Then is hurled forth such a shower of shell and heavy shot from that short distance that the traitors are filled with dismay. The iron hurricane teaches them at last what English artillery can do even in the face of such tremendous odds. This salvo of heavy guns heralds the turning-point of the Sepoy war, and determines the fate of the Indian empire. As the huge Water Bastion crumbles into a shapeless mass of masonry and is crushed into atoms by these 18-and 24-pounders, so the great mutiny is crushed and crumbled at the same time. The last hope of the mutineers is quenched; they may fight on, they may inflict great damage on the Feringhi, they may still accomplish further murders and massacres in various places throughout the land, but all hope of final triumph, all chance of overthrowing the British raj is gone for ever, destroyed by the fire of this magnificent artillery. In Hindustan news travels from mouth to mouth over hundreds of miles almost as quickly as by telegraph; so north and south, east and west, flew the tidings that the walls and gates of Delhi were being battered down, that in the course of a few days the great city would be in the hands of the sahibs and the Mogul emperor a captive. Amongst the Pathan tribes along the Punjab frontier, in Afghanistan, Beluchistan, Waziristan, Kashmir, the Black Mountain country, and in Nepal, the news was told, and Afghan, Beluchi, Waziri, Afridi, Mohmand, Bunerwal, Swati, Yusufzai, Mamund, and Punjabi, who would most eagerly have helped to rout and destroy the British had our army retired beaten from Delhi, now scornfully turned a deaf ear to all appeals of the mutineers to come over and help them. For the Pathan worships success and despises the fallen. "Nay," said they, "if you with forty thousand men and nearly two hundred cannon, entrenched behind strong walls and with every advantage, if you could be held in check for weeks by two or three thousand British and five hundred Gurkha monkey-men, and a few hundred more of our brethren of the Guides whom ye could not defeat, and then suffered your walls to be battered down as soon as this small army had been reinforced by more of our countrymen and neighbours, what chance will ye have now, driven out of your stronghold? And are not fresh red-coated regiments and corps of fierce, tall men in women clothes even now arriving from beyond the seas? Nay, we will not join you; rather will we fight on the side of the _kafirs_,[22] together with the Gurkha pigs and vile Sikh infidels." [22] _Kafir_ (infidel) is a term frequently applied by Mohammedans, to denote a European.