every fragment of their European dress
having been burnt in their presence.

After two hours' riding, the fugitives
approached two villages, close to each other,
between which they had to pass. One was
in flames, surrounded by a band of plunderers,
who caught sight of the approaching
strangers when they were yet a mile distant,
and, raising a tremendous shout, began rushing
towards a point at which they hoped to
intercept them. Then began a race for life;
and had Mr. Donald been upon the pony,
his life and that of his companions, who could
not have abandoned him, would have there
come to its end. But the horses were of the
best; the shouts and yells of the miscreants,
and the roar and crash of the burning
villages, excited them. The mob was without
fire-arms, and the horsemen were the winners
by about two hundred yards. " I shall
never forget," says Mr. Edwards, " the yell
of rage the fellows raised when they saw
they had missed their prey." Eighth
hairbreadth escape.

At eight o'clock in the morning, faithfully
guided by men—one of whom declared that
six thousand rupees would not have tempted
him to aid the foreigners, had it not been for
the earnest desire of his kinsman the Nawab
—our countrymen reached the house of Mr.
Probyn, magistrate and collector in Futtehghur.
As they received his welcome, all
were speechless from emotion. Mr. Probyn's
wife and four children, with several of the
European residents, were at a fort called
Dhurumpore across the Ganges in Oude. It
belonged to a zemindar of considerable influence
called Hurdeo Buksh, who had offered
to protect them. To this fort the fugitives
crossed on the afternoon of the tenth of June,
the heat then being so intense that Mr.
Edwards's hands were blistered into a mass
of pulp. It was only on the night of the
first of June that he had quitted his home
at Budaon.

Dhurumpore was a dilapidated fort, which
could not have been defended against any
organised attack of the mutineers. The
Europeans in it were found by Mr. Probyn
and Mr. Edwards disposed to believe
themselves safer in Futtehghur, and to return
thither in a body; although Mr. Probyn urged
upon them his own certain information that
the soldiers (among whom one outbreak had
been suppressed) were not to be relied upon,
but were in daily correspondence with the
mutineers. Mr. Probyn was considered to
display fool-hardy rashness in remaining with
his wife and family within the shelter offered
them by the Hurdeo Buksh. Mr. Edwards
was the only other European who, after
intending to go with the rest, remained— it
proved to be his ninth hairbreadth escape—
and he was joined after a day or two by the
faithful Wuzeer Singh, who had escaped from
the mob in which Mr. Gibson was cut to
pieces, and had, since the escape, been searching
for his master. He now brought safely to
him the whole of his money and his gun.

Early in the morning of the fourteenth of
June, when the Europeans were asleep—
fortunately for them within the gates of the
town fort—mutiny was complete in Futtehghur.
The fort in the town was strenuously
besieged, and defended anxiously by sleepless
men. The two collectors, Messrs. Edwards
and Probyn, known to be in Dhurumpore,
placed Hurdeo Buksh in peril. He gathered
armed retainers round him, who looked with
a natural aversion on the white men, in
whose presence their danger lay. The chief
was determined to remove them, but in his
determination he was friendly. He pledged
his honour as a rajpoot for their safety;
and, although in his subsequent dealings
with them, the endeavours to preserve them
without bringing ruin down upon himself
and those who depended on his rule, caused
some of his arrangements to seem very
harsh, yet it is evident that he was throughout
faithful and true to his promise, and that
he was really the preserver of the men for
whose heads high direct and indirect rewards
were offered. Mr. Edwards, thankful that
his own wife and child were, as he hoped,
safe in the hills, carried Mrs. Probyn's baby;
Wuzeer Singh carried another child; Mrs.
Probyn a third. Mr. Probyn carried his three
guns and ammunition; so they walked to the
ferry of the Ramgunga, which they crossed at
midnight. They reached the village of
Kussowrah, where they were received kindly; and
some cattle and goats having been turned out
to make room for them, they were put into a
filthy shed for rest and shelter. While there,
they heard the guns attacking and replying
in the siege of the fort of Futtehghur.
Wild, conflicting tales of the siege flitted
about their path; as reports came and went,
they were overwhelmed with anxiety and
sorrow. After some days adding to their
intense anxiety and dread, suddenly the
firing ceased.

We do not repeat here the distressing
story of the attempted escape down the
river by our countrymen and countrywomen
from the fort at Futtehghur, the grounding of
boats, the fire from the bank, the slaughter
after slaughter. Terrible words came to the
two men, the lady, and the little children, in
their miserable cowshed. All was over. There
was no more firing heard.

Hurdeo Buksh was then tempted and
threatened by the mutineers; but, instead of
breaking faith, he temporised ingeniously
with his countrymen, visited his unhappy
guests at night, and hoped to put off all
action until the rainy season, when the rising
floods should make islands of both Kussowrah
and Dhurumpore. But, the rains that year
did not fall at the expected time.

There was much kindness in the village. A
poor Brahmin deprived his own family of
milk that he might give it to the outcast little