1 64 PATNA DURING THE MUTINY. 



sight before. Nearly every man stood over six feet high, and their 

 gallant commander over-topped them all. 



Then all felt safe, and I took Colonel Rattray to a room to wash 

 off the dust which covered him, stepping over the sleeping forms of 

 women and children collected there upon the floor, and when I 

 asked his opinion of the general position of affairs, he briefly said 

 as I was unbuckling his sword and the revolver round his waist. 



" Very fishy ! Very fishy ! but I think my Sikhs will stand ! " 



This answer made a considerable impression on me at the time, 

 for although I heard the cannons playing on the retreating Sepoys 

 at Dinapoor, I had only hitherto been in company with civilians. 

 But when a soldier at the head of such a splendid regiment, thought 

 things looked " very fishy," I began to realize some sense of 

 danger. 



Whenever I recall the Indian Mutiny, the tall forms of Colonel 

 Rattray and Alonzo Money start up conspicuously before me, for 

 wherever danger was greatest and fire hottest they were certain to 

 be seen giving their orders, coolly as though on parade ; and they 

 both possessed the qualification so necessary to a leader, that with 

 them in front, their followers entertained no doubt that they were 

 being led on to victory. 



The Commissioner would not let me return to Rosy Bower, so I 

 had a charpoy bedstead put in his verandah, where for several 

 months I slept at night with a revolver under my pillow and my 

 gun lying on the floor close by. I heard the latest news when I 

 awoke each morning, as the Commissioner came into the verandah 

 and told me everything he knew. He also told me all his plans, and 

 I admired very much the confidence he had from the beginning that 

 we should get on all right, and that he would be able to keep the 

 City of Patna quiet. 



One morning an Orderly rode up with the news that Major 

 Holmes had been murdered by his men at one of our outlying 

 stations ; and truly there was no lack, most days, of news which 

 was qualified to make one's hair come out of curl in times of peace. 



