SATJGOR, C.P.—A STORY OP 1857. 
168 
ance of the boxes which contained silver and which copper; however, 
the removal of the silver into the fort was successfully carried out. 
On the afternoon of Saturday (27th June) the Brigadier drove into 
the fort accompanied by his Assistant-Adjutant-General, and Major 
Pinkney, who was hastening from somewhere south to take up his 
appointment as Deputy-Commissioner of Jhansi, where his predecessor, 
together with all the European community except one refugee, had 
already been massacred. The Brigadier sent for me and desired me to 
order the Native guard out of the fort and direct them to proceed at 
once to the Nurreeaolee naka (outlet of the town towards the west), and 
to replace them by a guard of European gunners, four of whom and a 
1 sergeant he had previously ordered into the fort to help clean the guns, 
the true reason being that they were alarmists and were doing harm 
in their battery. Some gun lascars had also been ordered in. 
Thinking that the replacing of the Native guard by Europeans would 
arouse suspicion and alarm among the guard, I begged to be allowed 
to relieve the Native Infantry guard by gun lascars. I promised the 
Brigadier that I would remain at the gate until I got every man of the 
Native Infantry guard clean out. This request was granted, and then 
it was for the first and only time during the whole of the seven and a- 
! half months we were confined inside the fort, and previous to entering 
it, that I felt momentarily at a loss exactly how to act. If the guard 
moved out quietly at my command well and good ; but if there were 
any hesitation or refusal to obey, what could I do if unarmed ? I half 
felt I ought to take my pistols, then thought if the Sepoys noticed 
them it might immediately set them off into mutiny, so I went with 
only a stick and saw every man of the guard out of the fort within 
half-an-hour or so: the cause of delay was that some of the men had gone 
off to cantonments to cook and eat their dinners, so I remained posted 
at the fort gate, together with the gun-lascar sentry, till all the remain¬ 
ing Sepoys as they came in were dressed and accoutred and ordered out 
to join their guard at the west end of the town. When all had departed 
I replaced the lascar guard by the four European gunners and a ser¬ 
geant, and feeling happier went and reported to the Brigadier the 
execution of his orders. The Brigadier then left the fort in company 
with the two officers who had come with him ; but before leaving he told 
me that all the ladies, European women, and children had been ordered 
to come into the fort that evening, and in due course began to arrive, 
several expecting or, at all events, asking my wife and self for food. 
As we had only heard an hour or so previously that the ladies and 
children were to come in that evening, we had not made any provision 
for them—in fact, we had not given the matter a moment’s thought, 
being fully engaged in making arrangements for their accommodation. 
However, all the women folk and children were safe inside the fort that 
night, and that was one more blessing granted to us. One gentleman 
and his wife, owing apparently to some rumour they had heard that 
afternoon, hid all their children (five or six of them) under various 
bushes in their garden, and when it came to time to move into the fort, 
one of them could not be found for a considerable time. My great 
difficulty was to allot to each family some sort of accommodation in my 
