AN EPISODE OF THE INDIAN MUTINY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 18, 20 January 1876, Page 2

AN EPISODE OF THE INDIAN MUTINY.

One day, in one of the enclosed J buildings near Lncknow, a great number of prisoners were taken, nearly all Sepoys. After- the fight they wete all brought in to the officer commanding my regiment, and in the morning the order came tbat they should all be shot. It chanced* that it was my turn to command the firing party, I asked the ; piisoners their names and regiment. After hearing some five or six, one Sapoy said he belonged to the regiment, which was that my son had been in. lof course asked him if he bad known nay eon, Anuntee Ram, of the light company. He answered that that was his own name; but this being a very common name, and having always, imagined that my son, as I had never heard from him, must have died of the Scinde fever, it did not at first strike me; bat when he informed me that he came from Tillowee, my heart leapt in my mouth., Could he be my son? There was no doubt of it, for be gave my name as his father, ' and he fell down at my feet, imploring my pardon. He, with all the other men in the regiment, had mutinied, and had gone to Lucknow. Once the deed was done, what was he to do? Where was he to go if he had ever been inclined to escape? At 4 o'clock in the day the prisoners were all to be shot, and I must be my son's executioner. . Such is fate! I went to the Major Sahib, and requested that I might be, relieved from this duty as a very great favor; but be. was very angry, and said he would bring me to a court-martial for trying to shirk my duty; he would not believe I was a faithful servant to the English Government— he was sure my heart was in reality with the mutineers — he would hear me no longer. At this my feelings as a father got the better of me, and' l burst into a flood of tears. I told him I would shoot every one of the prisoners with my own hands if he ordered me, but I confessed that one of them was my son. The major declared what I urged was only an excuse to get off shooting my own brotherhood. But at last his heart seemed touched, and he ordered my unhappy son to be brought before him and questioned him very stictly. I shall never forget this terrible scene; for one moment I never thought of asking his 1 fe to be spared —that he did not deserve. He became convinced of the truth of my statement, and ordered me to be relieved from tbis duty. I went to my tent bowed down with grief, made worse by the jibes and taunts poured on me by the Sikhs, who declared I was a renegade. In a short time I heard the deadly volley. My son had received the reward of mutiny! He showed no fear, but I would rather he had been killed in fight. , Through the kindness of the major I was allowed to perform the funeral rite over my misguided son —the only one of the prisoners over whom it was performed, for the remaining bodies were all thrown to the jackals and vultures. I had not heard from my son since just after my. return from slavery. I had not seen him since I went to Caboo), and thus I met him again, untrue to his salt, in open rebellion against the master who had fed his father and himself. But enough— more is unnecessary. He was not the only one who mutinied (literally he was not alone when be mutinied). The major told me afterwards that he was muoh blamed by the other officers for allowing the funeral rite to be performed on the rebel. But if good deeds wipe away sins — whioh I have heard some sahibs believe as well as we do— bis sins will be very white. Bad fortune never attends on the merciful. — Autobiography of a Sepoy in Contemporary Review.