Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/457

Rh mounted the scaffold and stood on the trap, which was about to be drawn from beneath his feet, the rope resting loosely on his shoulders, and the cap ready to be drawn down, Mr. Moens, who had acted as council against him on his trial, and was now acting as sheriff, stepped forward and said, “Khan Bahadur, have you anything to say before you die?” “Yes,” was the prompt reply, “I have two things to say: first, I hate you;” and then added, speaking as an Oriental, and using the certain for the uncertain number, while his face lit up with a glow of awful gratification, “but, Moens, I have had the satisfaction of killing a thousand Christian dogs, and I would kill a thousand more now, if I had the power.”

Ten minutes after, that man stood in the presence of the Judge of all, and he went into eternity with the Mohammedan conviction that, in killing Christians, he had been doing God service, and consequently his crown of martyrdom would be all the brighter for every life which he had sacrificed; hence his confidence and exultation in that fearful moment.

We left Bareilly for Lucknow, attended to Futtyghur (seventy-four miles) by relays of sowars, (native cavalry,) the General considering the precaution still necessary. On reaching Futtyghur we went to the mission premises. But what a ruin! When I was last there, the beloved brethren and sisters of the Presbyterian mission were surrounded by a happy, native Christian community, engaged in supporting themselves by tent-making and other employment, and in the center of the village stood their nice church; but all was destroyed and desecrated now, and these dear Missionaries and their wives were numbered among “the noble army of martyrs.”

We pushed on for Lucknow. It was the month of September. How well we could understand now, what Havelock and his men must have gone through during that month last year! My entry, made at the time, tells of the torrents of rain, of the flooded country, and of having to cross unbridged rivers twenty times in that seventy miles. We were twenty-six hours going about twenty-five of these miles. The rain, the mud, and the slippery way