the English had to give some striking proof of decision and strength. No Indian race will fight for masters who do not show some faculty for command. The crisis came at Peshawur itself, towards the end of May. The Sepoys had fixed May 22 for rising against their officers. On the 21st the 64th Native Infantry was to march into Peshawur, and on the following morning the revolt was to take place. Herbert Edwardes and Nicholson, however, were the last men in the world to be caught off their guard. At 7 A.M. on the morning of the 21st, parade was held, and, as the result of some clever manoeuvres, the five native regiments found themselves confronted by a line of British muskets, and ordered to pile arms.' The intending mutineers were reduced, almost with a gesture, to the condition of an unarmed mob, and that lightning-stroke of decision saved the Punjaub. Levies poured in; new regiments rose like magic; a loyal army became possible.

Little more than a fortnight afterwards, Neville Chamberlain discovered a plot in the 35th Native Infantry, and promptly blew two ringleaders from the guns, the first instance of that dramatic form of punishment in the Mutiny. Later, when Nicholson took command of the Movable Column, he was compelled to disarm two native regiments, the 35th and the 33rd. The 33rd was on its march to join the column, and Nicholson conducted the business with so nice an adjustment of time and method that the 35th had been disarmed, and their muskets and belts packed in carts and sent off to the fort, just as the 33rd marched up. As it halted it found itself, not side by side with a regiment of accomplices, but in front of a long and menacing line of British infantry and guns, and Roberts himself rode forward with the order to its colonel to pile arms. 'What! disarm my regiment?' said that astonished officer, who was serenely unconscious that there was a mutinous brain under every shako in his regiment. When the order was repeated, the old colonel broke into actual tears. But there were sterner wills and stronger brains than his in command, and the 33rd, in turn, was reduced to harmlessness.

At Lahore, again, the Sepoys had an elaborate plot to kill their officers, overpower the European troops, and seize the treasury and the guns. Lahore was a city of 90,000 inhabitants, with a garrison of 2,500 Sepoys in the city itself. The city troops were to rise first, and their success was to be signalled to Meanmeer, the military cantonment, six miles distant. Mutiny

at Lahore was to be followed by revolt through all the military stations of the district, from the Rabee to the Sutlej. The plot, however, was discovered. General Corbett, a cool and gallant soldier, resolved to disarm the whole native garrison.

On the night of May 12, three days before the date fixed for the mutiny, a military ball was to be held. This arrangement was not changed, lest the suspicions of the Sepoys should be aroused, and dancing was kept up till two o'clock in the morning. Then the officers at grey dawn hurried to the parade-ground, where, by instructions issued the day before, the whole brigade was assembled nominally to hear some general orders read. These were read in the usual fashion at the head of each regiment. Then some brigade manœuvres followed, and these were so adroitly arranged that, at their close, the native regiments found themselves in quarter-distance column, with five companies of a British regiment, the 81st, opposite them in line, the guns being still in the rear of the 81st.

In a single sentence, brief and stern, the order was given for the native regiments to 'pile arms.' The Grenadiers of the 16th, to whom the order was first addressed, hesitated; the men began to handle their arms; for one breathless moment it was doubtful whether they would obey or fight. But simultaneously with the words Pile arms,' the 81st had fallen back, coolly and swiftly, between the guns, and the Sepoys, almost at a breath, found themselves covered by a battery of twelve pieces loaded with grape, the artillerymen standing in position with burning portfires, whilst along the line of the 81st behind ran the stern order, 'Load,' and already the click of the ramrods in the muskets was heard.

The nerve of the Sepoys failed! Sullenly they piled arms, and 600 English, by adroitness and daring, disarmed 2,500 Sepoys without a shot! What five minutes before had been a menace to the British power was made harmless.

Montgomery, the chief civil officer at Lahore, divides with Corbett the honour of the brilliant stroke of soldiership which saved the city. Never was there a less heroic figure in outward appearance than that of Montgomery. He was short, stout, softspoken, rubicund-faced, and bore, indeed, a ludicrous resemblance to Mr. Pickwick as depicted by the humorous pencil of Phiz.' He was familiarly known, as a matter of fact, to all Englishmen in his province by the sobriquet of 'Pickwick.' But nature some

times conceals an heroic spirit within a very unheroic-looking body. If in outward look there was something sheep-like in Montgomery's appearance, there was a lion-like strain in his

courage.

He had only a hint of the coming storm. A couple of scanty telegrams brought in the news of the mutiny at Meerut and the seizure of Delhi. With quick vision Montgomery read the temper of the native troops at Meanmeer, and, with swifter decision than even that of Corbett, he advised that they should be instantly disarmed. That decision averted a great disaster.

The whole story shows what is possible to clear judgment and resolute courage; but where these failed, or where some old Bengal officer retained his blind and fond credulity as to the 'staunchness' of his men, then great tragedies became possible.

Thus at Futteghur, some seventy miles from Cawnpore, the 10th Native Infantry, with some irregular troops, held the cantonments. General Goldie was divisional commander; Colonel Smith held command of the 10th, and cherished a piously confident belief in the loyalty of his Sepoys. The civilians, with a shrewder insight into the state of affairs, believed mutiny certain, and murder highly probable, and determined to leave the station. On June 4 a little fleet of boats, laden with almost the entire English colony in the place-merchants, shopkeepers, missionaries, with their wives and children-started down the river, to the huge disgust of Colonel Smith, who thought their departure a libel on his beloved Sepoys. Part of the company found refuge with a friendly Zemindar, while three boats, containing nearly seventy persons-of whom forty-nine were women and childrenpushed on to Cawnpore. In Cawnpore, however, though they were in ignorance of the fact, Wheeler and his gallant few were already fighting for life against overwhelming odds.

News soon reached the Sepoy lines at Cawnpore that three boatloads of Sahibs were on the river, and a rush was made for them. The poor victims had pulled in to the bank and were enjoying afternoon tea,' when the horde of mutineers burst upon them. Some tried to hide in the long grass, which was set on fire above them. The rest, scorched, wounded, half-naked, with bleeding feet-mothers trying to shelter or carry their children-were dragged to the presence of Nana Sahib. The ladies and children were ordered to sit on the ground; their husbands, with their hands tied, were arranged in careful order behind them. Being thus picturesquely arranged for easy murder, some files of the

2nd Cavalry were marched up to kill the whole. The process was lengthy, wives clinging to their husbands, mothers trying to shelter their little ones with their own bodies from the keen cavalry swords. Nana Sahib watched the whole process with the leisurely and discriminating interest of a connoisseur.

On June 18 Colonel Smith's trusted Sepoys broke into open revolt at the station, whence these poor fugitives had fled. The little British garrison, consisting of thirty fighting men, with sixty ladies and children, took refuge in a low mud fort, and held it for nearly three weeks. Then they fought their way to their boats and fled. They were fiercely pursued. One boat grounded, and its miserable passengers were summarily murdered. Death by bullets, by sunstroke, by drowning, pursued the rest. One boatload escaped, but escaped only to reach Cawnpore, and to perish amid the horrors of the slaughter-house there.

One survivor has left a record of that dreadful voyage. He was in the boat that first grounded and was boarded by the Sepoys. He describes how the passengers were shot, and how Major Robertson, seeing no hope, begged the ladies to come into the water rather than fall into their hands. While the ladies were throwing themselves into the water I jumped into the boat, took up a loaded musket, and, going astern, shot a Sepoy. Mr. and Mrs. Fisher were about twenty yards from the boat; he had his child in his arms, apparently lifeless. Mrs. Fisher could not stand against the current; her dress, which acted like a sail, knocked her down, when she was helped up by Mr. Fisher. . Early the next morning a voice hailed us from the shore, which we recognised as Mr. Fisher's. He came on board, and informed us that his poor wife and child had been drowned in his arms.'

For skill, daring, and promptitude, nothing exceeded the fashion in which the incipient mutiny at Multan was trampled out. At no other post were the conditions more perilous. The garrison consisted of a troop of native horse artillery, two regiments of native infantry, and the 1st Irregular Cavalry; the only English troops were 50 artillerymen in charge of the magazine. Here, then, were 50 British artillerymen, without guns, opposed to over 3,000 Sepoys-horse, foot, and artillery!

The decisive factor in the problem was the character of the British commander, Major Chamberlain. His strong will and genius for command held the 1st Irregular Cavalry steady. They were Hindus from the neighbourhood of Delhi with a full measure

of the superstition and pride of caste which swept away other regiments. But they believed in their commander. He swayed their imaginations as with a touch of magic. The spell of his looks and voice, his imperious will, overbore the impulse to revolt. His men declared they would follow him to the death! Chamberlain resolved to disarm the other native regiments, and he performed the perilous feat, not only with miraculous audacity, but with a miraculous nicety of arrangement.

The Second Punjaub Infantry and the First Punjaub Cavalry were to arrive at the station on a given day. They were native troops, but could-for the moment, at least-be trusted. The new troops came in at nightfall. At 4 A.M. the next morning the two Sepoy regiments and a troop of native artillery were marched out as if for an ordinary parade. They were suddenly halted; the Punjaub troops quietly marched betwixt them and their lines; the 50 English gunners took their places beside the guns of the native artillery, and a little band of Sikh cavalry that could be trusted rode up to the flank of the guns.

Then Chamberlain gave the order to the suspected regiments to Pile arms.' One Sepoy shouted, 'Don't give up your arms! Fight for them;' but his English adjutant instantly grasped him by the throat, shook him as a terrier would shake a rat, and flung him on the ground. The mutinous Sepoys hesitated; their courage sank; they meekly piled arms, were marched back weaponless to their barracks, and the station was saved. But it was a great feat to disarm a whole garrison with only 50 English gunners. The regiment of irregular cavalry was permanently saved by the spell of Chamberlain's authority, and, as a reward, is still the First Regiment of Bengal Cavalry.

Some of the revolting regiments, it is satisfactory to know, had very distressful experiences. They found that mutiny was a bad investment. Let the tale of the 55th, for, example, be told. The regiment broke into open mutiny at Mardan on May 22, fired on their officers, and marched off to the hills with the regimental colours and treasure. Its colonel, Spottiswoode, blew out his brains in mingled grief and despair when he saw his faithful' Sepoys in open revolt.

Meanwhile, the most menacing figure in all the great drama of the Mutiny-that of Nicholson-made its appearance on the track of the mutineers. Nicholson overtook them on the 24th, after a ride of seventy miles, slew 150, captured another 150 with