thoroughness with which the 'scum' and the gaol-birds had done their work.[1] But of those destroyers not one was to be seen. They had done their deeds in darkness, and had slunk away to their homes when light came. Nor was a single sipáhí visible. The quiet prevailing in the places so recently the scenes of terrible outrage and disorder was the quiet of the charnel house.
I left the English troops bivouacked on the European parade ground. On that parade ground they slept whilst the enormities, of which I have given an indication, were being perpetrated in the civil lines. Nor, when day broke, did the morning light give greater energy to the councils of their commander. The General, it is true, speedily recognised that the sipáhís had quitted Mírath. He presumed, also, that they had made for Dehlí, thirty-six miles distant. There was not now time for the most energetic soldier to have followed and caught them, for it was clear that, with a start of eight hours, the 3d Cavalry, at all events, would be there before them. But the idea of pursuit never occurred to anyone. The prevailing idea was how to secure the unthreatened Mírath. There were some good men at Mírath, but on this morning of the 11th of May not one of those in high authority was in the full possession of his faculties. The brains of all were paralysed by the blow of the previous evening. The General contented himself, then, with making a reconnaisance to the right of the Dehlí road. It was deemed to be too late, and it was then certainly too late to send a warning to the Dehlí authorities of the danger awaiting them. But the strangest thing of all was that no effort
- ↑ It deserves to be recorded that all the natives of Mírath did not join in the outrages, an outline of which I have given. For instance, a Muhammadan in the city sheltered two families at great danger to himself. The servants, as a rule, showed the greatest devotion to their foreign masters.
