This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
volunteering in india
85

and good fellowship towards all those who treat them with conciliatory forbearance.

After the action, the inhabitants of the neighbourhood evinced their joy at the complete discomfiture of the rebels by bringing in several wounded Sepoys, who had crawled away unperceived to some shelter close to Tilga, where they had received their final coup de grace. Of course they were summarily hanged on the nearest trees at hand, and with as little ceremony as one would use in slaying venomous reptiles. But, as I have long since thrown a veil over all such repulsive executions, I shall pass on, and not again allude to them.

In marked contrast, however, to these scenes too dreadful to forget, was witnessed on the same day a very impressive and affecting scene, when our poor fallen fellow-volunteers were buried. Among them my chum, boon companion, and unchangeable friend in weal or woe, poor T_____, killed while side by side in the taking of the gun. Yes, there the young, handsome, chivalrous fellow — a dandy in Calcutta — now lay in that forlorn, out-of-the-way place, without as much as a blade of grass to mark the mournful spot. And as with heavy hearts we stood over those rough and shallow graves, and with moistened eyes gazed on the sad interments, our souls sickened at seeing the remains of our comrades, who but only a few hours before were full of life and chivalry, now being shovelled away into earthen holes like dogs. “Surely, God never created us for such a fate as this,” was a remark