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56 leaving him unsupported. Then the mutinous sipáhí recognised that with him the game was up. Turning then the muzzle of the musket to his breast, he discharged it by the pressure of his foot, and fell burned and bleeding to the ground.

Hearsey then addressed the men, and reproached them with their passive demeanour. The excuses they made, that Manghal Pándi was mad, that he was intoxicated, that he had a loaded musket, ought to have convinced Hearsey that the hearts or the men were no longer with their British officers. He felt, indeed, that the situation was becoming greatly strained. The 19th N. I. were actually marching from Barhámpur to be disbanded at Barrackpur, and now the sipáhís of the four regiments of the Barrackpur brigade had displayed an indiscipline at least equal to that for which the 19th were to be punished in their presence. Rumours of all kinds filled the air — the rumour that the outbreak of Manghal Pándi had been preconcerted, but had broken out too soon; another that the arrival of the 19th would be the signal for a general rising; a third, a day or two later, that a conference between emissaries from the 34th and the 19th had taken place, on the 30th, at Barsat, one march from Barrackpur. It is probable that these rumours were true. But the mutinous army had no leader at Barrackpur, and for want of a leader, and in the presence of divided counsels, action collapsed.

On the 30th of March the Government concentrated in Barrackpur the newly arrived 84th Foot, a wing of the 53d, two batteries of European artillery, and the Governor-General's Bodyguard, which, though composed of natives, was then believed to be loyal. The next morning the 19th N. I. marched into Barrackpur. There, in presence of the English regiments and the English-manned guns, and