and then set out for
Delhi, the great old imperial city. There they were welcomed by the
titular king and his family, and there, as at Meerut, they murdered all
the Christians on whom they could lay hold. By the mismanagement of the
large European force at Meerut, a small portion of which was well able
to cope with the Sepoys, they did not arrive on the scene of revolt till
the Sepoys had done all the mischief on which they were bent, and had
set out for Delhi.

That 10th of May we remember vividly. We had had our usual afternoon
service with the native Christians. In the evening we walked out in the
garden. The moon was shining in an unclouded sky. Hot though the weather
was we enjoyed our quiet walk, talked of the services of the day, and
the threatening appearance of affairs. Little did we think of the
terrible scenes which were then being enacted at Meerut.

The outbreak at Meerut awoke as with a peal of the loudest thunder the
entire English community in India, and especially in Northern India, to
a sense of imminent peril. We had hitherto lived in the enjoyment of
profound security. There had been uneasiness on different occasions,
when our power seemed imperilled by the disasters which overtook us in
Afghanistan in 1841-42, and by the life and death struggle we had
afterwards with the Sikhs. Our enemies were then watching for our fall,
and the reasons for uneasiness at those times were stronger than the
community generally were aware of. There had been also at different
times uneasiness in reference to the Sepoys, but they came to be
regarded as wilful children, who might be troublesome, but who would do
us no harm. In our own country, among our own people, we could not have
felt safer than we ordinarily did. At the travelling season we went
about, pitched our tents in solitary spots, for weeks together perhaps
did not see a white face, and were treated not only with courtesy, but
generally with profound deference, as if we belonged to a superior race.
The people in their obsequious fashion, and with their idolatrous views,
would almost have given us divine honours. All at once we realized
ourselves as living in the midst of a dense alien population. Our own
trusted soldiers, serving under our banners, receiving our pay, and
sworn to defend us, had risen against us; and with them as declared
enemies, in whom could we confide? Our obsequious servants of yesterday
might become our murderers to-day. We felt ourselv