Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/195

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Cruelties of Náná Sáhib.
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held those outposts were Jenkins and Glanville of the 2d Europeans. The latter, after holding number two barrack, with sixteen men, for almost as many days, was incapacitated by a severe wound. Mowbray Thomson succeeded him. Needless to add that the defence did not lose from being entrusted to his capable hands.

All this time the rebels were receiving reinforcements. Revolted sipáhís from Oudh, from Ázamgarh, from various stations in the vicinity, swarmed in constantly. Every day, on the other hand, saw a diminution of the resources of the besieged. Towards the end of the third week the supply of food had become very short.

Meanwhile, the Náná, puffed up with his brief authority, was venting on stray captives his hatred of the British race. In the early days of the attack his myrmidons had dragged from hiding, in a house near the dák-bungalow, an old gentleman, supposed to be a merchant, his wife, and two children, both in their teens. He caused them to be shot on the spot. A like fate was meted out to four clerks found in a house on the bank of a canal. Another European, whose name could not be traced, was similarly treated. Later on, on the 10th of June, an English lady, travelling with her four children from the North-west Provinces to Calcutta, and arriving, unsuspicious of evil, at Kánhpur, was taken before Náná Sáhib. They were all shot. The same fate was dealt out to another lady who arrived there under similar circumstances the day following.

On the 12th information reached the Náná that a party of Europeans was approaching by water from the North-west. He at once despatched cavalry and infantry to reconnoitre. These returned to report that they were European fugitives from Fathgarh, mostly women and children. These, likewise, numbering 126, were murdered.