Page:The story of the Indian mutiny; (IA storyofindianmut00monciala).pdf/256

 soldiery took the other side. The most remarkable case of hostility here was that of the Ranee or Queen of Jhansi, a dispossessed widow, who had much the same grievance against the British Government as Nana Sahib, and avenged it by similar treacherous cruelty. She managed to blind the small English community to their danger till the Sepoys broke out early in June with the usual excesses; then our people, taking refuge in a fort, were persuaded to surrender, and basely massacred. After this version of the Cawnpore tragedy on a smaller scale, the Ranee had seized the throne of her husband's ancestors, to defend it with more spirit than was shown by the would-be Peshwa.

The whole heart of the Continent remained in a state of intermittent disorder, and little could be done to put this down till the beginning of 1858, when columns of troops from Madras and Bombay respectively marched northward to clear the central districts, and rid Sir Colin Campbell of the marauding swarms that thence troubled his rear. The Bombay column, under Sir Hugh Rose, had the harder work of it. Fighting his way through a difficult country, he first relieved the English who for more than seven months had been holding out at Saugor; then moved upon Jhansi, a strongly fortified city, with a rock-built citadel towering over its walls.