for certain that the garrison would be
withdrawn, Colonel Ross-Ellison commenced to put into practice his
projected plans and arrangements. On the day that Mr. Dearman's coolies
(after impassioned harangues by a blind Mussulman fanatic known as
Ibrahim the Weeper, a faquir who had recently come over the Border to
Gungapur and attained great influence; and by a Hindu professional
agitator who had obtained a post at the mills in the guise of a harmless
clerk) commenced rioting, beat Mr. Dearman to death with crowbars,
picks, and shovels, murdered all the European and Eurasian employees,
looted all that was worth stealing, and, after having set fire to the
mills, invaded the Cantonment quarter, burning, murdering,
destroying,--Colonel Ross-Ellison called out his corps, declared martial
law, and took charge of the situation, the civil authorities being dead
or cut off in the "districts".

The place which he had marked out for his citadel in time of trouble was
the empty Military Prison, surrounded by a lofty wall provided with an
unassailable water-supply, furnished with cook-houses, infirmary,
work-shop, and containing a number of detached bungalows (for officials)
in addition to the long lines of detention barracks.

As soon as his men had assembled at Headquarters he marched to the
place and commenced to put it in a state of defence and preparation for
a siege.

While Captain Malet-Marsac and Captain John Bruce (of the Gungapur
Engineering College) slaved at carrying out his orders in the Prison,
other officers, with picked parties of European Volunteers, went out to
bring in fugitives, to commandeer the contents of provision and grain
shops, to drive in cattle, to seize cooks, sweepers and other servants,
to shoot rioters and looters in the Cantonment area, to search for
wounded and hidden victims of the riot, to bury corpses, extinguish
fires, penetrate to European bungalows in the city and in outlying
places, to publish abroad that the Military Prison was a safe refuge, to
seize and empty ammunition shops and toddy shops, to mount guards at the
railway-station, telegraph office, the banks, the gate-house of the
great Jail, the Treasury and the Kutcherry,[64] and generally, to use
their common sense and their rifles as the situation demanded.

[64] Collector's Court and Office.

Day by day external operation became more restricted as the mob grew
larger and bolder, better armed and better organized, daily augme