mutiny or coming mutiny
formed almost the only topic of conversation; yet in nearly every sepoy
regiment the European officers put faith in their men, and fondly
believed that, though the rest of the army might revolt, yet their own
corps would prove faithful.

Such was eminently the case at Cawnpore, yet General Wheeler seems to
have known better. While the European officers continued to sleep every
night in the sepoy lines, the veteran made his preparations for meeting
the coming storm.

European combatants were very few at Cawnpore, but European
_impedimenta_ were very heavy. Besides the wives and families of the
regimental officers of the sepoy regiments, there was a large European
mercantile community. Moreover, while the Thirty-second Foot was
quartered at Lucknow, the wives, families, and invalids of the regiment
were living at Cawnpore. It was thus necessary to secure a place of
refuge for this miscellaneous multitude of Europeans in the event of a
rising of the sepoys. Accordingly General Wheeler pitched upon some old
barracks which had once belonged to a European regiment; and he ordered
earthworks to be thrown up, and supplies of all kinds to be stored, in
order to stand a siege. Unfortunately there was fatal neglect somewhere;
for when the crisis came the defences were found to be worthless, while
the supplies were insufficient for the besieged.

All this while the adopted son of the former _peshwa_ [Footnote: Formerly
a chief of the Mahrattas.--Ed.] was living at Bithoor, about six miles
from Cawnpore. His real name was Dandhu Panth, but he is better known as
Nana Sahib. The British Government had refused to award him the absurd
life pension of eighty thousand pounds sterling, which had been granted
to his nominal father; but he had inherited at least half a million from
the ex-peshwa; and he was allowed to keep six guns, to entertain as many
followers as he pleased, and to live in half royal state in a
castellated palace at Bithoor. He continued to nurse his grievance with
all the pertinacity of a Mahratta; but at the same time he professed a
great love for European society, and was profuse in his hospitalities to
English officers. He was popularly known as the Raja of Bithoor.

When the news arrived of the revolt at Meerut on May 10th, Nana was loud
in his professions of attachment to the English. He engaged to organize
fifteen hundred fighting men to act against the sepoys in the event of
an outbreak