The battle of Serai revealed strange inconsistencies. The rebel sepoys, who had shot down their officers, and were in open revolt against British rule, were as proud as before of their exploits under British colours. The Company's medals were found on the red coats of the dead rebels, officers as well as men. Stranger still, pouches full of the very greased cartridges that brought on the mutiny were picked up on the ground occupied by the rebel army. [Sidenote: Mischievous delay.] The month's delay however had done considerable mischief. The plague of mutiny had broken out at other stations, and the rebel garrison at Delhi had been reinforced by large bodies of mutinous sepoys. The details were nearly all alike--sudden outbreaks, shooting at officers, setting fire to bungalows, and plundering the treasury. The mutineers, however, did not in all cases rush off to Delhi. Some crept sadly to their own homes, and buried the silver rupees they had brought away, or joined the bands of outlaws and brigands that began to ravage the surrounding country. Meanwhile the European officers of nearly every sepoy regiment, whilst ready to believe that other regiments would revolt, were prepared to stake their lives on the fidelity of their own men, and opposed any attempt to disarm them. [Sidenote: Rebellion in the North-West Provinces.] In due course the disaffection of the sepoy army began to stir up certain classes of the civil population. The Bengal provinces were free from this taint, excepting perhaps at Patna where the Mohammedans are very strong. Indeed in Bengal proper the Hindu villagers often arrested rebel sepoys of their own free will, and made them over to the British authorities. In the Madras and Bombay presidencies there were no signs of discontent. But in Oudh, as already described, and in the North-West Provinces between Delhi and Allahabad, there was a growing disaffection. Rebellion was preached by Mohammedan fanatics yearning for the restoration of Islam as the dominant religion. Dispossessed talukdars, who thought themselves, rightly or wrongly to have been unjustly dealt with in the settlement of the land revenue, took a part in the disturbances. In a word all the turbulent and ill-conditioned elements of the population in the north-west,--all "who were discontented or in debt,"--readily joined in the insurrection; possibly to revenge some fancied injury, but mostly from that love of riot and plunder which had been universal in Hindustan under Mahratta supremacy. At the same time a spirit of hostility to Europeans was manifested, which was without precedent in the history of British rule in India. Towards the end of June, Mr. John Colvin, the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces, with all the European residents in the neighbourhood were closely besieged by mutineers and rebels in the fortress of Agra. [Sidenote: Siege of Delhi: perils of British.]