Chapter XIII: A Model Commune

Other scenes accompanied the proclamation of the Mogul Empire. Hardly was the barbaric ceremony completed when the fanatics rushed through the streets and the plundering and massacre began.

While the missionary, Mr. Hildreth, and his friends kept close watch within their home through the entire day, they knew of the wild excitement in other parts of the city, but they had no suspicion of the proclamation of the Mogul Empire. Luchman knew all about it, but he kept the tidings to himself, through his wish to avoid causing his friends too much alarm.

Luchman was in hourly expectation of an assault by the mob, and his anxiety was none the less terrible because he repressed all signs of it. Why the home of the missionary was not attacked can hardly be explained. The native as well as the good man himself attributed it to fervent prayer, but there were others who prayed just as fervently, and they were cut down like lambs at the slaughter.

It was not until the fugitives reached the Cashmere Gate on Monday evening that they learned of the proclamation of the Mogul Empire, and the fact that plunder and massacre had been going on ever since midday.

The first person killed in Delhi was a Mr. Todd. He was shot while standing on the bridge of boats over the Jumna, by the first mutineers that arrived from Meerut. The second victim was Captain Douglas, commandant of the guard of the titular King. The next persons slain were the Reverend Mr. Jennings, the English chaplain of the residency, and his daughter, a lady of nineteen. They and some others applied to the Emperor for protection, and he gave them to the soldiers.

Meanwhile the Ghoojurs, the hyenas of East Indian society, were swarming into the city. Nearly every house in which a European was known to have lived was gutted: the purpose of the soldiers was massacre,--that of the rabble, plunder. The budmashes and rioters broke into the dwellings of the wealthy natives and the public stables. Scores of shopkeepers in the bazars were killed for the crime of asking payment for their goods.

Suddenly one of the infuriate mobs made for the Delhi Bank, in quest of the treasure deposited there. The throats of Mr. Beresford, the manager, his wife, and five children, were cut. The government treasuries were then plundered, the church burned, and the rioters attacked the office of the _Delhi Gazette_. When the compositors saw them coming they hastily disguised themselves as natives and mingled with the crowd. They were recognized, however, and hewn in pieces. The presses of the paper were thrown into the river, and the type melted into slugs.

A fearful fate awaited every European who stayed in Delhi. Men, women and children, to the number of several hundred, fell victims to the ferocity of a mob whose fiendishness has never been equaled except by Geronimo and his brother chiefs and Apache braves, or a Paris commune. Delhi was a fitting precursor of the Cawnpore and Lucknow atrocities.

Sir Theophilus Metcalf, the political agent, and Lieutenant Willoughby gave their attention to the magazine, which, as has been stated, contained an enormous amount of ammunition and military stores. The gates were closed and barricaded, two six pounders, double charged with grape, were pointed so as to command the gates in case they should be carried, while other guns, also double charged, covered the different portions of the magazine. A train was then laid connecting with the interior, arms were distributed to the native servants of the establishment, and the garrison, consisting of nine Europeans, calmly awaited the attack that was sure to come.

By and by the palace guard rushed up and demanded the surrender of the magazine, in the name of the Emperor. No answer was given, and ladders were brought from the palace for the purpose of taking the arsenal by escalade.

The mutineers swarmed upon the walls like bees, and the garrison tumbled them off as fast as they could load and fire. During the confusion, the native servants of the magazine and ordnance departments scrambled to the sheds and buildings against the outer wall, and, hurrying down the ladder, affiliated with their fierce countrymen.

Charge after charge of grape was fired among the wretches, and the rifles of the brave garrison cracked without intermission; but the sepoys numbered thousands, and no diminution of the horde was noticeable. They too kept up an unremitting fusillade, dancing and darting hither and thither, so overrunning with wild fury that they could not keep still. Without the least chance of accomplishing anything, hundreds fired their guns against the solid walls: such was their fanatical venom that they could not help it.

After a time two of the garrison were wounded, and only seven were left to fight the raging host.

From one of the bastions, the eye could trace a long reach of road in the direction of Delhi. Here Willoughby stationed himself, while Conductor Scully stood with lighted portfire, and his eye fixed on his commander, waiting for the signal to fire the magazine.

Shading his eyes with his hand, the lieutenant gazed long and earnestly in the direction of Meerut. Across the flaming plain, the keen vision searched for that which it could not see.

Ah, what means that dust? Is it not made by the hoofs of the cavalry galloping in mad haste to the rescue of the garrison, which can hold out but a few minutes longer? No; the faint puff of dust is wafted aside like a feather, and there is nothing beneath.

Meanwhile Scully grows impatient. He knows that when the magazine is fired it will hurl hundreds of the sepoys into eternity. They are swarming so fast that the opportunity is a glorious one.

"Isn't it time?" he calls out to the lieutenant, who glances toward him and shakes his head.

No hope, but the officer peers off over the buildings, along the parched road, over which if the help comes at all it must come quickly. He knows from the infernal tumult without that the sepoys will be inside the defenses within the next ten minutes. Even if the cavalry should now dash into sight they cannot reach the garrison in time to save them.

"Time yet, lieutenant?" asks Scully again.

"Yes; touch her off!" replies the officer, raising his hat above his head: this is the signal agreed upon for firing the magazine. Conductor Scully stoops over and touches the flame to the powder. The serpent of fire hisses straight into the heart of the magazine, and it seems as if a volcano has burst through the crust of the earth. The ground sways, as did that beneath Charleston, and an immense volume of fire and vapor, as if belched from Vesuvius, rolls upward and settles in a black cloud above the city.

Following the awful explosion was a din of yells, shrieks, execrations and cries of agony. When the great magazine of Delhi went up in flame and smoke, it mangled and killed more than half a thousand sepoys. Lieutenant Willoughby and two companions, scorched, wounded and buried in the ruins, smiled with satisfaction when they realized what a magnificent success the gigantic fireworks had proven to be.

These three men actually succeeded in crawling from the ruins at night and stole through the sally port on the river face. Willoughby was afterward killed in a village near Delhi. Two of the men, Forrest and Buckley, lived to tell of their marvelous escape, but Scully, who fired the train, was blown to fragments with the hundreds of sepoys by the terrific outburst.

When the tempest broke over Delhi, General Graves did what he could for the safety of the Europeans within the city and the vicinity. It was decided that the ladies and persons of civil employment should go to the Flagstaff Tower. This was a strong building of circular shape, standing on an elevation near the cantonment, and only a short distance from the Cashmere and Moree Gates.

At this station was General Graves himself, the eminence affording him a good view of the movements of the mutineers in the city. With him were detachments of the Thirty Eighth and Seventy Fourth Regiments. His situation was trying.

Of the three regiments stationed at Delhi, every member of one--the Fifty Fourth, which went out to fight the mutineers--had joined them and was now engaged in helping to plunder the city. Members of the other two regiments were also there, and the rest were eager to be with them.

When the thunder of the exploding magazine shook the ground, and the sulphurous cloud rose above the city, the sepoys at the Flagstaff Tower became irrestrainable. Catching up their arms with shouts of "Deen! deen!" (the faith! the faith!) they seized two guns and pointed them against the tower. Providentially they yielded to persuasion and gave up the pieces, but by this time it was clear that there was not a safe spot in all Delhi for a European.

The sagacious Luchman saw he had made a grave error. He had thought that the sepoys at the Flagstaff, where they were under the immediate eye of the general, would for a time at least remain loyal. But the whirlwind of revolt swept everything before it.

"It would have been better had we started back into the country at once," said Dr. Avery, while discussing the situation with his friends in the Flagstaff Tower.

"It would have made little difference," replied the missionary, "for we should have encountered the Ghoojurs, who are flocking hither from every direction."

"But Luchman is so well acquainted with the country that he would have steered clear of the robbers."

Avery looked at the native for his opinion. He seemed pleased by the compliment and nodded his head, but said nothing.

"If these sepoys could only be depended upon, we might stay here and bid defiance to the whole horde of mutineers," said Mr. Hildreth, looking gloomily off in the direction of the city, from which the smoke was rising and whence came a din like that of the infernal regions.

"They can be depended upon, sahib," said Luchman, with a scowl, "for being thieves and murderers, who will not spare the infant in its mother's arms."

All noticed the eclipse which darkened the face of the native, and their old fear returned. Would Luchman himself withstand the swirl of fanaticism that had turned men into devils?

It is a terrifying situation for the traveler to distrust the bridge when he is half way over the rushing torrent; for a mariner to doubt the seaworthiness of his vessel, when the monsoon is marshaling its forces; for the patient, when hovering between life and death, to know that his physician is incompetent; but similar to this was the feeling that came to the missionary and his friends when they saw the forbidding scowl on the face of Luchman.

Though a professing Christian, could he conquer the impulses that were tugging like wild horses at his heart strings? Would not the memories of the two score years during which he was the strictest of Brahmins, now assert themselves with resistless strength?

The missionary shuddered as he scrutinized that forbidding face, whose owner was staring off over Delhi, as if he longed to be there with his brother rioters.

"God keep him faithful, but I fear the worst."