After the lapse of a generation who can now describe the dismay which for a moment chilled even such hearts as his, when the amazing news from Delhi was flashed across the land! For weeks indeed a still voice had been whispering in his ear that at the many stations held by Sepoys alone a revolt, if attempted, must succeed. But he had a right to be sure that wherever European troops were stationed, there no snake of mutiny would dare to rear its head and hiss. Here, however, he saw that the mutinous Sepoys had broken loose at Meerut, the very core of our military power in Hindostan, and had, in their flight to Delhi, escaped the pursuit of European cavalry, artillery and infantry. For them, too, he knew what an inestimable prize was Delhi, a large city, walled round with fortifications, and containing an arsenal-magazine full of munitions. It is ever important politically that European life should be held sacred by the Natives, and he was horror-stricken on learning that this sacredness had been atrociously violated. If British power depended partly on moral force, then here he felt a fatally adverse effect, for the rebellion started with a figure-head in the Great Mogul, veritably a name to conjure with in India. His feeling was momentarily like that of sailors on the outbreak of fire at sea, or on the crash of a collision. But if the good ship reeled under the shock, he steadied her helm and his men stood to their places. Within three days he received the reports from his headquarters at Lahore, showing how Montgomery, as chief civil authority on the spot, had with the utmost promptitude carried to the commander of the troops there the telegraphic news from Delhi before the event could be known by letters or couriers, and had urged the immediate disarming of the Sepoys, how the commander had disarmed them with signal skill and success, and how the capital of the province had thus been rendered safe. Murri being near the frontier, he was able to confer personally with Herbert Edwardes, one of the greatest of his lieutenants, who was Commissioner of Peshawur, the most important station in the province next after Lahore itself. At Peshawur also he had John Nicholson, a pillar of strength. During May and June he received reports of disaster daily in most parts of Northern India, and he knew that his own province, notwithstanding outward calm, was stirred with conflicting emotions inwardly.