. On May 21st there was an alarm. European women and
families, with all European non-combatants, were removed into the
barracks, and General Wheeler actually accepted from Nana the help of
two hundred Mahrattas and two guns to guard the treasury. The alarm,
however, soon blew over, and Nana took up his abode at the civil station
of Cawnpore, as a proof of the sincerity of his professions.

At last, on the night of June 4th, the sepoy regiments at Cawnpore broke
out in mutiny. They were driven to action by the same mad terror which
had been manifested elsewhere. They cared nothing for the Mogul, nothing
for the pageant King at Delhi; but they had been panic-stricken by
extravagant stories of coming destruction. It was whispered among them
that the parade-ground was undermined with powder, and that Hindus and
Mahometans were to be assembled on a given day and blown into the air.
Intoxicated with fear and _bhang_, they rushed out in the darkness,
yelling, shooting, and burning according to their wont; and when their
excitement was somewhat spent, they marched off toward Delhi.

Sir Hugh Wheeler could do nothing. He might have retreated with the
whole body of Europeans from Cawnpore to Allahabad; but there had been a
mutiny at Allahabad, and, moreover, he had no means of transport.
Subsequently he heard that the mutineers had reached the first stage on
the road to Delhi, and consequently he saw no ground for alarm.

Meanwhile the brain of Nana Sahib had been turned by wild dreams of
vengeance and sovereignty. He thought not only to wreak his malice upon
the English, but to restore the extinct Mahratta Empire, and reign over
Hindustan as the representative of the forgotten peshwas. The stampede
of the sepoys to Delhi was fatal to his mad ambition. He overtook the
mutineers, dazzled them with fables of the treasures in Wheeler's
intrenchment, and brought them back to Cawnpore to carry out his
vindictive and visionary schemes.

At early morning on Saturday, June 6th, General Wheeler received from
Nana a letter announcing that he was about to attack the intrenchment.
The veteran was taken by surprise, but at once ordered all the European
officers to join the party in the barracks and prepare for the defence.
But the mutineers were in no hurry for the advance. They preferred booty
to battle, and turned aside to plunder the cantonment and city,
murdering every Christian that came in their way, not sparing the houses
of their o