Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/235

Rh implicate his comrades, who were known to sympathize with him.

We heard all this, and as the toils closed around us, began fully to realize how helpless we were, and how entirely in the power of those people and their instruments. In addition to the officials connected with the public offices already mentioned, there were any number of Moulvies and Moonshees, connected with the mosques and with tuition, available for their purposes. These men could control the consciences of the Moslem servants in our families—the servants, of course, had eyes and ears—so that, while we lived in entire ignorance of what they said, or did, or purposed, our whole life lay open to our enemies, and our domestic conversations could be reported to them daily. The influence of the Nana Sahib, and other Hindoo authorities, could equally operate through their Pundits and Priests, and we were helpless between the two, as the full glare of observation and suspicion fell upon us, while those who watched every movement, and waited for our lives, could stand back in the shade and work in darkness.

One of the methods employed was the fabrication and diffusion of false news and prophecies. All that they required was temporary effect to rouse the fanaticism of the fighting class to a white heat of fury, until they committed themselves. As the Sepoys were utterly ignorant, and their minds entirely under the influence of their Fakirs, whom they believed implicitly, nothing promulgated by them was too monstrous for belief. For instance, it was asserted that “the English had imported several cargoes of flour mixed with bones, which had been ground fine, and one morsel of which would destroy the caste of any man;” that “this flour had been covertly introduced, and was then on sale in all the leading bazaars, but so well disguised that even those who bought and sold it could not discover the difference!” All this was believed. It was no use denying it, or asking them to trace it, or name the ship that brought it, or who had landed it; it was enough that the Fakirs had said it; it was certainly so. Thus Brahmin and Sepoy bought their food with suspicion, and eat it with fear. Another