totally unfitted to stand a siege. But a worse mistake was to follow. Alarmed as time went on at his growing difficulties, Sir Hugh Wheeler at length asked the notorious Náná Sáhib, who lived a few miles off at Bithúr, to assist him with troops to guard the Treasury. For some months previously this arch-traitor's emissaries had been spreading discontent throughout India, but he himself had taken care to remain on good terms with his European neighbours. He now saw his opportunity. Cawnpur, delivered into his hands by the misplaced confidence of its defenders, was virtually in his keeping. Of European succour there was no immediate hope. The place was doomed. The crash came three days before General Barnard's force reached Delhi. With the exception of a few devoted natives who remained faithful to their salt, the whole Sepoy force on the 5th of June rose in revolt, opened the doors of the jail, robbed the treasury, and made themselves masters of the magazine. The Náná cast aside all further pretence of friendship and, joined by the mutinous troops, laid siege to the entrenchment already mentioned, which with culpable military ignorance had been thrown up in one of the worst positions that could have been chosen.
The besieging army numbered some 3000 men. The besieged could only muster about 400 English soldiers, more than 70 of which number were invalids. For twenty-one days the little garrison suffered untold horrors from starvation, heat, and the
