And then the mutineers realized the change that a few weeks had wrought in the nature of the task which they had selected and cut out for themselves. The affair was no longer with mixed groups of invalids and civilians, without strategy or discipline, resisting desperately wherever they might chance to be brought to bay. Now from left to right extended the unbroken line of white faces, and red cloth, and sparkling steel. In front of all, the field officer stepped briskly out, doing his best to keep ahead of his people. There marched the captains, duly posted on the flank of their companies; and the subalterns, gesticulating with their swords; and the sober, bearded serjeants, each behind his respective section. Embattled in their national order, and burning with more than their national lust of combat, on they came, the unconquerable British Infantry. The grape was flying thick and true. Files rolled over. Men stumbled, and recovered themselves, and went on for a while, and then turned and hobbled to the rear. But the Sixty-fourth was not to be denied. Closer and closer drew the measured tramp of feet: and the heart of the foe died within him, and his fire grew hasty and ill-directed. As the last volley cut the air overhead, our soldiers raised a mighty shout, and rushed forward, each at his own pace. And then every rebel thought only of himself. Those nearest the place were first to make away: but throughout the host there were none who still aspired to stay within push of the English bayonets. Such as had any stomach left for fighting were sickened by a dose of shrapnel and canister from four light guns, which Maude had driven up within point-blank range. Squadron after squadron, battalion upon battalion, these humbled Brahmins dropped their weapons, stripped off their packs, and spurred, and ran, and limped, and scrambled, back to the city that was to have been the chief and central abode of sepoy domination. Nanukchund was hanging about the vicinity all the while the conflict was in progress. "On the fifteenth," he writes, "I perceived some sepoys and troopers running away in great confusion, and exclaiming that they would have an easy victory, as the British were few, and would soon be despatched. I was then sitting in an orchard, when I observed a shopkeeper running up. He came and seated himself under a tree near me, and told me that he was hastening to pack up his wife and children, as the Europeans would arrive shortly, and would spare nobody. I thought to myself, this must be true, and the gentlemen must be very savage. I returned to the city, and saw several villagers with their dresses changed coming along the banks of the Ganges, and I joined them. The terror in the hearts of all was so great that they asked each other no questions."