In  the  first  days  of  June  the  aged  general. Sir
Hugh  Wheeler,  commanding  the  forces  at  Cawnpore,
was  deserted  by  his  native  troops;  then  he  moveA
out  of  the  fort  and  into  an  exposed  patch  of  oppn
flat  groimd  and  built  a  four-foot  mud  wall  around
it. He  had  with  him  a  few  hundred  white  soldiers
and  officers,  and  apparently  more  women  and  chil-

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FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR

dren  than  soldiers. He  was  short  of  provisions,
short  of  arms,  short  of  amintinition,  short  of  military
wisdpm,  short  of  everything  but  coiirage  and  devo-
tion to  duty. The  defense  of  that  open  lot  through
tyTenty-one  days  and  nights  of  himger,  thirst,  Indian
heat,  dnd  a  never-ceasing  storm  of  btdlets,  bombs,
and  caimon-balls — a  defense  conducted,  not  by  the
aged  and  infirm  general,  but  by  a  young  officer
named  Moore — ^is  one  of  the  most  heroic  episodes
in  history. When  at  last  the  Nana  fotmd  it  impos-
sibly to  conquer  these  starving  men  and  women  with
powder  and  ball,  he  resorted  to  treachery,  and  that
succeeded. He  agreed  to  supply  them  with  food
and  send  them  to  Allahabad  in  boats. Their  mu4
wall  and  their  barracks  were  in  ruins,  their  provisipns
were  at  the  point  of  exhaustion,  they  had  done  all
that  the  brave  could  do,  they  had  conquered  B^
honorable  compromise,  their  forces  had  been  fear-
fully reduced  by  casualties  and  by  disease,  they  were
not  able  to  continue  the  contest  longer. They  came
forth  helpless  but  suspecting  no  treachery,  the
Nana's  host  closed  arotmd  them,  and  at  a  signal
from  a  trumpet  the  massacre  began. About  two
hundred  women  and  children  were  spared — ^for  the
presentt— but  all  the  men  except  three  or  four  were
killed. Among  th^  incidents  of  the  massacre  quoted
by  Sir  G. O. Trevelyan,  is  this:

When,  after  the  lapse  of  some  twenty  minutes,  the  dead  began
to  outntmiber  the  living; — ^when  the  fire  slackened,  as  the  marks
grew  few  and  far  between;  then  the  troopers  who  had  been
drawn  up  to  the  right  of  the  temple  plunged  into  the  river,
saber  between  teeth,  and  pistol  in  hand. Thereupon  two  half-
caste  Christian  wom^,  the  wives  of  musicians  in  the  band  of

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MARK    TWAIN

the  Fifty-sixth,  witnessed  a  scene  which  should  not  be  related
at  second  hand. 