Chapter IV · THE TREACHERY. (continued 2)

Meanwhile at Futtehgur was being played an unique tragi-comedy. On the fourth of June, during morning parade, twenty thousand pounds' worth of Government silver was in course of removal from the treasury to the fort. This mark of distrust, coming close upon the departure of the flotilla, proved too much for the sensibility of these military Brahmins; a number of whom stepped out from the ranks, surrounded the carts, and insisted that the money should be taken to their own quarters. Colonel Smith and the adjutant came forward and expostulated with the insurgents; but they were pushed up against the wall, and kept within a semicircle of levelled bayonets until the cash was safely deposited in the middle of the sepoy lines. These proceedings caused a slight unpleasantness, which did not wholly disappear until the troops had been gratified with an advance of two months' pay, a promise of six months' extra allowances, and an assurance that the treasure should henceforward be kept on the parade-ground under their exclusive custody: inasmuch as the Company's property could be nowhere so secure as in the guardianship of the Company's soldiers. That evening Smith harangued as many of the battalion as chose to attend; told them that their conduct had been disgraceful, but threw the blame on the shoulders of the recruits; and entreated them to believe that he could forgive and forget. He then pronounced the regiment faithful and staunch. And so the first little difficulty between the colonel and his men had been patched up, and both parties were living together on terms of contemptuous acquiescence on the one side, and doting credulity on the other.

Such was the state of things which Probyn found when, after an interval of four days, he rode into the cantonment accompanied by a lieutenant and an ensign of the Tenth. Immediately upon their arrival the colonel informed the magistrate that his services were no longer required, as the district was entirely under martial law, and put the two subalterns in arrest for having deserted their posts. The poor lads represented that they had been driven from Futtehgur by the fire of their own companies: but this man, whom sepoy steel pointed at his chest would not convince of sepoy disaffection, refused to accept the word of his officers when it clashed with a darling theory. Probyn, who foresaw the result, wrote to the Europeans then residing under the roof of Hurdeo Bux, stating that in his opinion the battalion could not possibly be kept together; and recommending that their host should put his fort into a defensible condition, and engage five hundred matchlock-men on the credit of the English Government. Feeling that he was useless while in the same locality with the colonel, he shook from his feet the dust of the devoted station, and made his way back to Dhurrumpore.

He was followed by a letter from Smith earnestly inviting the refugees to leave their new ally, and throw themselves into the arms of their natural protectors, the native soldiers of the Tenth regiment. He affirmed that there were at least a hundred and fifty men upon whom he absolutely relied; and that, if the worst should come to the worst, he could with their aid fight his way down to Allahabad. The poor creatures, who were very uncomfortably lodged, and who regretted the punkahs and musquito-curtains, the soda-water and bottled beer of their abandoned homes, jumped at the proposition in spite of all the logic and eloquence which Probyn could bring to bear upon their infatuation. He persuaded no one except his own family, and a solitary civilian, who had escaped from a slaughter and tumult in Rohilcund too narrowly and recently for him to care to move again. The rest of the party returned to Futtehgur, and re-instated themselves in the good graces of the deluded veteran. Before very long, they were treated with a specimen of sepoy loyalty. On the sixteenth of June the colonel took measures to carry out a capital sentence of the civil courts. The soldiery, however, considered that at such a time there might be something awkward in the precedent of an execution, and intimated that the criminal had better be released. Their intimation met with prompt obedience.

The Seetapore mutineers, laden with English booty, and reeking with English blood, were now close at hand. Their ringleaders despatched a letter to the men of the Tenth, calling upon them to murder their officers: to which the reply was: "Come. We will not oppose you. We have sworn not to do so: but our vows do not bind you." So little reciprocity of affection existed in that indecorous dalliance between authority and sedition. On the eighteenth of June the troops, eager to fling aside even the pretence of submission and the semblance of discipline, broke forth into open rebellion; sacked the public chest; and set up a pretender, whom the event showed to be better than a mere puppet. The Europeans shut themselves up in the fort, in company with Kalay Khan, the sole representative of the colonel's hundred and fifty faithful sepoys. That evening the Seetapore mutineers marched into the station, hungry for pillage; and, on discovering an empty treasury, vented their rage by killing every man of the Tenth on whom they could lay hands. In the course of a week, however, stimulated by the prospect of a liberal bounty, and the co-operation of some powerful Rohilla chieftains, the regiments made up their differences, and united to exterminate the common enemy. For ten days and nights five and thirty of our countrymen maintained against as many hundred assailants a rambling tumble-down old earthwork extending over a space of twenty acres. They fired bags of screws and scrap-iron for grape, and the heads of sledge-hammers for round-shot. They repulsed three general assaults. They lived amidst an atmosphere alive with bullets and flying splinters, and din with the smoke of blazing houses and exploding mines. At length, when the besiegers were gradually but surely blowing their way through the rampart, the defenders took to their boats, and dropped down the current, encumbered by thrice their own number of women, children, and invalids.

The rest is soon told. The river was low: the pursuit hot and persistent. The barges grounded; and were got off; and grounded for the last time. The crews waded ashore to drive away the hostile sharpshooters: and some were borne back dying; and some never stirred from the spot where they fell. Vessels hove in view, unwarlike in their external aspect; but which, as they ran alongside, proved to be crammed with swordsmen and musketeers. And then ensued mad confusion, and promiscuous butchery, and suicide that did not merit the name. On the tenth evening of July, after losing a life for every mile of the voyage, the expedition got as far as Nawabgunge, but no farther. The ladies helped to swell the throng of prisoners, and their husbands were sent whither the men of the Cawnpore garrison had gone before. Three only were spared, upon their engaging to bring about that the citadel of Allahabad should be made over to the rebellion. The Nana had reason for his self-denial. It was worth his while to forego any gratification to purchase security in the southern quarter. That was the direction in which was brewing the storm of retribution and reconquest.

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