In each case the tiny detachment discovered blackened walls and unburied corpses. The Meerut district abounded with Goojers, the hereditary thieves of India, and these untamed savages had lost none of their wild-beast ferocity under fifty years of British rule. They killed and robbed with an impartiality that was worthy of a better cause. When Europeans, native travelers and mails were swept out of existence they fought each other. Village boundaries which had been determined under Wellesley's strong government at the beginning of the century were re-arranged now with match-lock, spear and tulwar. Old feuds were settled in the old way and six inches of steel were more potent than the longest Order in Council. Yet these ghouls fled at the sight of the smallest white force, and Malcolm and his irregulars rode unopposed through a blood-stained and deserted land. On the 21st of May, eleven days after the outbreak of the Mutiny, though never a dragoon or horse gunner had left Meerut cantonment since they marched back to their quarters from the ever-memorable bivouac, Malcolm led his light horsemen north, along the Grand Trunk Road in the direction of Mazuffernugger. A native brought news that a collector and his wife were hiding in a swamp near the road. Happily, in this instance, the two were rescued, more dead than alive. The man, ruler of a territory as big as the North Riding of Yorkshire, his wife, a young and well-born Englishwoman, were in the last stage of misery. The unhappy lady, half demented, was nursing a dead baby. When the child was taken from her she fell unconscious and had to be carried to Meerut on a rough litter. The little cavalcade was returning slowly to the station[4] when one of the troopers caught the hoof beats of a galloping horse behind them. Malcolm reined up, and soon a British officer appeared round a bend in the road. Mounted on a hardy country-bred, and wearing the semi-native uniform of the Company's regiments, the aspect of the stranger was sufficiently remarkable to attract attention apart from the fact that he came absolutely alone from a quarter where it was courting death to travel without an escort. He was tall and spare of build, with reddish brown hair and beard, blue eyes that gleamed with the cold fire of steel, close-set lips, firm chin, and the slightly-hooked nose with thin nostrils that seems to be one of nature's tokens of the man born to command his fellows when the strong arm and clear brain are needed in the battle-field. [Footnote 4: In India the word "station" denotes any European settlement outside the three Presidency towns. In 1857 there were few railways in the country.] He rode easily, with a loose rein, and he waved his disengaged hand the instant he caught sight of the white faces. "Are you from Meerut?" he asked, his voice and manner conveying a curious blend of brusqueness and gentility, as his tired horse willingly pulled up alongside Nejdi.