when we behold him in the last scene of his life, we feel that a Christian hero stands before us. He was only fifty years of age when he came to Lucknow, but he looked an old man, for his face bore the traces of many years of toil be- neath an Indian sun, and the still deeper marks of a never-ending conflict with self. . . . Yet the raw Addis- combe cadet was easily recognisable in the matured soldier-statesman. He was still the fearless champion of the oppressed, the stern reprover of evil-doers; but

Henry Lawrence. 203

as he got older he was more gentle and more forgiving than he had once been. His humility was such that he would have said of himself, ' 0, that I had spent but one day in this world thoroughly well.'"

At a great Durbar given by Lawrence, at which were the native officers and about fifty privates of each regiment. Lawrence made one last appeal to the Sepoys, The officers sat in chairs, the men were grouped behind ; and in addressing them, Lawrence, Chief Commissioner then of Oude, tried to speak to them as if from heart to heart.

But, alas! and alas! although they listened to him politely, and although the officers declared they were attached to our Government, it was afterwards found out that they believed that Lawrence had held this Durbar and addressed the Sepoys 'because he feared them.

Indeed, this Durbar, I sincerely believe, and all previous and subsequent appeals to the Sepoys, and all concessions made by us, were construed as evidences of our fear of the natives, and did more harm than good.

And now, while Jack Morrison and his little party are rapidly hurrying on towards Lucknow, afraid for their lives to go to Cawnpore, owing to the news they had heard news that left them no alternative but to believe that that city was already in the hands of the mutineers, let us take a glance at Lucknow, and see what is going on there.

2O4 On to the Rescue.

Martin Gubbins, you must know, was Financial Com- missioner in Oude, and a somewhat bold or self-assertive man. But he was undoubtedly clever, and when news of the dreadful massacre and mutiny at Meerut came he foresaw at once that it would have a terrible effect upon Lucknow, and that sooner or later the Residency in that city would have to be defended. He therefore tried, but tried in vain, to get Lawrence to move on troops at once for the support of Lucknow. But Lawrence had to give way at last to a consensus of military opinion.

It was a few days after this that Gubbins telegraphed to the Governor-General, asking for full military power in Oude, and received it. He therefore immediately assumed the title of Brigadier- General and the command of all the troops in the province of Oude.

Now Lucknow was then one of the largest and most important cities in India. The place lay on the south side of the river Goomtee, and, like all very large Indian towns, it consisted of labyrinths of wretched, filthy, narrow streets; but here and there stood spacious, tree- surrounded mansions. The city in its most squalid aspects did not extend all the way to the river, however, but was separated therefrom by innumerable beautiful mosques and palaces. Among these we should remember the Secundra Bagh, the Shah Nujeef, the Chutter Munzil, &c. The names are hard ones, so I shall mention no more. Nor need I, because I give a skeleton map, which will show at a glance what sort of a place Lucknow was, how fortified, and how situated.

The Eesidency, however, requires a word or two of

Henry Lawrence. 205

description. It was a very noble three-storied structure, with balustrades around its roof. It looked all the more imposing from the fact that it stood on a brae-land that rose gently from the river's banks.

Close to the Kesidency was an iron bridge, and higher up the stream a stone one.

Kindly bear this in mind, reader, because we shall have fighting at Lucknow before long, and a strange tale to tell.

You will see the canal on the plan (page 316), and see that it joins the river, and is crossed by the Cawnpore road. Note also the military posts on the right side of the canal ; the Alum Bagh, for instance, which was really a wall-surrounded garden about two miles from Lucknow on the road to Cawnpore; the Dilkoosha, a palatial building in an open space or park to the south, near the junction of the river and canal ; the Charbagh, near the bridge over the canal, and at its junction with the Cawnpore road.

Well, the above is no doubt dry reading; but wait a little, or "bide a wee," as we say in Scotland, and

Lucknow will

" Show another sight, When drums beat at the dead of night, Commanding fires of death to light The darkness of the scenery."

But the great and surpassing beauty of Lucknow, Holmes tells us, was best seen from the roof of the Eesidency.

" Standing there on a clear summer evening one might have seen the distant chaos of the vast city gradually

206 On to the Rescue.

taking shape in narrow streets and twisting lanes, and nearer still in cupolas, columns, terraced roofs, gilded domes, and slender minarets, which, flooded in the yellow glow, rose in picturesque confusion above the rich foliage of the surrounding groves and gardens ; while on the right stood the huge frowning pile of Muchee Bhowun, and behind the Goomtee river, recalling some tranquil English stream, meandered through the fertile plain, and past the bright cornfields, the mango -tope's and the scattered hamlets of the Garden of India."

The Kesidency was badly placed, being surrounded by offices and bungalows instead of ramparts. Again, the only European regiment at first at Lucknow was the 32nd Foot, and that was stationed away to the east of the Eesidency, fully a mile and a half away, while the native regiments were in the city itself, or quartered on each side of the river. In case of mutiny the Sepoys therefore would have easier work than they had at Delhi

I have said that Gubbins was clever and self-assertive. I hope this will not give you a wrong impression of his true character.

He was brave and daring, and full of the courage of his own convictions. Too much so, for he urged these to rashness ; but he was, on the whole, a kind-hearted man.

Gubbins, seeing that the Mutiny in Lucknow was merely a matter of time, determined to make the Eesidency his great stronghold, and here he stored guns, ammunition, and all stores that would enable him to stand a siege.

Henry Lawrence.

207

Gubbins advised Lawrence to disarm the Sepoys. Lawrence refused, and in this I cannot help believing that he was wrong.

About the 28th of May our friend Jack Morrison rode safely into Lucknow, and very much surprised were the English to see both him and his disguised friends, Frank and Lily Wood.

Chapter IX. A TRUE-BORN ENGLISHMAN THE FATE OF CAWNPORE A MARCH TO DEATH.

WHAT British boy lives who has not heard of that great hero Havelock? He was a man of whom we are all proud a brave and generous soldier, an unselfish, but heroic commander, a true-born Englishman.

I wish I had space to tell you about his boyhood's days. For the simple reason that the boy is father of the man, I always like to trace my heroes from at least their teens, but here in this story of mine I have so many heroes that I cannot give the biographies of all even in brief.

Havelock, let me tell you, however, went to school at a very early age. He was born, as was also his brother William, at Bishop wearmouth, but his father after- wards migrated to Kent and bought a property there called Ingress Park, near to Dartford. And when only five years old he used to ride to Dartford every day, a distance of three miles, to attend school From the age if ten till he was seventeen we find him at the Charter- 208

A True-born Englishman. 209

house, and this he has told many of his friends was the happiest time of his life.

Contemporary with Havelock were many remarkable men, such as the Dean of Durham (George Waddington), George Grote, the historian of Greece ; Archdeacon Hale, who became master of the Charterhouse; Sir William Macnaughten, Lord Panmure, and Yates the famous actor.

The poor boy lost his mother when only fourteen, one of the bitterest griefs of his life. Yet had she not lived in vain, for she it had been who first taught the lad to pray, and religion ruled his whole life for good. It is not everyone who can say as Havelock said when dying in a dhooly under the shadow of the palms at Dakoosha Fort, "I have for forty years so ruled my life that when death came I might face it without fear."

All Havelock's three brothers were soldiers ; his oldest, named William, was called the fair-haired boy of the Peninsula. He had joined the Light Division there before the terrible fight of the Coa, and distinguished himself afterwards at Waterloo, and he died at last sword in hand at the fierce fight of Eamnuggare.

I really feel at this moment half inclined to let this errant pen of mine follow Havelock through his military career, from his first seven peaceful years of home-life with the gallant 85th, throughout Afghanistan, Gwalior, and the Punjaub, and Persia, till, after the peace with the latter country, we find him most opportunely at Bombay. But this must not be. If, however, the reader desires to know all about Havelock which his memoiy can retain, let him read his life by my brave bright countryman, Archibald Forbes.

2io On to the Rescue.

Even before the war with Persia was a thing of the past, ugly rumours were rife about the coining Mutiny.

Havelock then arrived in Bombay on the 29th of May, and there to his sorrow and astonishment got the news that the native regiments had mutinied, not only at Meerut and Delhi, but Ferozepore, and that disaffection was rapidly spreading over the Punjaub.

He started from Bombay on the first of June in the steamer Erin, two regiments of ours just back from Persia not even being allowed to land, but hurried on to Calcutta. The Erin however was wrecked at Caltura, and Havelock narrowly escaped with his life. He reached Madras safely, and went on soon after in the Fire Queen to Calcutta. He went there in company with Sir Patrick Grant, and was by him introduced to Lord Canning, the Governor of India. Grant knew Havelock well, and knew what he could do. Had they not fought together side by side at Maharajpore and Mudkee ?

His Excellency at once commissioned Havelock to probably one of the hardest tasks it has ever fallen to the lot of man to undertake.

For by this time, June 17th, the Mutiny had extended with fearful rapidity. Nowhere 'twixt Allahabad and Agra, where our friends Mr. Mayne, his wife, and children were, was the authority of Great Britain recognised. At Lucknow Sir Henry Lawrence was surrounded by hordes of savage mutineers, while Cawnpore was in a far worse plight.

And it is to Cawnpore, while Havelock is making his speedy preparations to start up country, that we must. now for a brief space direct the reader's attention.

The Fate of Cawnpore. 2ll

THE FATE OF CAWNPOKE.

No more sad or terrible story than that of Cawnpore was it ever the lot of historian to tell. Yet it cannot be avoided. All should know it. It is a blood-stain in the story of India under British rule that time can never efface. But all I can do to mitigate horrors in relating it I shall do. Indeed were there naught save horrors to speak of, I should dismiss the description with very fe.w words ; but there was heroism as well as horror, heroism not only displayed by men and soldiers, but by gentle ladies also, that makes us feel proud of our countrywomen, while we drop a tear for the fate that befell them.

A glance at the map, reader, will show you the position of Cawnpore, and you will have no difficulty in under- standing that it was a place of very great importance from a military point of view. It was also the place near which Nana Sahib, the arch-fiend of the mutiny, had his estates and home.

Says Holmes, "In the spring of 1857 the British residents of Cawnpore were leading the ordinary life of an Anglo-Indian community. Morning rides, work in cutcherry " (the Courts of Justice), " or on parade, novel reading, racquets, dinners, and balls filled up the time.

" Pretty women laughed and flirted as they listened to the band in the cool of the evening, and talked perhaps of the delightful balls that the Nana had given at his palace up the river, before he had started on that inexplicable tour of his. Suddenly the news of the great disasters at Meerut and Delhi arrived, and the life of the little society was violently wrenched into a new channel"

212 On to the Rescue.

Now Cawnpore was at this time the headquarters of a whole division of the army, namely, the 2nd Cavalry, Sepoys, and the 1st, 56th, and 53rd Sepoy Infantry.

No British troops ? You may well ask that question. No, only about sixty artillerymen and a few invalids, but there was a very large number of civilian residents.

The native part of the town was not unlike that of Lucknow, and there was a sandy plain around it, then going south-east you came to the canal, beyond this were the lines or barracks of the infantry and cavalry, then farther on theatres, assembly rooms, and the church with its white tower raised above a grove of waving palms. Between the river and town were the cantonments. These were simply a long row of houses built of brick, with a compound around each, the whole surrounded by a very insecure-looking mound and a ditch. Near to one end of this stood the magazine, the treasury, and gaol.

When the dreadful news from Delhi reached Cawn- pore Sir Hugh Wheeler, though probably not expect- ing a revolt of his troops, bestirred himself to furbish up a kind of defence-work within the cantonments. He chose the old Dragoon Barracks, from some inex- plicable reason or other, and no more makeshift forti- fication was surely ever built. The walls of this single-storied house were hardly even bullet-proof, and it was thatched with straw!

Sir Hugh made no real batteries, merely surrounding the place with a mud wall about five feet high, in the gaps or embrasures of which his gunners would be ex- posed to an enemy's fire.

Had he been wise, surely it was the magazine itself

The Fate of Cawnpore. 213

he ought to have chosen for a stronghold. It was strong and roomy, and protected on one side by the river.

The only excuse made, or that could have been made, for not taking possession of this place was that it was in the charge of Sepoys, whom to have turned out might have precipitated the Mutiny.

However, the makeshift entrenchment was ready at last, and even provisioned, but only after a fashion, for the duty had been left to natives, and flour and peas were about the only solids sent in.

Thither the women and children and the non-com- batants were taken, and then commenced the agony of waiting and suspense. Sir Hugh had telegraphed to Lawrence before this, and he had sent him a few men about fifty as well as half a battery of guns. Knowing what we now know of the fiend and mur- derer ISTana Sahib, we cannot help wondering that Sir Hugh Wheeler should have sent to him for assistance, asking him to take charge of the treasury. We cannot blame Wheeler altogether for this, however, when we remember that he and Nana had been on friendly terms so long. Had they not walked and talked together, smoked and had wine together, and spent evenings at the same billiard table? Had Nana not dined at his mess, and given balls and parties in honour of the ladies and gentlemen of the garrison ? To suspect him seemed to Wheeler to be not only wrong, but decidedly cruel. In fact, he had thought at one time that it might be well to place the women and children under the pro- tection of this Nana Sahib.

214 On to the Rescue.

The Nana courteously came in with his Sepoys and took charge of the treasury. Very kind of him indeed.

The time wore on, and the anxiety was extreme. The men kept up their hearts, and those of the ladies and children as well as possible, and not one of the officers showed a symptom of fear. Yet each day, as they went off to do duty in the lines, their wives took fare- well of them with a tearful affection that showed they hardly expected ever to see them more.

Then came the outbreak of the awful storm. The Government treasure which the Nana had so graciously and willingly taken charge of was at a suburb called Newabgunj, and thither on the eventful evening of the 4th of June galloped the mutinous Cavalry. The 1st Infantry went off next, and together they broke into and rifled the treasury, and, behaving like demons, smashed open the gaols and let loose the prisoners therefrom, destroyed public buildings, and took posses- sion of the magazine.

Even yet Wheeler and his entrenched people hoped on. After satisfying themselves with plunder Sir Hugh felt sure, he said, that the mutineers would march on towards Delhi.

Alas ! this hope was doomed to bitterest disappoint- ment ; for on the morning of the 6th Wheeler received a letter from the Nana, couched in punctilious terms, declaring his intention of attacking him speedily.

This letter had been received very early, and at sunrise this rebel army was within sight and sound.

We in our peaceful homes to-day ; you, reader, sitting quietly with this book in your hand; can form no con-

The Fate of Cawnpore. 215

ception of the terror, the dread and agony, that now existed within those fragile defences.

The news ran throughout the cantonment with the speed of wildfire, and all were ordered to come at once into the entrenchment. What a dread awakening for those who still slept, for the mother with her baby at her breast, for the father who saw in the immediate future only death in its worst form for himself and family ! There was no time even to cook or eat breakfast if indeed anyone could have desired it. All were ordered to their several posts, and the women, children, and sickly retired to the hospital, or crouched under the verandahs.

And of how many did this little band consist, think you, reader ? Why, they numbered barely a thousand altogether, and of these about four hundred were women and children.

Prayers ? Yes, they went to prayers, and probably never before did worship take place under such painful and agonising circumstances.

If these prayers were not eventually heard, if those weeping men and wailing women knelt in vain around their pastor, we must not question either the justice or the love of our Father. God moves in a mysterious way, and here in this world of sin and sorrow we see but dimly as in a glass.

Hardly had the clergyman ceased to pray ere the yelling of the advancing Sepoys could be heard, and looking up the frightened women and men beheld rolling clouds of smoke, through which tongues of fire leapt up, and showers of sparks. And yet the Sepoys came not.

It was indeed ten o'clock before the rattle of musketry

216 On to the Rescue.

was heard, and round shot began to crash through the frail entrenchment amidst the shrieks of the women and children, the sound of the bugle, or rattle of the drum, and the quick, sharp words of command as the officers and men fell in.

The battle and the strife and terror had commenced, and by the afternoon of that day "the devilry," as Archibald Forbes puts it, " was in full swing," and from that time till the bitter end it never ceased either by day or by night.

No better description of this awful siege methinks was ever given than that by Holmes, and the authorities he in turn quotes in support of every sentence he writes are the best that can be appealed to. I quote a few lines here and there, and leave the reader himself, if gifted with imagination, to fill in the awful blanks, or read between the lines.

"Soldiers, civilians, and loyal Sepoys" about twenty " stood side by side replying as well as they could to the crushing fire of Nana's batteries, the infantry each man with a pile of loaded muskets before him astonish- ing the rebels by the swiftness and accuracy of theii fire.

"Day and night all fought on alike. There was no rest for any except those to whom the sleep of death was vouchsafed, or if a man sank down exhausted under the heel of his gun, he was soon awakened from dreams of home, or coming relief, to a life -in -death within the entrenchment of Cawnpore."

In a week's time all the fifty-nine artillerymen were either killed or wounded.

Women as well as men fell victims to the enemy's fire.

The Fate of Cawnpore. 217

A private was walking with his wife, when a single bullet killed both.

"Young Godfrey Wheeler, a son of the General, was lying wounded in one of the barracks, when a round shot crashed through the walls of the room and tore off his head in the presence of his mother and sisters.

"Little children straggling outside the wall were deliberately shot down.

" But the acutest sufferings were patiently and by some even cheerfully endured."

On June llth a red-hot shot set fire to a barracks within which the women and children, the sick and the wounded were lying.

What a scene ! Think of it, reader, just for a moment.

"The fire illuminating the darkness of the night; the uelpless sufferers within the burning building mingling their shrieks for help with the ceaseless boom of the artillery and the swift, continuous roar of the flames; the soldiers running from their posts, and though girt about by two deadly perils on one side the infernal fire from the enemy's batteries, on the other the downward crash of glowing masses of masonry and burning rafters yet striving to extinguish the flames, and rescuing their friends from an agonizing death; while outside the un- relenting rebels, taking full advantage of the distraction of the garrison, worked their guns with feverish energy, as though they hoped, with the aid of the conflagration, at one stroke to complete the ruin of their victims.

"On the 12th an unsuccessful attempt was made by the mutineers to storm the position. The stern resistance, however, they received drove them back to their guns.

218 On to the Rescue.

" The firing became as incessant as ever ; and while round shot plunged and bounded over the open ground, hurled down masses of timber from the remaining barrack, and sent bricks flying in all directions, bullets pattered like hail against the walls, and broke the windows to atoms."

Starvation now was added to the other sufferings of the besieged. !No wonder therefore that while the enemy was constantly being reinforced the numbers of the besieged were daily getting less and less, that some fell victims to sunstroke or died of thirst, and that some went mad.

There was but one well in the entrenchment; yet, though to reach it our noble fellows had to expose themselves to the fire of the enemy, they did not hesitate, urged on by the pitiful plight of the women and the wailing of sick and dying children.

The barracks being destroyed, there was no shelter now even for the women.

In this terribly trying time the behaviour of Captain Moore of the 32nd, one of the chief heroes of Cawnpore, deserves special mention. His cheerful demeanour and gallant example urged on the men to work, and his tender sympathy gave a ray of hope and comfort to the poor women, even in their direst and darkest hours of distress.

As to the women themselves, Forbes may well say that " a great lump rises in the throat as one bethinks him of their pathetic constancy and their awful sufferings ; of British ladies going barefooted, after giving up their stockings to form cases for grape-shot, going unshod,

A March to Death. 219

unkempt, ragged and squalid, haggard and emaciated, parched with thirst and faint with hunger, sitting waiting to hear that they were widows."

Still more dreadful is it, dear reader, to think that at this terrible time babies were born !

There, I cannot go further! Let the end now come and speedily, terrible end though it be.

At sunset then, on the morning of June the 27th, after a false treaty had been signed by Nana Sahib, in which he promised the remains of the luckless garrison safe transport in boats down the river, the exodus from the wretched blood-stained entrenchment was commenced.

How sad they looked, for even the men had dire forebodings of what was to follow ! How worn and wan, how wretched and ragged! So woe-begone a procession surely never before was seen. The wounded were borne along in palkees, the women on elephants or in waggons, the fighting men were on foot, many so weak that they but stumbled along leaning on the arms of sturdy mess- mates. Truly a mournful sight.

And whither were they going ?

Would Nana Sahib fulfil his promise, and send these poor creatures down stream in safety ?

Verily, no. It was but little over a mile they had to go from their entrenchment to the place where the boats were supposed to be waiting them. But their slow progress is really and truly

A MARCH TO DEATH.

CHAPTEK X. THE MASSACRE BY THE GHAUT THE BOAT THAT DRIFTED A WAY THE LAST SAD SCENE OF ALL.

I WOULD gladly draw a veil over the rest of the sad tale of Cawnpore, but the historian should not flinch from his duty, even if it be at times disagreeable and heartrending.

Wearily the poor people marched on and on till, coming to a bridge, they turned aside and threaded their way through a narrow glen, and presently came in sight of the Ganges.

Yes, there were the rude boats with their awnings of thatch that were to convey them down the river, and hope began now to beat in every heart.

Did it appear strange to any of them, we wonder, that there were over a thousand armed Sepoys by the Ganges to see them embark, or that squadrons of Cavalry were posted near the banks and under cover? Or that a host of unarmed natives, male and female, young and

old, had come to witness the tragedy ?

Yes, horrible as it may appear, it was a wholesale

The Massacre by the Ghaut. 221

massacre of the little garrison that IsTana Sahib had designed and ordered, and that his vile and fiendish general, Tantia Topee, had come to carry out. That mob of budmashes and gaol-birds were to see a scene such as they never before had beheld, and which, I trust, for the honour of poor humanity, turned many of them sick with horror.

The embarkation begins.

Now a bugle rings out in the morning air, and almost immediately after the Sepoys bring their arms to the shoulder and fire.

While a rain of bullets patters with dull, suggestive thuds in the midst of that helpless crowd, cannons add their deafening roar to the wild screaming of women and children, and grapeshot rakes the boats from stem to stern.

A few moments after this the thatched awnings of those boats take fire, falling in burning masses among the sick and the wounded, suffocating them to death or burning them alive.

Strong men leap overboard, only to be shot or cut down. Poor ladies, anxious only to save their children, crouch under the boats or flounder in the river insane for the time being, hardly knowing what they are doing or whither they are rushing while the Nana's fierce, relentless troops tear even the babies from their arms and rend them in pieces, and cut down the mothers with sabre or tulwar.

I let the curtain fall on the first part of this fearful massacre. It falls as word comes to cease for a time the slaughter.

222 On to the Rescue.

And now the survivors, about one hundred and twenty- five in all the large majority women and children, the remains of their tattered clothes in many instances torn almost completely from their backs, all bedraggled with mud and blood, many frightfully wounded were driven like a flock of sheep back to prison in blood-stained Cawnpore.

THE BOAT THAT FLOATED AWAY.

The story of the boat that amidst the rain of bullets, the massacre and general confusion, pushed off into the stream and went floating down the Ganges, is to me as sad as any connected with the siege and massacre of Cawnpore.

These poor wretches became the target of Sepoys that ran along the banks, firing at them long after they had floated out and away beyond reach of the guns. They had neither oars nor sails nor rudder, and no food.

" The only thing that passed their lips," says Mowbray Thompson, "except prayers and shrieks and groans, was the water of the Ganges, for which, in their dying distress, the poor wounded and sick kept constantly crying."

What a day that was! Would it never, never come to an end ? Would the sun never set, and the dark- ness afford them shelter and a little surcease from pain and danger? Again and again during the day and the night that followed they ran aground on sand banks. Day broke at last. It was the morning of the 28th of June. For a time there seemed no pursuit, but the boat grounded, and the Sepoys appeared in the afternoon. Five more were killed or wounded. Then, just before sunset, they saw a boat filled with armed Sepoys bearing down to attack them.

This boat also went aground, and now our poor war-worn men had one sweet morsel of revenge, for twenty of them left their own boat and attacked the Sepoys, killing them to a man. All this afternoon it had rained in torrents, and at night the wind increased to almost hurricane force, and the boat floated once more.

Then another day dawned, and to their horror the unhappy people on board of that boat found it was drifting in towards the bank, and that there quite a small army of natives were drawn up to receive them.

What now should they do ? Nothing but meet death as bravely as Britons ever do. There were still two officers, eleven men, and a sergeant unwounded. The officers were brave Delafosse and Mowbray Thompson, and all were burning for revenge.

" When can men die better, Than in facing fearful odds."

Poor Major Vibart of the 2nd Cavalry was alive also, but too grievously wounded to lead this forlorn hope.

The gallant little party, to the astonishment of the natives, leapt with a wild cheer on shore, and, relieved of their weight, the boat drifted away. The soldiers and their officers fought their way right through the midst .of the dastardly foe, dealing death and gaping wounds at every blow.

They were forced of course to fly at last, and found a

224 n to the Rescue.

temporary shelter in a Hindoo temple. Around this the enemy swarmed and tried to fire the place, and finally to blow it up with gunpowder.

Nothing remained but to make a dash for the river. The thirteen sprang out therefore, swords and bayonets in hand, and fought their way once more through the murderers.

But six of their number fell before the rest reached the bank and plunged into the river, after throwing in their arms.

The yelling savages ran down the banks firing at them. The bullets struck and killed two, a third, unable to swim far landed and gave himself up, only to be clubbed to death at once; but the rest four only, mind you seemed to bear charmed lives, for although the shot splashed in the water ahead and astern and all about them they still kept on, and after a six miles' swim found shelter and safety in the house of a chief who was friendly to our Government. The saved, each of whom deserves a line to himself, were

• Mowbray Thompson.

• Delafosse.

• Private Murphy.

• Private Sullivan.

But what about the drifting boat ? Ah, yes, that was indeed sad !

It was captured, and the whole of the eighty poor creatures in it, mostly women and children, were brought back to Cawnpore.

Surely they must have thought the bitterness of death was past. Alas ! no. The men were torn from the

The Last Sad Scene of AIL 225

shrieking wives and women who fain would have shared their fate, and shot.

Says a native who witnessed the return of these unhappy fugitives: "When they landed on the blood- stained ghaut I counted sixty sahibs, twenty-five mem- sahibs, and four children. The Nana said 'Take away the mem-sahibs from the sahibs, then kill the sahibs. Let the first Bengal Native Cavalry do the shooting.' Then cried one mem-sahib, 'Oh, I will not leave my husband, I will die with my husband ! Shoot me too for pity's sake ! '

" So she ran and sat down beside her husband, clasping him round the waist. Directly she said and did this the other mem-sahibs all screamed, ' We too will die with our husbands,' and they all sat down each by her husband. The husbands themselves cry 'Go back, go back!' but they would not. Whereupon the Nana gave orders to the soldiers, and they went up and tore them shrieking away by main force. Yes, it was terrible !"

So ends, dear reader, the tragical story of the boat that floated away.

THE LAST SAD SCENE OF ALL.

I shall not dwell long on this scene, reader, I can assure you. If it shocks you to read it, remember as you do so, that as I wrote it my eyes were wet with tears.

The twenty- five mem-sahibs then, and the four poor children, were confined along with the others at Savada House. And there they were left for a time.

226 On to the Rescue.

Now you must know, reader, that while these awful tragedies were taking place at Cawnpore, others but little less terrible were happening elsewhere. For instance, the general mutiny at Lucknow, of which I have yet to speak, and which took place on the 30th day of May

But meanwhile both towards Cawnpore and Lucknow and Delhi relief armies were marching. Havelock was on the way. Indeed, as we shall presently see, this brave and excellent general was but one day distant when the last sad scene of the Cawnpore tragedy was being enacted.

After the massacre at the boats Nana Sahib returned to his estates and palace at Bithoor, and immediately caused himself to be proclaimed Peishwa. He looked upon himself indeed as a mighty conqueror, and upon the murder of the garrison as a great victory and a triumph for his arms.

This arch - fiend, the Nana Sahib, seated upon his throne, was installed as Peishwa with more than regal pomp and ceremony. The sacrament of marking the forehead was duly performed amidst the shouts and acclamations of his assembled warriors and people, and when darkness fell the whole city was en gala. Great bonfires blazed, dazzling fireworks filled the air, horns and trumpets brayed, and drums were beat, while all night long the yelling and eldritch screaming of the savages rent the air.

Ah ! little cared the poor British prisoners now that guns should be fired, and hardly did they ask each other what the meaning of the firing might be. Their best and their dearest had been ruthlessly butchered before their

The Last Sad Scene of All. 227

eyes ; all they longed for now was rest in death. Not rest in the grave, mind you. Nay, a grave even would be denied them, as it had been to their husbands. Their bodies might be left for the wild dogs to eat, or tossed into the river as food for eels and alligators.

They were to be made slaves of. Was that their doom ? They believed so at first, for amidst the hooting, the laughing and jeering of brutal men, they were moved from the Savada House to the " Beebeeghur."

The Beebeeghur it is an ugly name, and has an ugly meaning was a small house, some say a hovel, down by the river, with scarcely room in it for a small family, and here they were penned like sheep awaiting the slaughter.

Major Gordon of the 61st Eegiment describes the Beebeeghur as follows:

"It was a dismal kind of bungalow, in a small com- pound near what used to be the assembly rooms. There was a narrow verandah running along nearly the whole of the front. At the two ends of it were bathing-rooms, opening both into the verandah and into the side-rooms. Then came an inner entrance room, and then one about sixteen by sixteen, and then another open verandah as in front. It was, in fact, two small houses built on exactly the same plan facing each other, and having a space enclosed between them."

This place was under the very shadow of Nana Sahib's palace, the place at which every night he now held revels, rejoicings, and debaucheries.

And out from this crampy, crowded bungalow every day a few of those tender English ladies, who but a few

weeks before were walking happy and free in their own p

228 On to the Rescue.

gardens or around the cantonments, were dragged to grind corn for the Nana's household.

This is considered in Eastern countries the crowning degradation of the conquered, and has been so considered for thousands of years. (Vide Isaiah xlviL)

Of these wretched, starved, and terror-stricken women %nd children, suffering the agonies of thirst and heat and semi-suffocation, Gordon tells us that from the 7th of July till the fatal and horrible morning of the 15th twenty-eight died. Some, it is said, put an end to their existence in fits of frenzy. Nor can we wonder. Nine of these succumbed to cholera, three to dysentery and diarrhea, three sunk from their unattended wounds, the others somehow. But one was a baby only two days old. Think of it, reader !

How long the accursed Nana might have kept the poor prisoners alive, or what he might have done with them eventually, may never be known. For news came of the advance of Havelock, and the Peishwa gave orders for the massacre. Nana might have given the fatal order in a paroxysm of rage and hatred of the whole Christian race, or because he feared the revenge that Havelock would seek for the murders he had already committed, and thought he would best consult his interest by leaving none alive who could tell the tale.

It matters not. The fiat went forth. The awful deed was done.

There were among the prisoners five or six men. These were first dragged forth and butchered in the presence of the Nana himself.

After this terrible commencement parties of Sepoys

The Last Sad Scene of AIL 229

were told off to fire through the doorways and windows, of the rooms, upon the women and children.

But it seemed as if such a task was even too sickening for Sepoys to commit; most of whom we are told fired at the ceilings, so the dreadful work proceeded far too slowly to please the Nana.

He was angry and worried that morning at the news he had heard, and would not feel happy till his prisoners were all dead. Besides there were the fearful cries proceeding from the Beebeeghur Bungalow, the shrieking of the infants, the prayers, the entreaties, and pleadings for mercy of the ladies, and all these annoyed his

So horrible! several great gaunt and strong butchers were sent for from the bazaars. The firing ceased now, and to some extent the cries. Then the butchers threw off their garments, and strode into the rooms armed with long knives and swords

Long after the shrieking ceased and the butchers, dripping now with gore, came forth from the accomplish- ment of their awful task, groans were heard issuing from the Bungalow.

I shall not enter into further details. To describe a deed like this in graphic language seems almost a sin.

All night long the bodies lay in the awful rooms un- buried, to be dragged forth next day some young children still alive and cast into a well

An Indian well, reader, is a mere reservoir about say twenty feet in diameter and fifteen deep.

Into this cemetery, there were thrown the hacked and

230 On to the Rescue.

maimed corpses of over two hundred British women and children.

Did not such a crime as this cry aloud for vengenace ?

Can we wonder that the very name of Cawnpore became afterwards a battle-cry among our brave soldiers, and spurred them on to deeds of what might be called the very fury of heroism.

Or can we wonder that the Indian Mutiny now became a very war to the death, or that scant mercy was dealt out to prisoners, or even to the wounded in the field after a battle ?

Even in this hour of his ghastly triumph Nana's black heart seemed to turn faint, and if he succeeded in deceiving others he could not himself believe what he preached, that the British rule in India was crushed for ever, that the British sun had set by the blood- stained walls of Beebeeghur.