Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/88

62 tion that it was not confined to Bengal, that it had shown itself in other places than Lakhnao, that regiments, widely separated from one another, were equally infected. In the important station of Mírath, situated nearly midway between the Ganges and the Jamnah, thirty-six miles from the imperial city of Dehlí, the sipáhís had become impregnated with the idea that the flour sold in the bazaars had been purposely mixed with the bones of bullocks, ground to a fine powder. The conspirators who had fabricated this story were the men who had invented the tale of the greased cartridges, and they had fabricated it with a like object. Nothing tended more to prove the proneness of the minds of the sipáhís to accept any story against the masters they had served for a century than the readiness with which they accepted this impossible rumour. They were not to be persuaded that it was untrue. They displayed more than ordinary care in the purchase of the meal for their daily consumption, and, still unsatisfied, vented their discontent by the burning of houses and by the omission of the ordinary salute to their officers. They soon took a very much more decided step in the path of mutiny. A parade of the 3d Native Light Cavalry had been ordered for the morning of the 6th of May. When, on the preceding evening, the ordinary cartridges were issued to the men, eighty-five troopers of that regiment declined to receive them. In vain did their commanding officer expostulate; in vain did the Brigadier attempt to persuade them. Such a breach of discipline could not be passed over. The men were confined, were then brought with all speed to a court-martial, composed entirely of native officers, and were sentenced by the members of that court to periods of imprisonment, with hard labour, varying from six to ten years. Under the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, to whom the question had been specially