Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/97

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Inaction the Order of the Day.
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was made to punish the marauders and murderers of the previous night. 'It is a marvellous thing,' wrote, some time later, the Commissioner, to whom the Government entrusted the drawing up of a report of the proceedings of that terrible night and of that shameful morning, 'that with the dreadful proof of the night's work in every direction, though groups of savages were actually seen gloating over the mangled and mutilated remains of the victims, the column did not take immediate vengeance on the Sadr bazaar and its environs, crowded as the whole place was with wretches hardly concealing their fiendish satisfaction.' But so it was. Inaction was the order of the day. The authorities contented themselves with collecting and placing in the theatre the bodies of the murdered men and women, and left their murderers, unpunished, to the full enjoyment of their ill-gotten gains. Civil and military authorities vied with one another to attain perfection in the art of 'how not to do it'

Meanwhile the sipáhís, having released their imprisoned comrades, and set on the populace and the gaol-birds to keep their late masters well occupied during the night, had taken the road to Dehlí. It is due to some of them to state that they did not quit Mírath before they had seen to a place of safety those officers whom they most respected. This remark applies specially to the men of the 11th N. I., who had gone most reluctantly into the movement. Before they left, two sipáhís of that regiment had escorted two ladies with their children to the Carabineer barracks. They had then rejoined their comrades. Of these the troopers of the 3d Cavalry took the lead, anxious to gain the bridge across the Jamnah before tidings of the outbreak should reach the English authorities. Knowing the English as they did, how, when engaged with them on service, they had ever displayed a