BOOK VIII. 1857. June 12. Reaches the verge of despair. The crisis at June 14. to A'gra, and a proposal to that effect had been made to the Lieutenant-Governor. The idea that he would accede to this plan kindled some hope in the minds of those most interested. But on the 12th that hope was blighted. A telegram from Mr. Colvin directed that the ladies were not to be sent into A'gra until mutiny should have broken out at Gwáliár.* At last the crisis came. It was Sunday, the 14th of June. The Europeans in Gwáliár had attended the service of the Church in the morning, passing on their way many sepoys loitering about the road. During the day fuller details of the Jhánsí massacre had been received-details but ill-calculated to dispel the gloom that hung over the station. The prevailing idea in the minds of the residents as they read those details was that the same fate was reserved for themselves,- "for now they were more than ever isolated, revolted provinces on three sides of them, and the telegraphic communication with *A Lady's Escape from caped in this way. When the Gwalior by Mrs. Coopland. mutinies first began, if all the With admirable good sense ladies and children at the nuMrs. Coopland indicates the merous small stations had fatal error of thus keeping deen instantly sent away to ladies and children in a Calcutta or some place of dangerous position. "Before safety before the roads were this," she adds "my husband obstructed, their husbands and had often wished to send me to fathers would probably have Agra; but he would not desert had a better chance of escape. his post and I would not leave Instead of which, the lives of him. I have often thought men, women, and children since that had I done so he were sacrificed, through the might have escaped, by riding efforts to avoid arousing the off unimpeded by me; many suspicion of the troops." unmarried officers having es A'gra severed."* Suddenly, about midday, the alarm was given that one of the bungalows was on fire. This circumstance, the unvarying precursor elsewhere of a rising, warned the residents that their hour had arrived. But they had prepared themselves for a crisis of that character. Waterpots had been stored up in readiness. On the alarm then being given the occupiers of the several thatched houses had their roofs well saturated. But the wind was high, incendiaries were creeping about, and there were some houses not at the moment occupied. The fire speedily spread to the Mess-house and thence to a large swimming bath-house adjoining it. These and the bungalow first attacked by the flames were burnt to the ground. But the further progress of the fire was then arrested. The wind fell, precautions had been taken, every European was on the look out, and the day had not waned. Few, however, doubted as to the course events would take as soon as darkness should set in. A little incident confirmed the already too certain conviction. Mrs. Coopland, the wife of the * "My husband laid down death-stroke. The dread calm and tried to get a little sleep, of apprehension was awful. he was so worn out. He had We indeed drank the cup of just before been telling me bitterness to the dregs. The the particulars of the Jhansi words 'O death in life, the massacre, too frightful to be days that are no more,' kept repeated; and we did not recurring to my memory like know how soon we might meet a dirge. But God helps us in the same fate ourselves. all our woes; otherwise we could not have borne the horrible suspense."-Mrs. Coop "I hope few will know how awful it is to wait quietly for death. There was now no es- land. cape; and we waited for our BOOK VIII. 1857. June 14. Begins by an diarism. act of incen 1857. June 14. BOOK VIII. chaplain of Gwáliár, relates that on that afterChapter I. noon she and her husband went for a drive. "We saw scarcely anyone about, everything looked as it had done for days past; but as we were returning, we passed several parties of sepoys, none of whom saluted us. We met the Brigadier and Major Blake, who were just going Keen insight to pass a party of sepoys, and I remember saying of Mrs. Coop to my husband, If the sepoys don't salute the Brigadier the storm is nigh at hand.' They did not." land. The mutiny breaks out. The instincts of Mrs. Coopland were true. The storm was nigh at hand. That night, immediately after the firing of the evening gun9 P.M.-the sepoys of the Gwáliár contingent rose in revolt. They fired the lines, sounded the alarm, and rushed from their huts in tumultuous disorder, discharging their loaded muskets. The officers, as in duty bound, galloped down to the lines in the vain endeavour to recall their men to order. They were met by murderous volleys directed at them. Captain Stewart commanding a battery of artillery was severely wounded, and afterwards when a prisoner was deliberately shot dead. The return of his riderless horse to the house-door conveyed the sad news to his wife. She herself, fair and bright as the Morning Star, did not long survive him. She, too, was shot dead, and her boy with her. The sepoys spared her little girl. Major Hawkins, also commanding a battery, Majors Shirreff and Blake, commandants of infantry regiments, shared the same fate. * A Lady's Escape from Gwalior. Chapter I. 1857. June 14, Dr. Kirk, the superintending surgeon, was dis- BOOK VIII. covered in the place in which he had sought refuge and was killed before the eyes of his wife.* Mr. Coopland, violently separated from his wife, who was spared, was murdered.† Others managed to escape; but of the fourteen British officers Its fatal re present that morning at Gwáliár one half were slain. With them likewise, three women and three children, and six sergeants and pensioners.‡ Then poor Mrs. Kirke, dared not come in, as they with her little boy joined us. thought we had weapons. She had that instant seen her When they had unroofed the husband shot before her eyes; hut they fired in upon us. At and on her crying: 'Kill me the first shot we dropped our too!' they answered, "No; pieces of wood, and my huswe have killed you in killing band said, 'We will not die him. Her arms were bruised here, let us go outside.' We and swollen; they had torn all rushed out; and Mrs. off her bracelets so roughly; Blake, Mrs. Raikes, and I, even her wedding ring was clasped our hands and cried, gone. They spared her little boy, saying, "Don't kill the butcha (child); it is a missie baba (girl)." Poor child; his long curls and girlish face saved his life. He was only four years of age."-Mrs. Coopland. +"We all stood up together in the corner of the hut" (to which they had been conveyed by Mr. Blake's faithful Mahomedan servant, Mírza); "each of us took up one of the logs of wood that lay on the ground, as some means of defence. I did not know if my husband had his gun, as it was too dark in the hut even to see our faces. The sepoys then began to pull off the roof; the cowardly wretches 'Mut maro, mut maro (do not Mrs. Stewart was the only sults. BOOK VIII. 1857. June 14. Those who escaped, men, women, and children, made their way as best they could, some in parties, one or two almost singly, into A'gra. Their sufferings were great. The agony of that terrible The survivors night weighed upon them long afterwards. The find their way widowed wife, the orphaned child, the bereaved to A'gra. mother, were indeed bound to each other by the Intelligence of the Gwáliár mutiny reached * Many of them |