It was nearing the end of the month before he reached the neighbourhood of Meerut. He had not, in the meantime, met any of the English force. He had not so much as heard of it; and he grew more and more troubled and perplexed. Was, then, the awful tale which he had heard true? Were his countrymen taken so completely by surprise that not one of them was left alive to fight for the honour of his country? A thousand soldiers, Englishmen all of them! It was impossible. And there was one native regiment at Meerut which he had made up his mind would be faithful. He had commanded it himself for years. Its native officers were veterans, men of high birth and fine breeding, who had fought by his side in many a frontier war. One of them had saved his life at the imminent risk of his own, and to the General he had long been as a personal friend. He would almost as readily have believed in his own failure from duty as in Sufder Jung's. As for the men, he had called them his children. Big children and little children, the old men, who were recruits when he took up the command, and who had learned under him the warrior's art, and the young men, only lately enrolled, who were learning it from others, he loved them all. Riding through the desolate plain, with the fierce rays of an Indian sun beating upon him, and this awful thing at his heart, the old man felt a curious moisture bedewing his eyes. Only a few weeks before he had held a review of all arms at Meerut, and his pet regiment had distinguished itself beyond all the others. Like a picture it flashed before him, the noble stature, proud carriage, flashing eyes and perfect accoutrement, and again, sweeter than the incense of flattery, there fell upon his ears the shouts of applause which broke forth on every side, as, at a double-quick march, but moving with the precision of a machine, his children swept by the saluting point. 'Efficiency could not be carried further,' he had said, shaking hands warmly with the colonel of the regiment. 'I congratulate you.' And now to hear it said that these men were disloyal, that then, when they were responding with joyful shouts to the shouts of their English comrades, they were actually plotting to betray them! It could not, it should not be. With stern face the General rode on. No one molested them; but, in the deserted huts and silent villages, in the procession along the road of trains of frightened peasants, men and women, with all their household utensils about them, and in the occasional presence of bands of ragged, fierce-looking men, armed with clubs and ancient rifles, he saw ominous signs of disorder and panic.