be doubtful. News had arrived that, at Banáras, their countrymen had been fired upon by English gunners. Much, if not everything, depended upon the control possessed over them by their officers.
Fortunately their senior officer on the spot was a man of great daring, of strong character, and absolutely fearless. This was Lieutenant Brasyer, an officer who had been promoted from the ranks for his splendid conduct during the Satlaj campaigns of 1846, and who had risen to a high position in the regiment of Fíruzpur. Brasyer's keen instinct detected on the instant the necessity of taking a quick and bold initiative. Bringing up, then, his Sikhs, supported by the guns on the rampart manned by the sixty-five invalids from Chanár, and on his flank by the hastily armed Europeans and Eurasians, to a point commanding the main gate, at which was posted the company of the 6th N. I., he ordered the sipáhís to pile their arms. There was a moment of hesitation, but then, sullenly and unwillingly, the mutinous soldiers obeyed the order. The muskets were secured, and the sipáhís were expelled the fort.
The fort was secured, but the town, the civil station, and the cantonments were for the moment in the power of the rebels. Most cruelly did they abuse that power. The gaols were broken open, and then the released scum of the population perpetrated atrocities at which the human mind revolts. Not only were the European shops pillaged, the railway works destroyed, the telegraphic wires torn down, but the Europeans and Eurasians, wherever they could be found, were cruelly mutilated and tortured. The death that followed their indescribable torments was hailed by the sufferers as a blessed relief. It need scarcely be added that the treasury was sacked. Then the sipáhís, glutted with blood and gold, abandoning
