The Yale expositor., 1894-12-14

10 summer house, called the assem-
bly, rooms, which had been built for
recreation and pleasure. IC lad two
rooms each 20x10, and some window
less closets, and here were imprisoned
2O6 helpless people. 1t was to become
the prison ofthese women and children.
Some of these Sepoys got permission
of Mana Sahib TO take one or more OF
these ladies to their own place, on the
promise they should be brought back
TO the summer garden next morning.
A daughter of Gen. Wheeler was so
taken and did not return. She after.
ward married the Mohammedan who
had taken her to his tent. Some Sc
poys amused themselves by thrusting
children through with bayonets and
holding them up before their mothers
in the summer house. All the doors
closed and the Sepoys standing guard,
the crowded women and children
waited their doom for eighteen days
and nights amid sickness, and flies, and
stencil, and starvation.
Then Mana Sahib heard that Have
lock was coming, and his name was
terror to the Sepoys. Lest the women
and children imprisoned in the sum-
mer house or assembly rooms should
be liberated, he ordered that their
Threats should be cut. The officers
were commanded to do the work, and
attempted it, but failed because the
law of caste would no. allow the Hin
doc to hold the victims while they
were being slain. Then 100 men were
ordered to fire through the windows,
but they fired over the heads of the
imprisoned ones, and only few were
killed. Then Mana Sahib was in
rage, and ordered professional butch
ers from among the lowest of the gyp-
sizes to go at the work. Five of them
| with hatchets and swords and knives
began the work, but three of them col
/ lapsed and tainted under the ghast-
| illness, and it was left to two butchers
| to complete the slaughter. The
struggle, the sharp cut, the binding
blow, the cleaving through scalp and
scull, the begging for life, the death
agony of hour after hour, the tangled
] limbs Of the corpses, the piled up dead
only God and those who were i'm
side the summer house can ever know.
! The butchers came out exhausted,
thinking they had done their work,
and the doors were closed. But when
they were again opened, three women
and three boys were still alive. All
these were soon dispatched, and not n
Christian or a European was left in
I n, n
| fifty cents for each lady slain. The
Mohammedan assassins dragged by the
hair the dead bodies out of the summer
house and threw them into well, by
which stood with such feelings as you
can not imagine, But after the mutt
lated bodies had been thrown into the
well, the record of the scene remained
in hieroglyphics Of crimson on the floor
and wall of the slaughter house. An
eye witness says that. as he walked in,
the blood was shoe deep, and on this
blood were tufts of hair, pieces Of mus
J lin, broken combs, fragments of pima
forcs, childrcn's straw hats, a card
case containing a curl with the inscrip-
ton, "Ned's hair, with love- a few
leaves Of an Episcopal prayer book;
also a book entitled, Preparation for
Death" Bible, on the fly leaf of
which was written, For darling
mamma, from her affectionate daugh-
ter, Isabella Blair"-both the one who
presented it and the one to whom it
was presented, departed forever.
1t was about o'clock in the even.
ing when l came upon this place in
Cawnpore. The building in which the
massacre took place has been torn
down and garden of exquisite and
fragrant flowers surrounds the scene.
Mr.. Lee pointed out to us some seventy
mounds containing bodies or portions
of bodies of those not thrown into the
well. A soldier stands on guard 10
keep the foliage and flowers from be-
ing ruthlessly pulled. l asked n sol.
dier if might take rose as me.
mento, and he handed me a cluster OF
roses, red and white, both colors sug.
Cestive to me; the red typical of the
carnage there enacted, and the white
for the purity of those who from that
spot asceuded.
But, of course. the most absorbing
interest concentrated at the well, into
which hundreds OF women and chill
dren were flung or lowered. A circu
lar wall Of white marble encloses this
well. The wall is about twenty feet
high. Inside this wall there is a marble
pavement. / paced it, and found il
fifty-seveu PAGES around. In the
center OF this enclosure, and immedi
atcly above the we'll of the dead, is 6
sculptured angel of resurrection, with
illumined face, and two palm branches
meaning victory. This angel is look
ing down toward the slumbercrs be
meath, but the two wings suggest tn,
rising of the last day. Mighty conso
lation in marble! They went dow1
under the hatchets of the Sepoys
) they shall come up under the trumpe
that shall wake the dead. felt veal
aad all a-tremble as l stood reading
, these words on the stone that cover
: the well: Sacred to the perpetua
memory of a great company of Christian
people, chiefly women and children
, | crua1lv ,noecaprpd naar this SnDt h,