Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/78

54 horse and rider were brought to the ground. Baugh quickly disentangled himself, and, seizing one of his pistols, advanced towards the mutinous sipáhí and fired. He missed. Before he could draw his sword Manghal Pándi, armed with a talwár with which he had provided himself, closed with his adjutant, and, being the stronger man, brought him to the ground. He would probably have despatched him but for the timely intervention of a Muhammadan sipáhí, Shaikh Paltu by name.

The scene I have described had taken place in front of the quarter-guard of the 34th N. I., and but thirty paces from it. The sipáhís composing that guard had not made the smallest attempt to interfere between the combatants, although one of them was their own adjutant and the other a mutinous soldier. The sound of the firing had brought other men from the lines, but these, too, remained passive spectators of the scene. At the conjuncture I have described, just, that is, as Shaikh Paltu had warded from Baugh the fatal stroke of the talwár, and as Manghal Pándi, to make assurance doubly sure, was attempting to reload his musket, there arrived on the ground, breathless from running, the English serjeant-major, one of the two English non-commissioned officers attached in those days to each native regiment. The new arrival rushed at the mutineer, but he was, as I have said, breathless, whilst the sipáhí was fresh and on the alert. In the conflict between the two men Manghal Pándi had no difficulty in gaining the mastery, and in throwing his adversary. Still the sipáhís of the regiment looked on. Shaikh Paltu, faithful among the faithless, continued to defend the two officers, calling upon the other sipáhís to come to his aid. Then these, on the order of the Jámadár of guard, advanced. Instead, however, of endeavouring to seize Manghal Pándi, they struck at the