It is hard to picture the degradation of such treatment of a British officer by a native trooper. The Calcutta Brahmin who was taunted by a Lascar--a warrior-priest insulted by a social leper--scarce flinched more keenly under the jibe than did Malcolm when he heard the tone of his captors. Truly the flag of Britain was trailing in the mire, or these men would not have dared to address him in that fashion. In that bitter moment he felt for the first time that the Mutiny was a real thing. Hitherto, in spite of the murders and incendiarism of Meerut, the risings in other stations, the proclamation of Bahadur Shah as Emperor, and the actual conflicts with the Mogul's armed retainers on the battle-field of Ghazi-ud-din Nuggur, Malcolm was inclined to treat the outburst as a mere blaze of local fanaticism, a blaze that would soon be stamped under heel by the combined efforts of the East India Company's troops and the Queen's Forces. Now, at last, he saw the depth of hate with which British dominion was regarded in India. He heard Mohammedans alluding to a Brahmin as a leader--so might a wolf and a snake make common alliance against a watch dog. From that hour dated a new and sterner conception of the task that lay before him and every other Briton in the country. The Mutiny was no longer a welcome variant to the tedium of the hot weather. It was a life-and-death struggle between West and East, between civilization and barbarism, between the laws of Christianity and the lawlessness of Mahomet, supported by the cruel, inhuman, and nebulous doctrines of Hinduism. Not that these thoughts took shape and coherence in Malcolm's brain as he was being hurried to the house of Nana Sahib. A man may note the deadly malice of a cobra's eye, but it is not when the poison fangs are ready to strike that he stops to consider the philosophy underlying the creature's malign hatred of mankind. Events were in a rare fret and fume in the neighborhood of Cawnpore that night. As a matter of historical fact, while Malcolm was hearing from the villager that Roshinara Begum had come to Bithoor, the 1st Native Infantry and 2d Cavalry had risen at Cawnpore. Nana Sahib was deep in intrigue with all the sepoy regiments stationed there, and his adherents ultimately managed to persuade these two corps to throw off their allegiance to the British Raj. Following the recognized routine they burst open the gaol, burnt the public offices, robbed the Treasury, and secured possession of the Magazine. Then, while the ever-swelling mob of criminals and loafers made pandemonium in the bazaar, the saner spirits among the mutineers hurried to Bithoor to ascertain the will of the man who, by common consent, was regarded as their leader.