It would be easy to write, or sing, a new and more wonderful Odyssey made up of the valiant combats, the wild adventures, and the distressful wanderings of little groups of Englishmen and Englishwomen, upon whom the tempest of the Mutiny broke. Forbes-Mitchell, for example, tells the story of Robert Tucker, the judge at Futtehpore. Tucker was a great hunter, and also, like many Indian officials, an earnestly religious man, with an antique sense of duty. When the Mutiny broke out he despatched every European to Allahabad, but refused to move himself. This solitary Englishman, in a word, was determined to defend Futtehpore against all comers! Believing the native officer in charge of the police to be loyal, he sent a message to him asking him to come and make arrangements for the protection of the Treasury. This “loyal” official sent back word that the judge Sahib need not trouble himself about the Treasury; that, in the cool of the evening, he, with his “loyal” police, would come down and dismiss the dog of a judge himself to Hades! Tucker had a hunter’s armoury—rifles, smooth-bores, and hog spears. He loaded every barrel, barricaded every door and window, and waited quietly, reading his Bible, till, when the cool breath of evening began to stir, he saw the police and the local budmashes, with the green banner of Islam fluttering over their heads, marching down to attack him. Tucker was offered his life on condition that he abandoned his Christianity. Then the fight broke out. For hours the musketry crackled, and was answered by the sharp note of Tucker’s rifle. Before midnight the brave judge lay, riddled with bullets and pierced with many spear-thrusts, dead on his own floor. But all round his house were strewn the bodies of those who had fallen before his cool and deadly aim. Later on, at Kotah, a similar tragedy took place, the story of which is told by George Lawrence. Major Burton, the Resident at Kotah, with his two sons—one aged twenty-one, the other a lad of sixteen—and a single native servant, held the Residency for four hours against native troops with artillery, and a huge crowd of rioters. The Residency was at last set on fire, and Major Burton proposed to surrender on condition that the lives of his sons were spared. The gallant lads indignantly refused to accept the terms. They would all die together, they declared. They were holding the roof of the Residency against their assailants, and, as Lawrence tells the story, “they knelt down and prayed for the last time, and then calmly and heroically met their fate.” The mob by this time had obtained scaling-ladders. They swept over the roof, and slew the gallant three. Major Burton’s head was cut off, paraded round the town, and then fired from a gun.