Following the Equator, Mark Twain [best free e reader TXT] 📗

/> cut with his sword into the neck, and he fell into the water. My
son was killed near him. I saw it; alas! alas! Some were stabbed
with bayonets; others cut down. Little infants were torn in pieces.
We saw it; we did; and tell you only what we saw. Other children
were stabbed and thrown into the river. The schoolgirls were burnt
to death. I saw their clothes and hair catch fire. In the water, a
few paces off, by the next boat, we saw the youngest daughter of
Colonel Williams. A sepoy was going to kill her with his bayonet.
She said, 'My father was always kind to sepoys.' He turned away,
and just then a villager struck her on the head with a club, and she
fell into the water. These people likewise saw good Mr. Moncrieff,
the clergyman, take a book from his pocket that he never had leisure
to open, and heard him commence a prayer for mercy which he was not
permitted to conclude. Another deponent observed an European making
for a drain like a scared water-rat, when some boatmen, armed with
cudgels, cut off his retreat, and beat him down dead into the mud."

The women and children who had been reserved from the massacre were imprisoned during a fortnight in a small building, one story higha cramped place, a slightly modified Black Hole of Calcutta. They were waiting in suspense; there was none who could foretaste their fate. Meantime the news of the massacre had traveled far and an army of rescuers with Havelock at its head was on its wayat least an army which hoped to be rescuers. It was crossing the country by forced marches, and strewing its way with its own dead men struck down by cholera, and by a heat which reached 135 deg. It was in a vengeful fury, and it stopped for nothing neither heat, nor fatigue, nor disease, nor human opposition. It tore its impetuous way through hostile forces, winning victory after victory, but still striding on and on, not halting to count results. And at last, after this extraordinary march, it arrived before the walls of Cawnpore, met the Nana's massed strength, delivered a crushing defeat, and entered.

But too lateonly a few hours too late. For at the last moment the Nana had decided upon the massacre of the captive women and children, and had commissioned three Mohammedans and two Hindoos to do the work. Sir G. O. Trevelyan says:

"Thereupon the five men entered. It was the short gloaming of
Hindostanthe hour when ladies take their evening drive. She who
had accosted the officer was standing in the doorway. With her were
the native doctor and two Hindoo menials. That much of the business
might be seen from the veranda, but all else was concealed amidst
the interior gloom. Shrieks and scuffing acquainted those without
that the journeymen were earning their hire. Survur Khan soon
emerged with his sword broken off at the hilt. He procured another
from the Nana's house, and a few minutes after appeared again on the
same errand. The third blade was of better temper; or perhaps the
thick of the work was already over. By the time darkness had closed
in, the men came forth and locked up the house for the night. Then
the screams ceased, but the groans lasted till morning.

"The sun rose as usual. When he had been up nearly three hours the
five repaired to the scene of their labors over night. They were
attended by a few sweepers, who proceeded to transfer the contents
of the house to a dry well situated behind some trees which grew
hard by. 'The bodies,' says one who was present throughout, 'were
dragged out, most of them by the hair of the head. Those who had
clothing worth taking were stripped. Some of the women were alive.
I cannot say how many; but three could speak. They prayed for the
sake of God that an end might be put to their sufferings. I
remarked one very stout woman, a half-caste, who was severely
wounded in both arms, who entreated to be killed. She and two or
three others were placed against the bank of the cut by which
bullocks go down in drawing water. The dead were first thrown in.
Yes: there was a great crowd looking on; they were standing along
the walls of the compound. They were principally city people and
villagers. Yes: there were also sepoys. Three boys were alive.
They were fair children. The eldest, I think, must have been six or
seven, and the youngest five years. They were running around the
well (where else could they go to?), and there was none to save
them. No one said a word or tried to save them.'

"At length the smallest of them made an infantile attempt to get
away. The little thing had been frightened past bearing by the
murder of one of the surviving ladies. He thus attracted the
observation of a native who flung him and his companions down the
well."

The soldiers had made a march of eighteen days, almost without rest, to save the women and the children, and now they were too lateall were dead and the assassin had flown. What happened then, Trevelyan hesitated to put into words. "Of what took place, the less said is the better."

Then he continues:

"But there was a spectacle to witness which might excuse much.
Those who, straight from the contested field, wandered sobbing
through the rooms of the ladies' house, saw what it were well could
the outraged earth have straightway hidden. The inner apartment was
ankle-deep in blood. The plaster was scored with sword-cuts; not
high up as where men have fought, but low down, and about the
corners, as if a creature had crouched to avoid the blow. Strips of
dresses, vainly tied around the handles of the doors, signified the
contrivance to which feminine despair had resorted as a means of
keeping out the murderers. Broken combs were there, and the frills
of children's trousers, and torn cuffs and pinafores, and little
round hats, and one or two shoes with burst latchets, and one or two
daguerreotype cases with cracked glasses. An officer picked up a
few curls, preserved in a bit of cardboard, and marked 'Ned's hair,
with love'; but around were strewn locks, some near a yard in
length, dissevered, not as a keepsake, by quite other scissors."

The battle of Waterloo was fought on the 18th of June, 1815. I do not state this fact as a reminder to the reader, but as news to him. For a forgotten fact is news when it comes again. Writers of books have the fashion of whizzing by vast and renowned historical events with the remark, "The details of this tremendous episode are too familiar to the reader to need repeating here." They know that that is not true. It is a low kind of flattery. They know that the reader has forgotten every detail of it, and that nothing of the tremendous event is left in his mind but a vague and formless luminous smudge. Aside from the desire to flatter the reader, they have another reason for making the remark-two reasons, indeed. They do not remember the details themselves, and do not want the trouble of hunting them up and copying them out; also, they are afraid that if they search them out and print them they will be scoffed at by the book-reviewers for retelling those worn old things which are familiar to everybody. They should not mind the reviewer's jeer; he doesn't remember any of the worn old things until the book which he is reviewing has retold them to him.

I have made the quoted remark myself, at one time and another, but I was not doing it to flatter the reader; I was merely doing it to save work. If I had known the details without brushing up, I would have put them in; but I didn't, and I did not want the labor of posting myself; so I said, "The details of this tremendous episode are too familiar to the reader to need repeating here." I do not like that kind of a lie; still, it does save work.

I am not trying to get out of repeating the details of the Siege of Lucknow in fear of the reviewer; I am not leaving them out in fear that they would not interest the reader; I am leaving them out partly to save work; mainly for lack of room. It is a pity, too; for there is not a dull place anywhere in the great story.

Ten days before the outbreak (May 10th) of the Mutiny, all was serene at Lucknow, the huge capital of Oudh, the kingdom which had recently been seized by the India Company. There was a great garrison, composed of about 7,000 native troops and between 700 and 800 whites. These white soldiers and their families were probably the only people of their race there; at their elbow was that swarming population of warlike natives, a race of born soldiers, brave, daring, and fond of fighting. On high ground just outside the city stood the palace of that great personage, the Resident, the representative of British power and authority. It stood in the