Page:The story of the Indian mutiny; (IA storyofindianmut00monciala).pdf/125

 of in a chapter apart. For the present we pass on to Cawnpore, where another wretched crowd were already undergoing the horrors of a siege, and had earnestly begged from Lucknow the help it could not spare. Their sufferings and fate should be fully told, as an epitome of the Mutiny's most painful features.

Cawnpore, though no such splendid historic city as Delhi or Lucknow, was an important military station, with a force of some three hundred English soldiers, counting officers and invalids, to ten times as many Sepoys. At Bithoor, about twelve miles up the Ganges, was the palace of that wily and cruel Hindoo who, under the title of Nana Sahib, became so widely known as the villain of a great tragedy. Adopted son of the dethroned Mahratta potentate entitled the Peshwa, and left a rich man by inheriting his wealth, he had a grievance against our Government in its refusal to continue to him the ample pension paid to the late Peshwa, whose heir by adoption, by foul play if all stories are true, was, however, recognized as Maharajah of Bithoor, and allowed to keep up a sumptuous court among some hundreds of idle and insolent retainers. To ventilate his wrongs, Nana Sahib sent to England a confidential agent named Azimoolah, a low-born