There are many still living who will remember the horror and sickening dismay which flew from station to station as the story, discredited at first, pressed itself home to the minds of the conquering race. We had heard unpleasant rumours before, here and there a mutinous regiment, bungalows set on fire, outrages committed, muttered insults in the public highways; some of us, indeed, had been visited with vague apprehensions. But there was always some one of experience at hand to point out how foolish it was to be afraid either of the people or the soldiers, and we were only too glad to be reassured. So much the greater was the shock of this terrible intelligence. It is true that it was nothing like so dreadful as what we were to hear later. The mutineers were young in crime and fearful of punishment. As a fact, it was rather a herd of frightened wild creatures that rushed madly out of the burning station on that awful Sunday night than a victorious army triumphing in its first success. But this we did not know. All we saw and understood was the extraordinary audacity of this first definite move. Through the breathless days that followed we were momentarily expecting to hear of the mutineers being pursued and punished. Our servants looked at us strangely. Native officers and soldiers, who, in the first flush of surprise, had passionately sworn to be faithful, began to lift up their heads. Old English commanders, of the type of General Elton, who was away from home on a tour of inspection in the outlying districts, gnashed their teeth with impotent fury, and wondered what the people at Meerut were about. For the news we expected never came. The next distinct intelligence was that flashed from the telegraph station at Delhi by the young signaller, who, with the messengers of death yelling in his ears, was working his instrument quietly: 'The Sepoys have come in from Meerut, and are burning everything; we must shut up.'
Not till then did the full magnitude of the disaster that had come to us break upon our minds. Ah! what a change it was! Few of us can have any conception of its horror. From a life that is quiet, simple, and secure, to be plunged all in a moment into the dark, strenuous world of tragedy, nerves strung up, senses on the alert, affection made lurid by passion, heart-consuming anxiety the companion of our solitude. Can we imagine it? If so, we shall have a faint picture of the experiences of many of us in that terrible May and June.
When the Rajah of Gumilcund heard of the uprising, his brain seemed to reel with the shock. His impulse was to go to Meerut himself, but Chunder Singh dissuaded him. 'The English,' said this wise minister, 'have troops enough to defend themselves; and if my lord were stopped, as he well might be, for the roads will be infested with evil characters, of what profit will that be to his friends? My advice is that we take time to consider, that we look to ourselves, that we strengthen our defences and provision the city.'
'You are right. Yes, I acknowledge it. You are wiser than I am. Call the people together! Let us have a public council!' cried the young rajah, springing up. 'If the people side with me now, they have my affection and gratitude for ever.'
'They will,' said Chunder Singh.
In the beautiful Dwan-i-Khas, or public hall of audience, which was a large pillared pavilion, standing in the midst of an open court, surrounded by an arcade or corridor, all the principal people of the city were gathered together that evening. The court was literally packed. Within the pavilion, on a marble platform ten feet high, stood the young rajah, with Chunder Singh on his right hand, and Vishnugupta on the left.
Chunder Singh, to whom, as chief minister, it fell to open the proceedings, was deeply anxious. His voice trembled as he stood out and announced, in a few brief words, the calamity that had happened, with the rajah's orders that his people should attend to what he had to say upon the subject. But, in a few moments, his anxiety was gone, and he looked out before him with radiant confidence.
The young rajah's speech was admirable. Fortunately for himself, he had studied not only the religion and philosophy of this people, but their history. He stood before them, his mind stored with pictures out of the past. Better than anyone in that crowd he knew what the life of the peninsula had been before the strong hand of the English, guided by their orderly, methodical minds, had undertaken to weld the great chaos of contending states into one peaceful empire.
Of the internecine warfare that led to Mogul and Tartar invasions, of the brief prosperity that, however, did not penetrate to the smaller states, when the Moslem empire became consolidated under wise rulers, of the selfish and cynical policy of Aurungzebe that broke up the empire, of the horrors that accompanied its disintegration—piratical incursions on peaceful coasts, sackings of wealthy cities, forced contributions from those who, through industry and shrewdness, had attained to comfort, languishing in a slavery worse than death of hundreds of innocent people, fields ravaged, harvests swept away, and monuments of antiquity destroyed by a brutal soldiery—of these the young rajah spoke. He spoke quietly; but there was a repressed power in his voice and manner that told upon everyone in the assembly. Then, when their hearts were hot with passionate memories, and a tremor of vague apprehension was running through them, he told, in a few brief words, of the Power that, for these hundred years and more, had been growing up amongst them.
Here he appealed to the more intelligent amongst his audience, the wealthy merchants, and clever artificers, who had made Gumilcund what she was, and the reasonableness of his words impressed them.