CHAPTER IV. THE PALACE OF THE MOGUL.
As that awful night of the 11th of May wore on, a drama was enacted in the fair city of Meerut, that the most graphic pen would fail to do justice to. For a time the mutineers held their own. They burned and pillaged, they massacred and drank. In their mad fury nothing was held sacred. Even their own temples and mosques fell a prey to the incendiary firebrands. Innocent children were ruthlessly slaughtered; helpless women were dismembered, and many a gallant officer rolled in the dust without being able to fire a shot at his unseen and cowardly foe.
But soon the tide turned. The panic, which for a short time seemed to have paralysed those in command, gave place to reaction. The Rifles and the Dragoons were let loose. Desperate and terrible was the conflict, but the “Great White Hand” was too powerful to be crushed by a howling rabble. The gallant English soldiers warmed to their work. Their blood fired as they thought of their cruelly-murdered wives and daughters, and country-women. And so, with carbines and sabres they cut lines for themselves through the crowded streets, until from thousands of throats went up the warning cry—
“Gora-logue, aya” (the Europeans have come). Then out of the city of Meerut, and on to the great high road that led to Delhi, went the cowardly mutineers—a disorderly, beggarly, undisciplined rabble now. The Dragoons followed some little distance, and made terrible havoc among the flying crowds. But suddenly, and for some inexplicable reason, the English soldiers were ordered to return. They did reluctantly—sorrowfully. Nay, they were half-inclined to disobey that order, for their blood was up, and they knew that they could have cut that flying horde to pieces. Somebody had blundered again! But who? And to the present day echo answers, Who?
The men returned to their lines, and the rebels straggled on. Before them was the Imperial City, with its gorgeous Palace, its stupendous magazine and arsenal, its countless treasures, its almost impregnable defences. It was a goal worth pressing forward to. Behind them was a town of smouldering and blackened ruins, of slaughtered women and children, and dauntless British soldiers burning to revenge the foul murders, but who were held in check by the marvellous stupidity of those in office.
The Palace of the Mogul, in Delhi, was one that might have vied with any similar building in the whole of India; it was a majestic pile, worthy of the traditions that surrounded it, and the noble line of kings who had dwelt beneath its roof, but who were now but a name, for their ancient splendour had set never to rise again.
In one of the stateliest rooms in the stately Palace sat the aged King—a man upon whose brow the years had gathered thickly and set their stamp. A long beard, white as the driven snow, reached to his waist; his face was wrinkled and puckered, and his eyes dull and bleared, but they were restless, and plainly told that within the spirit was chafing. Around him was a brilliant retinue, and on each side of the marble hall stood an armed guard.
The King was seated on a raised dais, and was holding counsel with some of his ministers.
“Things work well,” he replied, in a low voice, to some remark that had just been made by one of his courtiers. “Our sun is rising, and power is coming back to us; we shall yet live to enjoy some of the glory which made the reign of our predecessors so conspicuous before these cursed Feringhees came and trampled on our power. Death to them!”