Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/229

Rh accompanied by circumstances of peculiar barbarity. It was a massacre which the Náná and those about him must have known was absolutely without excuse, even the excuse, which some crotcheteers, eager to excuse the enemies of England, have urged, of self-preservation. For those who were acquainted with the English character knew well that such an outrage, far from inducing Havelock to retire 'because there remained no one to be rescued,' would only stimulate his determination to exterminate the perpetrators.

So, in fact, it was. The next morning Tytler, who had been sent forward to reconnoitre, returned to report that the rebels had evacuated the city and its environs. Shortly before a concussion which shook the plain had conveyed the information that the magazine had been blown up. It was the last parting shot of the rebels. They retired, then, on Bithor.

After breakfast the troops marched into the station to witness the horrible and heart-rending sight I have spoken of. It was sufficient to stir up the mildest among them to revenge. But before that vengeance could be wreaked many things required to be accomplished. Havelock stood, indeed, victorious at Kánhpur. But it was a position, so to speak, in the air. Close to him, at Bithor, was, he was informed, the army of Náná Sáhib, still largely outnumbering his own. The Ganges alone separated him from the revolted province of Oudh, one spot in the capital of which, still held by Englishmen, was besieged and in imminent danger. At Kalpí, to the south-west, forty-five miles from Kánhpur, the mutinied Gwáliár contingent was gradually concentrating, and their presence there was a menace to his left rear. He had but 1100 men all told. On the 15th, presaging his early reoccupation of Kánhpur, he had directed Neill to bring