"I must wait until I have been in the corps as long as you," replied Ahmed, with a laugh. Daly had been but a fortnight in his command when he received grave news in a letter from Colonel Edwardes at Peshawar. Edwardes had heard by telegraph that on Sunday, the 10th of May, the sepoys at Meerut had mutinied. Five days before, when cartridges were served out to the men of the 3rd Native Light Cavalry for the parade ordered for the next morning, eighty-five troopers refused to receive them. They were tried for this breach of discipline by a court-martial of native officers, and condemned to various terms of imprisonment. On the evening of the following Sunday, when the bells were tolling for church, the sepoys of the 11th and 20th line regiments and the 3rd Cavalry broke out of their lines, and while some set fire to the bungalows of the Europeans, others hastened to the prison, loosened the gratings of the cells, and dragged out their manacled comrades. Their fetters were struck off; then the mutineers set off on a mad riot of destruction, burning houses, smashing furniture, massacring every white man and woman whom they met. General Hewitt had with him at Meerut a regiment of cavalry, the 60th Rifles, and a large force of artillery. With incredible lack of enterprise he kept them at bivouac during the night, allowing the mutinous sepoys to set off unmolested on the thirty-six miles' march to Delhi. Horse and foot made all haste through the darkness, reached the Jumna at sunrise, crossed by the bridge of boats, and entered the gates of Delhi exultant. Their arrival was the signal for a general rising. They massacred without mercy all the English people upon whom they could lay hands, men, women and children, and the streets of the ancient city were a scene of plunder and butchery. With this terrible news Daly received orders to march for Delhi with the Guides. The men had been fasting all day: it was Ramzan, the Mohammedan Lent; but at six o'clock the same evening they set off, five hundred strong, a hundred and fifty being cavalry, on their long march of five hundred and eighty miles. At midnight they reached Nowshera, the first stage of their journey, and were up again at daybreak. It was the hottest season of the year; the sun beat mercilessly down upon them; and the burning march to Attock, the next stage, taxed their endurance to the uttermost. But not a man fell out, and after resting until two o'clock next morning they were on foot again, springing up with cheerful alacrity at the sound of the bugle. A dust-storm swept upon them as they started; they plodded steadily through it, marched for thirty-two miles with only the briefest halts, rested during the day at Boran, and were off again soon after midnight on the next stage of thirty-two miles to Jani-ki-sang.