CHAPTER XII.
THE LEAGUER OF KÁNHPUR.
In the tenth chapter I have described how, towards the close of the month of May, a rising of the native troops at Kánhpur seemed inevitable; how the officer commanding there, Sir Hugh Wheeler, had fortified, as a place of refuge for the Europeans and Eurasians, two barracks in the centre of a vast plain; how he had stored in those barracks supplies of all sorts; how, on the 22d of May, the non-combatant portion of the residents had crowded to those barracks for refuge; how, a day or two later, the General himself, with his family, had repaired thither; how, on the 22d likewise, he and they had been cheered by the arrival from Lakhnao of eighty-four men of the 32d Foot; how, on the 31st of May and the two following days, the arrival from Allahábád of fifteen men of the Madras Fusiliers, and a hundred of the 84th, bearing with them the information that they were but the forerunners of several regiments, for that troops were pouring into Calcutta, had so influenced General Wheeler that, believing his position now to be secure, and feeling very anxious regarding Lakhnao, he had forwarded on to that station fifty men of the 84th; how that, on the night of the 4th of June, the native troops broke into open and violent mutiny; and how, from that date, the 'leaguer' of Kánhpur may be said to have begun.
The fifty men of the 84th had left for Lakhnao on the
