Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1886-05-07
A TRUST WELL KEPT
by EDMUND LYONS.

The torrent of mutiny in India that
had been gathering volume and force in
secret for months had burst its barriers
at last, and was sweeping along as though
past all control. The gallant old Colonel
Pratt had paradcd his regiment in front
OF his bungalow, and, with his gray hair
rlppled by the warm breeze, had ex-
pressed to them his ill-founded conf
dence that, though all the other Sepovs
rose in rebellion, they would never rise.
his men, whom he always spoke of as ''his
children" greeted his speech with ring
ing cheers. Two hours liter they had
murdered the veteran, and. under their
own chosen leaders, were marching to
Delhi, their band playing, with the curl
GUS inconsistency for which the mutineers
from first to last were famous, the Eng
llsh national anthem, "Go1 Save the
Queen" Allahabad had fallen. Every
officer at the mess table, with one ex-
ception, had been butchered by the SER
want who stood behind him. and struck
with his knife when the signal was given.
The one who escaped the general doom,
and who was called, when the story was
told, the MARTYR of Allahabad,n sprano
through window of the mess room, and
reaching the banks of the Ganges plunged
in and swan for many miles; hiding in
the jungle during the day, and drifting
with the current at night; suffering in,
credible hardships, to die of native fever
induced by the exposure when friends
and apparent safety were reached at last.
Other officers belonging to that i'll
tated mess escaped Not many, and
those only because they were not at the
table when the murderous signal was
given: One of them, having been de-
tained by regimental business. was hur-
rylng to join his comrades when woman
stopped him by coming with startling
suddenness from the shadow of clump
of bamboos beside the road.
"Sahib, don't go on!" she said speak
ing in her own language. "They are all
dead by this time. Boden Singh was
behind your chair, his knife reSdy, and
had you been in it you would nave been
with Allah now. Boden Sing was mad
with rage, and waiting. He / d waited
so long that he said he could wait no
longer. He wanted to murder you last
night when you were asleep on the char
poy, bat told him if he did so it would
not be easy to get the officers all together
at the mess tonight. So he agreed to
wait little longer and stab you in the
back, as the others were stabbed, while
he stood behind at dinner. He has killed
somebody else by this time, to make up
for having missed you. Yes, it is terri
BILE, but why did you put the grease on
the cartridges? All, here they comet"
The butchery was over, and troop of
soldiers, accompanied by the servants
who he'd slain their masters, were march,
ing down the road headed by band
playing "Rule Britannia The woman
who had spoken was Pooniah, the wife
OF the villain Boden Singh. Boden
Singh was the bearer" or body servant,
of the officer who had been warned. I
was the officer,
"Quick, Sahibr' she exclaimed, has
tily, as I stood irresolute in the middle of
the road. "They will see us in minute.
Hide in the clump of bamboos! And in
a moment we were crouching there, side
by side, while the mutineers came on,
marching with that steady military step
that they had learned so well from their
English masters. They had learned
some other things, too, from the same
teachers, and in the next few months
they showed all too plainly that the seed
Of instruction had not been cast upon
barren soil.
"Why did you put grease on the cart
ridgesW AT that moment with life and
death hanging about evenly in the bal
ance, those words and their evil inference
we're ringing in my brain. Assuredly the
pork grease on the cartridges had in some
degree hastened the mutiny. The cart
ridges of that day had to be bitten
before they were used, and both
Hindoo and Mussulman abhor the
flesh of the pr, though the
higher classes eat imported hams and
bacon, and protest that they are not the
same meat at all. The Sepoys had gone
on biting the cartridges contentedly, and
with no idea that they were putting the
unclean thing into their mouths, until the
rebe lious raiahs, watching for such an
opportunity willy ponted out the griev-
ance Several of the regiments protested,
and asked that the grease on the cart
ridges be changed, 50 as no longer to
clash with their religious principles; and
had the advice, strongly urged, of the
astute Sir john Lawrence, then collector
of Agra. afterward governor-general of
India, been taken these requests would
have been granted at once; but India's
rulers, in the pride of a century's almost
undisturbed posses on, feared nothing,
suspected no danger, and drifted blindly
on to the sharpest crisis in England's
later history.