Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/104

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78
The Native Regiments at Dehlí

stormed and rifled. Every house, in fact, occupied by European or Eurasian was attacked, and every Christian upon whom hands could be laid was killed. There was no mercy and there was no quarter.

Meanwhile, in the cantonments, matters were not going much better. The cantonments for the native brigade at Dehli was situated on the famous ridge, about two miles from the city. There were quartered the 38th, the 54th, and the 74th N. I., and a battery of native artillery. The commanding officer was Brigadier Graves. On that eventful morning Graves had ordered a parade of the native troops, to have read to them the proceedings of the court-martial on Isrí Pándí, the mutinous Jámadár of Barrackpur. Some of those who were present thought they detected in the manner of the sipáhís, whilst the proceedings were being read, signs of sympathy with the condemned man. But there was no overt act, and the sipáhís were dismissed to their lines in the usual manner. It subsequently transpired that sipáhís from Mírath had arrived in the lines the previous day, and had communicated to the regiments located there the intentions of the Mírath native brigade But for the moment all was quiet. The officers had returned to their quarters, and had eaten their breakfasts, when they were suddenly startled by the intimation that the native troops at Mírath had mutinied, and that the advanced guard of them, the 3d Cavalry, had galloped across the bridge. So great was the faith of the officers in their own men, and in British superiority, that those at Dehlí never for a moment believed that the outbreak was aught but an isolated mutiny, which would be speedily quelled. The European force at Mírath must be, they thought, on the heels of the mutinied sipáhís, and whilst their own native brigade would show them a bold front the Carabineers and 60th Rifles would assail them from