Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1894-12-10

IL years OF age uO1St0u OH Gn0 top Oh In0
i Hindoo temple on the banks two flags,
a Hindoo and Mohammedan flag, at
which signal the boatmen and armed
natives jumped from the boats and swan
for the shore, and from innumerable
guns the natives on the bank fired on
the boats, and masked batteries above
and below roared with destruction, and
the boats sank with their precious car
go, and all went down save three strong
swimmers, who got to the opposite
shore. Those who struggled out near by
were dashed to death. Mana Sahib and
his staff with their swords slashed to
pieces General Wheeler and his staff,
who had not got well away from the
shore.
I said that the young and attractive
women were not allowed to get into the
boats. These were marched away under
the guard of the sepoys
Days of Horror.
Which way?' inquired. ST will
show you, said Mr.. Lee. Again we
took seats in the carriage and started for
the climax of desperation and diabolism.
Now we are on the way to summer
house, called the assembly rooms.
which had been built for recreation and
pleasure 1t had two rooms, each % by
10, and some windowless closets, and
here were imprisoned 2O6 helpless peo-
pie. It was to become the prison of
these women and children. Some of
these sepoys got permission of Mana
Sahib to take one Or more of these la
dies to their own place on the promise
they should be brought back to the sum-
mer garden next morning. A daughter
of General Wheeler was so taken and
did not return. She afterward married
the Mohammedan who had taken her
to his tent Some sepoys amused them
selves by thrusting children through
with bayonets and holding them up be-
fore their mothers in the summer house.
All the doors closed and the sepoys
standing guard, the crowded women
and children waited their doom for 1 s
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 summer
house, or assembly rooms, should be lib
Grated, he ordered that their Threats
should be cut. The officers were COM
manded to do the work and attempted
it, but failed because the law of caste
would not allow the Hindoo 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 pro-
fessional butchers from among the low
est of the gypsies to go at the work
Five of them, with hatchets and swords
and knives, began the work, but three
of them collapsed and tainted under the
ghastliness, and it was left to two
butchers to complete the slaughter.
The struggle, the sharp cut, the blind
ing blow, the cleaving through scalp
and skull, the begging for life, the
death agony Of hour after hour, tho
tangled limbs of the corpses, the piled
up dead-only God and those who were
inside the summer house can ever know. |
The butchers came out exhausted,
thinking they had done their work, and |
the doors We're closed, but when they
were again opened three women and |
three boys were still alive. All these |
were soon dispatched, and not Chris
tian or q European was left III Gavin
pur. The murderers were paid so cents |
for each lady slain. The Mohammedan |
assassins dragged by the hair the dead |
bodies out of the summer house and |
threw them into a WELL by which I |
stood with such feelings as you cannot
imagine But after the mutilated bodies
|, Ir,tn bn bo
ord of the scene remained in hieroglyph-
les Of crimson on the floor and wall |
of the slaughter house. An eyewitness
says that as he walked in the blood was
shoe deep, and on this blood were tufts
of hair, pieces of muslin, broken combs,
fragments of pinafores, children's straw
hats, a cardcase containing a curl, with
the inscription, "Ned's hair, with
love;' few leaves of an Episcopal
prayer book; also a book entitled
Preparation For Death;" a Bible on
the fly leaf of which was written, "For
darling mamma, from her affectionate
daughter, Isabella Blair,' both the one
who presented it and the one to whom
it was presented departed forever.
I said, ''Mr. Lee I have heard that
indelicate things were found written Oh
the walls He answered, mo. but
these poor creatures wrote in charcoal
and scratched on the wall the story of
the brutalities they had suffered
HayeIock to the Rescue.
When the English and Scotch troops
came upon the scene, their wrath was
SO great that General Neill had the
butchers arrested, and before being shot
compelled them to wipe up part of the
floor of this place of massacre, this be-
ing the worst of their punishment, for
there is nothing that Hindoo so hates
as to touch blood.
When Havelock came upon the scene,