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some old soldier of many a fight and many a wound; the shriek of suffering from the frail youth, the soldier of yesterday; the reckless curse; the muttered prayer of faith, are some of the Babel sounds that meet the ear; while in the midst of all, calm, selfpossessed, not daring even to give utterance to the sympathy with which, despite familiarity with suffering, their hearts are overflowing, the surgeons move noiselessly about from patient to patient; and the chaplains, too, are there, sick at heart in such a scene of woe, and only sustained by the sense of their high office, striving to minister, so far as may be, to the needs of others. On such a scene the sun set on that day of blood."+

*

When the 9th Sepoys mutinied at Mynpooree, Lieutenant De Kantzow, one of the officers of the detachment, found himself alone in the midst of mutiny of the "most delirious kind." Nobly he attempted, single-handed, to stem the tide, but in vain. The mutineers dragged him with them, and as they went fired at the houses of the Europeans, and plundered the magazine of ammunition. De Kantzow was in a most critical position; over and over again guns were pointed at him, but he escaped the wild firing of the Sepoys almost miraculously. When they approached the Treasury a scene of fearful violence ensued; they were met by the civil-guard, who would have fired upon them, but De Kantzow, cool and collected, forbade them. Then the gaol-guards fell upon the Sepoys, and confusion became worse confounded. "But," says Kaye, "in the midst of this mighty peril, De Kantzow stood firm and undaunted, imploring the soldiers to consider the wickedness and folly of their course, and showing, to the wonder and the admiration of the surging multitude of Sepoys, that a single English officer defied them; that they might kill, but that they could not conquer him. And so for three hours the young English soldier breasted alone this great flood of furious mutiny, and overawed his enemies by the consummate gallantry of his bearing." Eventually he was rescued from his perilous position, through the intervention of a native gentleman of great influence, and brave and faithful as he was influential. When Lord Canning received the report of De Kantzow's gallant conduct, he wrote to him thus:-"I have read it with an admiration and respect which I cannot adequately describe. Young in years, and at the outset of your career, you have given to your brother soldiers a noble example of courage, patience, good judgment, and temper, from which many might profit. I beg you to believe that it will never be forgotten by me."

Futtehgurh, an English station a few miles from the town of Furruckabad, was the scene of one of the many thrilling incidents of the insurrection in the districts. There was a small fort in the place, and in it, as soon as the mutiny broke out, Colonel George Acklan Smith, who commanded the 10th Regiment of Native Infantry, shut himself up with his officers, and the Christian people of the place who had not ventured an escape to Cawnpore. The fort was poorly provisioned, and wanting in guns and ammunition. Nevertheless in it 150 Christian people found a refuge, one-fourth of whom were men capable of bearing arms.

*The Revs. F. Ellis and J. E. W. Rotton.

+ Cave-Brown, "The Punjab and Delhi in 1857."

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"And so for three hours the young English soldier breasted alone this great flood of furious mutiny, and overawed his enemies by the consummate gallantry of his bearing'" (p. 280).

"With desperate odds against them, our little garrison displayed a sturdy gallantry that could not be surpassed. Day and night they toiled, weary but undaunted, in the batteries. It was no new thing for our people to be driven to use strange ammunition with their artillery . . . and many fell beneath the fire of our English rifles. Colonel Smith, a noted marksman, picked off the enemy with an amount of skill that would have done credit to the prizemen of Wimbledon. . . . The chaplain, Mr. Frederick Fisher, alternated the duties of a soldier with those of a Christian minister. He preached

on the text, 'What time I am afraid I will trust in Thee,' and then went out to face the enemy. His wife and boy were with him, secure in the residence attached to the Gun-carriage Agency [within the fort], and it is related that little Phil Fisher and the other children were playing and singing as joyously as if nothing were going on out of the common course of events. The women prayed almost unceasingly for the brave men who were defending them. They bore up bravely in their passiveness, all but one. This was the widow of a sergeant, or conductor, attached to the Clothing Agency, who was shot dead at his post. She was not one to sit down and weep; she went out to work. She took a rifle, and posted herself in one of the bastions, whence she is said to have shot down many of the mutineers." *

The conflict was most unequal. The chief Mahomedan people joined the rebels, who took to mining operations, and brought to bear all the lessons of warfare they had learned from the English. Bravely the little band of besieged defended themselves against their assailants, and none more gallantly than the chaplain, who in one of the attacks shot down the leader with his own hand, causing the enemy to fall back discomfited. In course of time ammunition failed, and it was found that they could no longer remain in the fort, as there was no hope of succour from without.

One night, in the darkness, three boats bore away the Christian people from Futtehgurh. A hundred souls crowded, with what baggage they could collect, into these three boats, and drifted out-they scarcely knew where. It was death to stay, it could only be death to go. A catastrophe soon occurred-one of the boats ran upon a shoal; the villagers were aroused, and poured down in hundreds, firing upon the unprotected occupants of the boat. But five daring officers, trusting to their strong arms and good cause, charged a crowd of some hundreds of the natives and drove them away, while the occupants of the wrecked boat crowded into the two other boats, already too full, and then the voyage down the river was resumed.

But the natives followed them in boats, and lined the sides of the river, and in the midst of the terror another boat grounded. Then came a terribly brutal massacre; the people jumped from the boat, and many were drowned, while others were shot or cut down by the Sepoys. Among those in the fatal boat was the gallant chaplain, Fisher. When the Sepoys surrounded the boat, he took his child, little Philip, in his arms, and with his wife, leapt into the river. The current soon carried her off her legs; he struggled to the death to save her and the child, but in vain. Whether his wife was shot or not he could not tell, but she fell from his grasp, and he only escaped alive. He made for the shore and hid himself, and in the morning joined the only remaining boat that had forth

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