He would have cried aloud for mercy, but terror had bereft his tongue of speech. He clasped his brow tightly. For a moment he reeled, then fell to the pavement.
The night was lost and won.
Chapter XV
IN THE COURSE OF EVENTS
Many days had passed beneath the Rani's feet. Almost hourly the loom of peril rose threateningly upon her position. From every source, with unrelenting persistence, the worst news came to shatter the hopes of those who had espoused the Native cause in Jhansi.
First the report of the recapture and looting of Delhi was confirmed; to which was added the intelligence that the aged Emperor was a prisoner in the enemy's hands, and that his sons had been slaughtered. Then that Lucknow was relieved, and the army of the Peshwa put to flight. Reports of other reverses succeeded one another with disheartening rapidity.
The hour of the Foreigners' vengeance had come. Terror was the weapon they now wielded to crush the rebellion. It was not without satisfactory result in the interest of their dominion in India. The undisciplined mobs led by generals suspicious of each other's actions melted away before the impetuous onslaughts of the white men. Many Native leaders sought to make peace while the hour of grace lasted. Those still wavering quickly made up their minds that they had ever loved the Foreigner as a parent.
But for those taken in open revolt it was soon made plain that there was to be no mercy. They were blown from the mouths of cannon to end their lives in this world, and, according to the belief of the sentenced, to exterminate their existence in the next. The demand rose that as a lasting memorial of the triumph of the Christian faith as well as of the Christian sword over both Hindu and Mohammedan, temples should be converted into churches, and that on every tile of the Great Mosque at Delhi a martyr's name should be engraved.
In another part of the world the names of Christian martyrs may be seen cut into the walls of subterranean passages bearing witness to a triumph of their faith brought about by other means. But it was the Nineteenth and not the Third Century. It was Cawnpur and not the Coliseum to be avenged.