CHAPTER VII
Weighed in the Balance
The principal causes of the great mutiny having now been explained, let us go back to Meerut and its eighty-five mutineers. These men were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, and in the presence of the sepoy regiments the fetters were placed upon their limbs. The sight of the degradation angered and alarmed their comrades, and rumours spread through the town to the effect that all the black soldiers were to be disgraced in the same way, and at this date no report was too ridiculous for the sepoys.
On the Sunday evening, 10th May, the 60th Rifles assembled for church parade. At once the rumour flew round that the white soldiers were preparing to fall upon their brown comrades, and the absurd tale gained ready credence. The sepoys were taunted by the women of the town, were called cowards for permitting their comrades to suffer disgrace; and no sooner had the Rifles marched off to church than the native troops lost all control of themselves, broke open the jail, set their eighty-five comrades free, and, encouraged by the convicts, they began to fire on the white residents.
All the budmashes of Meerut joining in, pandemonium ensued. Houses were broken into and set on fire; Englishmen and women were brutally murdered. Yet whilst this was going on in one part of the town, in another quarter the sepoys of the same regiments were saluting their officers and guarding the Treasury as usual.
Back came the 60th Rifles from church and quickly reassembled with arms and ammunition, but by this time the mutineers were on the road to Delhi. Though the British dragoons were at once ordered out, their commanding officer could not grasp the need for prompt punishment. He allowed the roll to be called in the ordinary way, wasting precious moments, whilst the rebel sepoys were hastening nearer and nearer to the imperial city.
Night fell quickly, and as the general commanding did not know which way the rebels had fled, he did not order pursuit, arguing that the troops must remain behind to protect the residents of Meerut from the thousands of budmashes and escaped jail-birds.
Had the dragoons at Meerut been ordered down the road to Delhi (for the general might easily have guessed that the rebels would take that direction), the 60th Rifles and the Artillery were strong enough to have swept all the budmashes in Meerut out of existence; and the dragoons would certainly have overtaken and destroyed the two foot regiments, and might have come up with the 3rd Native Cavalry. In the face of the British horsemen the populace of Delhi would not have dared to sympathize with the mutineers; the revolt would perhaps have died out, and the terrible massacres of Delhi, Cawnpore, and other places might never have occurred. But it is easy to be wise after the event, and the general commanding at Meerut, though a brave man, was not a far-seeing one. He was content to save and defend his own station, failing to recognize that a spark kindled in Delhi, the real capital of India, would set the whole land ablaze. As it was, the mutineers, scared out of their wits by the fear of a terrible retribution, hearing in their frightened imaginations the thundering of the dragoons behind them, got safely into Delhi and attempted to rouse that city against the Feringhis. But the people of Delhi said one to another:
“No! The English will be here presently with their terrible horsemen and still more terrible artillery. Let us take no part in this!”
But not a British soldier was in sight next day from the city walls, and the rumour soon gained ground that all the white troops in Meerut had been slain, and that Allah had taken from them their vigour and their courage. “The Feringhis are lachar[1]!” was the cry.
[1] helpless.