It may be readily surmised that very few of the garrison contrived to sleep that night. Soon after sunrise all—women, civilians, black soldiers, and white officers—were gathered together to watch the mutineers assemble for the final assault. Of its issue there could be no doubt. As they stood there awaiting their fate Ethel Woodburn could not remain insensible, even at so trying a moment, to the beauty of the early Indian morning. The slanting rays of the Eastern sun were gilding the mosques and minarets of the town and lighting up with lurid glow the reddish buildings behind the fort, and the thought of Nature’s beauty added to her sorrow. But the greater number of those doomed people had weightier matters to occupy their thoughts.
In and around the courtyard of the fort itself all was bustle and confusion; some could be both seen and heard giving commands, and others obeying the same, though the vast majority of the assembled hundreds appeared to display a total lack of discipline. Inside the commissioner’s house the feeling of helplessness and suspense was horrible. The wisdom of a sortie, a mad rush on the guns,—to die fighting rather than cooped up and made a target of,—was debated, and not a man there but would have preferred the chance of striking back. There were women, however, to be considered, and to leave them was out of the question.
“Whilst there’s life there’s hope,” declared the Commissioner, with an attempt at cheerfulness. “The house is not destroyed yet.”
He barely succeeded, however, in convincing even himself that there was the faintest glimmer of hope. No British troops were within three days’ journey. The handful of unfortunates bade good-bye to one another, shook hands all round, and prepared to meet their death with a smile upon their faces, without flinching or showing the least sign of weakness before the eyes of their gallant and devoted Rajputs. Nor were the women behind the men in respect of courage.
Major Munro, after consulting his officers, had advised the faithful sepoys to save their lives as best they could, either by cutting their way through at night, or by pretending to desert and to fall in with the views of their rebel comrades.
To give them this chance was only fair, thought the major; the Rajputs, having done their duty, deserved consideration, and though the Englishmen could not leave the wounded and the women, yet the dark-faces, now that resistance was hopeless, should be allowed to save their lives. To Munro’s delight, however, the gallant fellows announced a firm resolve to stand by their duty to the last. They took their places shoulder to shoulder with the pale-faces, grimly waiting and watching now that the last glimmer of hope had died out.
For in the great square of the fort more than two thousand men were under arms; and in another moment the nine-pounders were charged with grape, under the supervision of Bahram Khan and a score of picked Sikhs and Pathans of the Guide Corps—men who had served in the old Khalsa Artillery and who thoroughly understood their work.
Behind the guns and flanking them the remaining hundred men of the Guides, conspicuous by their powerful and soldierly bearing, maintained some appearance of discipline, whereas the majority of the sepoys and of armed fanatics and budmashes were acting as seemed best in their own eyes.
Ressaidar Bahram Khan, however, insisted with many threats and much strong language on some kind of order being maintained. He placed the 193rd Sepoys in one position, the poorbeahs[1] of the 138th in another, and the Sikhs of the latter corps to the right front of the guns.
[1] A name given to the Oudh sepoys.