So many of the chief actors in the Mutiny on the native side carried their secrets into dishonoured graves that it is impossible to know exactly what schemes the household of the king of Delhi had concerted with the disaffected sepoys. But when the mutineers reached Delhi they were at once joined by the city mob and the king's guards in proclaiming a revival of the Mogul empire. For a few hours the native troops of the British garrison awaited the turn of events; but when it became apparent that the British troops from Meerut were afraid to move, there was a general flame of revolt, and Delhi at once became the headquarters of the Mutiny. Most of the British officers and residents were massacred then or afterwards. The great magazine was gallantly defended for a time by nine Britons under Lieutenant Willoughby, and was blown up by them when all hope of relief had vanished. A young telegraph clerk sent the news to Umballa, continuing to signal until he was cut down at his post. Before the authorities in Calcutta and Lahore could take any steps to deal with the long-prophesied danger, the whole of the North-West Provinces were in revolt. Fortunately the two men on whom the chief responsibility fell in this great crisis were equal to their task. Canning in Calcutta, John Lawrence in the Punjab, were men indeed equal to any burden; and the stress of the Mutiny, ending once and forever the bad old system of seniority, brought to the front so many subordinates of dauntless gallantry and soldierly insight that a ring of steel was rapidly drawn round the vast territory affected. Lawrence saw that the surest way to prevent the Mutiny from spreading from the sepoy army of Bengal to the recently conquered fighting races of the Punjab was to hurl the Sikh at the Hindu; instead of taking measures for the defence of the Punjab, he acted on the old principle that the best defence is attack, and promptly organized a force for the reduction of Delhi, with the ardent co-operation of born leaders like John Nicholson, Neville Chamberlain and Herbert Edwardes. Anson, the commander-in-chief, died of cholera before he had had a chance to act on Lawrence's telegram, "Clubs, not spades, are trumps." He was succeeded by Sir Henry Barnard in command of the Delhi field force, then amounting to about 3000 British troops with 22 field guns, in addition to a few Gurkhas and Punjab native troops. The loyalty of the independent Sikh chiefs, headed by Patiala, and the stern measures which had been taken with the sepoy regiments enabled Lawrence to reinforce this little army with every available man and gun from the Punjab, in addition to Sikh and Pathan levies. It was to the insight of Lawrence and the splendid organization of the Punjab province--the spoilt child of the Indian government, as it had been called in allusion to the custom of sending thither the best of the Indian officials and soldiers--that the reduction of Delhi and the limitation of the outbreak were due.