ictims of the blackest deed of treachery ever written
in the annals of the world. Standing here on these smooth steps which
mark the place it is difficult even to picture that scene of horror.
Many were killed outright, many mortally wounded and torn, one hundred
and twenty-five were dragged ashore and brutally killed afterwards; it
was they who were thrown into the well; but three boats got away down
the stream. Two went ashore and all the occupants were killed by the
merciless brutes who lined the banks. The other had men in it, men who
were filled with a madness of wrath that knew no bounds. In spite of
their own condition, in spite of the odds against them, they leaped like
tigers on the foe whenever they got the chance. They were followed by
the natives, who fired on them repeatedly from a safe distance, and
again and again the dead had to be east into the stream. Yet when a
Sepoy boat ran against a sandbank, twenty or so of the powder-blackened
Englishmen sprang out into the water and raced with fury to kill them,
though the boat contained three times their own number. It is good to
read how they wiped out all but those who escaped in terror by swimming!
At last only fourteen of the English were left alive and they got
hopelessly penned in a backwater. These men charged the army of Sepoys
on the banks and made them keep their distance. They secured themselves
in a tiny temple on the margin of the river and killed all who
approached. At length, seeing preparations made for blowing them up with
gunpowder, they charged out; seven who could swim made for the river,
the other six (one was dead) rushed straight at the mass of Sepoys and
dealt death on every side before they fell.

Four of the seven eventually outdistanced their persecutors and reached
safety, and then, alas! one died.

It is good to hear that an avenging army descended on Cawnpore, though
too late to save the remnant of the captives. The Sepoys were smitten
hip and thigh, and thousands paid with their lives for those other lives
they had spared not. Nana Sahib fled and was never heard of again.
Stripped of all his wealth and luxury he must have skulked from place to
place like a plague-tainted rat, till death took him and he went to meet
the souls of the hundreds he had treacherously and brutally massacred.

It is finished! The price has been paid; the native has learnt that it
is not well to meddle with white men. And we must not forget that
hundreds