Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/186

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160
The Sipáhís at Kánhpur rise.

morning of the 3d of June. On the evening of the same day half of the 3d Oudh field-battery, under Lieutenant Ashe, which had been sent from Oudh to Fathgarh to keep open the road between Kánhpur and Agra, but which had been compelled to retreat on account of the mutiny of the native troopers accompanying it, marched into Kánhpur. Their guns, two nine-pounders and a twenty-four-pound howitzer, were at once placed in the intrenchment. The native gunners had behaved so well on the march that it was hoped that they would continue their good service. But the result showed that the defection was almost universal.

On the following morning, the 4th, Wheeler received certain information that the 2d Cavalry and the 1st and 56th Regiments N. I. had resolved to rise within the next four-and-twenty hours and murder their officers. This information caused the issue of an order to the officers of those regiments to discontinue the practice of sleeping in the lines of their regiments. Wheeler saw, too, that the guns in the intrenchment were placed in position, and that arrangements were made to render a surprise impossible.

On the night of the 4th the troopers of the 2d Cavalry rose, with a great shout, and setting fire to the sergeants' bungalows, mounted their horses, and rode to the cattle-yard of the Commissariat department. Taking thence thirty-six elephants, they marched to the treasury, guarded by the soldiers of Náná Sáhib. The two bodies fraternised, and helped each other in packing the contents of the treasury on the elephants and on carts. They were still engaged in this congenial occupation when they were joined by the sipáhís of the 1st N. I., who, refusing to join their comrades at the first bidding, had been unable to resist when they heard of the proceedings at