proved that he was only biding his time. Nana Sahib was described by an
officer who knew him four years before the mutiny, as then looking at
least forty years old and very fat. "His face is round, his eyes very
wild, brilliant and restless. His complexion, as is the case with most
native gentlemen, is scarcely darker than that of a dark Spaniard, and his
expression is, on the whole, of a jovial, and indeed, somewhat rollicking
character." In reality, this rollicking native gentleman was a human
tiger.

On the very night that the men of the Thirty-second came in from Oude,
there was an alarm of a rising, and the ladies and children of the station
took refuge in the fortified post prepared for them; and from that time
the sufferings of the residents commenced, although it was not for a
fortnight afterward that the mutiny took place; for the overcrowding and
the intense heat at once began to affect the health of those huddled
together in ill-ventilated rooms, and deprived of all the luxuries which
alone make existence endurable to white people in Indian cities on the
plains during the heats of summer. Scarce a day passed without news of
risings at other stations taking place, and with the receipt of each item
of intelligence the insolence displayed by the Sepoys increased.

A few English troops arrived from Allahabad and at midnight upon the 4th
of June, when the natives broke into revolt, there were in the
intrenchments of Cawnpore eighty-three officers of various regiments,
sixty men of the Eighty-fourth Regiment, and seventy of the Thirty-second,
fifteen of the First Madras Fusiliers, and a few invalid gunners; the
whole defensive force consisting of about two hundred and forty men, and
six guns. There were under their charge a large number of ladies and
children, the wives and families of the officers and civilians at the
station, sixty-four women and seventy-six children belonging to the