SACRED TO THE PERPETUAL MEMORY OF A LARGE COMPANY OF CHRISTIAN
PEOPLE, CHIEFLY WOMEN AND CHILDREN, WHO NEAR THIS SPOT WERE CRUELLY
MURDERED BY THE FOLLOWERS OF THE REBEL NANA DHUNDU PANT OF BITHUR,
AND CAST, THE DYING WITH THE DEAD, INTO THE WELL BELOW, ON THE XVTH
DAY OF JULY MDCCCLVII.'


And afterward Sonny Sahib's father believed that all he could learn
while he lived about the fate of his wife and his little son was
written there. But he never knew.






CHAPTER II





Tooni and Abdul heard the terrible news of Cawnpore six months
later. They had gone back to their own country, and it was far
from Cawnpore--hundreds and hundreds of miles across a white sandy
desert, grown with prickles and studded with rocks--high up in the
north of Rajputana. In the State of Chita and the town of
Rubbulgurh there was no fighting, because there were no Sahibs.
The English had not yet come to teach the Maharajah how to govern
his estate and spend his revenues. That is to say, there was no