CHAPTER VI.
THE REVOLT AT MÍRATH AND THE SEIZURE OF DEHLÍ
The parade at Mírath, the particulars of which are told in the last chapter, took place on a Saturday morning. The sipáhís who assisted at it had then the remainder of that day, the following night, and the early part of Sunday, in which to mature the plans rising in their minds.
In their opinion the eighty-five men who had refused to take the cartridges, and of whose degradation they had been witnesses on that Saturday morning, were simply martyrs for their faith. They had been a little bolder than their comrades: that was all. The idea which had prompted their refusal was common to all the sipáhís at Mírath. They, too, had lost faith in their masters, and their minds had been equally ready to believe the stories regarding bone dust and greased cartridges which designing men were daily pouring into their ears. They had not been insensible to the reproaches which their ironed and shackled comrades had cast upon them as they marched off, prisoners, to the gaol. They felt that they should deserve these reproaches if they were to continue silent witnesses of their degradation. They knew, though the Government wilfully shut their eyes to the fact, that the feelings under which their comrades had acted were wide-spread among the sipáhís of the Bengal army. That night's post would convey to every station in India the story of the punishment of their comrades, and of their own passive acquiescence. Such a disgrace was not to be borne. They must, before the world was forty-eight hours older, atone for their apparent acquiescence in the punishment of the men whose views they shared by action which should rouse all India.
In the consultations of that Saturday afternoon and evening the sipáhís of the three regiments called to mind that it was the custom of the English to hold Church parade on Sunday, morning and evening, and that on such occasions the men wore only their side-arms. The evening seemed to them more suitable for their enterprise than the morning, for in India there is no twilight, and the darkness which would rapidly supervene on the setting of the sun would greatly increase the confusion which the surprise of the sudden rising would produce.
But little occurred in Mírath on that eventful Sunday to warn the English of the coming danger. It was recollected afterwards that the native servants, alike in the barracks and in private houses, had strangely absented themselves from their customary duties; but no suspicions were aroused. It was the very height of the blasting season which scorches up vegetation, and renders the outer air scarcely endurable until the time of sunset approaches. The Sunday, then, passed like other Sundays, and when the bells began to toll for the evening service nothing had occurred to give any warning of the storm which was ready to burst.
But as the residents and the troops marched to the sacred edifice it became evident that some great event was pending. The native nurse of the chaplain had warned him, as he was setting out with his wife, that they would have a fight with the sipáhís. On their way the church-goers heard the unwonted sounds of bugling and musket firing. They saw bodies of armed men hurrying on their way as if to a rendezvous. Then there succeeded columns of smoke, as if many bungalows had been set on fire. In a moment more the whole truth burst upon them. The native troops at Mírath had revolted.
Far differently had that day been passed in the lines of the native troops. There the utmost excitement had prevailed. Conspiring makes conspirers suspicious. Conscious of their own meditated treason, the sipáhís attributed to their masters designs not dissimilar to their own. It is very doubtful whether there were at Mírath, at this crisis, any of those who were deep in the conspiracy: who had fostered the movement from its very birth; who were in the confidence of the Maulaví and his colleagues. Their place was occupied by the committees they had caused to be formed in each regiment. But the sipáhís, excited, suspicious, ready to believe the idlest tale as they were, required leading. On this occasion the men of the 11th N. I. seemed inclined to hang back. To bring them to the right pitch, and to confirm possible wavering on the part of any of the others, the regimental committees took care that the most telling rumours should be circulated. Nowhere in the world does rumour rise so easily or take such exaggerated forms as in India. It appeals to a people singularly simple, and yet singularly superstitious. The fables of their religion teach them to believe in the supernatural, and for them the improbable is an ever-living power. When, then, rumour told them that the European troops at the station were preparing for them the fate of their manacled comrades, they believed the rumour. Hence they determined to rise and rescue those comrades whilst the Europeans should be unarmed and unsuspicious.
They waited, then, impatiently, how impatiently only those can know who are waiting for a given signal to launch themselves on an enterprise which shall ensure glory or death, until the church bells should give intimation that the coast was comparatively clear. Then, when they heard the tolling, their impatience could not be restrained. Armed with sabre and pistol, the men of the 3d Cavalry galloped to the gaol to rescue their imprisoned comrades, whilst the sipáhís of the 11th and 20th hurried from their lines in tumultuous disorder. The troopers, on reaching the gaol, loosened the gratings of the cells in which their comrades were confined, the native guard fraternising with and assisting them. It took but a short time to drag out the manacled prisoners. A smith was handy. In a few minutes the fetters were removed, and the eighty-five rode back, mounted behind their deliverers, to the regimental lines.
When they arrived there they found that matters had progressed to a point from which there was no receding. Some of the European officers of the 20th N. I. had been shot, and Colonel Finnis of the 11th had been riddled to death by the sipáhís of the 20th whilst endeavouring to persuade the men of his own regiment to remain true to their salt. Not for the moment only, but throughout that long night, first the mutinous soldiery, then the scum of the population and the prisoners whom they had released, were absolute masters of the situation. The English authorities, civil and military, taken by surprise, had apparently lost their heads. Those in the highest places, the General, the Brigadier, the officers of the staff, were paralysed by the suddenness and tremendous character of the shock. Colonel Custance, commanding the Carabineers, on the first sound of the tumult, had ordered out his men, and had sent to ask for instructions. After a long delay the General sent to order him to proceed, not to the parade grounds of the mutinous regiments, which were close by, but to a gaol at a distance of some miles. The services of this gallant regiment were thus rendered unavailable at the time and at the place when and where they were most required. The night had well set in when General Hewitt, Brigadier Wilson, the 60th Rifles, the artillery, and the officers of the mutinous regiments reached the general parade ground. Across that ground the troops deployed into line, and joined by the Carabineers, who fortunately had lost their way and had returned, marched in the full expectation of meeting the revolted sipáhís. But these had disappeared, and no one knew whither they had gone. Believing that they had moved round to attack the quarters of the Europeans, the Brigadier, Archdale Wilson, advised the General to return for the protection of the women, the children, and the barracks. The General assented, and gave the necessary orders. On their way back the soldiers had some evidence of the damage already done by the mutineers. Lurid shoots of flame showed that many of the European bungalows were blazing. Some unarmed plunderers were seen, but no sipáhís. Where were they? Captain Rosser of the Carabineers offered, if he were permitted, to lead a squadron of his regiment and some H. A. guns along the Dehlí road, to ascertain if they had taken that route. The suggestion was not accepted, and subsequently the authorities denied that it had ever been made. It would seem that the officers in high places were sadly wanting in that spirit of enterprise and audacity which constitute the essential element of a good soldier. They would hazard nothing, not even the lives of a reconnoitring party. Contenting himself with establishing a few pickets, the General bivouacked his force for the remainder of the night on the European parade ground.
For the residents at Mírath, for the women, the children the civil section of the Europeans and Eurasians, that night was full of horror. The scum of the native population and the unchained gaol-birds had the field to themselves. Most thoroughly did they do their congenial work. The Commissioner, Mr Greathed, warned first by an officer of the 3d Native Cavalry, and afterwards by an Afghán pensioner, had, with his wife and other English women, taken refuge on the terraced roof of his house. Against a foe whose weapon was fire that terrace was no sure hiding-place. But for the fidelity — I am happy to add, the by no means rare fidelity — of his native servants he and those with him must have perished in the flames. One servant in particular distinguished himself. He persuaded the rabble to move off to search for his master in an outhouse some distance off, and during their sudden absence Greathed, his friends and family, had time to descend from their perilous position and crouch in the empty garden. Others were less fortunate. Wives, left without protection during the enforced absence of their husbands, were butchered without mercy, and children were slaughtered under the very eyes of their mothers. Many instances of the devotion and presence of mind of English women could be given if space permitted. Those who did escape owed their safety to the possession of these qualities, but the roll of those who suffered was a long one. When day at length dawned, it dawned over a dismantled Mírath. The English men and women who had been saved crept from their hiding-places to see, in the mangled corpses which lay by the wayside, in the blackened ruins of houses, in the furniture of European make thrown out of the dwelling-houses, smashed and destroyed, abundant evidence of the thoroughness with which the 'scum' and the gaol-birds had done their work.[1] But of those destroyers not one was to be seen. They had done their deeds in darkness, and had slunk away to their homes when light came. Nor was a single sipáhí visible. The quiet prevailing in the places so recently the scenes of terrible outrage and disorder was the quiet of the charnel house.
I left the English troops bivouacked on the European parade ground. On that parade ground they slept whilst the enormities, of which I have given an indication, were being perpetrated in the civil lines. Nor, when day broke, did the morning light give greater energy to the councils of their commander. The General, it is true, speedily recognised that the sipáhís had quitted Mírath. He presumed, also, that they had made for Dehlí, thirty-six miles distant. There was not now time for the most energetic soldier to have followed and caught them, for it was clear that, with a start of eight hours, the 3d Cavalry, at all events, would be there before them. But the idea of pursuit never occurred to anyone. The prevailing idea was how to secure the unthreatened Mírath. There were some good men at Mírath, but on this morning of the 11th of May not one of those in high authority was in the full possession of his faculties. The brains of all were paralysed by the blow of the previous evening. The General contented himself, then, with making a reconnaisance to the right of the Dehlí road. It was deemed to be too late, and it was then certainly too late to send a warning to the Dehlí authorities of the danger awaiting them. But the strangest thing of all was that no effort 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 daring and an energy which had inspired their native comrades, they listened for some time anxiously for the sound of the galloping of the horses of the Carabineers. But when hour succeeded hour, and silence still reigned on all sides, they lost all apprehension, and galloping on with a light heart, caught sight of the minarets of the Jamí Masjíd glittering in the morning sun. Spurring their horses, they reached the waters of the Jamnah, crossed by the bridge of boats which spanned it, cut down the toll-keeper on the other side, fired the toll-house, slew a solitary Englishman whom they met; then hastening to the palace of the King, clamoured for admittance, declaring that they had killed the English at Mírath, and had come to fight for the Faith. We must leave them there whilst we examine the relative positions of the English and the Mughal Court at the Imperial city.
The city of Dehlí had and has still a circumference of five and a half miles. That of the King's palace, within its walls, is nearly one and a half. The city itself I shall describe when I come to the operations undertaken by the handful of soldiers who laid siege to it. For the moment our attention must be riveted to the palace.
The palace, more correctly called the inner fort or citadel, was built by the Emperor Sháh Jahán (1638-58). It is a magnificent series of structures, reached by a flight of 113 steps, and covered on its eastern face by the Jamnah, It contained some magnificent buildings: the Diwání Ám, or public Hall of Audience, built of red sandstone; the Diwání Kháss, or Privy Council Chamber, of white marble, ornamented with gold, and inlaid; the King's Baths, the Moti Masjíd, or Pearl Mosque, a real architectural gem. Above the entrance gate was a turret twenty feet high commanding, to the left, a magnificent view of the Jamí Masjíd, of a white Jain temple, and of the town. Straight in front of the entrance gate was the Chandní Chauk, or Silver Market; to the right, outside the walls of the city, were the Jamnah, Hindu Ráo's house, and the ridge, so famous during the siege, at the moment indicating the direction of the lines of the native infantry regiments which constituted the British garrison. Within the fort were gardens laid out in the formal style of the east, and along the river front were a number of marble pavilions, generally octagonal, covered with gilded domes, some of them of great beauty.
The principal occupant of this inner citadel was Bahádur Sháh, titular King of Dehlí, the twentieth successor of the illustrious Akbar. He was King of Dehlí in name, and in name only. The empire had departed from the feeble hands of his predecessors before the English had become a power in India. The Khorásání adventurer Nádir Sháh had plundered the palace in 1739. Less than ten years later, the Afghán Ahmad Sháh Durání had repeated the infliction. In 1788 the rebel Ghulám Kádir had blinded, within the palace, the reigning Emperor Sháh Alám. For fifteen years the city had, then, been occupied by the Maráthás. The English had made their first acquaintance with it in 1803, when Lord Lake rescued the blinded representative of the Mughals from the tyranny of the Central Indian conquerors. From that date the English had maintained the representative of the Mughal in splendour and comfort in the halls and palace of his ancestors. There, in the citadel within Dehlí, his will was supreme. It did not extend an inch beyond it. Wisely, then, the English — when, under the able guidance of Marquess Wellesley, they assumed the responsibilities of empire — did not restore to the Mughal the power which he had already lost. Less wisely, perhaps, they had permitted him to enjoy the shadow after he had lost the substance.
At the moment, and for some time previously, the feelings of the King and his family had been considerably excited against the English ruler, in consequence of correspondence which had taken place with reference to the succession. Bahádur Sháh was an old man. A rumour had reached him so far back as 1849-50, that Lord Dalhousie had not been indisposed to deprive the House of Taimur of the shadow of splendour still remaining to it. Rumour had told the truth. The acknowledged heir to Bahádur Sháh, Prince Dárá Bakht, had died in 1849. The next in the strict line of succession, Prince Fakir-ud-dín, had been born a pensioner. Lord Dalhousie was inclined to admit his accession to the chiefship of the family upon less favourable conditions than those which had been recognised in the case of his father. In plain language, Lord Dalhousie believed that the natives of India, the princes as well as the people, had become 'entirely indifferent to the condition of the King of Dehlí or his position,' and, considering the danger of retaining an 'imperium in imperio' in the very heart of the ancient capital of India, he had desired to take the opportunity of the death of the immediate representative of the House of Taimur to sweep away all the privileges and prerogatives which had kept alive a pretentious mock royalty in the heart of the empire.
The Court of Directors gave Lord Dalhousie full power to act according to the views he had imbibed on this subject, but there was much difference of opinion in the India House, and Lord Dalhousie wisely deferred action. Meanwhile, rumours of the impending change had reached the palace, and had roused the most furious opposition, especially on the part of the favourite wife of the old King. This lady, in the manner of favourite wives generally, desired to secure the succession, with all its privileges, for her son, Jawán Bakht, then (1850) a boy of eleven. There existed at that time a strange ignorance of native feeling and native habits of thought in the Council of the Governor-General, and, notwithstanding the passionate entreaties from Dehlí, Lord Dalhousie and his advisers wrote a despatch to the Home Government recommending them to acknowledge the succession of the eldest surviving son, Fakír-ud-dín; and urging that, on the death of Bahádur Sháh, the opportunity should be taken to utilise the claims of the youngest son by obtaining from the eldest the desired concessions. Prince Fakír-ud-dín was induced to consent to this ignoble arrangement, though he hated himself for his weakness. But his death, in 1856, threw back matters into the channel in which they were before his consent had been obtained.
Lord Canning was then Governor-General, and at that time Lord Canning, could see only with the eyes of the Councillors whom I have described. In reply to the urgent solicitations of the Queen to nominate her son, he determined not only to refuse her request, but to recognise as heir-apparent the eldest surviving son of the King. He determined likewise to exhort terms less favourable to native ideas than those which had been wrung from his deceased brother, for, in addition to the renunciations to which that brother had agreed, he stipulated that the succeeding prince should renounce the title of King.
It is right that the reader should bear in mind these transactions when recollecting the conduct of the representatives of the House of Taimur when, on that eventful May morning (May 11, 1857) the troopers of the 3d Cavalry stood under the windows of the King demanding admittance and support. The King was an old man, ruled to a great extent by a favourite wife, whose hopes had been dashed to the ground by the British Government. He himself, his courtiers, his sons, his dependents, knew that the fiat had gone forth from Calcutta which, on his death, would humble to the dust the House of Taimur. We cannot wonder that their feelings should have prompted them to seize any opportunity which might present itself. We cannot wonder that, with the shadow of the despoiler before them, his threats ringing in their ears, they should have decided to strike a blow for the restoration of the family honours: to court death rather than submit to disgrace. Neither in the past nor in the present has a single man of the two hundred and fifty millions of natives of India condemned them for their action on that memorable morning. The reverse was the case. The sympathy of India was with them, and it was the conviction that it would be so which decided them.
Attached to the citadel, and representing British interests at the palace, were the Commissioner of Dehlí, Mr Fraser, and the Commandant of the Palace Guards, Captain Douglas. No sooner did the aged King hear the voices of the troopers under his windows than he sent to summon Captain Douglas to inquire the meaning of their presence. Captain Douglas pleaded ignorance, but, confident in the magic of the appearance of a British officer, declared he would go down to speak to them, and send them away. The King, apparently ignorant of their purpose, and yet dreading the reason of their presence, begged the young Englishman not to expose his life. The King's physician added his entreaties to those of his master. Douglas contented himself, then, with entering the verandah and ordering the troopers to depart, as their presence was an annoyance to the King. The men scornfully defied him. It happened that the sipáhís on duty at the palace belonged to the 38th N. I., the regiment which had successfully defied Lord Dalhousie's order to proceed to Burma but five years before. They were disloyal to the core. When, therefore, the troopers of the 3d Cavalry, maddened by the sight of Douglas, attempted to force an entrance into the palace, they admitted them as comrades.
The troopers, once admitted, made short work of every Englishman they found there. They cut down to the death Mr Fraser, Captain Douglas, the chaplain, Mr Jennings, his daughter, and a young lady staying with them, Miss Clifford. The collector, Mr Hutchinson, fell a victim also to their barbarity. They were not alone in their thirst for blood. Not only had the guards of the 38th N. I. fraternised with them, but the orderlies of the King and the rabble vied with them in their savage fury. There is no reason to believe that the King gave any sanction to their proceedings. For the moment the old man was absolutely without authority. The soldiery had forced their way into his splendid Diwání Ám, and had turned it into a barrack. At that crisis they were the masters.
Outside the palace, especially in the quarter inhabited by the European residents engaged in mercantile pursuits, the carnage was even greater. The Dehlí Bank, supposed to contain treasure, was one of the buildings first attacked. Defended with gallantry by the manager, Mr Beresford, and his family, it was stormed and gutted, and the defenders were slain. The Dehlí Gazette press and its inmates met the same fate. The English church was stormed and rifled. Every house, in fact, occupied by European or Eurasian was attacked, and every Christian upon whom hands could be laid was killed. There was no mercy and there was no quarter.
Meanwhile, in the cantonments, matters were not going much better. The cantonments for the native brigade at Dehli was situated on the famous ridge, about two miles from the city. There were quartered the 38th, the 54th, and the 74th N. I., and a battery of native artillery. The commanding officer was Brigadier Graves. On that eventful morning Graves had ordered a parade of the native troops, to have read to them the proceedings of the court-martial on Isrí Pándí, the mutinous Jámadár of Barrackpur. Some of those who were present thought they detected in the manner of the sipáhís, whilst the proceedings were being read, signs of sympathy with the condemned man. But there was no overt act, and the sipáhís were dismissed to their lines in the usual manner. It subsequently transpired that sipáhís from Mírath had arrived in the lines the previous day, and had communicated to the regiments located there the intentions of the Mírath native brigade But for the moment all was quiet. The officers had returned to their quarters, and had eaten their breakfasts, when they were suddenly startled by the intimation that the native troops at Mírath had mutinied, and that the advanced guard of them, the 3d Cavalry, had galloped across the bridge. So great was the faith of the officers in their own men, and in British superiority, that those at Dehlí never for a moment believed that the outbreak was aught but an isolated mutiny, which would be speedily quelled. The European force at Mírath must be, they thought, on the heels of the mutinied sipáhís, and whilst their own native brigade would show them a bold front the Carabineers and 60th Rifles would assail them from behind. With a light heart, then, the officers of the 54th N. I., and of the battery of native artillery, accompanied their men, to whom the sacred duty of defence had been committed, towards the city gates.
Their dream of confidence was not of long duration. Some men of the 38th, at the main-guard, set the example of revolt. Ordered to fire on the approaching troopers, they replied with insult. The 54th then fired, some in the air, some on their own officers. Colonel Ripley was wounded; Smith, Burrowes, Edwards, and Waterfield were shot dead. The 74th N. I. was then ordered to the front. Their colonel addressed them, reminded them of their past good conduct, and called upon volunteers to accompany him to the Kashmír Gate, adding that now was the time for the regiment to prove its loyalty. The sipáhís stepped forward to a man, and with the same hope which had characterised the officers of the 54th, those of the 74th led on their men. At the main-guard they found some men of the 54th N. I. who had returned from the city. The din within the walls of the city was now overwhelming. The sipáhís themselves evidently dreaded lest the strong English force stationed at Mírath should have arrived. As deeply imbued as their comrades with the spirit of revolt, they resolved, then, before they cast their lot with those who had 'pronounced,' to wait the turn of events. They remained halted, silent and thoughtful, at the main-guard. They were still there when a terrible explosion within the city shook that building to its foundations.
In the heart of the city, at no great distance from the palace, was the great magazine, full of munitions of war On that morning there were in the magazine Lieutenant George Willoughby, in charge of it, Lieutenants Forrest and Raynor, of the Ordnance Commissariat department, Conductors Buckley, Shaw, Scully, and Crow, and Sergeants Edwards and Stewart. It would seem that at about eight o'clock the magistrate of Dehlí, Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, came down to the magazine with the information that mutineers were crossing the river, and asking for two guns to defend the bridge. But it was soon realised that the bridge was already in possession of the mutineers. Metcalfe then proceeded with Willoughby to ascertain whether the city gate had been closed to the rebels. When it became known that not only had it not been closed, but that the mutineers had been admitted to the palace, Willoughby at once realised the situation Confident that his turn would soon come, he set to work with his subordinates to render the magazine as defensible as possible. The gates were closed and barricaded, guns were placed at salient points, double charged with grape, and a central position was established, from which the guns could bear upon any point which might be forced. Then came the crucial point. All the subordinate workers in the magazine were natives. Willoughby and his comrades hoped for a short time that these men, associated with their officers for so many years, would be faithful, and directed that arms should be served out to them. The manner in which these were received revealed to the few Europeans the fact that they would have to depend solely on their own energies. The natives, wrote Lieutenant Forrest,[2] accepted the arms most reluctantly, 'and appeared to be not only in a state of excitement, but also of insubordination, as they refused to obey any orders issued by the Europeans.' Knowing it to be quite impossible to resist for long a serious attack, and resolved that so much valuable munitions of war should not, if they could help it, fall into the hands of the Queen's enemies, these gallant Englishmen then caused a train to be laid, communicating with the powder magazine, to be fired only when every other resource should be exhausted. These arrangements had just been made when sipáhís from the palace came to demand the surrender of the magazine in the name of the King of Dehlí. No answer having been returned to this summons, the King, or someone acting on his behalf, sent down scaling ladders. On these being erected against the wall, the whole of the native establishment, climbing to the top of the wall, deserted by means of them, and joined the rebels. These consisted chiefly of the sipáhís of the 11th and 20th N. I. from Mírath. Against these a fire was kept up as long as possible, but the superiority of numbers was overwhelming. Still, a gallant defence was maintained. Nor was it until Forrest and Buckley had been disabled, and defence had become hopeless, that Willoughby gave the order to fire the train. Not one of the garrison expected to escape with his life. But it was otherwise ordered. Scully, who fired the train, and four of his comrades, were never seen again. They certainly perished; but Willoughby and Forrest succeeded in reaching the Kashmír gate. Raynor and Buckley, too, escaped with their lives. The loss of the assailants was far more severe. It has never, I believe, been mathematically computed, but it may be reckoned by hundreds. Nor were the casualties caused by that explosion the most important consequence of it. It was the first reply to the general revolt; it was the first warning to the King and to the sipáhís of the nature of the men whose vengeance they had dared; the first intimation to the; rebels of the stern and resolute character of the Englishman when thoroughly roused. It was the sound of this explosion, occurring about four o'clock in the afternoon, which startled the English officers and sipáhís assembled at the main-guard. It was the sign for action to the latter. To them it plainly indicated that the rebels had penetrated to the heart of the city; that, for the moment, mutiny had triumphed. So, at least, thought the sipáhís of the company of the 38th N. I. which had moved up to the main-guard. Raising their muskets to the shoulder, the men of that company fired a volley into the group of officers near them. Gordon, the field-officer of the day, fell dead from his horse without a groan. Smith and Reveley of the 74th N. I. shared the same fate. There was nothing for it for the survivors but to run. There was a way of escape, perilous indeed, but certain for the time. This was to dash through the embrasure in the bastion skirting the courtyard of the main-guard, to drop thirty feet into the ditch, and ascending the opposite scarp, to gain the glacis, and thence the jungle beyond it. In an instant the conviction took possession of the minds of the yet unwounded officers that this way of escape must be attempted. Suddenly, however, the despairing cries of the women in the upper room of the main-guard reminded them that the escape which was easy to men might be impossible for the other sex. However, there was no other, so, conducting the women to the embrasure, the officers fastened their belts together, and whilst some of them descended first, the others from above helped the women to slide down. The whizzing of a round-shot over their heads hastened their movements, and at last, in a shorter time than had seemed possible, the descent was accomplished. More difficult was the climbing to the glacis; but this came to a fortunate end. Then the fugitives pressed on into the jungle, thence some to the cantonments, others towards the Metcalfe House.
But in neither of these places was there safety. The sipáhís were by this time thoroughly roused. There was nothing for it but flight to some less threatened spot. So men, women, and children sallied forth: alike those who had remained and those but just arrived from the main-guard. Their sufferings were terrible. They had to undergo physical tortures, and the still less endurable tortures of the mind. Tearing from their persons everything in the shape of glitter or ornament, crouching in by-ways, wading rivers, carrying the children as best they could, hiding in hollows, enduring the maltreatment of villagers, and the abuse of stray parties of wanderers, hungry, thirsty, weary, at times hunted, they at length reached shelter. Some found their way to Mírath, some to Karnál, others to Ambálah. A few perished on the way; some giving up the struggle from fatigue, others succumbing to disease. The behaviour of the women of the party was such as to make the men proud of their companions. When Captain Wood sank exhausted, unable to proceed, it was his wife, and his wife's friend, Mrs Peile, who supported him to the haven of safety. Nor was this a solitary instance. When it was found, on arriving at the night's bivouac, that one or more were missing, the less fatigued of the party went back to search for and bring them in. Generally the search was fruitless, for the scum of the population, which would have shrunk from attacking a party, had no mercy for a solitary invalid. It is due, however, to the natives to add that they were not all imbued with the hatred which animated a section of them. There were instances of assistance given by some of them, men of high and low caste alike to the suffering and the wounded. There are those alive now who owed their safety to the compassion felt for them in their terrible straits by the kind-hearted Hind, and the loyal Muhammadan.
Meanwhile, in and immediately around the Imperial city, rebellion was triumphant. And in those early days rebellion had absolutely no mercy. Some fifty Christians, Europeans and Eurasians, who lived in the Daryá-ganj, the English quarter of the Imperial city, had at the first sound of alarm taken refuge in one of the strongest houses of the quarter, and had there barricaded themselves. But a handful of men and women, ill-armed and without supplies, was powerless against the roused rabble of the revolted capital. The house was speedily stormed, and the defenders were dragged to the palace, and lodged there in an underground apartment, without windows, and with only one door. After a stay there of five days they were taken out, led to a courtyard, and there massacred. Their bodies were thrown into carts, and were transferred thence to the waters of the Jamnah. One woman, terrified more for her three children than for herself, escaped, with them, the fate of her companions by declaring herself a convert to the faith of Islám. After that 16th of May there remained not in Dehlí a single Christian.
The King of Dehlí, Bahádur Sháh, had, meanwhile, assumed the responsibilities of the position which had been forced upon him. It is more than probable that the old man, left to himself, would have shrunk from the position. Outside of the walls of his citadel he had never wielded power, nor, up to the morning of May 11th, had he ever conceived it possible that he should assert himself against the western people who had conquered Hindustán. Though such a question might have been mooted in his harem, he had regarded the conversation as the wild 'chatter of irresponsible frivolity.' Yet, on that memorable morning, the position had been forced upon him. The mutinied sipáhís, who had bivouacked in his Hall of Audience, who had expelled the English from the city, who boasted their determination to drive them into the sea, must have a leader. Who so fit for such a post as the representative of the Mughal, the descendant of that illustrious Akbar, who had accomplished the union of India? From such a position it was impossible that Bahádur Sháh should recoil. Had he desired ever so much to hang back, and there is reason to suppose he was by no means eager to assume the foremost post, with its dangers, its responsibilities, its humiliations, he had a family the members of which were resolved that he should bind round his head 'the golden round.' There was the ambitious Queen, whose projects two Governors-General had in succession thwarted; her son, young, handsome, and full of ambition; her step-sons, the eldest of whom knew that, though in a certain sense the English would allow him to succeed his father, he would be shorn of all that had made succession desirable, even of the royal title. In these, and in the ambitious nobles by whom they were surrounded, and in whose bosoms dwelt the traditions of a past which had not been without glory, the 'irresponsible frivolity' of which I have spoken loudly asserted its influence. Under the pressure of that influence Bahádur Sháh agreed to assume the responsible position forced upon him. The revolted soldiery throughout India were called upon to fight for the restoration of the Mughal. The 'cry' was not altogether a happy cry for the revolters. Though it might conciliate and bind together many Muhammadans, it could scarcely fail to alienate the Maráthá princes who had contested empire with the Mughal family. The result proved that the princes of Central India preferred the safe position they held under British suzerainty to aiding mutinied soldiers to restore a dynasty which they had been the first to trample under foot. Such thoughts did not, in those early days, present themselves to the minds of the 'irresponsible chatterers.' They believed that the expulsion of the English from Dehlí, and the proclamation of Bahádur Sháh as sovereign of India, was the consummation of the movement prematurely set on foot at Mírath. Unfortunately for their hopes it was only the untimely beginning.
- ↑ It deserves to be recorded that all the natives of Mírath did not join in the outrages, an outline of which I have given. For instance, a Muhammadan in the city sheltered two families at great danger to himself. The servants, as a rule, showed the greatest devotion to their foreign masters.
- ↑ Lieutenant Forrest's Report, dated May 27, 1857.