“Cawnpore is distant,” she said, in a low tone, “and the night is already far spent. Let us go.”
And so they went on, side by side, into the darkness, on to the unknown future. And the wind moaned around them like a warning voice, and beat in their faces as if it would drive them back.
CHAPTER XIV. THE TIGER OF CAWNPORE.[3]
For many years, up to eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, Cawnpore had been one of the greatest Indian military stations. In the palmy days of the Honourable East India Company all the officers invariably spent some period of their service there. As a consequence, there were wealth and beauty and fashion to be found in the British quarters; there were luxury and ease, and their concomitants, profligacy and vice—and yet withal it was perhaps neither better nor worse than all great military centres—while for rollicking gaiety and “life” it stood at the head, even Calcutta being behind it in this respect. But when the mutiny broke out, Cawnpore’s sun was declining,—not but what it was still a station of importance, but the coming end of the “Company’s” power had brought about many changes in this as well as in most other Indian cities.
It was an irregularly built place, some eight miles in extent. Squalor and wealth seemed to fraternise; for in many parts the lordly mansion raised its head beside some tumble-down, reeking native den. There was no pretension to anything like mathematical precision in the streets. They had been laid out in the most promiscuous manner. In fact, it might not inaptly be said that if you wanted to construct a Cawnpore such as it was at the time of our story, you must take a big plain with lots of cocoa-palms about, and a broad river running through it. Then get many hundreds of bamboo and mud huts; a few marble palaces, some temples with gilded minarets, a few big public buildings, a hospital or two, a gaol, and a quantity of miscellaneous structures, such as an arsenal, barracks, etc., shake them all up together, and toss them out on the plain, and there you have your Cawnpore.
To be accurate in the description, which is necessary to the better understanding and interest of this history, the city is built on the banks of the Ganges. The British lines were on the southern bank, and in the centre of the cantonment, and leading from a point opposite the city, was a bridge of boats to the Lucknow road on the other bank. Lying between the roads to Bhitoor and Delhi were many of the principal civilians’ houses. Beyond the lines were the gaol, the treasury, and churches; while squeezed up in the north-west corner was the magazine. In the centre, between the city and the river, were the assembly-rooms—made notorious by subsequent events—a theatre, a church, and the telegraph office. The place was well provided with entertainments. There were splendid shops, and they were well stocked with goods of every description, from almost every country in the world. Western civilisation and Indian primitiveness were linked.
In this terrible “57” Cawnpore was commanded by a General of Division, Sir Hugh Wheeler, who resided there with the Division staff. But although there was an immense strength of native soldiery, not a single European regiment was garrisoned in the place, the only white troops being about fifty men of her Majesty’s Eighty-fourth and a few Madras Fusiliers. Sir Hugh was a gallant officer, who had served the “Company” long and honourably, and was covered with scars and glory. But the sands of life were running low, for upwards of seventy summers and winters had passed over his head. A short time before, the only regiment that had been stationed in Cawnpore for a long time had been sent to Lucknow. This was the Thirty-second Queen’s. But they left behind them all the impedimenta, in the shape of wives, children, and invalids; and the awful responsibility of protecting these helpless beings devolved upon the time-worn veteran. Some little distance out on the Bhitoor road, there stood a magnificent dwelling, a veritable palace, with numberless outbuildings, courtyards, and retainers’ quarters. It was the home of the Rajah of Bhitoor, Dundoo Pant, otherwise Nana Sahib. His wealth at this time was almost boundless. He had troops of horses, and elephants, and quite a regiment of private soldiers. Many a time had his roof rang with the hearty laughter of English ladies and gentlemen. He was the trusted friend of the Feringhees, was this Mahratta prince. They loaded him with wealth, with favours, with honour, did all but one thing—recognise his right to succession. And their refusal to do this transformed the man, who, although a courteous gentleman outwardly, was a tyrant in his home life, and this failure to gratify his ambition turned his heart to flint, and developed in him the sanguinary nature of the tiger, without the tiger’s honesty. Well indeed had he concealed his disappointment since “52,” when Azimoolah, who had gone to England to plead the prince’s cause, returned to report his failure. To speak of Azimoolah as a tiger would be a libel on the so-called royal brute. He might fittingly be described as representing in disposition the fiends of the nether world, whose mission is to destroy all good, to develop all evil, to drag down the souls of human beings to perdition. He was the bad tool of a bad master, if he did not absolutely lead that master to some extent. Allied to the twain was Teeka Singh, soubahdar of the Second Cavalry. The trio were as cowardly a set of villains as ever made common cause in a bad case.
Between the King of Delhi and the Nana there had been numberless communications and frequent interviews, spreading over a period of some years. The imbecile puppet of Delhi fondly imagined that he could be a king in power as well as name, and he looked to Nana of Bhitoor as a man who could help him to gain this end. Actuated by similar motives, Nana Sahib fraternised with the King for the sake of the influence he would command. But between the two men there was an intense hatred and jealousy. Each hoped to make the other a tool. It was the old fable of the monkey and the cat realised over again. Both wanted the nuts, but each feared to burn his fingers. In one thing they were unanimous—they hated the English. They writhed under the power of the Great White Hand, and wished to subdue it. But although the King betrayed this so that he incurred the mistrust of the English, the Nana was a perfect master in the art of dissembling, and all that was passing in his mind was a sealed book to his white friends.