fear, shoals of rustic letters, carefully detailing all particulars concerning the predictions that were in circulation, began to arrive among them from their rural homes. And these letters, while full of earnest exhortations, strikingly illustrated the danger to which they were exposed by the wicked and foul machinations of the authorities, and forcibly reminded them that if they were once defiled by the unclean cartridge, ex-communication from caste and brotherhood, and banishment from home and family, would be their irredeemable lot for ever. Here, then, was the climax in the conspiracy; for the greased cartridge was actually in their hands, and the solenm warning from their homes already too late.
Thus this incident, so sudden and appalling, drove them with horror and terror into a sort of bewildering panic. And panic is one of the most cruel of all manias; it is, moreover, infectious, and men under its influence are to all intents and purposes madmen. For instance, in the early days of the Mutiny even Englishmen exhibited aberration of mind to such an absurd extent that hundreds, actually in Calcutta itself, and at many other stations, “performed” a general and discreditable stampede to places of refuge, when there was really no cause for alarm. So, too, through the influence of a groundless panic, commenced a mutiny the like of which the world never saw, and by which an almost incomparably magnificent Empire — the Koh-i-nūr of the world — the growth of more than a century, under the fostering care of some of England’s
