Chapter IV: The Treachery (1)

The event of this conflict produced a sudden change in the projects of the Nana. He forthwith began to despair of carrying our fortress by storm, and the circumstances of his position were so critical that he dared not await the unfailing but tardy process of starvation. The clearing out of the intrenchment proved to be a more serious undertaking than he had anticipated. From forty to fifty score of his stoutest warriors had bitten the dust in front of our rampart, and he appeared to be as far as ever from the object which he had in view. Every day the English fought with increased gallantry and firmness, while in his own camp disaffection and disgust gained ground from hour to hour. An Oriental army which has turned its back on the foe can seldom, in the language of the prize-ring, be induced once more to toe the scratch; and every section of the rebel force had by this time been well beaten. The sepoys were already grumbling, and it was to be feared that another repulse would set them conspiring. Even the Oude men preferred the toddy-shops to the batteries; and the mutineers of the Cawnpore brigade swore that no power on earth or in heaven should prevail on them again to look the Sahibs in the face. Meanwhile the Mahomedans, whom the Maharaja dreaded only less than the British, gathered strength and impunity from the popular discontent. Teeka Sing, the soul of the Hindoo faction and the right hand of the Nana, was imprisoned in his tent on the charge of amassing a private treasure by a party of Moslem troopers, who were growing hungry for the largess so long deferred. Delay was perilous, and defeat would be fatal. By fair means, or, if need was, by the very foulest, it behoved the usurper to bring the matter to a speedy termination. One method remained; swifter than famine; more sure than open force. It might be possible to cajole where he might not frighten; to ensnare those whom he could not vanquish; to lure our countrymen from the shelter of that wall within which no intruder had set his foot and lived.

In one of the rooms in the Savada House the Greenway family, of whom mention has been made above, had now been shut up for about a fortnight, in strict confinement, diversified by an occasional conversation with an underling of the Maharaja. He had fixed their ransom at forty thousand pounds, and was at present discussing the terms of a bill of exchange on a Calcutta bank, for which they were never to receive any consideration. In the same apartment lived an elderly person, named Mrs. Jacobi, who had been taken while endeavouring to escape towards Lucknow, disguised in native clothes. On the evening of Tuesday, the twenty-third, these unhappy people were surprised at receiving a call from Azimoolah and Jwala Pershad, who seemed in very low spirits on account of the collapse of their centenary. These gentlemen informed Mrs. Jacobi[3] that she had been designated as the bearer of a message to Sir Hugh Wheeler. She readily undertook the office, and in the course of the next day was favoured by an interview with the Nana, who gave her a letter and her instructions. At nine o'clock on the following morning, she proceeded to the intrenchments in a palanquin, and was admitted as soon as the sentries had ascertained that she was an envoy, and not a spy. She delivered the document which had been entrusted to her charge; a note in the handwriting of Azimoolah, attested by no signature, of which the superscription was "To the subjects of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria;" and the contents ran as follows, in caricature of a proclamation issued from the Government House at Calcutta:--

"All those who are in no way connected with the acts of Lord Dalhousie, and are willing to lay down their arms, shall receive a safe passage to Allahabad."

This protocol, unique for brevity and impudence, was laid before a council, consisting of General Wheeler, and Captains Moore and Whiting. The debate was prolonged and earnest. Poor Sir Hugh could not bear to abandon the position that he had chosen so ill, and in the defence of which he had been so little able to participate. It seemed a miserable conclusion of a long and not discreditable career to stipulate with his own sepoys for the liberty of slinking away after the loss of all his men and half his officers. Such was indeed an exorbitant price to pay for the sad remnants of a broken life. Better to lie within that well not far above his brave boy than to bargain for the privilege of being interred a few months later beneath one of the unsightly masses of brickwork which encumber the European graveyards of India. But the scruples of the old man at length yielded to the arguments produced by Moore and Whiting:--and they were no drawing-room soldiers: for the one throughout those three weeks had never left a corner on which converged the fire of two powerful batteries, and the other had so borne himself that it might well be doubted whether he knew what fear was. They represented that, if the garrison had consisted exclusively of fighting people, no one would ever dream of surrender as long as they had swords wherewith to cut their way to Allahabad. But what could be done with a mixed multitude, in which there was a woman and a child to each man, while every other man was incapacitated by wounds and disease? The setting in of the wet weather, (so they urged,) long dreaded as an overwhelming calamity, and delayed hitherto by what resembled the special mercy of Providence, could not now be distant. When the heavens were once opened, when the rain of the East descended in all its first violence, their fortification would straightway cease to be habitable and secure. The walls of the barracks, shakened and riddled by the cannonade, would sink and crumble beneath the fury of a tropical tempest. The holes in which our ladies sought refuge from the glare and the shot would be filled ere many inches had fallen. The marksmen who, provided with weapons worthy of their skill, could hardly guarantee those paltry bulwarks, would be helpless when damp powder and dirty gun-barrels had reduced them to their bayonets and hog-spears. In another week they must expect to be washed out of their defences; but, before that week had elapsed, the state of the barometer would concern them little; for the provisions were fast coming to an end. Their stores had dwindled to less than a quart per head of almost uneatable native food. The choice lay between death and capitulation: and, if the latter were resolved on, it was well that the offer came from the enemy. Loth and late Sir Hugh gave way. In order to avoid the appearance of a suspicious eagerness to accept the advances of the Nana, Mrs. Jacobi was dismissed with an announcement that our commander was in deliberation as to the answer that should be sent. That the intention to treat was generally known among our officers is evident from a note addressed by Lieutenant Master, of the Fifty-third, to his father, a colonel of cavalry, dated at half-past eight in the evening of June the twenty-fifth:

"We have now held out for twenty-one days under a tremendous fire. The Raja of Bithoor has offered to forward us in safety to Allahabad, and the General has accepted his terms. I am all right, though twice wounded. Charlotte Newnham and Bella Blair are dead. I'll write from Allahabad. God bless you.

"Your affectionate son,
G. A. MASTER."

The old lady returned to the rebel lines early in the afternoon, reluctant, but somewhat cheered by her short visit. While the summons was under consideration, she had made the most of such an excellent opportunity for pouring out her troubles and terrors to a friendly audience. Her escort conducted her to the Maharaja, who listened to what she had to say, and then sent her back into captivity. He had no further need of her services. A pacific intercourse had been established between the camps, and thenceforward his ambassadors might traverse the intervening ground without apprehension lest a conical bullet from Lieutenant Stirling's rifle should put an abrupt end to the negotiations. That evening there was assembled in the Nana's tent a council of war, to which repaired five or six congenial advisers, who, in their inmost hearts, were conscious that they had been bidden to a council of murder. One hour after dusk was the time appointed for that accursed colloquy. A subject was to be broached on which few would dare to enter until the kindly sun had veiled his face. History will never cease to shudder at the deeds which thence resulted; but of the words that there were spoken she will be content to abide for ever ignorant.

The morrow was a busy day. The first thing in the morning, at our invitation, Azimoolah walked up to within half a quarter of a mile of our outposts, accompanied by Jwala Pershad, a myrmidon of Bithoor Palace, who, by zeal and servility, had risen to the dignity of a brigadier. To them went forth Moore and Whiting, together with Mr. Roche, the postmaster. These gentlemen, whom Sir Hugh had invested with full powers, undertook to deliver up the fortification, the treasure, and the artillery, on condition that our force should march out under arms, with sixty rounds of ammunition to every man; that carriages should be provided for the conveyance of the wounded, the women, and the children; and that boats victualled with a sufficiency of flour should be in readiness at the neighbouring landing-place. These stipulations appeared to meet the approval of the native commissioners; one of whom volunteered the remark: "We will give you sheep and goats also."

The terms were committed to paper, and handed to Azimoolah, who broke up the conference with a promise to do what he could towards persuading his master to accede to our proposals. That same afternoon a trooper brought back a document, with a verbal message to the effect that the Nana had no alteration to suggest, and desired that the barrack should be evacuated that very night. This extravagant demand produced a remonstrance on our part, to which the response was an insolent assurance that the Peishwa must have his will, and that disobedience or even hesitation would bring upon the delinquents the fire of all his batteries; that he was not so blind as to give us credit for having abundance of food or serviceable cannon; and that another week's bombardment would leave nobody alive to haggle with his behest. To this flourish of Oriental vanity Whiting replied in good English style, that, if Seereek Dhoondoo Punth wanted the intrenchment, he had only to come and take it; that his soldiers knew the way thither and the way back again; and that, if the worst came to the worst, there was powder enough in our magazine to blow into the Ganges everything south of the Canal. This last allusion closed the controversy. The Maharaja consented that we should delay the embarkation till morning, and accorded a most gracious reception to Mr. Todd, who formerly had been his English tutor, and who now prevailed upon him, without difficulty, to sign his worthless name on the margin of the treaty. Men give easily what costs them nothing. The Nana informed his old acquaintance that arrangements should be made to enable our countrymen to breakfast and dine on board, and start comfortably in the cool of the evening. The servants, he said, had better stay behind, as the ladies could look to their own wants on the voyage. Which was true, God knows.

There was much to be done that night. On the one side preparations were on foot for a departure; on the other, measures were being taken that the departure should never be. Hoolas Sing, the magistrate of the city, sent for the principal persons who gained their living by letting boats on hire, and ordered them to provide conveyance for five hundred passengers. They declared themselves unable to fulfil his injunctions, a refusal on which, after the re-establishment of British rule, they insisted as an irrefragable proof of loyalty. It is more likely that they were influenced by a rational doubt as to whether they would ever see the colour of the Nana's money. Hoolas Sing, however, knew what he was about, as appears from the pathetic language of one of the sufferers. "I told him," says Buddhoo, aged forty years, "that, when I received orders from the Europeans to procure boats, I was advanced money, and allowed a month or fifteen days to collect the same, and that it was impossible to procure boats on so short a notice. On this he was much annoyed, and said I was only putting him off, and ordered his attendants to take me, give me a good beating, and make me get boats. They did as ordered, kept me there the whole night, beating me, and threatened to blow me from guns if I did not comply with their request. They continued threatening me till 12 A.M.: but I did not get them any boats." Buddhoo's companions had more regard for their skins; and, being not unaccustomed to this mode of carrying on a commercial transaction, after a due modicum of vapulation discovered that they could muster two dozen barges between them. These were punted down the river, and moored at the appointed spot. Presently a committee of English officers, riding upon elephants, and guarded by native troopers, arrived for the purpose of inspecting the proceedings and reporting progress. These gentlemen expressed great vexation at the dilapidated state of the little fleet. Four hundred workmen were at once engaged, and set to repair the thatch of the roofs, and construct a temporary flooring of bamboo. During the presence of our countrymen some provisions were brought along and placed on board, with a considerable show of assiduity: but they were not satisfied with all that they saw, and still less with what they seemed to hear. Some sepoys, idling on the bank, interspersed their talk with frequent repetitions of the word "kuttle," which, being interpreted, is "massacre."

And so the stage had been selected whereon to enact the tragedy. Hoolas Sing had furnished the properties; Azimoolah had composed the plot; and there lacked only a skilful manager, who should distribute the parts, instruct the actors, and dispose the supernumeraries. The Nana could discover many a one among his pimps and parasites suited to such a job as far as moral constitution was concerned. In his familiar circle there was no dearth of fellows by the hand of nature marked, quoted, and signed to do a deed of shame. But in that degenerate circle there was only a single courtier who had retained something of the old Mahratta dash and martial craft. Tantia Topee was destined ere long to demonstrate that he could run away every whit as successfully as those chieftains who more than half a century before wearied out the hot pursuit of Lake and Wellesley; and on this particular occasion he evinced qualities which might have secured to him a share of fame in a cause less detestable to God and man. Laurels were not to be reaped in that contest. The due meed for such victors was a wreath of cypress and a necklace of hemp. But the bad deed was right cleverly done. Among all the feats of arms performed by the rebel forces during the eighteen months which succeeded the explosion at Meerut, no operation was so perfect in all its parts, so able in design, and so prosperous in execution, as the memorable treachery of Cawnpore.

The Suttee Chowra Ghaut, or landing-place, lay a short mile to the north-west of our intrenchment. At this point a ravine runs into the Ganges, after crossing at a right angle the main road, which is distant three hundred yards from the river. During summer the bed of the stream is dry, and presents the appearance of a sandy lane of irregular width, uneven with frequent lumps of broken soil, and inclosed on either side within high banks crowned by decaying fences. Standing half way down this passage the tourist sees behind him a bridge which carries the highway across the defile, the rails of which, then as now coated with white paint, have little of an Oriental aspect, and remind him for an instant of a bit in a Surrey common. On reaching the shore he finds himself in an open space, some hundred and fifty yards long and a hundred deep, bounded in the rear by a precipitous rising ground surmounted with prickly pear, in front by the Ganges, and to the left by the ruins of what in 1857 was the village from which the Ghaut takes a name. On his right hand rises a picturesque temple, dedicated to the patron deity of fishermen, small but in good repair, resembling nothing so much as those summer-houses of a century back which at the corners of old gardens overhang Dutch canals and suburban English byways. Passing down the wall of this edifice a steep flight of steps terminates in the very water of the river, so that a man cannot round the corner without wading. This is the scene where the traveller experiences to the full the sentiment of the spirit of Cawnpore. In other quarters of the station there are objects which evoke no light and transient feelings. It is painful to trace the faint line of the fortifications, and recognise the site of the barrack which contained so much sorrow and agony. It is interesting to observe the neat garden that strives to beguile away the associations which haunt the well of evil fame, and to peruse the inscription indited by a vice-regal hand. It may gratify some minds, beneath the roof of a memorial church that is now building, to listen while Christian worship is performed above a spot which once resounded with ineffectual prayers and vain ejaculations addressed to quite other ears. But it is beside that little shrine on the brink of the yellow flood that none save they who live in the present alone can speak with unaltered voice, and gaze with undimmed eye. For that is the very place itself where the act was accomplished, not yet transformed by votive stone and marble. There, at least, in the November evening, an Englishman may stand with bare head, and, under the canopy of heaven, breathe a silent petition for grace to do in his generation some small thing towards the conciliation of races estranged by a terrible memory.

In the course of the Friday evening Tantia Topee was closeted with the Nana, and, on leaving, gave orders that five guns and as many hundred picked musketeers should be mustered at the landing-place two hours before daybreak. He likewise enjoined certain among the rebel nobles to be in attendance with their followers at the same rendezvous. The cavalry soldiers, to whom the design was imparted, exclaimed against such a dastardly breach of faith, and would not be convinced until the Maharaja himself took the trouble to assure them, on the authority of a royal Brahmin, that according to his creed it was permissible to forswear at such a juncture; and that, for his own part, when the object was to annihilate an enemy, he would not hesitate to take a false oath on burning oil or holy water.

At the prescribed time, Tantia Topee found his power assembled on the bank, and straightway proceeded to make his dispositions. One gun, under the charge of a detachment, was placed among the ruins of Mr. Christie's house, which, from a considerable height above the stream, commanded the whole line of boats. A strong body of sepoys took cover behind the village of Suttee Chowra. A squadron of troopers concealed themselves to the south of the Fisherman's Temple. A couple of sections were secreted in and about some timber, which lay ready to be shipped away; while a mixed party of horse and foot were told off to follow our garrison, with directions to form up on the wooden bridge as soon as the English rear-guard had entered the ravine, and thus cut off the single avenue of escape. A fieldpiece, protected by a company of infantry, was posted a quarter of a mile down the river: and at a somewhat wider interval was stationed a third gun and another company. On the opposite shore, directly facing the mouth of the lane, stood two cannon, guarded by an entire battalion of infantry and a regiment of cavalry, who had recently attached themselves to the insurrection.

The boats, some few excepted, had been hauled into the shallows, and were literally resting on the sand. They were of the ordinary country build, thirty feet from stem to stern, and twelve feet in the beam. They were covered in by a heavy roof of straw, with a space at either end left open for the steersman and the rowers. At a distance they had the air of floating haystacks, rather than of vessels; and, indeed, were not unlike the Noah's ark of our nurseries, both in their outlines and in the number of their crew. Tantia called the boatmen together, and bade them hold themselves prepared, at a given signal, to fire the thatch, and make for the shore; and then, secure of the issue, mounted the stairs of the little temple, there to await, amidst a crowd of armed retainers, the outcome of his able combinations. The men in ambush chattered, and shivered, and munched their cold rice, and shared the alternate pipe: and the Mussulmans in the various groups performed a leisurely obeisance towards the rising sun, not sorry when his rays broke through the chill mist of the morning; and the bargemen gathered round fires heaped with a larger supply of charcoal than the economic Hindoo is wont to expend upon the preparation of his frugal breakfast.

All was quiet in the intrenchment. Brigadier Jwala Pershad, with two companions, came over-night to Sir Hugh Wheeler, and announced that the trio were to remain until the embarkation as hostages for the good faith of the Peishwa. The plausible Hindoo made himself exceedingly agreeable to his host; condoled with the General upon the privations which he had undergone, so trying at that advanced age; and intimated his disapprobation of those ungrateful soldiers who had turned their arms against an old and indulgent commander. He promised that, as far as in him lay, he would take care that no harm should befall us; and he soon had occasion to submit to a test of his good intentions, for a rebel sentry in the outlying barracks dropped his musket, which exploded in the fall, an accident that called forth a rapid and wild discharge from all the hostile batteries. Jwala at once despatched to the head-quarters of the enemy a message explaining the cause of the commotion, and procured an immediate cessation of the bombardment. In spite of this interruption, the garrison, rendered by long suspense and wretchedness careless rather than unsuspicious of the future, held high festival upon a double ration of boiled lentils and meal-cake, washed down by copious draughts of water from the battered well clouded with brick-dust and powdered cement. Though many a wish was uttered for bread, and eggs, and milk-porridge, and curried fowls, no one dared beg or buy of the native sutlers. And so our people filled themselves with such food as they could get, and rested as men rest who have not slept for a great while, and know not when they may sleep again. There were those at hand who knew right well. Meanwhile, as an earnest of our defeat, a squad of mutineers stood guard over the shattered remains of the glorious guns which had done all that English iron could effect for the conservation of English honour and English lives.

On the morrow, at a very early hour, all Cawnpore was astir. The townspeople poured down to the landing-place by thousands; some desirous to catch one more glimpse of the kind-hearted strangers who had so long sojourned in their midst, and unfeignedly sorry to see the last of such easy customers and such open-handed masters; others, curious to observe whether the Sahibs were much changed by their hardships; others, again, drawn thither by a dim expectation that something might happen which it would be a pity to have missed. And the mutineers, and the matchlock-men, and the rabble of the revolt, swarmed forth from the various dens of debauchery, and slouched off, yawning and half-armed, to bear their part in whatever might be going on. And Azimoolah and the brothers of the Peishwa, accompanied by a host of nobles, mounted their horses, and joined Tantia Topee on the platform of the temple. And the Nana did not sleep late, if, indeed, he slept at all. When his courtiers had departed, he dismissed his attendants, and listened in solitude for the sounds which should announce that the supreme moment had arrived. His mind was not in tune for company.

And our countrymen awoke for the last time. There was a great deal to be thought and talked of, but not much to be done. The packing did not take long. Little had been brought into those hateful walls, and less yet remained worth removal when they came to break up their melancholy establishment. Some hid about their persons money, or jewellery, or fragments of plate. Others seemed to think that a bible or a book of prayers was a treasure more likely to be of service in the coming emergency than turquoises, and silver spoons, and gold sovereigns. The able-bodied folk, intent on the common safety, stuffed their hats and pockets with ball-cartridge; while a few, over whose hearts, softened by the influence of the occasion, affection and regret held exclusive sway, bestowed all their care upon tokens which the dying had put aside as a legacy for the bereaved in England. Many and strange were the relics that crossed the Indian Ocean in the homeward-bound packets of that autumn; locks of hair, and stained sleeves or collars, and notes scribbled on the fly-leaf of an orderly-book, and pistols, of which some of the barrels were still loaded, and others had been fired in vain. It was then much as it had been in the days of Troy, throughout the villages of ancient Achaia. "The household knew those whom it sent forth to the war; but, instead of the men, an urn and a poor handful of ashes alone returned."

And now began to make itself felt a strong disinclination to quit for ever the place where so much had been done and suffered; a frame of mind which afterwards was remarked among the besieged at Lucknow who outlived the relief of the Residency. Death, in one of the forms with which all had lately grown so conversant, and among associations that, if not dear, were at any rate familiar, seemed preferable to novel exertions and untried perils. More than one young subaltern who, a month previously, would have been ashamed to confess to an emotion, stole ten minutes to pay a farewell visit to the loophole at which, on the morning of the great assault, he had fought till his shoulder was blue, and his rifle clogged with lead; or to stand with wet cheeks in a nook of the hospital, sacred to his first great grief. Not a few peered down the well that lay outside the breastwork, with a tacit adieu to those whom they left behind, and a wish that it had pleased God to unite them, even there.

If a start was to be made before the advancing day had dispelled the freshness of dawn, there was no time to be lost. A crowd of carriages and beasts of burden had gradually assembled outside the north-western corner of the intrenchment. Some of the women and children disposed themselves in the bullock-carts, while others climbed up to an insecure seat on the padded back of an elephant. A fine animal, equipped with a state howdah, and steered by the Peishwa's own driver, had been sent for the accommodation of Sir Hugh Wheeler. The General was touched by the attention; but (unwilling, it may be, to form a conspicuous object in a _cortège_ so far from triumphal) after seeing his wife and daughters safely mounted in the place of honour, he ensconced himself in a palanquin, which he never left alive. Our soldiers bestowed their disabled comrades in the litters, without receiving the slightest assistance from the native bystanders. It was cruel work, the loading of this mournful train. The inexperienced good-will of that amateur ambulance corps occasioned grievous agony to some who ought not to have left their beds for months, and to some who should never have been moved again.

A number of sepoys mingled with the throng of English people, and entered into conversation with the gentlemen under whom they had formerly served. One and all, they expressed lively admiration for the unaccountable obstinacy of our defence. Many spoke with commiseration of the distressing condition to which those had been reduced for whom they entertained so deep a respect; inquired eagerly after their missing officers; and learned their fate with tears: conduct which none who have studied the Hindoo character can attribute to sheer dissimulation. Less equivocal were the demonstrations displayed towards their employers by certain among the better class of domestics. The head bearer of Colonel Williams, who commanded the Fifty-sixth before the mutiny, deserves to tell his own simple story. He says, "Even after the cessation of hostilities, we were not allowed to go and see our masters. On the morning of the twenty-sixth of June, three officers of the Fifty-sixth, Goad, Fagan, and Warde, mounted on elephants, and two Europeans, whose names and regiments I don't know, mounted on another elephant, came out of the intrenchments and went to the river, to inspect the boats. The gardener and I, taking some grapes, went up to the officers, and told them that we were in a starving condition, and wanted to come to our masters in the intrenchment. They said, 'No, you can't come with us, but we shall come out to-morrow, and you shall accompany us to Allahabad in boats.' Goad Sahib and Warde Sahib gave me each two rupees. They told me that my master had died a natural death; that my mistress was well, but slightly wounded; and that Miss Mary was dead. Her death was caused by fright at the cannonade, and that she was not wounded. On the twenty-seventh of June, a little before six A.M. as many as could walk came out; some of the wounded in doolies, others of whom were left behind. The party from the intrenchment was surrounded by sepoys. I had great difficulty in reaching my mistress. I applied to Annundeedeen, the Havildar-Major of the Fifty-sixth, who said the thing was impossible. I appealed to him, and begged him to remember the kindness he had received from the Colonel. After persuasion, he said that he could not show his face before the Colonel's lady, but directed four sepoys to take me to my mistress, and prevent my being disturbed. I was then taken to my mistress, with whom were her two daughters, Miss Georgiana, and Miss Fanny. They were in wretched plight; scorched and blistered by the sun. My mistress had a slight bullet-wound on the upper lip. She said that my master had died on the eighth of June. My mistress then asked about the property left in the house, and inquired about all the servants, and especially after the cook. She then told me to go and fetch him, as she wanted him to go down to Allahabad with her; and told me to go to her son in the Hills, and inform him of all that had occurred. She told me to make every endeavour to join her son as soon as the roads should be open, and to show him the spot where the Colonel was buried. I told her I did not know the spot. She said the groom who had remained with them in the intrenchment would show it to me." To judge from the attachment of her servants, Mrs. Williams must have ruled her household like a true lady of the kindly old Anglo-Indian school.

No prayer was said, no blessing invoked, no passover eaten before that inauspicious exodus. Moore went about from group to group, and impressed upon his colleagues that it would be idle to attempt to preserve order in the embarkation. His instructions were to push off as soon as all had been got on board, and make for the opposite shore, where further arrangements might be completed at leisure and in comparative safety. And then a drink of water was handed in at the door of each palanquin, and the expedition set forth. A mob of peasants at once rushed upon the deserted premises, and spread themselves about in quest of plunder. They might have spared their pains. A camel-rider, who entered among the first, saw nothing except "three useless brass guns that had been split, two leathern bottles of liquid butter, a sack of fine flour, and the bodies of eleven Europeans. They were on quilts on the floor, some of them still breathing, though dying from severe gunshot wounds."

The show was not such as would dazzle a vulgar eye: but in the soul of those with whom glory is not skin-deep, the retinue of an imperial coronation would fail to inspire the reverence excited by that ragged and spiritless cavalcade. First came the men of the Thirty-second regiment, their dauntless captain at the head;--thinking little, as ever, of the past, but much of the future;--and so marching unconscious towards the death which he had often courted. Then moved on the throng of naked bearers, groaning in monotonous cadence beneath the weight of palanquins, through whose sliding panels might be discerned the pallid forms of the wounded;--their limbs rudely bandaged with shirtsleeves, and old stockings, and strips of gown and petticoat. Mayhap, as they jolted along, they fed their sickly fancies with a listless anticipation that the hour was not remote when they might forget the miserable present amidst the joys of ice, and lemonade, and clean sheets, and nourishment more appetising than parched grain and bad pease-porridge. Behind these creaked a caravan of carts, dragged by bullocks, on which were huddled ladies used to a very different equipage; while here and there paced a stately elephant, his tusks adorned with rings of brass, and his forehead painted in grotesque patterns, who, perchance, a century back, was tugging a gun across the field of Plassey, and who now bore a cluster of English women and children clinging nervously to the ropes which encircled his huge girth. And next, musket on shoulder and revolver in belt, followed they who could still walk and fight. Step was not kept in those ranks. Little was there of martial array, or soldier-like gait and attitude. Lace might not be seen, nor embroidery, nor facings, nor uniforms which could be recognised at the Horseguards or smiled on in county ballrooms. In discoloured flannel and tattered nankeen, mute and in pensive mood, tramped by the remnant of the immortal garrison. These men had finished their toil and had fought their battle: and now, if hope was all but dead within them, there survived, at least, no residue of fear.

The last to quit the intrenchment was Major Vibart, of the Second Cavalry. He brought up the rear of our column alone, amidst a numerous escort of mutineers belonging to his late regiment, who insisted on conveying his luggage down to the landing place;--a marked instance of complaisance on the part of these gentlemen troopers. There were many, however, among the rebels, who no longer thought it worth while to dissemble. Lady Wheeler's ayah, a few minutes before, had been presented by her mistress with a bag of rupees as an acknowledgment of her fidelity. She now was forced to exchange her treasure for a slash with a sabre. Some sepoys, who had stood by us to the last, were seized and carried off in spite of the urgent expostulations of their adjutant: and the hour approached when a brave woman was to meet that face to face, the bitterness of which, to repeat her own language, had already been tasted many, many times. Colonel and Mrs. Ewart had started late; she on foot; he on a bed, carried by four native porters. From one cause and another they made slow progress. The bearers were lazy; and paid no attention to a Mem Sahib, whose husband, prostrate with wounds, was unable to enforce her orders with his cane. Gradually the main body drew farther and farther ahead of the helpless pair; who, at length, like a sick child dreaming that he is kidnapped by gipsies, saw the backs of the English rear-guard disappear round a distant corner. As the litter came abreast of St. John's Church, seven or eight rascals belonging to the Colonel's own battalion stepped up; bade the porters set down their load and stand back; and began to mock their victim, saying: "Is not this a fine parade, and is it not well dressed up?" They then hewed him in pieces with their swords, and afterwards turned to Mrs. Ewart, and desired her to throw down whatever she had about her, and go her ways, for that she was a woman, and they would not kill her. She took out of her dress a piece of stuff, with something tied up in it, and delivered it to one of the gang, who thereupon cut her down dead. Those who loved her, and they were many, could not have wished it otherwise.

Presently the van reached the white rails of the wooden bridge, and, leaving them on the left hand, turned aside into the fatal ravine. A vast multitude, speechless and motionless as spectres, watched their descent into that valley of the shadow of death. Only some sepoys, gazing on the trappings of the elephants, said one to another: "They are taken out of their fortress grandly. They go gladly. They know not what is before them. Now let them repent of their misdeeds, and ask pardon of God." Soon Tantia Topee, who for some while past had been anxiously glancing towards the west, saw the white faces and gleaming bayonets; saw the dark tops of the palanquins dancing up and down; saw the howdahs swaying from right to left above the sea of heads. Then he called to a bandsman who was in attendance, and directed him to proceed up the lane, and sound his bugle when once the Europeans were well within the trap. Slowly, very slowly, with many a halt and many an entanglement, the unwieldy mass of men and brutes wound along the bed of the torrent.

And now the last Englishman walked down into the lane; and immediately the troops who had been appointed to that duty formed a double line across the mouth of the gorge, and told all who were not concerned to retire and keep aloof, for that within that passage there was no admittance save on one baleful business. Meantime the embarkation was progressing under serious difficulties. No temporary pier had been provided, nor even a plank to serve as gangway. None of the Hindoo boatmen or bearers spoke a word or lent a hand, while, standing knee-deep in the stream, our officers hoisted in the wounded and the women. Already they were themselves preparing to scramble on board;--already the children were rejoicing over the sight of some boiled rice which they had discovered in the corner of a barge;--when, amidst the sinister silence which prevailed, the blast of a bugle came pealing down the defile. Thereupon the native rowers leaped into the water, and splashed towards dry ground; while those very troopers who had conducted Major Vibart from the barrack with such professions of esteem discharged their carbines at the nearest vessel. The Englishmen, whose rifles were handy, at once opened fire, some on the traitorous crews, others on the hypocritical scoundrels who had commenced the attack. But of a sudden several of the straw roofs burst into a flame, and almost the entire fleet was blazing in the twinkling of an eye. The red-hot charcoal had done its work. At the same moment from either shore broke forth a storm of grape and musketry. To the imagination of our countrymen, oppressed and bewildered by the infernal tumult, it seemed that the land was alive with a hundred cannon and a myriad of sharpshooters. The wounded perished under the burning thatch, while all who could shift for themselves dropped into the river. Of the ladies, some crouching beneath the overhanging prows, some wading up to their chins along the shelving bottom, sought shelter from the bullets, which sprinkled the surface like falling rain. The men set their shoulders against the planking, and tried to launch off into the mid-current. But he who had chosen those moorings never intended that the keels should leave the sandbank on which they lay. All the boats stuck fast, save a poor three, of which two drifted across to the Oude bank into the jaws of the perdition which in that quarter also awaited their inmates. The third got clear away from the shallows, and floated steadily down the main channel. Whether fortuitously, or by the attraction of like to like, it so befell that the flower of the defence was congregated between those bulwarks. There were Vibart; and Whiting, good at need; and Ashe, bereaved of his beloved nine-pounder; and Delafosse of the burning gun; and Bolton, snatched once more from present destruction. There was Moore, with his arm slung in a handkerchief; and Blenman, the bold spy; and Glanville of Barrack Number Two; and Burney of the south-east battery. Fate seemed willing to defer the hour which should extinguish those noble lives.

When, after the lapse of some twenty minutes, the dead began to outnumber the living;--when the fire slackened, as the marks grew few and far between:--then the troopers who had been drawn up to the right of the temple plunged into the river, sabre between teeth, and pistol in hand. Thereupon two half-caste Christian women, the wives of musicians in the band of the Fifty-sixth, witnessed a scene which should not be related at second-hand. "In the boat where I was to have gone," says Mrs. Bradshaw, confirmed throughout by Mrs. Setts, "was the schoolmistress and twenty-two missies. General Wheeler came last, in a palkee. They carried him into the water near the boat. I stood close by. He said 'Carry me a little further towards the boat.' But a trooper said: 'No; get out here.' As the general got out of the palkee, head foremost, the trooper gave him a cut with his sword into the neck, and he fell into the water. My son was killed near him. I saw it: alas! alas! Some were stabbed with bayonets; others cut down. Little infants were torn in pieces. We saw it; we did; and tell you only what we saw. Other children were stabbed and thrown into the river. The school girls were burnt to death. I saw their clothes and hair catch fire. In the water, a few paces off, by the next boat, we saw the youngest daughter of Colonel Williams. A sepoy was going to kill her with his bayonet. She said, 'My father was always kind to sepoys.' He turned away, and just then a villager struck her on the head with his club, and she fell into the water." These people likewise saw good Mr. Moncrieff, the clergyman, take a book from his pocket that he never had leisure to open, and heard him commence a prayer for mercy which he was not permitted to conclude. Another deponent observed a European making for a drain like a scared water-rat, when some boatmen, armed with cudgels, cut off his retreat, and beat him down dead into the mud.

At this point those Englishmen who had learned to use their limbs in the water, perceiving that all was lost, with a hurried last look and a parting shudder, stripped, and made for Vibart's boat, which just then was aground not far from the opposite shore. Thomson swam, and Private Murphy, neither for the last time. Three cavalry soldiers chased Lieutenant Harrison on to a small island two hundred yards from the land. One only waded back again, quicker than he came; while Harrison made the best of his way to the stranded vessel, and clambered over the side, satisfied at having taught his pursuers that it was never safe to trifle with a Sahib, as long as he had breath in his body and a charge in a single chamber. Few were vigorous or fortunate as he. Their strength failed some; while more than one stout swimmer, shot dead in the middle of his stroke, rolled over and sank amidst the reddening tide. Of the two Hendersons, the younger went down in his brother's sight, while the elder hardly struggled in with a shattered hand through the pattering mitraillade. At length all were on board who had not disappeared below the waves; and, by dint of hard shoving, the boat scraped herself off the shoal, and continued her sluggish and devious course:--that hapless Argo with her freight of heroes.

"At nine, or half-past nine in the morning," writes Nanukchund, who was in hiding at a neighbouring village, "I heard the report of cannon, and immediately despatched my servant for news, and to learn why guns were being fired. At about noon, more or less, he returned, and reported that the people who came to bathe in the Ganges informed him that the intrenchment had been taken by the rebels, and the corpses of Europeans were floating down the river. The villagers exclaim, in their village dialect, that the Ganges has turned crimson, and it is impossible to look upon it. The terror and alarm that now seizes me baffles description. It seems sacrilege to take any sort of food or drink. I can think of nothing but moving about from side to side with terror." Besides Nanukchund, there was another, whose agitation, arising from very different passions, displayed itself by the same noticeable symptom. A rich Hindoo, even though he be not of such gross habit as was the Nana, never walks a step unless under dire compulsion: and yet, during the early forenoon, Dhoondoo Punth seldom rested quiet in his chair, but paced to and fro in front of his tent, straining his ears to catch the noise of horse-hoofs. At last a trooper galloped down with the tidings that all was going well, and that the Peishwa would soon obtain ample compensation for his ancient wrong. The Maharaja bade the courier return to the field of action, bearing a verbal order to keep the women alive, but kill all the males. By the time Tantia's aide-de-camp returned to his chief, the latter injunction appeared all but superfluous: though there was still something to be done. The sepoys posted on the Oude bank had excepted certain Englishmen from the slaughter of the two boatfuls which had fallen into their hands. These, to the sum of seventeen, they now sent over as their contribution. On reference being made to the Maharaja, he graciously acknowledged the present, and desired a firing-party to be told off; suggesting, however, that powder should not be wasted on the wounded. His directions were obeyed to the letter. A couple of files were likewise detached to see that the sufferers who still lingered in the intrenchment did not take too long to die.

Meanwhile the women and children, whom the shot had missed and the flames spared, had been collected and brought to land in evil case. Many were pulled out from under the charred woodwork of the boats, and others were driven up from four feet depth of water. Before they emerged from the river, some of the ladies were roughly handled by the troopers, who tore away such ornaments as caught their fancy with little regard for ear or finger. But, when all had been assembled on the landing-place, sentries were posted around, with a strict charge to suffer no one to molest the prisoners. There they sat, a hundred and twenty and five by count, some on logs of timber, and others in the trodden sand, a very feeble company in sore distress. Their destitution aroused the compassion of a party of water-carriers, who gave them drink out of the skin's mouth, as they cowered beneath the pitiless sun. On the shore of the Ganges, in the midst of that devilish horde, those English girls and matrons abode till the morning was almost spent. And then they were led back along the road which they had traversed a few hours before; not as they came, for nothing was left them now, save a new grief and a sharper terror. In front, behind, and on either side, surged along a crowd of sepoys, exulting with an unholy joy, and rich with inglorious spoils. This one carried a girdleful of rupees and broken jewellery. That had secured a double-barrelled fowling-piece, marked with a name illustrious in the London trade. Another dragged a fine setter or Skye terrier, the pride of some cadet who, in too harsh a school, had taken his first and last lesson of war. They started beside the Fisherman's Temple. They threaded the winding lane. They plodded wearily past the white railing and the European bazaar; past the chapel, and the racket-court, and the ruinous intrenchment. Through the disputed line of outposts, and across the plain they went, until the procession halted before the pavilion of the Maharaja; who, after reviewing his captives, ordered them to be transported to the Savada House, and there confined until further notice. Two large rooms, where a number of native soldiers had slept nightly during the previous month, were cleared out for their reception; and a guard placed over them from the ranks of the Sixth regiment, which had lately marched in from Allahabad.

"I saw that many of the ladies were wounded," says one who watched them go by. "Their clothes had blood on them. Two were badly hurt, and had their heads bound up with handkerchiefs. Some were wet, covered with mud and blood; and some had their dresses torn, but all had clothes. I saw one or two children without clothes. There were no men in the party, but only some boys of twelve or thirteen years of age." Another eye-witness remarks: "The ladies' clothing was wet and soiled, and some of them were barefoot. Many were wounded. Two of them I observed well, as being wounded in the leg and under the arm." To such a plight had come the bloom which once, fresh from the breezes of home, charmed and puzzled Calcutta; and the toilettes whose importation and inspection supplied matter for a month's conjecture, and a week's happy occupation. Where were now the tact, the cultivation, and all the indefinable graces of refined womanhood? Simplicity and affectation, amiability and pride, coquetry and reserve, discretion and sweet susceptibility, were here confounded in a dull uniformity of woe.