Meanwhile the old "king of Delhi" had connived at the slaughter of Europeans. Mr. Frazer, the commissioner of the Delhi division, and Captain Douglas, who commanded the palace guards, were cut down within the royal precincts. Mr. Jennings, the chaplain, and some ladies and children, numbering altogether about fifty souls, had taken refuge within the palace walls, in the hope of being protected by the royal pensioner against the mutinous sepoys. Had the ladies and children been admitted into the inner apartments, they would have been safe. But there was a rush of rebel sepoys into the presence of the old king to make their salams and hail him as their Padishah; and they loudly demanded the death of every European. The old king could not or would not interfere, and told the sepoys that he made the prisoners over to them, to do with them as they pleased. The unhappy victims were shut up in a dark room with coarse and scanty food. They were offered their lives on the condition that they became Mohammedans, and entered the service of the king as menials or slaves. One and all refused, and one and all were eventually butchered in the palace of Aurangzeb. [Sidenote: Flagstaff Tower.] The Europeans in Flagstaff Tower were in sore peril. Ladies were terrified and anxious for absent husbands, whilst children were clamouring for milk and food. The men were distracted by the suddenness of the danger, and the stories of murder and outrage that came from the city. All eyes were strained in the direction of Meerut. Every one longed for the arrival of European soldiers to relieve them from the agony of suspense, and quash the fearful rebellion that was surging up in Delhi. [Sidenote: Explosion of the magazine.]