My informant went on to tell me that Mazar Ali had served under Major Neill for years, and had been treated by him with special kindness before he came to know that the Major was the son of the man who had ordered his father's execution; that while he was lying ill in hospital a fakeer one day arrived in the station from some remote quarter of India, and told him of his father's dying imprecation, and that Major Neill being the son of General Neill, it was the decree of fate that Mazar Ali should shoot Major Neill on parade the following day; which he did, without any apparent motive whatever.
I expressed my doubts about the truth of all this, when my informant told me he could give me a copy of a circular, printed in Oordoo and English, given to the descendants of Suffur Ali, directing them, as a message from the other world, to avenge the death and defilement of their father. The man eventually brought the leaflet to me in the dâk bungalow in Jhânsi. The circular is in both Oordoo and English, and printed in clean, clear type; but so far as I can read it, the English translation, which is printed on the leaflet beneath the Oordoo, and a copy of which I reproduce below, does not strike me as a literal translation of the Oordoo. The latter seems to me to be couched in language calculated to prove a much stronger incitement to murder than the English version would imply. However, the following is the English version verbatim, as it appears on the leaflet, word for word and point for point, italics and all.
The imprecation, vociferated by Suffur Ali, Duffadâr 2nd Regiment Light Cavalry, who was executed at the Slaughter-house, on the 25th July, 1857, for killing Sir Hugh Wheeler, at the Suttechoura Ghât.
Oh Mahomed Prophet! be pleased to receive into Paradise the soul of your humble servant, whose body Major Bruce's Mehtur police are now defiling by lashes, forced to lick a space of the blood-stained floor of the Slaughter-house, and hereafter to be hanged, by the order of General Neill. And, oh Prophet! in due time inspire my infant son Mazar Ali of Rohtuck, that he may revenge this desecration on the General and his descendants.
Take notice!—Mazar Ali, Sowar, 2nd Regiment, Central India Horse, who under divine mission, shot Major A. H. S. Neill, Commanding the Corps, at Augur, Central India, on the 14th March 1887, was sentenced to death by Sir Lepel Griffin, Governor-General's Agent.
The Oordoo in the circular is printed in the Persian character without the vowel-points, and as I have not read much Oordoo since I passed my Hindoostânee examination thirty-three years ago, I have had some difficulty in translating the leaflet, especially as it is without the vowel-points. The man who gave it to me asked if I knew anything about the family of General Neill, and I replied that I did not, which was the truth. When I asked why he wanted to know, he said that if any more of his sons were still in India, their lives would soon be taken by the descendants of men who were defiled and hanged at Cawnpore under the brigade-order of General Neill, dated Cawnpore, 25th of July, 1857. This is the order to which I have alluded in the second chapter of my reminiscences, and which remained in force till the arrival of Sir Colin Campbell at Cawnpore in the following November. As I had never seen a copy of it, having only heard of it, I asked my informant how he knew about it. He told me that thousands of copies, in English, Oordoo, and Hindee, were in circulation in the bazaars of Upper India. I told my friend that I should very much like to see a copy, and he promised to bring me one. Shortly after he left me in the dâk bungalow, undertaking to return with a copy of the order, as also numerous proclamations from the English Government, and the counter-proclamations on the part of the leaders of the rebellion. I thought that here I had struck a rich historical mine; but my friend did not turn up again! I sat up waiting for him till long after midnight, and as he did not return I went into the city again the following day to the place where I had met him; but all the people around pretended to know nothing whatever about the man, and I saw no more of him. However, I was glad to have got the leaflet re the assassination of Major Neill, because several gentlemen have remarked, since I commenced my reminiscences, that I mention so many incidents not generally known, that many are inclined to believe that I am inventing history rather than relating facts. But that is not so; and, besides what I have related, I could give hundreds of most interesting incidents that are not generally known nor ever will be known.[55]
Now, in my humble opinion, is the time that a history of the real facts and causes of the Mutiny should be written, if a competent man could devote the time to do so, and to visit the centres of the rebellion and get those who took part in the great uprising against the rule of the Feringhee to come forward, with full confidence of safety, and relate all they know about the affair. Thousands of facts would come to light which would be of immense historical importance, as also of great political value to Government, facts that in a few years will become lost to the world, or be remembered only as traditions of 1857. But the man who is to undertake the work must be one with a thorough knowledge of the native character and languages, a man of broad views, and, above all, one who would, to a certain extent, sympathise with the natives, and inspire them with confidence and enlist their assistance. As a rule, the Englishman, the Government official, the Sâhib Bahâdoor, although respected, is at the same time too much feared, and the truth would be more or less concealed from him. I formed this opinion when I heard of the circumstances which are supposed to have led to the assassination of Major Neill. If true, we have here secret incitement to murder handed down for generations, and our Government, with its extensive police and its Thuggee Department, knowing nothing about it![56]
FOOTNOTES:
[53] Major Neill was a son of Brigadier-General Neill commanding at Cawnpore during the first relief of Lucknow. General Neill went to the front as colonel commanding the First Madras Fusiliers.
[54] Workman; in this case a blacksmith.