CHAPTER XII.
THE LEAGUER OF KÁNHPUR.
In the tenth chapter I have described how, towards the close of the month of May, a rising of the native troops at Kánhpur seemed inevitable; how the officer commanding there, Sir Hugh Wheeler, had fortified, as a place of refuge for the Europeans and Eurasians, two barracks in the centre of a vast plain; how he had stored in those barracks supplies of all sorts; how, on the 22d of May, the non-combatant portion of the residents had crowded to those barracks for refuge; how, a day or two later, the General himself, with his family, had repaired thither; how, on the 22d likewise, he and they had been cheered by the arrival from Lakhnao of eighty-four men of the 32d Foot; how, on the 31st of May and the two following days, the arrival from Allahábád of fifteen men of the Madras Fusiliers, and a hundred of the 84th, bearing with them the information that they were but the forerunners of several regiments, for that troops were pouring into Calcutta, had so influenced General Wheeler that, believing his position now to be secure, and feeling very anxious regarding Lakhnao, he had forwarded on to that station fifty men of the 84th; how that, on the night of the 4th of June, the native troops broke into open and violent mutiny; and how, from that date, the 'leaguer' of Kánhpur may be said to have begun.
The fifty men of the 84th had left for Lakhnao on the morning of the 3d of June. On the evening of the same day half of the 3d Oudh field-battery, under Lieutenant Ashe, which had been sent from Oudh to Fathgarh to keep open the road between Kánhpur and Agra, but which had been compelled to retreat on account of the mutiny of the native troopers accompanying it, marched into Kánhpur. Their guns, two nine-pounders and a twenty-four-pound howitzer, were at once placed in the intrenchment. The native gunners had behaved so well on the march that it was hoped that they would continue their good service. But the result showed that the defection was almost universal.
On the following morning, the 4th, Wheeler received certain information that the 2d Cavalry and the 1st and 56th Regiments N. I. had resolved to rise within the next four-and-twenty hours and murder their officers. This information caused the issue of an order to the officers of those regiments to discontinue the practice of sleeping in the lines of their regiments. Wheeler saw, too, that the guns in the intrenchment were placed in position, and that arrangements were made to render a surprise impossible.
On the night of the 4th the troopers of the 2d Cavalry rose, with a great shout, and setting fire to the sergeants' bungalows, mounted their horses, and rode to the cattle-yard of the Commissariat department. Taking thence thirty-six elephants, they marched to the treasury, guarded by the soldiers of Náná Sáhib. The two bodies fraternised, and helped each other in packing the contents of the treasury on the elephants and on carts. They were still engaged in this congenial occupation when they were joined by the sipáhís of the 1st N. I., who, refusing to join their comrades at the first bidding, had been unable to resist when they heard of the proceedings at the treasury. Vainly had their English officers tried to restrain them. But, whilst deaf to the call of duty, they were not at the moment bloody-minded. They had begged their officers to return to the intrenchment, adding that they wished them no harm, but that their own course had been decided upon.
But the mutineers were not content with the looting of the treasury. They first secured the magazine, with its priceless wealth of heavy guns and ammunition. General Wheeler had placed there a warrant-officer with instructions to blow it up as soon as the sipáhís should break out. But the guard over it was a sipáhí guard, and the warrant-officer, though he did his best, was prevented by the men from carrying out his orders. The sipáhís then broke open the gates of the gaol and turned loose on the abandoned station hundreds of miscreants of the worst description. These made the night a night of horror. The burning of bungalows, and the excited cries of looting parties, gave to the Europeans in the intrenchment a clear idea of the storm which had burst upon them.
Through all this turmoil the sipáhís of the two other regiments, the 53d and 56th, remained apparently quiescent About seven o'clock in the morning Wheeler despatched four officers to reconnoitre. They had proceeded two miles when they were fired upon, and one of the number was hit. Wheeler then ordered to their support a company of Europeans and Ashe's half-battery, but these had not moved far when the native officers of the 53d and 56th arrived to report that their men could no longer be depended upon. The troops, having picked up the officers first sent out, then returned to the intrenchment.
It was now nine o'clock. The sipáhís of the 53d and 56th, in response to a bugle call, turned out at this moment, and ranging themselves in columns, made as though they would march on the intrenchment. To prevent this, Wheeler brought a gun to bear upon them. At the third discharge the bulk of them dispersed to join their brethren of the 1st N. I. at Nuwábganj, the suburb in which were located the treasury, the magazine, and the gaol. But a few sipáhís, true to their salt, made their way by a circuitous route to the intrenchment, and served there loyally to the very end.
The station was now clear of insurgents. These, at Nuwábganj, barred the road to Dehlí. To the eastward, the Allahábád road was open. It was from that quarter alone that help could come. Wheeler, then, had no alternative. He must remain where he was. He still cherished the hope that the sipáhís, satiated with loot, and knowing that but little in that respect could be gained by an attack on the intrenchment, would march to swell the national movement at Dehlí. There were some, too, in the intrenchment who, not remembering the bitterness engendered in the mind of Náná Sáhib by the refusal of Lord Dalhousie and the Court of Directors to continue to him the pension of the prince of whom he was the adopted son, hoped much from his loyalty to the foreign overlord.
Meanwhile, the assembled sipáhís of the four regiments, now united, had elected Náná Sáhib as their leader, and ha4 tumultuously demanded to be led to Dehlí. The sipáhís had no desire to kill their officers. Against them they had no grudge. They had shaken off the bonds of discipline, they were free, they had looted to their hearts' content, and now they would join those comrades who had resuscitated the rule of the Mughal. They were not to be thwarted. With loud shouts, then, they set out that same afternoon and marched seven miles to Kaliánpur.
Náná Sáhib had been powerless to prevent this march. A too great insistance on his part would have shaken to pieces his newly assumed authority. He had, then, apparently acquiesced in the propriety of the policy. But recognising that, if the movement were to continue, his labour had been in vain; that at Dehlí he, a Maráthá, would be a cypher, whereas at Bithor it might be possible for him to play the part of a sovereign prince; that the first essential to the success of his plans was to root out the hated English, to infuse his own hatred of them into the minds of the sipáhís, so that with them also it should be a race hatred; that to leave the English masters at Kánhpur was to leave open a gate upon the closing of which depended the success of his schemes, he and his agents employed all that night in endeavouring to persuade the sipáhís that their work was but half done so long as one English person remained alive at Kánhpur. Not that he and they were so unwise as openly to oppose the march to Dehlí. 'By all means,' they said in so many words, 'let us march to Dehlí; but let us first exterminate the English now at Kánhpur. If you do not exterminate them, they will soon receive reinforcements and march on your track. At present they are few in number; they have women and children with them; the position they occupy cannot be long defended. In a few days you will be able to wreak your vengeance upon them. Then we will march to Dehlí — I first of all at your head. If you decide to march thither now, you can never be sure how quickly they may recover, and then you will all be marked men. But dead men tell no tales.' Whether the precise arguments used were in these words cannot be affirmed, but that they were in this sense is certain. They were effectual, for on the morning of the 6th the rebelled sipáhís marched back from Kaliánpur to Kánhpur. On arriving there the Náná pitched his camp in the centre of the station, hoisted two standards — one to propitiate the Hindus, the other to humour the Muhammadans. He then sent out fifty troopers to kill any Christians who might be found, and directed the looting of the houses of those native gentlemen whom he suspected of being favourable to the English. Within his position he threw up works and mounted heavy guns.
General Wheeler had hoped, when he heard of the march to Kaliánpur, that his difficulties were practically over. But in the return of the sipáhís he recognised the hand of the Maráthá chief. Even if he had had any doubts on the subject, such doubts would have been no longer possible on the 7th. On the morning of that day he received a letter from Náná Sáhib intimating his intention to attack the garrison. It was soon recognised that this was no idle threat, for two guns began at once to play upon the intrenchment. On the 8th three more guns opened fire, and on the 11th the rebels had in position, playing upon the garrison night and day, three mortars, two twenty-four-pounders, three eighteen-pounders, two twelve-pounders, the same number of nine-pounders, and one six-pounder. Their numbers had, meanwhile, considerably increased. From Allahábád, from Oudh, from the districts evil-disposed men had flocked in. Náná Sáhib assumed, during these operations, the position of, and received the honours due to, a sovereign prince. In this capacity he appointed Subahdár Tíká Singh of the 2d Cavalry to be general of that arm, and Subahdár Gangá Dín and Jámadár Dalganjan Singh of the native infantry to be colonels of the infantry brigades.
The garrison which had to sustain the attacks directed by these men was composed of 210 English soldiers, and nearly a hundred officers and civilians. The railway engineers, traders, and clerks were another hundred, and there were some forty Christians besides, including the drummers. They had six guns of different calibres. Had the 450 men above enumerated been alone, they could have fought their way to Allahábád. But they had with them 330 women and children, many of them reared tenderly, and some unable to travel. Their lot, indeed, in the terrible contest was the hardest of all.
The defences which, since the 14th of May, Wheeler had been able to throw up were far from formidable. The earthworks were little more than four feet high, and were not bullet proof at the crest. The apertures for the artillery exposed alike the guns and the gunners, whilst in the unfinished barracks on the left front an enterprising enemy could easily find cover for attack. The scantiness of the earthworks was mainly due to the iron-like hardness of the ground, baked by a sun which had shone uninterruptedly for seven months, and unmoistened during that period by a drop of rain. Within the intrenchment supplies calculated to last four weeks had been stored. But these, like everything else behind the feeble earthworks, were subject to destruction from the various causes incidental to war.
From the very first the sufferings of the garrison were intense. The heat was great, the space was scanty, the fire of the guns of the rebels was incessant, the absolutely necessary exposure of the officers and men to that fire was deadly. From the first day the casualties were considerable. Then rose the question how to dispose of the dead. There was a well, outside the intrenchment, not far from the unfinished barracks. This was appointed to be the cemetery. The bodies of those killed during the day were placed at once outside the verandah, among the débris, until the fall of night should afford the required opportunity to the fatigue party. Then they were carried to the well and let down.
Prominent among the officers who distinguished themselves in the defence of the intrenchment may be mentioned Captain Moore of the 32d, a soldier of the highest class and the most undaunted courage; Captain Jenkins of the 2d L. C., one of the bravest and best of the party; Lieutenant Daniell of the same regiment, full of pluck and fire; Captain Whiting of the engineers, gifted with a clear brain and coolness unsurpassable; Major Vibart of the 2d L. C., determined, unyielding, and ever watchful at the post assigned him, one of the most exposed and difficult of the defences; Mowbray Thomson of the 56th N. I., daring even to rashness, ever longing to be where the fight was the thickest; Delafosse of the 53d N. I., cool and calm in danger, ready to sacrifice his own life if that sacrifice could benefit his comrades; Glanville of the 2d Europeans; Ashe of the artillery, as daring as devoted; Jervis of the engineers, proud of his race, and maintaining to his last gasp its glorious prestige; Sterling, whose splendid feats with his rifle were the terror of the rebels. Worthy to be classed with these and others like them, soldiers by profession, were the civilian Mackillop, one of the noblest of men, and throughout the siege a hero; Heberden the railway engineer, Moncrieff the chaplain, and others whose names have not survived their deeds. The women of the garrison, too, displayed, under all circumstances, the pride and endurance of their race. Where all behaved nobly it is difficult to distinguish. But conspicuous amongst them all was the wife of the leader of the sallying parties, Mrs Moore. Her splendid courage and fortitude endeared her to every man, woman, and child within the intrenchment. Nor must I omit to record the stalwart courage of Bridget Widdowson, wife of a private of the 32d, who stood sentry, sword in hand, for some time over a batch of prisoners, bound only by a rope, and took care that not one of them escaped.
It would serve no purpose to enter into the details of a siege of three weeks, the circumstances of every day of which differed only in minor details from the circumstances of its predecessor. The sufferings of the defenders throughout that period were terrible. On the second day of the attack the garrison realised that the supply of water would present great difficulties. There was but one well, in the middle of the intrenchment, and its locality was known to the rebels. Upon that spot they kept so continuous a fire that to attempt to draw water exposed the daring volunteer to almost certain death. So great was the danger that, after the second day, it was resolved that every man should draw water for himself and his belongings. There was generally a cessation of fire about dusk and then the space round the well became crowded with men, who endeavoured to utilise the fleeting moments by filling their buckets.
After the fire of the first few days the barracks became so riddled with shot as to afford little or no shelter. To secure some sort of refuge a great many made holes under the walls of the intrenchment, and covered them with deal boxes, cots, or the first suitable article they could lay hands on. The heat in these was, however, very oppressive, and many died from apoplexy. At night every person in turn was required to take watch. The women and children belonging to them then slept under the walls of the intrenchment, near to their relatives. Here the bombshells kept them in perpetual dread, for during nearly the entire night these were seen flying through the air and bursting, often doing mischief. Another source of misery was caused by the stench arising from the dead horses, and, what was even worse, by the myriads of flies they collected. Still the garrison bore up without a murmur. There was not a man who was not a hero. Hillersden, the Collector, who had negotiated the treaty with Náná Sáhib, fell dead at the feet of his wife, killed by a round-shot. She survived him but a few days. A round-shot likewise carried off the head of the General's son, Lieutenant Wheeler, as he lay wounded in the room occupied by his mother and the members of his family. Another round-shot mortally wounded Major Lindsay. He, too, was soon followed to the grave by his wife. Colonel Williams of the 56th was carried off by apoplexy, whilst his wife died from the effect of a wound which had completely disfigured her. Colonel Ewart of the 1st was disabled early in the siege. Captain Halliday was shot dead, whilst carrying some horse-soup for his famishing wife, midway between the intrenchments and the barracks. Mackillop, of whom I have spoken, and who, in his unselfish anxiety to contribute to the necessities of the suffering, had in the last week constituted himself captain of the well, was mortally wounded at his post. Death was very near him, yet in his last moments he begged a bystander to carry the water he had drawn to the lady to whom it had been promised. Nobly, indeed, did the sons of the island-heart of the British Empire do their duty.
In not one single respect did they fail. They succeeded to the very last in holding the outposts formed of the unfinished barracks, which, if the position of besieger and besieged had been reversed, they would not have permitted their enemy to retain for a single day. The officers who commanded the small detachments which 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.
Flushed with his easy conquest over unarmed women and children, Náná Sáhib urged on his generals to push their attack on the intrenchment with vigour. For some time past his gunners had been firing shells in the hope of setting fire to the barracks. On the evening of the 13th their labours were to a certain extent crowned with success, for at five o'clock on that day they succeeded in kindling the roof of the hospital barrack. As this barrack sheltered not only the sick but the families of the English soldiers, the advantage to the Náná was considerable, for the fire spread so rapidly that some forty of the inmates were burned to death, and nearly all the medicines and surgical instruments were destroyed. The sipáhís took advantage of the evident confusion to advance, 4000 in number, to deliver an assault which should be final. But what were 4000 Asiatics against one-tenth of their number of Englishmen? Afraid to try the hand-to-hand encounter which the latter invited, and daunted by the fire of the six guns, they slunk back, without daring an assault, discomfited, to their lines.
Between the 13th and the 21st the rebels tried attacks or rather advances of the same character, and invariably with the same result. But on the 23d, the anniversary of Plassey, having received large reinforcements from Oudh and the districts, they made the most serious attack in force they had ever tried. They gained possession of three of the empty barracks, and attempted to dislodge Moore from the remainder, but that gallant officer was quite equal to the occasion. With twenty-five men he advanced, under cover of a discharge of grape, and after a desperate contest expelled the rebels from the barracks they had seized. Meanwhile, under cover of some bales of cotton which they had appropriated, the rebels advanced to within 150 yards of the intrenchment, which they then attempted to carry with a rush. But the steady discharge of canister, and rounds of file-firing from the infantry, speedily induced them to change their minds. They fell back, leaving about 200, including their leader, dead or dying, on the field.
The next day Lieutenant Delafosse particularly distinguished himself by an act of combined coolness and courage. About midday one of the English ammunition waggons had been ignited by the enemy's fire. Whilst the waggon was still burning, and endangering by its proximity the other waggons, the fire of the rebels, who had noticed the catastrophe, was concentrated on that one spot. The situation was critical, for unless the fire should be extinguished it could not fail to cause immense damage. In this crisis Delafosse crept up, and lying at full length under the burning waggon, pulled away from it all the loose splinters he could reach, at the same time throwing earth on the flames. Two soldiers, animated by his example, joined him with buckets of water, and by their united efforts the flames were extinguished.
From the 21st to the 24th of June the defenders were subjected to an incessant bombardment. The time for the commencement of the rainy season had arrived, and it was evident to them that the initial storm, generally a fall of great severity, would bring down with a run the walls and roofs of the riddled barracks. They had already been for some time on half rations, and their supplies were now so attenuated as to threaten famine at a very early date. It was clear to all that, if the lives of the garrison were to be preserved, there must be a new departure. Had there been a single sign of relief from the direction of Allahábád they might have decided to fight on as they had fought, hoping that any day might bring relief. But since the arrival of the men of the 84th, on the 31st of May, a dead calmness, significant of disaster, had fallen on the district around them. They felt it must have gone hard with their countrymen in Oudh, to the east and to the west, since they were left unaided to perish. The bolder spirits talked, at times, of a sortie in force, but in their cooler moments even they rejected a measure which would have entailed the destruction of the women and the children, and which did not offer one chance in a thousand of success.
I have spoken of the splendid repulse of the rebels on the 23d. This blow, severe as it was, seemed to the garrison almost the last they would be able to strike. Their guns were fast becoming unserviceable, ammunition was failing them, starvation was staring them in the face. They were in this position when, on the 24th, a slip of paper was brought them by Mrs Greenway, wife of one of the merchants of Kánhpur, who had been made prisoner, on which the following words, written by Azímullah, were traced: '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 Allahábád.'
The idea of capitulation was revolting to every soldier of the garrison. Sir Hugh Wheeler, the first to speak, protested strongly against it, and he was supported by the younger combatants. The Náná, they felt, was not to be trusted. To him they owed their actual position. But Moore and Whiting, who had borne the brunt of the defence, thought otherwise. It would be impossible, they knew, to prolong the defence. Their ammunition and their food supplies were alike all but exhausted. The one chance of saving the women and children was to capitulate. For themselves they cared not. They would have preferred to die sword in hand, but in that case the women and children would perish too. If there were but one chance in a thousand of saving these, that chance, they thought, should be taken. They did not know how the Náná had dealt with the stray travellers from the North-west, or with the fugitives from Fathgarh, and they believed that, faithless as he might be in other respects, he was not the man to war with women and children. A message was therefore sent to the Maráthá chieftain to the effect that a reply would be given on the morrow.
An armistice was then proclaimed for the 26th, and on that day Azímullah and Jawála Parshád, a Hindu high in his master's confidence, met Moore, Whiting, and the postmaster, Roche, outside the intrenchment. An arrangement was easily arrived at. The Náná agreed to allow the British to march out with their arms and sixty rounds of ammunition; to escort them safely to the river side, where, at the Satí-Chaurá Ghaut, boats stored with provisions should be ready to take them to Allahábád. The Náná wished to carry out the arrangement that very night, and for a time strongly insisted on the point, but he ultimately gave way. Mr Todd, who had been his tutor, was sent to his headquarters to obtain his signature to the agreement, now fixed to take effect on the morning of the 27th. He found him courteous in manner, and full of pretended compassion for the sufferings of the English ladies and children.
On the morning of the 27th the members of the garrison set out, escorted by numbers of the rebel force. The distance to the ghaut was but a mile, but to the women and children the time to traverse it seemed an eternity. When, at length, about eight o'clock, they reached the ghaut, their hearts bounded with joy. The forty boats were there, and to them the boats promised safety. The river was very low, as the periodical rains, though overdue, had not begun to fall, and our countrywomen had to wade ankle-deep in the water before they could be pulled on board. The embarkation lasted about an hour; then some of the Englishmen began to push off. Two or three boats only had just moved, when suddenly, from the platform of a Hindu temple from which the ghaut takes its name, on which sat enthroned Tantiá Topi, the military adviser of the Náná, there issued a bugle note. Instantly the boatmen hurried from the boats, climbing over their sides, whilst upon the European passengers the assembled sipáhís opened a concentrated fire of grape and musketry. Vainly did the men on board exert themselves to push off. Some, whose boats were under weigh, managed to reach the opposite bank, only to find there the mutinied sipáhís of the 17th N. I. and the rebel cavalry of Oudh. The sipáhís on the Kánhpur side, meanwhile, were running along the bank and pouring in shot after shot. There was no escape; defence was impossible. In many cases the fire kindled the thatch which formed a covering to the boats. Then all was over. Those who took to the water were shot. All the males, in fact, were massacred. The women, reserved for a worse fate, were dragged on shore and lodged in a brick building near the bungalow which for many years had served as the residence and office of the commissariat officer of the division.
Of the forty boats so treacherously provided thirty-nine were now in the hands of the rebels. One, however, had managed to run the gauntlet. On board of this were Moore, Vibart, Whiting, Mowbray Thomson, Ashe, Delafosse, Bolton, and others. The thatch of this boat had fortunately escaped ignition, and, vigorously propelled by its English crew, it for a short time escaped the notice of the murderers, busily intent upon the other thirty-nine. Not for long, however. Soon sipáhís were discerned running along the bank in pursuit, whilst others, embarking on two boats, followed the fugitives. Their aim was but too deadly. Moore, Ashe, and Bolton were shot dead as they were propelling the boat with the only implement available, a long pole, for the oars had been taken away. During the first day and the first night the pursuit continued, varied occasionally by the launch of a blazing fire-boat of smaller tonnage. One pursuing boat, armed with fifty natives, was rapidly approaching when it grounded, to the joy of the pursued, on a sandbank. For them this was an opportunity. Disembarking, they attacked the rebels on the sandbank so vigorously that but few were left to tell the tale. They then seized their boat, which they found well provided with ammunition; then casting it on the stream, they slept whilst it drifted down stream.
They woke soon after midnight to find the wind had risen, and that the boat was still drifting, whither they knew not. The hope that it might have descended beyond the enemy's range was dissipated as soon as the day broke. They found to their despair that the boat had been carried out of the main channel into a small creek, on the banks of which the enemy were huddled, with muskets loaded. In such an extremity there was but one chance — the English charge, which has never failed. The few able-bodied survivors tried it. There were but two officers unwounded capable of such a service, Mowbray Thomson and Delafosse; but they had with them a few stalwart men of the 32d and 84th. Wading through the water, they dashed at the astonished sipáhís, rushed through them, then back again to the place where they had left the boat. But the boat was no longer there. They saw her in the distance, drifting down the stream.
The two officers and their companions pushed at once down the river-bank in the direction taken by the boat, but seeing no chance of overtaking her, and still followed by the sipáhís, they made for a Hindu temple which seemed to offer a position of vantage. The door of this temple they defended so fiercely against the advancing enemy, with their bayonets, that there was soon formed in front of it a barrier of corpses, which served to them as a rampart. Within the temple they obtained a little putrid water, which refreshed them. Meanwhile, the assailants, despairing of other methods, heaped up beneath the walls of the temple leaves, faggots, and other combustible materials, with the intent to smoke out the little garrison. But the wind was on the side of the English. It blew the smoke strongly in the eyes of the assailants. Under cover of it, the besieged made a sudden spring forward, and firing a volley, charged them. In the hand-to-hand fight seven of the English were struck down. The remaining seven, unhurt, dashed into the stream, the sipáhís following along the bank, and firing as they ran. Presently two of the swimmers were shot through the head; a third was caught on a sandbank and killed, but the remaining four, Mowbray Thomson, Delafosse, and privates Murphy and Sullivan, struck vigorously down the stream, and, aided by the current, succeeded in evading their pursuers. They pushed on till, panting and exhausted, they reached, on the Oudh side, the territories of a rájá friendly to the British, who befriended them until they could rejoin the army in the field.
It is a sad supplement to this story to add that the boat from which they had issued to charge the sipáhís on the bank was captured, and its living cargo taken back to Kánhpur. The number of the survivors of the massacre at the ghaut and in the boats amounted to eighty-four. Four of these, as we have seen, escaped. The remaining eighty were carried before the Náná. That chieftain now regarding himself as reigning by divine right, had the men shot, and the women and children confined in the little house of which I have spoken.
Thus sadly terminated the 'Leaguer of Kánhpur.' Qn the 1st of July the Náná proceeded to Bithor and there, with great pomp and circumstance proclaimed himself Peshwá. There, for the moment, I must leave him, whilst I relate the circumstances which prevented the timely arrival of relief to the devoted garrison, and which ultimately led to the chastisement of the men who had treacherously worked its destruction.