Everyone expected that it would be so. In the exultation caused by the impression, Lord Canning, four days later, despatched a request to Barnard to send down a column to clear the weak middle part of the Duáb. But the truth soon became known. Before many days had passed the Government and the public alike realised that General Barnard's task was only beginning, and that assistance for the weak middle piece would be available only from Calcutta.
Meanwhile, darkness was closing round them. At the close of the third week of June, whilst they had heard of further mutinies at Jhánsí, at Náogang, at Nímach, and at Juánpur, they had no news from Kánhpur and Lakhnao later than the 4th. Agra was safe, they knew, on the 10th. They knew likewise that Banáras and Allahábád had been made secure in the manner yet to be described.
During the next fortnight, up to the 4th of July, the accounts became worse and worse. On the 2d of July the Government heard of the mutiny of the native regiments at Kánhpur, and that, joined by Náná Sáhib and his followers, they were besieging Wheeler in his intrenchment; that Sir Henry Lawrence was about to be besieged in the Residency at Lakhnao, but that all was well there to the 30th of June; that Agra was safe up to the 15th, but that Bandah had gone; that the troops of the Gwáliár contingent had mutinied on the 15th; and that an uneasy feeling prevailed at Haidarábád. The next day Lord Canning received a letter from Sir Henry Lawrence, dated the 28th of June. The letter simply stated that the writer had every reason to believe that the English at Kánhpur had been destroyed by treachery. Certain details, which eventually proved to be correct, were added as native reports, but these reports, it was said, were not believed at Allahábád or Banáras.
