“There were sepoys on both sides of the entrenchments at Lucknow,” says Dr. Fitchett in his _Tale of the Great Mutiny_. “Counting camp followers, native servants, etc., there were two black faces to every white face under the British flag which fluttered so proudly over the historic ridge at Delhi. The ‘protected’ Sikh chiefs kept British authority from temporary collapse betwixt the Jumna and the Sutlej. They formed what Sir Richard Temple calls ‘a political breakwater,’ on which the fury of rebellious Hindustan broke in vain.” Had the Mutiny indeed been a _national_ uprising, what chances would the 38,000 white soldiers have had against the millions of natives who comprised India’s population? It is important to bear all this in mind while following the course of events which marked the progress of revolt. We shall not then get such a distorted picture of the whole as is too frequently presented to us. The Mutiny was a military one, as I have said. It began prematurely in an outbreak at Barrackpore, on March 29, 1857. Here a drunken fanatical sepoy, named Mungul Pandy, shot two British officers and set light to the “human powder magazine,” which was all too ready to explode. On the 10th of May following came the tragedy of Meerut, where the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry, the 11th and 20th Regiments of Native Infantry rose and massacred every European not in the British lines, and this despite the presence there of a strong troop of horse artillery and a regiment of rifles, 1000 strong! After the carnage at Meerut the mutinous sowars poured out unchecked along the high road to Delhi, to spread the news of their success and claim in the old, enfeebled pantaloon Mogul king in that city a political head to their revolt. Delhi received them open-armed. There were no British troops there, by special treaty, only a few Englishmen in charge of the great magazine and its stores. It is quite clear that the 31st of May (a Sunday) was the day fixed for the sepoy regiments in Bengal to rise simultaneously. Unforeseen events had precipitated the catastrophe by a few weeks. In Delhi, which was a nest of treason and intrigue, arrangements had been perfected for the outbreak there, one of the first objects to be attained being the seizure of its arsenal. Hither, then, the mutineers turned at once after their triumphant entry. The magazine of Delhi was a huge building standing about six hundred yards from the main-guard of the Cashmere Gate. Within its four walls were guns, shells, powder, rifles, and stores of cartridges in vast quantities, from which the mutineers had relied upon arming themselves. And to defend this priceless storehouse there was but a little band of nine Englishmen, for the score or so of sepoys under their command could not be depended on.